el medico pimp

5 October 2006

"I woke up this morning with the sun beam shining in"- that song from the
Big Lebowski. I actually woke up to the cries of the rooster, 6ish.
Time runs differently here. I´ve grown accustomed to it, and i like it. i
no longer make any time-driven committments. i´ve started teaching guitar
to a girl named Yuli, and i´m going to start with hugo soon. yuli wants to
bring friends to learn too and also last night was asking about a
particular time to continue the lessons. well i´ve learned, and i´ve begun
to play the chijnaya time game. so i said "oh, i don´t know, some days in
the late afternoons... when the moon is right and we want to play." i´ve
come to relate many things to the recently growing/shining luna. the card
trick i showed my family last night... i relayed all powerful forces to
the bright luna overhead. one day, when the moon is not looking, i said, i
may be able to explain the magic.
well it´s market day again, so i guess i better go into town. i´ll ride
with guillermo and yoni who are going in a little bit.
my family here, it seems, is in the upper-middle class of chijnaya. they
have enough food to eat, for the most part. all the kids went or are going
to a university. they have a 2 story house made of cement (1 room on top,
1 on bottom). they have a fairly large number of animals, and they always
have meat to eat. and they have a car. there are only about 5 cars in
chijnaya among the 50ish families. also, their rooms have cement floors
rather than dirt floors (although the kitchen has a dirt floor).
i cringe every time i see them treat the animals as far-sub-human, moving
the cows along with a whip and often pushing them around with their hands
and feet (most often completely unnecessarily). and guillermo grabs chucky
by the neck with 2 hands and yanks him around the yard. but everyone
treats the cows this way, by custom. they have to show them who´s boss or
the cows will not cooperate (not that they want to cooperate as it is).
but it seems to me ("if you live your life like a candle in the wind...")
that if they showed the animals a little love they might get along a lot
better. but who am i to talk about treating the animals.
as i was getting ready to leave for pukara this morning, hugo walks up to
the house with a friend of his who has a young girl who is sick with a
fever and pain and stomach problems. while guillermo and yoni are honking
at me from the car to get in and go i race into my room and drop some
tylenol in a plastic bag, give them to hugo´s friend and explain when to
take them (for the daughter). just now after returning to chijnaya i was
ambling about by hugo´s house on my way to this mountain that i´m sitting
on right now, and hugo tells me the girl is feeling MUCH better and is
happy. i don´t doubt that many things wrong with the people in this
village will get better by taking any sort of medicine from the
all-knowing gringo (placebo). as i´m standing there talking to hugo as he
and friends are building a new casa at his house, laying adobe, they bring
over a young boy who has a swollen cheek/throat below his right ear that
hurts. well i don´t know what to do about that, although i´m suspicious
that it´s related to an infected/dirty ear, so i tell them how to wash out
his ear and that may hopefully clear it up. i don´t have antibiotics at my
disposal, and i wouldn´t know what to use anyway. it´s not huge and he´s
not screaming in pain, so i assume it will go away on its own soon. i feel
that just giving them some advice and having them take the time to pay
attention to it will set the little boy on his way to recovery.
on the ride home from pukara today i sat in the far back of the rasta van
with 19 chijnayans. why they never opened a window, i don´t know.
currently reading: The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an
Andean Community, by Catherine Allen


6 October 2006

there is no better time to be here. it is warm throughout the day until
the late afternoon when the clouds roll in from behind the mountains,
raining or hailing every few nights. they say the hail is "feo", ugly, but
i take pleasure in the sound it makes against the roof of my room. it will
be ugly, however, when in the upcoming weeks and months the people will
have to tend their animals and plow and plant their papas and quinoa when
the rains and hail strike earlier and earlier in the day.


