Paper or plastic?

Sometimes Ghanaians and Canadians don't understand each other. Sometimes it's frustrating. Sometimes it's just plain hilarious.

Ethel planned to cook supper for our host family one night. When we mentioned it to Alison she suggested that we walk to Sobey's to get any ingredients we needed that evening, since we were expecting a hurricane the next day and would likely have to walk through some pretty nasty rain and wind to get our chicken and veggies if we waited until the next day. So Ethel and I walked to Sobey's, picking up LJ, who was waiting outside for her host and counterpart to get home, on the way. I realized too late that I had forgotten to bring a cloth grocery bag, but all we had to get was some chicken, tomatoes and a green pepper... easy enough to carry home. The cashier had loaded our goods into a plastic bag before the little enviro-switch in my brain flicked on, so I started to take the food back out. The way Ethel reacted to my attempt to pass her a styrofoam flat of chicken, you would have thought I was handing her a lit stick of dynamite. "Oooh!" she squealed as she stepped back and waved her hands. I was flummoxed (honestly that is just the most accurate word I could think of to describe it)... she had picked the chicken out of the cooler earlier, so it wasn't that she was afraid to touch it. So what was the problem?   I asked. "It's so transparent! It's so transparent!" What? What does that mean?? Well, let me tell you. Apparently, in Ghana, you look like a total psycho if you carry your groceries down the street  without a bag or "a nice wrapper".  The best reason why this is that I could get out of Ethel and LJ was, "It just seems strange."
"But why??" I asked in vain. I just had to laugh and laugh, more at Ethel and LJ's horror than the actual faux pas. After assurances that we would not be judged for it and that I would carry the groceries to save them the disgrace of carrying some produce and poultry down the street, we managed to leave without a plastic bag!

Note to self: bring a reusable shopping bag along in Ghana, or be labelled a freak by local townspeople.

flum·mox

   /ˈflʌməks/ Show Spelled[fluhm-uhks]

verb (used with object) Informal .

to bewilder; confound; confuse, startle.

Chicken Feet and Hospitality

On Thursday I visited Alberto and Teresa Vera Flores. They are the parents of my high school spanish teacher´s husband.

It took me twenty minutes to walk from Hostal Magico to their house in Calle Pavitos. The walk took me through a crowded, bustling area where I was the only foreigner in sight. Actually, there aren´t a ton of tourists on my usual walks either, but you could tell that this was a part of Cusco for the people of Cusco. A curious thing about shops here is that they tend to be grouped together by what they sell. You will walk past four or five mattress stores in a row, with all the exact same things displayed on their doors. About half a dozen party shops surround the Mega (supermarket). There are a lot of fried chicken restaurants near the Santa Clara arch... there are a lot of whole, plucked chickens (feet and all) displayed on a certain block on the way to the Vera Flores´place. They are an awkward yellow colour (the chickens, not the Vera Flores´).

Alberto and Teresa welcomed me so warmly. They asked me all about my stay in Cusco and wasted no time letting me know that I should treat their house as my own. We enjoyed looking at the photos of Zoila and the family that Joanna and Lucho Vera Flores had sent with me.  Maria Teresa, their daughter, answered my questions on how I should go about plannng my Machu Picchu excursion and made me fresh papaya juice. They were also very concerned for my safety, suggesting an alternate route to walk to their house. 5-year old Analy showed me her drawings. The Vera Flores have taken Analy in because her widowed mother can´t support her 6 children. She is a sweet little thing and not shy, that´s for sure. Though she was eager to chat with me I had trouble understanding her, because until recently she lived in the mountains and only spoke Quechua. I talked to her while Alberto and Teresa prepared lunch. She taught me to say "snake" in Quechua; matchakweiy. At lunch, I also met Tio Ivan and Maria José, Maria Teresa´s daughter. Lunch was one of, if not the best meal I have had in Peru so far. Again concerned for my safety, Señora Teresa was scandalized that I had eaten at San Pedro market the day before and told me I should always come over to eat at her house instead. We started with soup, which Peruvians eat almost every day. Then we had a salad of avocado, tomoato and onion, which we ate as sandwiches on the yummy, flattened little oval breads which you can buy on street corners. The main dish was a massive plate of starch; rice, tamale (corn meal) and a delicious Inca dish made of yellow potatoes whose name escapes me. Top it off with frehly made limonata and wonderful company and you have a winning meal.  I am so glad to have met the Vera Flores family and that we were able to understand each other nearly perfectly. There was no awkwardness and I did indeed feel right at home, as they said I should. I think one of the best signs that you know a language well is that you can understand and make jokes... which I did! Tio Ivan explained this pun to me:

If you say in spanish, "Tiene un ojo verde y el otro a su lado," it means "He has a green eye and the other is beside it." The pun is that "a su lado" sounds like "azulado" which means "blue". So you could be saying that someone has one blue eye and one green!

 The Vera Flores´ have invited me to stay with them, so I will probably move to their house soon. I mean it when I say that they are some of the sweetest, most generous people I have ever met.

With love,
Hoolia