Where It Hurts

Last week we baptized a house. Marlene, the oldest daughter of a neighbor’s family, built a new house a few doors down from her family and is moving her bodega, turkeys and the office of her sister Manuela’s obstetrician’s practice into their new headquarters. Since two businesses will share the house, two different blessing ceremonies took place. I was invited to be the padrino (godfather) for the blessing of the obstetrician’s office.

Not just anyone can baptize a house so they had to bring in a professional, Paola, from Monsefú. They also invited many guests, among them two of the four brothers in the family and their wives and children. One of the brothers has three daughters that everyone calls “the gringas.” I’d previously attempted to elicit explanations. Was their mother a gringa? Had one of their grandparents been a gringo and had they inherited a recessive gene for blue eyes or blond hair? It turned out that the three daughters are albinas.

Marlene and Manuela provide much of the basic medical care for Callanca. Marlene studied pharmacology and sells a variety of medicines in her bodega. In Perú you don’t need a prescription for anything. You can get codeine, antibiotics, syringes, heart and high-blood-pressure medications, viagra—anything—just for the asking. Marlene and Manuela also administer injections, stitch up wounds and offer other essential medical services at a lower cost than the “posta” or medical post, which is often closed when people need it most. Marlene and Manuela are on call twenty-four hours a day. All you have to do is tap on the window of the bodega with a coin as if you wanted an Inca Kola or half a kilo of lard and tell them where it hurts.

Whereas in the U.S. all people do is hang up a framed, cross-stitched “God Bless This Home” fetish and figure that will get the job done, in Perú the process of securing such a blessing is much more formal and interesting. Paola placed a small, clear glass pitcher containing water and cruda, a sweetly fragrant wildflower, on the counter of the apothecary where Marlene would be doing business. She faced the pitcher with her prayer book and we, the visitors, crowded in behind her. She read a formal blessing from the book and paused occasionally for us to repeat pasages. We sang several verses of a psalm dedicated to Santa María Auxiliadora.

The godparents of Marlene’s bodega were asked to take the pitcher of water, turn the cruda plants upside down in liquid, and use the flowers to spinkle holy water along the baseboards and in the corners of the rooms. We repeated this procedure—the blessings, the song and the sprinkling of the holy water—in Manuela’s consultorio. This time I was the godfather so I did the sprinkling of the holy water. It’s easy to see why they chose cruda as the plant with which to perform this blessing or purification. Its smell puts to shame any incense whose powers a priest might’ve brought to bear upon the situation.

Previously I’d noticed a plastic bag containing a small bottle of liquid hanging from the lintel of the entrance to the apothecary. It turned out to be champagne. The three godparents were invited to carry out the last step in the blessing ritual. Marlene handed me a small hammer and asked me to strike the bottle once—but not with enough force to break it. When I did so the bottle rang like a bell. Another of the godparents, Marlene’s sister-in-law, took the hammer, struck the bottle of champagne, and this time it broke. The plastic bag filled with foam. Marlene’s brother, my co-godfather, tore open a corner of the bag and a thin stream of champagne arc-ed out and wet the threshold of the entrance to Marlene’s new home. My guess would be that the hardcore version the ritual calls for the smashing of a bottle of champagne against the door jamb but that the ritual has been modernized a bit to allow for a speedier post-baptism cleanup.

After the blessing Marlene and her sisters served food and plenty of it—spicy garbanzo beans, chunks of pork and beef. Then turkey with a thick yellow sauce made of ground rice. Marlene passed around a decanter of her homemade wine and a two-liter bottle of Pepsi from the bodega. We talked and celebrated and congratulated Marlene. Her house is impressive by Callanca standards—two bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, sitting room and the large room that will house the bodega. It’s made of cement and painted bright pink. Black wrought-iron fences the entrance and protects the windows. The interior walls are painted in pastels—yellow, blue and pink. The floors are tile. For sure it wouldn’t pass code in the U.S. but here it’s a palace.

Maybe it had something to do with having visited Marlene´s apothecary and lay practitioner’s office, but I picked up my first parasite later in the week. It’s called a pique. It’s some form of louse that lives on pigs. But right now it’s embedded in the heel of my left foot. It resembles a callous or corn except with a dark brown spot at the crown which I take to be the pique itself. I’m supposed to visit the posta to have it removed.

A couple of the artesanas and I attended a marinera competition the weekend following the blessing of Marlene’s new house. The artesanas wanted to check out the elaborate dresses of the señoritas and see if they could maybe steal a few designs. The marinera is an intricate courtship dance particular to northern Perú. The couples dress as peasants and flirtatiously pursue and evade one another in circles of ever-diminishing diameter as the marinera progresses, both dances flourishing embroidered handkerchiefs and, in the case of the men, large palm-straw hats. It’s spectacular and the categories include all age groups from 5-year-olds to 75-year-olds. The atmosphere is a lot like a U.S. gymnastics competition. The mothers of the youngest participants are uniformly obnoxious, demanding and fanatical and the judges arbitrary, capricious and sour.