7 October 2006

i´m writing by candlelight. even though the power is basically out in the
village, my room has a bulb that runs on very low power, and thus works
right now. however, the family just welcomed an unexpected group of
visitors and they´re having a "reunion" in the other room, so they´re
using the light bulb (the whole thing with the visitors is a little fishy
top me, and the dogs - they´re barking like crazy right now).
yesterday afternoon i helped hugo build his new casa. we were laying adobe
and carrying logs and placing them on the adobe as support for the floor
of the second story. meanwhile, geronima´s dad, 86ish, an active
adventista, was standing in a pool of mud, dishing it out in bucketloads,
used to seal and connect/insulate the adobe walls. the whole time hugo was
saying how this house was for me and my friends to come stay in. and he
called me the architect since i advised on where to put the door to the
second story, and i did some division in my head to figure out how far
apart to spread the logs so they´re evenly spaced.
there are only a handful of 2 story houses in the village. it is with
great pride that hugo is constructing his new house. after working for a
while we sat around, they shared some gaseosa (i didn´t want any), and
they asked me how much my shoes cost... then commented on how their
sandals are made from used car tires (awesome!).
As i walked home i had an awkward moment outside the house here. i saw 3
girls talking and i thought one was yuli my guitar student so i said
"guitarra! un momento..." and went and got the guitar out of my room
because i was supposed to let her borrow it for the night. however, it
wasn´t yuli, it was yesi, the younger sister from my family who had just
come home from school for the first time since the day i arrived here. she
and her friends continued to be confused/tell me that she wasn´t yuli, she
was yesi. i responded with a blank look, and then finally after a while it
sunk in and i said "bienvenido a la casa!" and started playing guitar.
later in the evening, after eating dinner in the kitchen, the kids left to
leave me with guillermo and mercedes. guillermo proceeded to go off on a
very long and informative schpiel (sp?) on the reality of living here with
little access and little money. i didn´t understand a lot of what he said,
but he did say that he was the first school teacher from chijnaya and in
the beginning other members of the village were very jealous. he also said
that there´s nothing in chijnaya that´s going to keep the next generation
living here - they need new businesses, or something. the families are
large, so when they divide their land between all 3 or 5 or 8 children,
the kids really aren´t left with enough to get by, so they have to have
another job, like guillermo. he also has this idea of starting a chicken
farm for chickens and their eggs, and he wants me to help him find a
machine that goes around collecting hundreds of eggs. i told him we can
look on the internet. his eyes lit up.
he proceeded to talk about how poor peru is and how it needs to really
start advancing like the united states... "how can we make more money!?...
we could sell cocaine..." at which point i burst in saying no no and why
it would not help the world at all... and then i started talking about all
the problems that have and are resulting from the "advancement" of
american society... meanwhile guillermo´s constantly looking at mercedes
with eyes that suggest: "yeah, listen to this" for mercedes is really not
educated and learns everything from her husband (she told me this), who
takes pride in his lecturing. this went on for probably two hours, after
which we just sort of said "vamos... buenas noches." they had told me
about the insecurity with which they constantly live - will the potatoe
crops yield enough to eat this year... perhaps enough to sell some so they
can buy other things like corn and rice?
they´re arguing with the visitors in the other room right now. it woulds
like it might have to do with helar´s baby. it could be the mother´s
parents. i think it´s time start thinking about how to give out these 200
condoms i have.
currently reading: Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins


