TenMillionPixels

Chupe de shit

My bro Jon Michael, who lived in Arequipa for 4 months or so, came back into town last Saturday along with his girlfriend Brooke. Naturally, we wanted to hang out and make the most of his 7 days here.
Saturday night, we went to a restaurant near the Plaza de Armas that serves typical Peruvian food. One of my favorite Peruvian dishes is chupe de camarones, a tomato based shrimp soup with potatoes and vegetables. I ordered it up at the place we went to for dinner, as I hadn’t had it in a while. Arequipa is more or less close to the ocean, about 3 hours from fishing ports. I’ve had lots of fish and cheviche here, and never had a problem with it. This time was different.

I’ve had diarrhea since yesterday morning, along with body aches and bad stomach pain. I’ve also become rather dehydrated. And I’m really tired of it. 

I couldn’t count on both hands the number of times I’ve gotten sick from food here in Latin America. It never, ever ceases to piss me off. I have no desire to spend the entire day in bed, with occasional visits to the bathroom. I most certainly won’t miss the poor sanitary conditions of the developing world when I go home in December.

Week 6

Last week, I painted the playground I built with Alan and JM. The kids and teachers at Paz y Esperanza all went nuts over it, as I did it with the color scheme of the Peruvian flag. They love it, for sure. I’m stoked to have gotten it done, to have put on the finishing touches to a really great project. As of now, it’s still the only playground in Horacio Zeballos Gamez.

I chose the color scheme, a scheme that turned out a great choice. Everyone said I must be a Peruvian for painting it so patriotically.

It was actually a slight pain in the ass to paint them, as I had to borrow a bunch of equipment on my day off, buy paint and thinner, deliver the whole mess to Horacio in a cab, and work all afternoon. Getting a cab back to deliver the tools to their respective owners was worse, as there are really no taxis in the remote and underdeveloped community. Eventually, I found one and made my way back into Arequipa. The following week, people went bananas over it. I made it out for a short time during school hours and jumped on the sube y baja and columpios with the kids. Later that week, Dama brought me hand made construction paper thank you cards from all of the 95 kids in the school. The cards made me laugh, for sure, and there were some memorable drawings and silly lines like “keep on triumphing” and “I believe in you,” amongst the expected thank yous.

Arriba Peru!

Photos via CDCA volunteer blog.