A full military brass band provided the musical acommpaniment and the participants competed in groups of three in front of six judges. The winners of each round advanced to the next. The competitions lasted from mid-afternoon until midnight. We stayed long enough to watch all the categories of contestants complete one round of qualifying. I took a lot of fotos so that the artesanas can copy the designs they liked.

I in fact went to the posta the Monday after the marinera competition and they removed the pique. The nurse asked for the largest needle available in the pharmacy, swabbed my heel with alchohol and began to dig at the hard mound of flesh in which the pique had embedded itself. If you’ve ever dug a splinter out of your finger with a needle then you have a good concept of what the procedure involved. Just imagine a much larger needle and a much livelier splinter. The nurse explained as she picked apart the insect and the bloody meat surrounding it that the piques penetrate your skin and begin to burrow, nourishing themselves with your flesh as they proceed deeper therein. Eventually they lay eggs and, if you do nothing to stop them, the eggs hatch and the next generation of piques starts to chow down. That’s why it’s important to remove not just the pique but all the surrounding tissue. When she’d finished, the nurse showed me the remains of the dismembered pique and the chunks of dead skin she’d removed, washed the wound with three or four kinds of antiseptics, and told me to wear socks and shoes next time.

Mañana

I’m much busier after two months in Callanca than I thought I’d be. Every day I have at least one formal meeting or appointment or other activity that I have to show up for on time and with something intelligent to say. Many days I have two or three or more such commitments and a couple of times I’ve had to decline one inviation because I’d already accepted another invitation for the same day and time. In Northampton, Massachusetts, where I lived before joining the Peace Corps, I used to get irritated that I was obliged to show up at the dentist’s office on an appointed day and at an appointed hour once a year for my checkup.

It’s not that I have more commitments than the average businessperson. In fact I have fewer. It’s that I’m used to having no scheduled activities at all and surprised that I have so many scheduled activities so soon.

Apparently I had to travel to another hemisphere in order to become an average American.

It seems that more and more average Americans like me are joining the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps is growing. Our “class”, Perú 15, consists of 51 volunteers. Perú 16 (there are two classes of trainees a year) consists of 78. Perú 18 will consist of 108 volunteers. The economy must be really bad in the U.S.

Callanca, where I’m working and living, is beginning to show another side to its character. You know how it is when you first arrive in a place—all things are possible and nothing disagreeable has happened to you and you have no enemies and foresee no obstacles that can’t be overcome with determination and a flourish of your Peace Corps business card. Wrong.

The restaurant run by the three sisters that I mentioned in my last entry never materialized. The brother of the three sisters decided to rent the restaurant to the owner of a chain of gas stations from Chiclayo who wants to get out of gas and into gastronomy. The evil brother waited to do this until the other brother in the family, a lawyer who helps protect the rights of the other family members, was out of town. The mother of the three sisters is co-owner of the property but doesn’t have the gumption or business sense to oppose a move like this and besides that she wants to keep peace in the family, of course. So the sisters are fucked and out of luck. This happens a lot in Callanca and in Perú. There aren’t strong laws to protect people from outrageous and unscrupulous business practices and even if there were they wouldn’t protect women because women often aren’t considered people.

I also got a dose of reality in attempting to solicit funds for a trip to an artisan’s fair in Lima. The artisan’s wrote a “solicitud” to the municipalidad requesting money to pay for two bus tickets. I know the alcalde (mayor) so I believed that he would approve the funding or that if he didn’t we’d hear about it promptly and we’d be able to raise the money by other means. But here’s how events unfolded:

