last night

[harkleroad]

well, yesterday afternoon really, i went and sat in the park with my friend Raquel and helped her make necklaces and we tried communicating with our dictionaries. it was hard but lots of fun. you guys know all that hemp jewerly people make for fun in the states? well turns out you could live off it if you wanted to in peru. not the easiest life, but the hippies, who are called artistanos here, love it. they sit all day in the sun or shade chillin, smokin joints, playing music, and makin jewerly. i have fallen into a group of them and they have all becomne really good friends in just a few days. raquel is 18 and from lima origionally, i dont know what exactly she is doing in ayacucho. but the cool thing is after semana santa she is going back to lima, and i am most likely going to travel with her and then catch a flight to the states. ok where was i? so after dinner i met them back in the plaza and we sat around drinking pisco shots and chewing coca leaves while some played drums and guitar and shit and we even passed around a joint but i was like wtf? at first cause there was a political rally on the other side of the square with lots of cops! but i didnt have anything on me and they werent worried at all. oh yeah i forgot to say earlier when i was sitting with raquel in the park a gringa and peruvian guy came up and started talking to raquel's friends and it turns out they just got in that morning from lima and heard there were artisanos around ayacucho and were going to be staying til after semana santa. the girl came over and started talking to me in english! turns out she is 25, from australia, and was in cuzco doing a volunteer project as well. her friend took her to get her hair dreaded for her birthday and thats how she met her boyfriend who was with her...i was like alright, fuckin tight. so we chatted for awhile about how volunteer organizations are pretty fucked up in the long run. her's wouldnt let her stay in her placement after her tme was up, even though she was staying somewhere else in the city. they said something like it would take away from the others or something? idno, but its fucked up if you wanna help for free, which is what you wanted to do, but someone says you cant because you have to pay or some shit. and like mine, CCS is great, but they definately made ayacucho sound more rural than it is, and i dont need people to cook for me and make my bed every day. when everyone else is flipping through the tv to see if they can catch a movie with subtitles or some shit, i am helping the cooks set the table and fill the water glasses and shit. its definately more of them 'taking care' of us than i need and i dont really feel comfortable with how much they are concerned if you are 'happy in your placement'. idno. i have no room to complain. why would i complain when i am having such an amazing time. i need to figure out my head. its like a puzzle with missing pieces. if i cant solve it how the hell is anyone supposed to relate to me? i confuse myself. and i degress. so after chilling for awhile last night in the square we go to this little reggage bar that i right away loved. it was actually in a house and i think they just remodled it by putting in a small bar and some wood benched and some log stumps for seats a big mural of bob marley stares at you from the back wall and there is groovy lights and tye dye everywhere. haha. it was pretty chill. more pisco. more joints. more music. more dancing and laughing and me not understanding almost anything that is being said to me. raquel is funny because i can sense that she sort of looks out for me without letting me know it. she was portective of me last night and i appreciated it because even though there we a lot of 'chevreys' which are really good friends, even though i misspelled it, there were some sketchy looking dudes as well. i feel like a wuss because i went home early because i knew i had to work in the morning and was thinking about that. sucks i have to work at 8 every morning because i wanted to stay out later but on the weekend, i definately will. raquel and a friend walked me half way home and i told them i'd be okay the rest. i ran home and fell right asleep. today i am going to return a sweater roberto let me borrow because i was un poco frio yesterday afternoon. tonight i dont know what i will be doing but im sure it will be interesting! hasta luego.

post script. who could be sad in such a beautiful world? its such a fucking beautiful world out there. aggghhh. fucking states. fucking highways. i dont want to come back to all the drama of even a small city like fort walton. i have no clue what i am talking about but i just....welp. nope. i just dont know. ha.