Characters

Yesterday/Last night/This morning I (in order):


Went to a fair! A real fair! With livestock and ferris wheels and soy chiccharones.

This old slightly shady dude, Alberto, was there with his brother and cousin, and he paid for my ticket, bought me a jungle seed necklace, had a polaroid taken as a souveneir for me, and told me all about the dangers of cholesterol. His helpful hints included, when you eat pollo a broaster, you need to take the skin off, and, oooof pizza? Terrible for you. Cheese, meat, flour, TRIGLYCERIDES!!!!


Met a Quillabambino at the fair named John who spoke in unbelievably high tones when he switched to English. He told me my eyes looked sad, and that I was looking for something. He was right. He told me one time he looked at his parents at the dinner table and they didn´t look like his parents. He told me a lot of things, with eyes that wouldn´t stop digging into me. He was a truth-teller, if a little bit preachy. We talked about all of the usual ¨Wow you´re not going to flip out if I talk to you about energy?´ stuff, like feeling scared to be alone in nature even though you are a child of everything that exists in nature, and listening for the calls, and trusting. He exclaimed, ¨Wow!¨and ¨Fuck!¨a lot. ¨Fuck¨sounded tame in his mouth. He lent me his jacket, and told his acquaintences I had diharrea so they wouldn´t hassle me about drinking. Disculpame, he told me, laughing, all teeth. His friend touched the bottle over to my hand, and I said, no, like he said, I have diharrea. We were all teeth.


Before Percy arrived at the fair, I received a text message from him that was as follows:


A las 8 estoy alla? Full dance gringuita.


Whoever taught him ¨full dance¨ definitely wins points.


Met biologists. Entimologists specifically. The line-up included a 50 year old pirate with a curly, hairy chest and a big beer belly, a quiet guy in a green preppy vest, and Williams. Williams was short with rectangle black framed glasses and spoke cliched and proper English. He told me that most jungle spiders are cute and surprisingly harmless. He told me that he needed time to ¨explore himself and find out about who he is and really grow inside¨ before he gets into another relationship. He asked me, ¨Shall we dance?¨ and shared his theory about why ´jungle girls´ have a bigger sexual appetite. It had to do with the jungle diet, but I feel like I added significantly to his theory, as I am thinking it is due to a) heating, and b) boredom. Must be cold and boring at night in the jungle. There are no discos.

Ate a delicious street sandwich with Percy from my favorite mamita, Rosa.

Danced salsa, cumbia, and white-girl grind with said biologists and other friends at a disco thick with heat and smoke. Sweat gathered in all kinds of places but I persevered.

Karaoked with Fiona, Travis, Percy, and Percy´s cousin.

Went to bed with the morning sun.

This morning Percy, Travis and I ate mamita soup at the Wanchaq market. Why hadn´t I done this before? So delicious, and a hangover cure, I´m sure of it.

Tomorrow I might take little Alejandro to the fair. It seems like the thing to do. He is travieso, but he brings me joy. And the fair will bring him joy. If you could see the squinchy grin he has, you would understand.

Also, throughout the evening I learned some new words in Quechua. Mostly body parts, but my vocabulary is improving. Although I can´t spell them, I know eyes, nose, mouth, feet, hands, and breasts. My recent favorite and most-used words in Spanish are: claro, echate, oyé, cholito/ita, and huevon.

That´s all for now.