Farewells and Fiestas

The day has come: the Herrera house is two men short. Last week, both Jimmy and Tonio left Huánuco to start a new chapter of their journey in the medical field.

Now—there’s a lot to explain with how the Peruvian medical field works, and I’m going to try to do it as briefly as possible, so bear with me folks.

Tonio (left) and Jimmy. 

The majority of health workers in Peru want to work for a government-run health facility. Why? Better pay, better job security and the government gives medical students some kind of tuition break. How do you work for a government health facility? You jump through their hoops, including six years of college.

Jimmy and Tonio are both in the process of finishing up those six years. Jimmy is further along and this year will be his last requirement for the program: completing a one-year term working as an obstetrician. On the other hand, Tonio is working on a one-year internship; afterwards, he has more classes and his one-year work term to complete. Are you lost yet?

Anyway, for these mandatory internships and work-terms, the government can send you anywhere in Peru—the coast, the jungle, the mountains—anywhere.  In Tonio’s case, his placement was partially determined by a test score, and he was a sent to a place a few hours away from Huánuco called Puerto Inca.

In Jimmy’s case, placements were completely random; and with over 300 students looking for placements and less than 200 places, not everybody gets a position. If you get selected, great—if you don’t, you look for something private until you can find something better. Unfortunately, Jimmy didn’t receive a random placement, but went to Iquitos in spite of that and has already found some private work.

A dose of potatoes for papa rellena. 

So—to begin these new adventures, Jimmy left last Tuesday and Tonio left last Thursday. Our goodbyes for our two brothers reflected their personalities. Jimmy is an extroverted, sociable person with a contagious personality. For his goodbye, there were cheers all around, a few tears from the family and a photo shoot in the living room. Tonio, on the other hand is more subtle and calm than Jimmy. For his goodbye, we simply exchanged hugs, well-wishes and bid him farewell. While the goodbyes were different, neither was particularly easy; yet, it’s comforting to know that they’re leaving to tackle exciting new adventures.

With the boys’ absence, it became clear more than just their presence would be missed—they were an essential part of Orlando and Carolina’s morning routine. Carolina is a street vendor that sells papa rellena and a few other dishes. Carolina and Orlando wake up around 4 a.m. every day to peel potatoes, make papa rellena, prepare sauces, cook rice and spaghetti and do a number of other chores around the house (cook meals for the family, feed the chicken and the cuy (guinea pigs), hand wash laundry, etc.) So, in a feeble attempt to help with this list of chores, Katrina and I decided to wake up at 4 a.m. on Friday to see what we could contribute.

Katrina and I with the birthday boy, Antonio! 

The morning began with Katrina, Orlando and I sitting around a large container, peeling the skins off potatoes with spoons. After that, Orlando mashed the potatoes, cleverly using the juicer, while Katrina and I peeled hard-boiled eggs. From there, we formed the mashed potatoes into cylindrical lumps, stuffing pieces of hard-boiled egg and adding spoonfuls of a sauce made with paprika and onions. For our first day, that was as far as our help could go, but it was fun to be in the kitchen to watch Carolina and Orlando perform their magic: making mayonnaise (nobody buys mayonnaise here, everyone makes it), making ají (a spicy sauce made with chili peppers), adding ingredients to make arroz chaufa (Chinese rice), etc.

By the end of the affair, Katrina and I were exhausted (and we didn’t even do the hard work.) And here’s a window into the work ethic of Carolina: she prepares the papa rellena and does chores from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m., sells papa rellena from her street cart from 9:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., does shopping for supplies in the market from 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., gets home around 8 p.m., then heats up dinner for everyone. Her moment of rest during the day is watching a telenovela with Katrina and I from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., then she goes to bed to prepare to do it all over again. She does this six days a week, only resting on Sundays. You won’t find many that work harder than Carolina.

The band for Antonio's birthday party. 

And here is why this blog post is giant: because the goodbyes and our papa rellena experiment were just the prequel to the weekend ahead of us. Saturday was a huge day, because it was Grandpa Antonio’s birthday. I asked various people how old Grandpa Antonio was and I always got the answer, “Uhhh, eighty-something.” So, happy eighty-something birthday, Antonio!

Now—we’ve seen our fair share of birthday parties in Peru, including the grand celebration we had for Aunt Chachi’s 50^th birthday—but I’m going to go ahead and say that Grandpa Antonio’s birthday celebration takes the cake. There were at least 35 people there and the occasion called for Rollen, Orlando’s brother, to kill one of his big pigs for us to eat. We had chicarron, which is essentially fried pork, and it was one of the best things I’ve eaten during my year in Peru. Simply fantastic.

Lots of Antonio's grandchildren at his party! 

After stuffing ourselves full of chicarron, the music and the dancing began. For the really big parties in Peru, it’s common practice to hire a band. The bands require three types of payment: money, food and beverage. No beer? No band. The family provided all the required and the band played from about 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. And the family danced the entire time (which basically meant someone grabbed Katrina and I’s hands and WE danced the entire time.) Huánuco is known for a type of music called wino and I’m not going to try to describe it, other than saying it’s distinct and you should Google it. There was also the Peruvian version of drinking, where there is a bottle of beer and small cup, and everyone passes around the beer and small cup, filling the cup up with about a shot of beer, drinking it, then passes it. The final effect, after the bottled slowly winds around the crowd, is that nobody gets intoxicated, but everyone gets a little bloated.

With Noel and Cristian at Antonio's party. 

After the band left, the party wound down, but continued. About 10 people, including Katrina and myself, pulled chairs into a circle, bundled up against the night air and chatted until 10 p.m. when Victor had to get his family home. As much as I despise dancing, the day was wonderful; it’s the most time we’ve ever spent with the extended family in Huánuco, and everyone here has their unique personality and sense of humor. I especially love watching the older women put everyone else to shame on the dance floor, stomping and twisting in complicated but natural patterns.

The weekend wound down on Sunday with our Mother’s Day celebration. About 15 members of Orlando’s extended family trekked to nearby park to eat, relax and celebrate the hard-working mothers. We made the journey there in the back of Rollen’s truck, which was a bumpy, yet entertaining experience. After hours of volleyball, chatting and relay races, we began losing daylight and headed back to Huancachupa.

All of the weekend excitement has overflowed into this week—yesterday we spent the day with Orgullio (Orlando’s uncle) and his friend Victor, roaming around some ruins called the Incan Crown and today we’re taking Eynor and Fabrizio to the pool; however, since this post is already gigantic, you’ll have to wait until next week to hear about that. Until then!