Ode to community living

I am sharing a little casa of joy with fellow volunteers during my month in Ayacucho. We have a messy, sunny courtyard, a temperamental gas stove and a store above us. But that definitely doesn't suffice to understand this special house. A few of the highlights:

- There is a public pay phone tacked onto the wall on the street-side of my ground-floor bedroom. Wait, let me repeat that: there is an incessantly-used phone less than three metres from my bed. Every morning, I wake up to its charming ring. The typical suspect is a man who adores yelling in Quechua at 7 in the morning. Of course, he only has piles of 10 cent coins, so a lovely cling-cling chimes in to his Quechuan yells. Granted, I'm exaggerating a little-- but not much. I know half the neighborhood gossip thanks to the phone though, which is a definite perk.



Call me on my pay phone.

- We have a "family" meal every night at 8, on the large outside table under which our two dogs snooze. It's always at least quadrilingual, mostly amusing and often delicious.

- Washing my hair is now equivalent to seeing the world upside down. As the outside shower's water seems to emerge from invisible glaciers, I can't bear to shampoo my hair there. Therefore, the sink provides me with a welcome change of vision and a possibly helpful, possibly harmful backstretch.

Despite its incongruities, life in the casa is lively, welcoming and varied.