I'm upset this morning. The original plan was to return to Kolpas this morning and then catch the bus to Ambo then Huanuco and finally Lima, arriving in Lima early Sunday morning. It won't happen; I'd wanted to go to church; I'm ready to be back in Lima. So, I'm kind of moping about in bed - I don't want to get up. I'm dirtier than maybe I have ever been for any extended period of time. When I woke up my hands were black, as are my nails; I'm sure that my face looks the same. There is so much dirt ground into my skin that even when I wash my hands with exfoliating face wash (sounds like a silly thing to have in the Andes, huh?) the dirt still doesn't come out. Truly filthy.
One thing I forgot to mention from yesterday: the little baby lamb I carried around with me died. His body is hanging over the door of one of the houses. There was just no milk to give him, and his mother is so skinny she doesn't have anything for him, either.
This morning, a beautiful sight: I was standing in the path by Mama Juana's house and watched a huge fog slowly enter the valley from Rondoní. It was slow moving and thick and I watched it, with its clear edges, devour the valley. The sheep are grazing right outside the hut/house, so I'm sitting on my bed of hay and sheep skins and waching half a dozen newborn lambs follow their mothers around the field. They stick out their tongues and their entire unsteady little body shakes when they bleat.
A young boy comes up to greet me; all of the children come to shake my hand when they say hello. He says that he, too, has homework ("like 1,000") but he's already done it all for Monday. The children go to school in a nearby town, about an hour away. Sometimes they stay in the town during the school week, sometimes the walk the 1-2 hours each way daily. He leaves me; he has to finish tending the sheep. I take a peice of toilet paper to wipe off my face: with each wipe I have to refold it because it comes away black, as if I had just rubbed it in mud. I think I must be 1-2 shades lighter now that I've dry-scrubbed my cheeks and neck. I go at my fingernails, but it is futile - they are pure black and no amount of soap or water or picking has made any difference.
Its interesting: here I feel exceptionally lazy and irresponsible, disgraceful even, being in bed past 6:30 or 7AM. Everyone here wakes with the cock crow around 5 or 5:30; by 6:30 all beds are put away - the blankets are folded and stacked in a corner with the hides, the hay cleared away- and people are about tending their daily chores.
I kind of feel like Tom Cruise's character in The Last Samauri, watching everyone diligently go about their tasks - tending the fire, preparing breakfast, tending the animals, shooing away pigs and chickens as they approach the kitchen. By 7:30 the whole town is empty: everyone has something to do, and it doesn't involve loafing around the village. Some are watching animals up the mountain; they graze the herds far away, and start the slow move to the pastures very early. Some are planting potatoes in the fields, some of the older women was clothes in the river and prepare lunch to carry up the mountain. The children either have tasks of their own or they accompany their parents. Other jobs include: gathering tugush from where it has been soaking for months; cutting and carrying hay from other parts of the mountain; etc.
I take out my MAC and look in the mirror: what I see is frightening. My face, despite the rough wipe I gave it earlier, is actually black with dirt: I can see the earth caked into every pore. My nose and cheeks are peeling: I am utterly filthy.
The men return from around the mountain carrying enormous loads of hay on their backs. The loads are each 2-3 times bigger than the men themselves - it never ceases to impress me: the brute force and strength shown by those in the town daily. Even the 85-year old grandmother carries large loads of water and straw, climbs the mountain and sleeps outside. The only thing slowing her down now is a nasty dog bite that she got several days ago - it is deep and risks bad infection. She went to the doctor in Kolpas and he gave her pills and instructed her to pour the capsule into the wound, since she doesn't like to swallow meds. (???)... I hope it works.
I couldn't stand it anymore, I had to wash my face in the icy cold water. I look in the mirror: still black, red, peeling: not a nice look.
cleaning Mama Sabina's wound
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