Ah ha! I´m tired.

So, If being Peruvian was a job, I´m on intership right now. Yesterday Nilda, yeah I messed that up for almost a week, Nilda asked me if I would like to help since their family is so busy right now preparing for all the festivities. Actually I should start a little earlier, so yesterday I was walking around, trying to find a place to nap in the sun and passed by San Isidro where they were butchering bulls for the festivities, about 10 middle age men, drinking chicha and killing cows. Anyways, they were yelling that I should come down and watch since they were getting another bull in position to kill, I said no thanks and they tried to tempt me with chicha. ¨we have chicha, there is chicha¨etc... which

Peru Travel Tip #1
Chicha is NOT a selling point.
If you are not in the know, chicha is a alcoholic beverage made from fermented corn. Sometimes they add strawberries to it, which is definately the better kind, but often times there are chunks and stringy bits, I don´t really like to think about it, just drink quickly and it will all be over soon. Also it´s often times quite strong, two cups and you are going to start to get tired and drunk. Another thought, I think chicha is what I imagine drinking when I´m backstrap weaving in hell.

anyways, I blew them off since this didn´t seem like my kind of party. I return to the hostel where Nilda tells me almost immediately that we are going to go help clean cow parts, so I had to come back 10 minutes after I rejected their offer, AWKWARD. Okay so all the cows were all dead when we got there and we basically chilled and drank chicha while watching them cut and clean the bulls and occasionally pretend the esophagus and spinal cord was a microphone. I was put on baby watching duty for awhile which made me extremely nervous, but they clearly thought was amusing. When we walked over to the house to cook, I was still carrying the baby and when who I believe was the mother saw me, she rushed over to take the kid. I think I would usually would be offended at how fast she took her, but I was relieved to not have to worry about dropping the baby anymore, it was very much a ¨who gave the gringa the baby situation¨.
So then I spent about and hour and a half cutting fresh fresh bull liver. While I will never be a carnicera I did start to get the hang of it. I wish I had a picture because when I was done I had so much congealed blood on my hands and wrists, and in spots it was almost a quarter of an inch thick. It became rather scaly as it dried and I had to pick pieces off in order to continue cutting, and you´re welcome for the imagery.
Then we cut about a gajillion onions. That was terrible and it took several washes and hours to remove the smell of onions from my skin, or maybe I still smell like onions and just have become accustomed to the smell, that seems more likely. It had become freezing by then so I moved into the smokey den of the kitchen and hung out with all the women cooking, there were cuys all over the floor and dirt walls and so much smoke but at least cooking with an fire meant that it was warm. They feed me boiled cow brains and told me what it was after I had eaten it, it was kind of how I imagined cow brains... squishy. I spent a couple hours there cutting tomatos and occasionally explaining who I am and why I´m sitting in the kitchen and then was served a huge bowl of dinner which was rice, a salad made with the onions I had cut, a potato and a huge piece of liver that I had probably just cut as well since the cut looked a little... special, but whatever it all tastes the same.
Later I went back to the casa where Nilda was adorning parts of the traje, she asked me to paint some of the hats for panaderias and I was doing well until the paint dripped onto part of the trim, I tried to save it but fail! I felt soooo bad, like sooooo bad, but Nilda insisted it was okay and that they would just put something over the paint splotch (this morning I sewed a bead flower thing on, it´s okay I guess, but still feeling guilty). This wore me down, I´m back on coffee as I help out, walking here, there doing this and that, not sleeping well, but it´s been really fun.
Today I´m expecting more of the same, at noon I think we are going to cook again, so yes I am an intern of Peru, give me your children, dead animals and hats, I will try my best. Sorry for any paint drips.