Sometimes it Hurts to Ask

Disclaimer: This story is gross.  Gross in the kind of way that’s hilarious to 12 year olds.  You can look elsewhere in this blog for cute animal pictures or my attempts at insight.  Or you can just check out the photos of a nice family hike. 

Have I told you about the poo pool?  During training, we all put a sol into a betting pool and the last one to poop their pants wins the money.  I’m out.  This is how that happened.

Sunday a week ago, my family killed a sheep for pachamanca.  There’s a photo of us enjoying it earlier in the blog.  As the week went on, we ate different parts of the sheep.  We started with the meat and moved on to viscera.  I was conveniently full on the fried intestines day.  We kept eating parts of the sheep, but its head remained on a shelf by the window.  It watched over us and became increasingly leathery, eyeballs sinking in and lips curling over teeth. 

Then the next Sunday, we were served a very busy soup for lunch.  First there was chuno (potatoes left out in frost, then fermented in a well for 6 months.  A staple of sierra cooking that smells worse than it tastes).  Then there was an odd bit of meat sandwiched between a large chunk of bone and dark skin, latticed with fat and willing to fall apart at a vigorous spoon poke.  I looked over at the eyeball in my host father’s soup and gathered that the head was having its hour.  I picked around the skin and skull and ate a few bits of meat.  There were also chickpeas and some token bits of celery.  But there were little white chunks that I couldn’t place.  I ate a few and decided that they weren’t the fat globules that sometimes tread around in our soups, and it wasn’t meat or gristle.  It was tasteless and mushy.  So I made the mistake of asking, “What are the white parts?” 

“Es el cranio del pacho.”  Sheep brains.

Now, I thought that I was becoming a good carnivore.  And I deeply appreciate that my family uses every bit of the animal they killed.  But fermented potato, week-old face, and brain soup was too much for me.  I ate just enough to be polite and filled out my lunch with a luna bar and apple from my supplies. 

If only this was the end, but the pacho took its vengeance on me for my lack of appreciation. 

Before lunch, I had proposed a family Sunday hike up a big hill by our house that I’ve been eyeballing since site visit.  I was really excited to feel fit enough and have an afternoon without sideways rain to go climb it with David, Stephanie, and Elena.   

We set out a bit after lunch.  It’s a steep ascent and we took lots of breaks to look at the scenery and flip over rocks.  About halfway up, I started to have gurgles.  I thought, screw it, I’ve been wanting to do this hike forever and I’m not turning back.

I can’t tell you if it was a mistake or not.  I don’t regret it and it was beautiful and fun, but I left my mark up and down the mountain.  Do you know where you can hide if you have diarrhea in hills of the high pampa? Nowhere.  Do you know what makes good natural TP?  Nothing.  All the plant life is films of moss clinging to rocks and bushy plants determined to resist predation.  Here are photos from the hike.  You can tell I’m a bit pale. 

Carhuamayo looks like a bird from above.

Rumbling and clenching on the way down.

The revenge of the pacho continued for three more days.  Everything I put into my body attempted a violent escape from one portal or the other a little while later.  I spent a good time in bed and have read the Road, most of the Hobbit, watched the King’s Speech, and a season and a half of the Wire.  I also lost the poo pool bet.  To be fair, it was more of a shart than a full deposit, but the underwear went into the trash and I think it was enough to count.  I didn’t follow the sacred Peace Corps saying, “Don’t trust your farts.”

The silver lining of all this is that I think I can use this illness to avoid the dish in the future. 

Sometimes revenge is served hot and with a side of noodles.