Friday, March 9, 2007

Part four, Jessie + I try and find a post office.

The table was rectangular and wooden and the people sitting around it were smiling. Their white teeth contrasted brightly with the dark stone walls and the dim light.

As the little woman handed me a large plastic cup full of foggy yellow chicha, we moved to our seats. I sipped a little as I sat and Jessie muttered to me under her breath,

"How is it?"

"It's dis-gus-ting."

I replied, singing it softly between my polite smiling teeth. She replied, equally succinctly,

"Here's to wildly violent diarrhea..."

And then took her own sip. The man sitting directly across from Jessie and in front of a stone wall that was wallpapered with poster calenders started talking to us in Spanish. The poster calenders were bright and colorful and, despite the somewhat scantily clad women featured on most of them, made the dark small room seem quite cheerful.

_____ was very interested in us. He was very proudly Quechua and motioned to everyone around the table saying that they were all Quechua, and that Quechua is a much happier language than Spanish.

"When you say something in Quechua, you want to smile." Jessie translated for me.

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