8 October 2006

i´m on top of a very high mountain with two late-teenage chijnayan boys,
wilson and cesar. they are writing love poems for their enamoradas, both
of whom i happen to know... wilson´s enamorada is yuli, my guitar student,
and cesar´s is yesi, my younger "sister". enamorada ranges from crush to
girlfriend, but the parents can´t know. it´s a tricky game hey have to
play to find a love and life partner. these two have not done more than
talk and dance with their enamoradas, from what they say. they´re sitting
on rocks near me now, comparing poems. the parents can´t know about the
enamoradas or the girl´s parents will send them away. they basically can´t
mention anything unless they want to get married and have babies. they
both agreed to take my 200 condoms and distribute them among their friends
and themselves. they said that people over 18 use condoms but those under
18 don´t because they aren´t allowed to buy them. it´s not religious, they
say... just that the adults don´t want kids under 18 having sex. with
helar and his baby´s situation in mind, i feel quite justified in giving
away my condoms, for their protection.
i asked them how it all works with finding a wife, etc., and they said
that after time as enamoradas (in secret) they become novios (which
implies marriage and babies in the near future). helar and his girlfriend
were basically made husband and wife by default (the baby). it was the
baby´s mom and family who were over last night, discussing how to take
care of the little guy, baby in hand.
these 2 boys here on the mountain have told me they are not faithful. they
are always seeking other people. thus, condoms (preservativos) all the
better. they originally wanted me to give them to the girls, probably to
help give them ideas, but i said it would be a little awkward for me to
hand over a bunch of condoms to a 17 year old girl during a guitar lesson,
so they agreed to distribute. they are very happy to have them.
as i was looking for hugo to go into pukara i came upon a large group of
men finishing the roof on a house and another group right next door
finishing a "covertismo", animal shed, while a group of women cooked
dinner outside. they all came up to me to shake my hand and explain to me
what they´re doing and ask me if it is good. of course it´s good! it´s a
new house with a new roof to live under! i was hanging around for hugo to
finish working because we had a plan to go into town in the evening, but
of course things tend to linger. they had a ceremony for the finishing of
the covertismo, and they named a guest who had just recently arrived by
car as the padrino. he of course welcomed everyone there and have special
thanks to my presence. we then moved to the new roof of the house that was
completed at the same time. the owner, whose name i never learned, had
been paying close attention to me the whole time i was there, bringing me
a stool to sit on, asking me how everything was. well he named me the
padrino for the new roof of the house. in front of about 50 people i went
up, this time giving a little talk about how this roof would remain for a
hundred years through wind and rain, and thanking everyone for their
presence there together to build it. i then broke the champagne bottle
with a hammer. however, unlike when i was padrino at my house with
guillermo and family, thwn i smashed the champagne bottle with full force,
causing glass to go flying, this time i learned from the padrino of the
covertismo that i was simply supposed to give a strong tap on the bottle
so only the bottom broke and champagne would go shooting down. after this
ceremony i was led into a room lined with benches where i gathered with
all the men, and one woman (i don´t know who she was), to eat the dinner
that the wives were cooking outside whle the men were finishing their
work. while we were served two bowls of soup, and another bowl full of
corn, potatoes, and lamb, men in the room asked me questions, like "in
your country do you eat 3 servings? we peruvians can eat 3 bowls!" well i
didn´t really know how to answer that, except that when they were all
starting to pack up their 3rd bowl in to-go bags i commented... "so you
can´t eat the 3rd bowl!?" they laughed but then backed themselves up by
explaining it was for their wives and children who had to be fed too. well
i didn´t want to eat this whole dinner in the first place beause before i
left my house in the afternoon mama mercedes was already making a special
dinner for me with the chicken that they drove 45 minutes to buy simply
because i mentioned once that chicken was the meat i ate most at home. i
tried explaining to hugo that my family was making me dinner, but i didn´t
really have a choice to eat or not once i was named padrino. i was the
godfather of the new roof.
after passing and drinking beer, and attempting to open a bottle by using
another bottle for leverage and failing, hugo and i left the scene, where
by this time the men were pointing out one man sitting near me who had
brain or pschological trouble, who was supposedly going to fly back to the
states with me to be operated on so he would become normal. the villagers
really think gringos like me have the capacity to do anything. i can´t
even open the beer bottle like them.
as i followed the man who had offered to drive us into town (one of the
few with a car, who i was to pay for his services), to his house, he came
out with tapestries that his wife makes of the uro islands of lake
titicaca, implying that i should buy them or take them to the states with
me to sell. as i gave an excited look about the art but an uninterested
look about buying them, he put them away and told me we´ll talk more
tomorrow. we drove over to pick up hugo at his house, and his whole family
(wife and 2 daughters) jumped in the car eager to go to town. after an
important errand in town i received an email from the boss (dr. bolton)
about the 2 doctors coming to chijnaya tomorrow and what we needed to do
to prepare. we then made the drive back to the village. never before has a
5km drive been so exciting (terrible rocky dirt road at night). we came to
the house of the head of the health committee, with whom we had to relate
the news of the doctors. guillermo and mercedes appeared, flashlight in
hand, very worried, as they had been spending the last hour looking for
me. i of course felt very bad because they had made me a special dinner
and i never showed up, but i explained to them how i was sucked into the
whole other affair. they understood. but then i felt obligated to eat my
second dinner of chicken, veggies, and rice... which was delicious. what a
night!


