ayacucho continued

pretty soon most peole had taken seats on the benches that lined the walls of the courtyard and rosa was presented with the first bowl of soup. now it´s important to understand a few things to really apprectiate this situation. firstly, peruvians love meat, chicken is especially popular and 99.9% of restuarants outside of cusco don´t have an actuall meal thats vegetarian. secondly, rosa has been a vegan for fifteen years, that means no meat of any kind or any dairy and here she is holding a big bowl of soup with chunks of beef in it. to make things worse, she had been a little sick for a couple of days and hadn´t been eating much at all. we were both feeling very gratefull for being brought into this home and offered food. there was simply no respectful way to not eat was given us and although i knew it was going to be hard for rosa, i found myself suppressing laughter as she swallowed her first few spoonfulls. i was soon given a bowl and dug in with gusto as everyone else was served and started hungrily in. more and more people trinkled in as we ate and the women that had cooked were hurriedly serving everyone. while this was going on we found a moment of distraction and rosa slyly spooned all the meat from her bowl into mine. it wasn´t long before the pig leg pot was dipped into (which a lady had been stirring the whole time with a big bamboo stick) and the second course was served. a giant helping of rice and a regional favorite called puca picante was given to all. puca picante is a potato, beef (and apparently pig leg) stew with a spicy peanut sauce. there was no avoiding the meat in this one and i was very impressed with rosa´s ability to choke it all down with a smile on her face. i remember taking my first bite, saying "oh man, this is good." and looking over to see rosa determinedly shoveling it in. she didn´t respond. we were also given a delicious glass of chicha to wash it all down and after eating as much as our bodies would allow we excused ourselves and stepped outside to smoke. (chicha is a fermented, alcoholic corn beverage that has been a favorite in the andean highlands since pre-inca times. it is supposedly made, in some places at least, by chewing corn and spitting it into a big jug which is capped and sometimes buried until it´s ready to go. it may sound a little unappealing but it´s actually really tasty.) when we got out of the courtyard we passed a door that was open to the house and we saw, just for a flash, what looked liked a body draped in white cloth and placed on a table with flowers and candles all around. there were four or five people sitting around the table eating their puca picante. we were at a funeral! before this could really sink in we were found and surrounded by the children again. that interaction was in turn cut short by the hotel owner who found us and said that now would be a good time to go and drop of our things if we were ready. we went back in and gave our thanks to all the people involved in giving us such an unexpected welcome and were told by all to come back later that evening. when i thanked one particularly maternal lady, she said loudly, "thats how we are in peru! you can do the same for us when we come to the u.s.!" and i certainly would. the hotel was only around the corner and as we made the short walk i asked if we were indeed at a funeral. the answer at this point was an unsurprising yes, a woman of 77 years had died and apparently folks had been coming from all over to pay their respects and visit with the community. we were shown to our modest lodging for the evening, charged the average price and left to settle in. rosa and i just sat for awhile taking in the events of the day and when i told her how impressed i was with her performance at dinner she admitted that she was focusing as best she could the entire time on not vomiting. incidently, she wasnt able to keep that up and over the next 12 hours or so her stomach did a good job of reminding her that it didnt know how to handle these foriegn substances that she had consumed in such quantity.
as the sun finished setting the rain came on like clockwork and in no time was coming down in sheets, clattering loudly on the many tin roofs of the neighborhood. before too long we were paid a visit by a young man we had met briefly at dinner. he was very interested in getting to know us and was easy to talk to. one thing i always tell myself while in a spanish speaking country is to take advantage of every opportunity to converse with patient people who are excited to talk with me. its really the best way for me to learn. this guy had a name that i was never able to pronounce correctly so it was soon forgotten but we ended up sitting around telling each other about our countries for quite some time. we even each took a turn singing a song in or respective langauges which was really neat. i bet some of you can guess what song i sang. eventually a group of younger kids came to join us and a chaotic, impromptu english lesson ensued with them shouting over each other words they wanted to know followed by everyone trying the english pronunciation in unison. they also really wanted us to sing 90s pop songs from the u.s. which are quite popular here but we both drew dissapointing blanks in that category. they were able to sing us a few though, substituting the lyrics for the general sound of the words. priceless.
the rain kept coming down and eventually rosa and i got worn out by all the excitement and decided to call it a night without going back to the funeral house. i really hope that decision wasnt terribly disrepectful since so many folks had invited us back but we were both tired and rosas belly was wanting to take its revenge. the rain kept on heavily all night but had settled into a steady misting when we got up in the morning. no one else was around the place so we popped into the restaraunt across the street and i had a very popular breakfast around these parts of a fried egg, rice and a fried platano. rosa kept it simple with just a platano and coffee. after breakfast we walked the one block to the plaza to wait for a minibus to ayacucho and were soon waved over to a little store by a nice man how said he was heading to ayacucho in a few hours and would take us along if nothing else came before. we sat in the store out of the rain and talked with his wife and mother for awhile who owned the store and were awfully nice folks. at one point the wife hand squeezed to big glasses of orange juice for us and refused to accept any payment. after a while a minibus showed up with two empty seats so we piled in and started off on the bumby, twisty, cliff hugging, super muddy road to ayacucho.