Back to Reality...Or Something Like It

I knew I was officially home from my reconnect vacation when I walked in my front door sunday night to all 10 of my host family members crammed in our little living room all watching my host dad and the screaming baby. The baby was sick, again. So the family has gathered round to watch it be "cleansed". Even though my host family is poor and not well educated, I like to think that they are a bit more intellegant than the average peruvian living under similar conditions. I was amazed that my host mom new that the Alps were the mountain range that ran Germany because most Peruvians can`t find their own country on a map. True story.

But my pride for my host families mental superiority was hurt after witnessing this ritual they did with the baby. When I walked in the door, my host dad was rubbing newspaper, rather aggresively, all over the baby`s body. Naturally the baby was screaming from it`s displeasure, but my host dad continued to do this for a good 5 minuets, going over the same area multiple times and paying special attention to her head and face. After he was done, he pulled out a liter and, set the newpaper on fire and dropped it on the ground for it to burn. As ash rained down on my newly washed white sweater, the family just watched the newspaper burn while nodding in agreeance that "there was a lot of air". I could pretty much guess the belief my family had about why they had done this to the sick baby, but I still had to ask. Apparently, by rubbing the newspaper all over the body, it takes away all the "sick air" and you could tell the baby was really sick by how quickly the newspaper burned.

I could have just left it at that, but I had to pry more. I asked them if the simple task of rubbing the newspaper over the body takes away all the air, why then, was it necessary to burn the newspaper? There response: burning the newspaper is the only way to kill the bad air. Okay, why then was it necessary to burn it in the house and get everything all ashy? So the burning newspaper doesn´t blow away, apparently that`s really bad. I decided to leave it at that. There are a lot of crazy beliefs in Peru, especially about sickness. There is one famous "cure all" many peruvians believe in where you pass a guine pig over a sick person, then kill the ginue pig and cut it open and POOF. What ever ailment the person had been suffering from transfers to the ginue pig and the person is cured. Burning newspaper I can handle, but if I walk into the house and they are sacrificing animals in the living room, I`m outta there.