Mad Skillz (and how I am without)

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A typical day for me at Los Martincitos goes like this: We arrive around 8:30AM; greet the abuelos and talk to them for a few minutes; serve breakfast; wash and dry all the breakfast dishes; help the cooks prepare lunch, participate in activities with the abuelos (like games, dancing, religious services, arts and crafts, exercises, etc.); serve lunch; wash and dry all the lunch dishes; and then around 12:45PM we leave to go home.

I believe previous entries have firmly established that I lack certain artistic and linguistic skills that would make this job easier, so I wont go into them any further here. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg. With each passing day, I discover yet even more things that I am unable to do. Its enough to make this American girl feel like an utterly useles member of society--remove me from my home country, and suddenly "the ability to sit in front of a computer and check her email all day long" doesnt seem like such a marketable skill anymore.

At Los Martincitos, the more able abuelos are encouraged to help the volunteers with the daily work--chopping vegetables for lunch, washing dishes, etc. Interestingly enough, it is most often the women (abuelas) who offer to help. This is most definitely because the majority of people at the center are women; however, Im certain the domestic nature of the work also has something to do with it (note the very relevant albeit not at all practical application of my Womens Studies degree here). Regardless of the gendered implications of the work at hand, one thing is glaringly obvious: these old ladies, who have been doing this stuff for there own families for years and years and more years, are running circles around me. Just yesterday, one politely but firmly shoved me aside from the dish tub because I apparently was washing too slowly.

I was then reassigned to the kitchen to help the cooks prepare the soup de jour -- chicken feet soup. At last, I felt confident that my culinary skills would come in handy and I would finally be of use to the human race. And so I grabbed a knife eager to assist. I was then handed a bushel of onions and asked to dice them. Has anyone out there every chopped up a BUSHEL of onions into tiny pieces???? Oh my god, I was crying so hard that I had to take a break midway though to towel off in the bathroom and rehydrate. Of course, the kitchen staff thought that it was SOOOOOO FUNNY that the American "estaba llorando" (was crying) and so they called in the head of the center and some of the abuelos to have a look and they hollered with laughter. (Apparently, my knife skillz were so legendary that when I got into the car to go home, Mario (the driver) asked me if I was going to cry again.)

Finally, the knife was taken away from me and I was shown into a room where an abuela sat at a large table covered with something that looked like extra large peapods. Oh yes, it was time to shell beans, and lest you think that I could not possibly fail here, rest assured that I am possibly the slowest sheller in the history of Los Martincitos. They had to recruit an extra abuelo (A guy this time! A guy was better than me!) to help us so that we could finish in time before lunch.

I mean, really, could I be worse at this? A good attitude can only get you so far, and I cant help but wondering if the abuelos are looking to shed my dead weight. I had no idea until this experience that I was so incredibly useless. Is it possible to be fired from volunteer work? I believe I am on my way.

I posted a few of my photos from Plaza de Armas in Lima here. Enjoy!

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