Monday. My friend Gregorio in Callanca tells me not to bother going to Monsefú with my petition. The Mayor won’t be there. Gregorio and some other Regidores (City Councilmen) are having lunch with him to talk about Monsefu’s anniversary celebration two weekends from now. I should go to speak with him on Wednesday. On Wednesday I show up at the Municipality. The Mayor is not in. But Belisa, his secretary, accepts the petition and tells me to come back on Friday to talk to the Mayor. I return on Friday at 9.30 AM. Belisa tells me that the Mayor is not in. I should come back in the afternoon. In the afternoon I return and the Mayor is in. But instead of taking me to speak with him Belisa carries the petition to his office and returns two minutes later with the document signed and stamped. That was easy. Although I’m not sure why I had to be present for it to happen. Now for the money. Belisa ushers me upstairs to Administration and hands the petition to Jacki, the Administrator’s secretary. Jacki looks it over and shows it to the Administrator who looks it over and tells me to come back on Tuesday for the money. First the Adminstrator must approve the expenditure. Fine, no problem. I can wait a few days, what’s the hurry as long as I know I’m getting the money? So I return the following Tuesday morning at 9.30 AM. A guard at the door to the Municipality tells me that no one is working today. It’s a “feriado”, a holiday. I should come back tomorrow, Wednesday. On Wednesday I show up at Administration at 9.15 AM. The Administrador is not in. I should come back at noon or anytime before 3.00 PM. They go to lunch at 3.00. At 12.30 PM I return to Administration. Jacki is not in but the Administrator is. He asks me leave the bus tickets on Jacki’s desk and come back on Friday. Then he leaves for a meeting with the Mayor and some other officials to talk about Monsefú’s anniversary celebration on Saturday. This time I’m not so easily put off. I’m not about to leave the bus tickets—which I’ve purchased with my own money, having been assured that the Municipality will reimburse me—laying on somebody’s desk. I’ll never see them again. So I sit down in the Administrator’s office and wait for Jacki to return. When she does I politely ask if there’s a way that we can resolve this matter today, right now. She picks up the bus tickets and examines them. She tells me to have a seat and wait. When the Administrator returns from his meeting with the Mayor they exchange whispers. Jacki returns to her desk and begins painstakingly to type information into her computer. It’s clear from the questions she’s asking me that had I left the bus tickets she’d have had no idea whatsover to whom they belonged, how many people were ticketed to travel to Lima, what their names were or when we were leaving or why. She asks me for a copy of the petition. By now I’m not leaving anything to chance so I’ve brought a copy. I don’t bother to ask what happened to the signed and stamped copy that Belisa and I brought her last week. An hour later Jacki has filled out the paperwork and prints a copy. This is it, I think. Now I get the money. But the Administrator is leaving again. I ask him as he exits if he wouldn’t mind signing the paperwork so that we could conclude this business immediately. “But it’s very late,” he tells me, and leaves for lunch. It’s 2 PM. When I remind Jacki that she’d told me they’d be in the office until 3.00 Jacki shrugs. She says that I should come back tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and this time I don’t waste 4 soles traveling for nothing from Callanca to Monsefú and back. I call Jacki and ask if the Administrator has signed the document. He isn’t in yet. I call again. Not in. And again. This time he was in but has now left. Finally it becomes clear to me that in Perú nothing happens unless you show up personally and wait for it to happen. Then it probably won’t happen anyway but at least there’s a modicum of hope. I try out this concept on Jacki. She eagerly agrees. I should come tomorrow. In person. The next day I arrive at 9.00 AM with my laptop and some Peace Corps forms that have to be filled out for the artisan’s fair, figuring that I’ll be waiting, perhaps for hours, in the Administrator’s office for him to show up. Sure enough the Administrator is not in. I chat for awhile with Jacki and another secretary, Dagra. Dagra tells me that Jacki is a “soltera” and looks slyly at Jacki. Maybe if I marry her I can get the 200 soles for the bus tickets. While I wait five or six other people come in and ask if the Administrator has arrived and wander out when they’re told he hasn’t. Jacki asks me for the bus tickets. Again, although she’s already seen them, I’ve made sure to bring them along. She leaves for awhile to photocopy the tickets. She returns, hands me the photocopy and the document authorizing the payment and tells me to go talk to the Treasurer. The Treasurer will give me the money. I go to the Treasurer’s office. The Administrator is there. As he leaves I shake his hand and thank him for his support of the artisans of Callanca. Several other poor souls are waiting outside the Treasurer’s office and they whisper to him humble solicitations of funds to resolve their own personal or professional hardships, all much more dire than my own or so I gather from what I overhear. The Treasurer invites me in. Her name is Zairita. I hand Zairita the paperwork. Now the money! She discusses the paperwork with a coworker and says that I will have to come back on Tuesday with the President of the artisan’s association. Tuesday not Monday because Monday is a feriado. On Tuesday she will give me a check made out in the name of the President of the association. We leave on Wednesday for the fair.

