Summer In The Zone

Summer where I live has its ups and downs. First of all, there is the fruit, which is absolutely amazing. Imagine a never-ending supply of avocadoes, mangoes, and many exotic fruits that I had never even heard of before coming here. People are so eager to introduce me to something special about Peru that they continually bring me fruit from their "chacras," the small agricultural plots the majority of my town relies upon for income. I have learned how to choose which guabas are fat enough to eat, how to peel the hard-shelled mamey in order to get to the thick, juicy fruit inside, how tamarinds taste like sour warheads and act as a natural laxative, and that lucuma makes an excellent ice cream but is pretty disgusting plain. In the Peace Corps we often refer to goals 2 and 3 to keep us motivated when our "real work" isn't going so well. These goals refer to teaching Americans about Peruvian culture and Peruvians about American culture. The fruit is definitely a good opportunity for cultural interchange since it allows me to complement Peruvians on something that is a huge source of pride for them. I sometimes even tell them that avocadoes and mangos sometimes cost $2 each to make them realize how special their products are. Even though I achieve this goal, I usually regret talking about money because it makes Americans seem super rich and spoiled, the exact stereotype I most want to dissolve.

With fruit season also comes the "rainy" season. Being from Portland, the monthly drizzle that makes up rainy season here leaves me a little disappointed. I often hope for rain just so that I don't have to carry buckets of water to the trees that I have planted. The infrastructure is not made to handle any rain, which means that even this slight bit causes flooding in all the streets. As soon as this rain comes, the snow in the mountains starts to melt and just enough makes it to my town. This is the signal for the rice-growing season to start because they are able to flood the chacras. I question this practice for a few reasons. First of all, growing rice here requires turning what is essentially a desert into a checkerboard of marshes. This does not seem like a very efficient use of resources. These human-made marshes attract that wonderful little marsh insect, the mosquito. I have been too lazy to hang up my mosquito net until now but I recognize it is necessary because Dengue fever season is starting up again and a particular breed of mosquito is the main vector. This disease can be fatal and is always incredibly painful so I fully intend to avoid it. After contracting this disease, any subsequent infection is much worse. These fears turn the mosquito from an annoying pest into a potential killer makes me even more bitter that rice is the main crop right now.

The less threatening but equally annoying insect that comes in waves with the summer moisture and heat is the ant. Ants are everywhere! I have lost two bags of oatmeal to ant infestation and countless plates of leftovers have become ant colonies. With so many critters everywhere it is an accepted fact that everyone will be eating lots of ants over the next couple of months. At my host mom's birthday party I happened to be in the kitchen when they were making the cocktails for the toast and I witnessed what we in the USA would consider an egregious party foul. The cocktail consisted of canned peaches and champagne blended into a sweet and bubbly drink, even if it is kind of syrupy. They opened the can of peaches and then left for about ten minutes to tend to the duck that was being cooked and when they got back it had filled with ants. They shrugged it off and dumped the can of ant infested peaches into the blender and no one had any idea. I was skeptical but took the black specs that I knew to be ant parts in my cocktail like a pro. This was just the most blatant example of ant eating that I have been a part of but even as I write this I am drinking a glass of water that had two ants floating in it before I started and now it is down to zero. This is the Peruvian village version of protein powder.

Another huge part of the summer months are the unending parties. I have started hiding from these parties because they are so exhausting. A simple birthday lunch almost unfailingly turns into sloppy debauchery and extends to dinner and then night time dancing, and then more snacks (usually some campo ceviche, raw salted fish chopped into bits and mixed with lime and onion). I usually duck out after a couple of hours. At one party I was at a few months ago, someone started asking me about my real name and, when I told them it was Sheridan they were amazed. They had me write it down and at a recent party I attended with the same group of people, I found out that they had liked the name so much that they recommended it to their cousin as a baby name and now there is a little baby Sheridan running around somewhere in Northern Peru. This was a huge honor for me and made me realize that what seems like somewhat silly inquiries into mundane details of my life to me can turns out to be more serious than anticipated. Hopefully one day I will get to meet this child who will probably be confused by her own name for the rest of her life (and hopefully a little proud to have been named after a gringa volunteer). And now I must go work on goals 2 and 3 by eating Peruvian food and most likely graciously accepting a glass of beer at a lunch party that I was invited to. I can't wait for winter when I don't have to be so social because people actually have stuff to do!