And other tales of today!

Long story short, he is not bringing home a wife. Anticlimactic I know. That doesn’t change the we had a nice discussion about it. That doesn’t change the fact that we weighed the pros and cons. We may be ignorant because we could not think of very many cons. To paint the scene, the kitchen was understaffed today. Our teacher that we work with told us we’d need to help in the kitchen for an hour or so. In Peruvian time that meant around four hours or so. When I was younger in life, I had a dream. A specfic dream. A dream that I realized I may not be cut out for today. I was going to move to New York and become a dishwasher. I was going to enrich myself with culture and the arts while meagerly surviving on a tiny salary. It was going to be a glorious adventure that I would embark on with a great friend. Today. Today, I learned that I probably don’t have the chops to be a quality dishwasher. Did I completely rock an apron and some cute pink dishwashing gloves? Of course I did. But what’s more impressive than my dishwashing ability is my ability to peel fruits. A fruit you say, “How simple a task that must be.” Believe me friend, maybe it is an easy task, maybe not everyone struggles with papayas to the likes that I did, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Okay, I did see it. From the lady that showed me and from the guy I volunteer with. Did they both thwart my efforts to be the best papaya peeler in all the land? Yes. Handily. Though I gave it my steadfast all. It was a shopping cart of papayas okay. An entire shopping cart! That’s a lot of papayas. They get slippery. That cutting board with all the juice? It’s hard to consistently cut on there. I can’t help I’m used to normal peelers and not giant knives that I’m handed! Did I struggle on even cutting a peach too? Sure, maybe a little bit. It was like over a hundred peaches. Did the woman recommend that we cut towards our body because it’s faster? Of course she did. Is there a logic to that? I have no idea! Did I feel like the only thing saving me from stabbing myself was the thick apron? Of course.

But onto my roommate and a Peruvian wife. The important issue. What everyone really is reading this for. I must say, though I am trying to grow a beard by the day here in Peru I think my lack of facial hair is hurting my chances with the kitchen cooks here where I volunteer. Or maybe my lack of tattoos all over. How else could one explain the attention heaved onto my fellow volunteer. Sure, he’s been there for seven works. Sure, he knows some Spanish and actually has a way to communicate with them. Sure, he’s leaving this week and they know that so it makes sense why they might ask him for his Facebook information. Sure, he may dance better to salsa music and be a better peeler on a variety of things. I can only hope by the end of my stay that I have offers for a woman to come back to the Estados Unidos and be either my wife or maid. He’s had both! Not even a maid, a chef and a maid. Two for the price of one. He seems reluctant to do so but ultimately appears to be declining their offers. He says the offers were tongue in cheek and I don’t doubt it, but he also thinks that if he seriously offered it they would be hard pressed to say no. It is true, their new life would have a myriad of new opportunities and better social justice among other things. What I’m trying to say is that as of right now no opportunities have been presented to me. However, if I find a nice sweet girl who knows her way around a kitchen and hasn’t already started a family without me that I’d probably consider it. I’m joking of course. I think. So it goes.