9 October 2006

today i acted as pharmacy, director, and secretary at the health post. the
two doctors arrived with two nurses but no equipment apart from
stethoscopes and blood pressure whatchamacallits. i supplied the rest of
everything necessary in treating the 150ish people who came and signed up
with me to be treated... a light for looking in throats, cotton balls,
alcohol swabs, q-tips, and most importantly 1000 ibuprofen which was
prescribed to pretty much every other person. without it people would have
been left with a prescription and no pills- ibuprofen costs about 10x as
much here as at the costco back home. so i signed people up on "la lista"
and moved them along one by one to the nurses, who checked pulse, bp,
temp, etc. guillermo´s in one of the doctor rooms acting as a translater
between quechua and espanol. And as the patients came out of each of the
two doctor rooms they brought me their prescriptions, mostly for 10-18
ibuprofen pills, which i dispensed in plastic baggies. most other
medicines will have to be bought at the pharmacy in pukara. about 50ish
people were seen by the doctors today, and they´ll be coming back for two
more days. i will again act as pharmacy, director, and secretary for the
rest of the aching bodies who will be given enough medicine to last a
week, after which i´m sure their bodies will once again become painful
from their immense physical labor. but simply seeing a doctor is something
these folks haven´t been able to experience in a very long time, if ever.
they are all too poor to actually go and pay for a visit. many, after
receiving their 12 or 18 ibuprofen, comment, "thank you. this will make me
better." this positive attitude is what is most important.


10 October 2006

the women all lined up for the female doctor, and the men the male doctor.
and i dispensed many an ibuprofen, as well as some other medicines that
the boss and assisant david picked up from the pharmacy last night. at the
end of the day we walked over to a group finishing a covertismo, animal
shed, and the boss, dr. bolton, was named the padrino. he and the doctors
were going to immediately take off but were given plates of food. i as
well. however, i was also sucked into sitting under the new rood with the
rest of the men to continue the cervesa passing, along with 2 more plates
of food. i am becoming used to these customs, and i felt quite comfortable
this time being the center of attention during dinner... with the others
whispering to each other things like, "he likes to climb the mountains
around town" and "he doesn´t play soccer but he skis down mountains." this
time, after the final dish, i was given a handful of coca leaves (they
were dropped into my hat), which i stuck in my cheek to suck out the
juice. while doing this i was handed a shot of tequile-like alcohol (it
was really pretty nasty), as well as the usual beer. "mister, mister" one
old man began, "how much water do we need to drink for every kilometer we
walk in the sun?" "i don´t know" i replid... "you need to find a river."
Another man asked my shoe size and commented that they all wear Goodyear
(sandals from used tires) and asked for a translation of Goodyear. they
were happy. anything good is great to them. well my second dinner is on
the way. i need to prepare.
in other news, the doctor´s shirt, under is white coat, read "pimp at
work." he didn´t know what it meant.
it´s a done deal... i just made the transaction. the 200 condoms are off
to find new... homes.