If there’s one thing you are supposed to learn in the Peace Corps it’s supposed to be patience according to all the stories that I’ve read. So today my dance practice consisted of sitting around for an hour and a half watching the other group dance…while supposedly the rest of the girls that I’m dancing with were in the city getting our costumes. Only later did I realize that there is a part of our group that is dancing tomorrow and for that they need different costumes than the ones that we’re wearing for San Severino (the biggest festival in Tarata that happens next weekend). Then I sat around and listened to them discuss how the other group is going to get their costumes for tomorrow for another half hour. Basically mass confusion (okay just Pat and I, the non-fluent Spanish speakers). I guess the one productive thing I did was teaching a six year old girl, Nayra (which means eyes in Quechua), a few words in English like “my name is” and “lightbulb” among others…along with playing this “let me guess what we’re going to roll on the dice game” as well.
The most amusing part of the night had to be when the little 3 year old boy who has been labeled by Pat as a future bully of the schoolyard was misbehaving. I knew it was time to leave when he started beating me up…first he threw a rock at me…so his dad or some other male figure in his family brought out the belt to “teach him a lesson” which was more like threatening him with a belt. Then the boy took the belt and started hitting me with it (Kim and Helen, this was no fun game of belt in the ear, fyi). Later on he resorted to more brute force without weaponry and started kicking Nayra and me. And this boy is pretty big for a 3 year old and then he decided to tackle me in the legs unexpectedly and I almost fell down and had to hold on to Nayra, a 6 year old, so I wouldn’t fall over. It was definitely time to leave when the 3 year olds are beating you up. Reminds me of when Pat’s dog was stolen by the 4 year old girl. Man. We are not doing too well with the young children here.
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