Homecoming

Coming back to Peru feels like coming back home and I am grateful to the fates for that. I went to the store last night to buy Gatorade and Tylenol to feed my nasty cold where the shopkeeper called me Cholita about 47 times. I was thrilled. I usually get Gringa which means white girl rather than Chola as Chola describes someone who looks Peruvian, someone with long straight hair and dark olive skin. Peruvians use Chola as a term of endearment but Ecuadorans sometimes use it as an insult against Peruvians, kind of a racial slur. As a foreigner I never use it so as not to be misunderstood and offend. This lady was clearly not calling me names and I got to feel like I blend at least a little; my giant foreign gringa status is shrinking ever so slightly. It's the little things.

Coming back to Peru should be shocking, but somehow it's not that big of a deal to go from Targets, 40⁰ F weather, my mom's bizarre affection for gold lamé Christmas decorations, and introducing my dear friends from the Big Apple to the Three Cow Ranch to sitting with my laptop at the fancy hotel in Piura blogging in 40⁰ C weather. It's even the same time here as in Texas for half of the year and only an hour different in the other half. It will likely be more disquieting when I get to my house, but as I'm quivering with fever I've decided to heal in the big sweaty city before I go to my tin oven dust bowl to be entertained by the very neighborly Pedro and Dennis, ages 4 and 6 respectively. I can't wait to see Scooby-doo! (He's my cat.)

I hadn't realized just how much I missed live music, or at least live music that isn't cumbia run mostly on synthesizers, until I got to Austin. Back at home in the "Live Music Capital of the World" I was a fiend. I was playing with the car radio like I had an analog tick. I went to see Live Oak Decline play at HiLo as well as Jon Dee Graham and Dale Watson and his Lone Stars play on New Year's Eve at the Continental Club. My citified friends from New York, Toronto and Los Angeles tolerated my love of country or at least Austin Country and as far as I can tell Las Ladies had a fabulous time taking in the sights and sounds at The Continental. We also ate fancy Tex-Mex at Vivo, which seems like an oxymoron but was delectable. Fancy I tell you, as in there was valet parking. Don't worry. I wasn't totally yuppie-fied, although that would be easy to do in Austin. I also munched nostalgically on a plate of gorditas at my favorite taco place on Oltorf and S. 1st with a name that I can't ever remember.

Now it's back to the grind, ceviche, and my bike. There are summer camps to plan and recycling separation centers to fund and front porches to sit on.