Cruz Pampa

Today I went to Cruz Pampa, the place in the middle of knowwhere that my grandparents live. They have a little house and a lot of land. Running water but, you know what? Now that I think about it, I have no clue if they have a bathroom or not. I saw one spigot outside the house and this makeshift shower. There is a good chance they “go in the campo” if you know what I mean. No electricity in the house but they have a battery to run one fluorescent light in the kitchen. My LED flashlight on my key chain was about 10x brighter than it. They cook with wood instead of gas.

While my dad was busy tying down one of his cows to trim their horns, I sat with my mom and Teo breaking dried corn kernels off the husk. Later I ground it all up into cornmeal. Now that was a good arm work out. I might have to start grinding some cornmeal here for myself. I tried to cook with fire but it’s a lot harder than it looks.

We ended up being there so late we decided to stay for dinner. It was so dark at this point we had to light to little candles to see. I flashed my LED on my plate as I wasn’t convinced that my plate was meat free. I was good too go. Something under the table kept running around and hitting my feet. I assumed it was a dog or cat. Nope – free range cuyes in the kitchen.

In the middle of the meal my cell phone rang and it was Ken and Megan calling from PSU to say hi. It was so weird to be brought back to reality. Here I was speaking English with friends from the states like it was no other day. Only I was having my toes chomped on by guinea pigs in the middle of a candle light dinner in an old Adobe house. Welcome to the Peace Corps.