Poopy the Dog and Paint Covered Festivals

I finally got over my aversion to petting my dog puppy (pronounced poopy). His name comes from a brand of soap by the same name that had a puppy as a mascot. The Spanish pronunciation of the vowel "u" means that Peruvians pronounce this English word as poopy. The name is pretty fitting for my dog. This mangy little terrier is missing splotches of hair and is constantly covered in all manner of nasty bugs. For the longest time I never pet him because I don't want to catch any sort of mange, fleas, ticks, or other nasty critters. Little poopy is so friendly that I have recently given in and started to play with him. I do a daily tick check and pull off as many as I can before I play with him but I usually still end up with one crawling on my leg looking for a good place to latch on and suck my blood. Since I am the only person that will actually pet him, poopy follows me all around town and helps me with my tasks. It must be quite comical for the townspeople to see the tall white girl walking around followed by this splotchy little creature who has lost all the hair on his tail.

This past week I had to leave my little friend Poopy to go celebrate Carnaval in the beautiful Andean city of Cajamarca. Over 100 volunteers had showed up for this legendary three-day party. The highlight of the weekend was running around the streets with squirt guns and paint and taking part in epic battles between the various neighborhoods. Gangs made up of people of all ages run around the streets with buckets of paint, water balloons, squirt guns, and other weapons all the while beating on drums and chanting. I purchased my water gun and water balloons, dressed in my rattiest clothes and joined the fray. I was worried that I would hate the experience because of the strangers running up and rubbing paint all over me but as soon as the first person grabbed my face and rubbed paint all over it, I was hooked. I definitely got hit more than I was able to hit others but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Every so often I would take a dance break with one of the drummer gangs and then continue on my way. Around 1 pm the skies opened up in typical rainy season fashion adding to all of the chaos. By this time I was completely blue including my face (luckily I had worn old sunglasses) and the rain caused me to start shivering. I tried to tough it out but right as I was getting remotivated a group of kids with buckets started shoveling buckets of gutter water onto the group that I was with. I had seen men peeing in these same gutters all day long not to mention all the nasty stuff that runs off the streets and I couldn't take it. At this point I was soaked to the bone and shivering and decided to give up. The day had been awesome but I had reached my limit so I headed back to my hotel and indulged in a very long, hot shower. It took me at least two more showers to get the blue tint out of my skin and feel fresh and free of grime and urine but, I had an excellent and memorable carnaval. Now I feel ready to take on Rio and New Orleans in order to enjoy excess before lent. I am, however, not so sure that I am ready to give up chocolate for the next 40 days. I'll probably just take up caramel or vanilla.

After my weekend of delicious food, excellent volunteer company, and outrageous celebrations, it was time for me to get back to site. When I walked back into my house Poopy immediately started jumping around and wagging his little hairless rat tail. I reached down to pet him and was not surprised when a couple minutes later I looked down to find a tick crawling up my leg. I have found that the key to surviving this experience is laughing at the ridiculousness of everyday occurrences.