June 13: Guinea Pig Time!

Yesterday, I had two types of guinea pig experiences: one metaphorical, one literal. And to be clear, the metaphorical one refers to one of the American uses of guinea pigs--for scientific testing--not to the Peruvian use, as a main entree. No one tried to eat me. 

I'll start with the metaphorical experience. I now have three other girls from Maximo Nivel working with me at the clinic, one of whom, Lexi, also now lives with me. This is good! I have company at the clinic and traveling to and from, which is great! Also, there are more "guinea pigs" at the clinic, so there are beginning to be a greater variety of things for me to do. For instance, today, we had the chance to help with admittance of patients by finding their records and taking their weights and blood pressures, and I had the opportunity to further get to know one of the nurses.

To be honest, yesterday was a bit of a bad day: I was in the office doing paperwork for over five hours straight and I had a sore throat. It was hard to be optimistic about the internship and the six more weeks I'll spend working there. One of the nurses has been hard to work with, partially because of the language barrier, but mostly because her mind moves a million kilometers per hour, so it is hard to receive clear directions. Thus, at the end of the day, I think we were all a bit frustrated.

But that same nurse was the one I had the chance to get to know better today. Maybe she was in a better mood, or relieved that the end of the paperwork was in sight (I know I was!), but she really is a caring, smart, energetic woman. So much so, it was almost fun finishing up the papers.

And now onto the literal guinea pig experience.

To complete my sort-of bad day yesterday, I arrived home and was reminded that we were having a Cuscanean specialty for dinner. Having seen them preparing the guinea pigs (cuy) the previous day, I knew what was in store. Sure enough, on the kitchen table was a bowl of guinea pig parts--heads, ribs, legs, everything. Fortunately, after being home for a little while, I heard the doorbell ring, followed by the delicious smell of roasted chicken and the call that dinner was ready. To my delightful surprise, I was served a plate of gorgeous chicken a la brasa, fried potatoes, and vegetables--also a traditional Cuscanean dish. Along with that, I was served mere samples of cuy along with fish eggs and several other ingredients that go into the traditional dish for Corpus Cristi (which is this Thursday). The chicken was great! The potatoes were good. The vegetables were great! The cuy was...salty, chewy...like really tough beef jerky. And the fish eggs were very crunchy and fishy.

And thus, those are my guinea pig experiences. The end. Thank you for reading!