On Saturday I attend the parade in Monsefú, the festivities celebrating the anniversary of its founding that I’ve heard so much about during this bus-ticket odyssey. It turns out that I’m actually a part of the parade. I march with the delegation from Callanca. Callanca is a part of the district of Monsefú. It is located in the district of Monsefú (which is also the name of a town in the district of Monsefú), in the province of Chiclayo (which is also the name of a city in the province of Chiclayo), in the department of Lambayeque (which is also the name of a city in the department of Lambayeque), and in the the nation of Perú. There are no cities or towns named Perú in the nation of Perú as far as I know. The delegation from Callanca has been assembled by Rita Ayasta, the director of the Fundación Turner-Pisfil, a private school in Callanca. Rita was recently elected mayor of the district of Monsefú and will begin her term in January. Our transportation from Callanca stood us up so we have ridden from Callanca to Monsefú in the back of a cattle truck. During the parade we march behind another truck bearing a stack of four speakers and a gasoline generator that powers a sound system blasting the same marinera tune over and over again for two-and-a-half hours at a volume that will leave me with a measurable amount of permanent hearing loss I’m sure. I can only imagine what it’s doing to the poor guy sitting in the back of the truck running the sound system.

The parade is spectacular. Our delegation includes twenty or thirty tiny children dressed up in marinera (a dramatic Peruvian dance of courtship) outfits, their mothers, half a dozen teachers from the foundation, a truckful of vegetables symbolizing the fruits of the labor of the average callancano, and a donkey and cart loaded with artesanía and ceramic cooking vessels that symbolize Callanca’s traditions and indigenous past. The mayor-elect and I and several mothers including the mother of Enrique Pisfil, one of the founders of the Fundación, carry a school banner and, as we pass, onlookers along the parade route pelt us with rice, sequins and candy. It becomes uncertain as I watch the enthusiasm with which the mayor-elect is greeted whether our participation in this event is motivated by civic pride or whether Rita in fact has organized a political rally at the expense of the Fundación.

The parade ends at 6.30 but I don’t make it back to Callanca until 9.00. First Rita, always the consummate politician, hands out free vegetables from the back of a Mitsubichi pickup that has taken part in the parade. The beets and carrots and tomatoes and lettuce were on display to symbolize Callanca’s agricultural heritage but they’re now serving just as graphically to demonstrate another cultural inheritance—candidates and officials dispensing food or cash in exchange for votes or political loyalty. The One Bag of Free Rice, One Vote mandate as I like to call it. After all the produce has been hauled off we find that the battery of Pedro’s Mitsubishi pickup, the vehicle which is supposed to take us back to Callanca, has died and once we push-start the truck we then have to load the burro into the back. Since the pickup was used in the parade it bears a gigantic billboard fixed to the roof of the cab and so as we exit Monsefú a friend bearing a six-foot-long pole has to precede us and use the pole to lift electrical wires criss-crossing the street to a height that allows the truck and billboard to pass underneath. Then we have to stop on the road out of town at Rita’s house and take apart the billboard and leave it with her. Which leaves me wondering why we didn’t just dismantle it back in Monsefú instead of inching our way out of town while Julio dodged and cursed the cars and mototaxis that were whizzing past the truck and poled us block to block like a Venetian gondoleer suffering from vertigo. Once we’ve stored the billboard and boarded the truck again Pedro’s wife calls to ask where he is and what the hell he has really truly been doing. Pedro tries to hand me the phone so that I can explain to his wife that he isn’t out drinking but she hangs up before I can get a word out of my mouth. All in all it has been a quintessentially Peruvian evening. If it’s supposed to take half an hour it takes two hours and if it’s supposed to take two hours it takes six.

And what happened on Tuesday? you ask. Did I get the money? You bet I did. All of it, even though it’s accepted that, here in Perú, whenever you’re due money from any government official you should expect to receive only half the money as the other half will end up in the official’s pocket. However this time being a pain-in-the-ass gringo seems to have paid off. Really I have no idea whether my perseverence hurt or helped or made no difference at all. Perhaps it would’ve turned out exactly the same had I just sat at home in Callanca and waited. At any rate, Martha, the president of the artisan’s association, and I showed up at the Municipalidad at 1.00 PM, waited about 45 minutes, and the treasurer called us in, asked Martha to sign five or six copies of various forms, presented her with an inkpad and instructed her to affix her fingerprint to one of the forms, and handed her the check. Then we stood in line for another 45 minutes at the bank waiting to cash it.

In the U.S. it’s an insult to make four, five or even two trips to an official’s office to clear up one matter. We consider our time to be valuable and we consider it a sign of respect to take up as little of an official’s time as possible. In the U.S. it’s one visit, get a yes or no answer, and then all the paperwork gets filled out and signed behind the scenes when nothing else is going on. But in Perú it’s the opposite. It’s a sign of respect to keep showing up over and over and over and over and over again at an official’s office and when you’re not present making sure that paperwork gets filled out and that forms get signed then paperwork does not get filled out and forms do not get signed. And by the way, since most of you are Americans, sorry for taking up so much of your time. Just be glad you weren’t reading this in Perú. Instead of half an hour it would have taken you two days.

Rita giving away parade decorations.