Systems failure

This weekend can accurately be described as a systems failure, on multiple accounts. It all started on Friday morning, when I got up extra early to make a (supposedly) 8am meeting out in the campo. When at 6:30am I groggily opened the door to my host grandparents' room, which connects to the bathroom, I was greeted by the panic-inducing sight of 2.5 inches of water covering the entire floor, and more gushing out every second from the wide-open sink faucet. I flipped out, woke my host mom up, then ran back and waded through our newly made lake to shut off the water.

Apparently, this was not the first time this had happened. As water service in my town usually shuts off around 8pm every night, it seems that someone had accidentally left the faucet open the night before. Thus the resulting flood once the water came back on in the wee hours of the morning. My host mom, however, was unfazed, and cheerily began sweeping out all the water with a broom - our indoor patio plants got a nice watering.

I, preoccupied with being on time for my meeting, proceeded to go downstairs to the other bathroom to brush my teeth. It didn't seem like much water had leaked down from upstairs, as there were only a few drops on the floor, and honestly at 6:30am I didn't really stop to think about the situation. So imagine my surprise when, midway through brushing my teeth, the lightbulb above me explodes into a hundred pieces! Luckily I wasn't hurt at all, but it was a heart-racing start to the day to say the least.

Unfortunately, the water and electric systems were not the only ones that failed on Friday. Late that night, my immune system also failed when I came down with yet another food-induced stomach illness - my third in three weeks, hooray. I'm pretty sure the culprit this time was a bowl of chicken broth/soup that I was forced to eat while waiting for my meeting to begin that morning. "Forced" may sound like a strong word, but in Peruvian culture it is unthinkably rude to refuse when someone offers you food they've cooked, so you literally must finish whatever is put in front of you. Even if you are a gringa who has already eaten one breakfast that morning and who knows there's a pretty good chance that that food is going to make you wish you were dead twelve hours later.

So, due to said chicken broth, I am writing this from my bed in Cajabamba, instead of from the regional meeting in Cajamarca that I was supposed to attend this weekend with all the other volunteers from our department. It's definitely a bummer to have to miss out on spending time with the group, but when systems fail there's just not much you can do.