In the Dark

To preface this little story let me begin by explaining that we haven’t had electricity in Poroto for the last three days.

I’ve been biking to and from the caserio schools where I teach, which is both fun and convenient. However, the return trip from the school in Mochal is a pretty long hill and I’m usually coming back from this school at the hottest part of the day dressed in semi-presentable clothes so needless to say I’m a little bit of a mess by the time I reach Poroto. I’m still trying to convince all the women in town that when my cheeks turn pink I’m not sunburn, I’m just hot. Anyway, yesterday on my way home from teaching someone comes running up to me on my bike and asks to talk to me for a minute. At this point I’m breathing kind of hard and a little bit sweaty, so I reluctantly unstrap my awesome helmet and try to piece together a Spanish conversation which can be difficult when I’m frazzled. Basically, this guy is trying to form a youth group dedicated to promoting the culture of Peru and wants me to help him. Now, this sounds like an interesting opportunity but at this point I don’t really know who this guy is or exactly what he’s trying to tell me, but I agree to help, mostly because I want to get out of the sun and stop sweating.

Later this evening I am coming back from a run (also sweating and pink-faced), and the same guy is waiting outside my house to talk to me. He explains that he wants to send out invitations regarding the formation of the youth group to the parents in town. However, there are no lights or electricity so he explains that he’ll have to write them all out. He asks if I would be willing to help him and I hesitantly agree. At this point the entire town is pitch-dark because there is no electricity, so he explains we’ll have to walk the 45 minutes to the closest caserio where there are lights in one of the comedores populares (soup kitchens). At this point, the last thing I want to do is walk on a windy road in the pitch dark with some stranger, but my community partner had him contact me and my host dad seemed to know him, so I figured I would be fine. We continue on to the caserio, guided only by the light of the moon as we narrowly dodge potholes and other obstacles along the way. Finally we arrive at the comedor popular where there is light and start to write out our invitations. In true Peruvian fashion, he insists that the invitations are very formal, and thus require a substantial amount of writing. We continue to write 40 page long invitations by hand, which takes way longer than it sounds. When we finally finish we hike back to Poroto in the dark. At this point I am so ready to get out of my running clothes, shower, and go to bed, but my new friend insists we have some dinner. Despite my objections that the restaurant is closed, my host mom brings out saltines and tea into the empty, dark room and illuminates our table with a candle. So, to finish off my bizarre night I was forced to eat a candle-light dinner alone with my new friend.