Peru is loud.

I often worry that this blog is just an outlet for me whining about things that frustrate me in Peru, and I think I should make an effort to inject more positivity (is “positivity” really not a word? Spell check has opened my eyes yet again) so that you, the reader, gets a well-rounded impression of what it’s like to be Alyssa in Peru. I can’t guarantee where my mood this particular morning will take this entry, though, so I will at least start with a list of culturally and economically neutral things I enjoy.

Baby goats

Interesting rock formations

Dessert

A reasonable amount of sneezing

Bodies of water

Naps after breakfast

Old people

There. Let it never be said I overindulge my rage ALL the time.

But you know what I really don’t like, as it turns out? Barnyard animals. As American children, we’re taught to have a certain reverence for barnyard animals. After all, they make very mimicable noises, and their names use letters of the alphabet, which are very useful to learn. And since most of America lives in the suburbs, children never have to face certain truths about barnyard animals, such as:

Pigs are terrifying.

The only thing more terrifying than a pig is a cow.

Roosters have no redeeming qualities.

I’m just speaking the truth.

I have a particular wrath for roosters. David Sedaris says one of his favorite ways to break the ice when in a new country is to ask people, “What sound do roosters make in this country?” It’s a great question, because everyone knows the answer, and few have considered the fact that their answer is not the universally correct one. According to Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, in Germany, the answer is “Kik-a-riki,” in Greece, “Kiri-a-kee,” and in France, “Coco-rico.” The U.S. is virtually the only country where the answer is “Cock-a-doodle-doo” or anything like it. I think the answer in Peru is “Ki-kiri-ki-ki.” Or, at least it is for most people. I have come to believe that roosters communicate specifically to me in “I-am GOING-to GET-YOUUUUU”s.

I’ve been living with anywhere between five and ten roosters in my backyard for the past seven months, and I can report having only one mildly pleasant encounter with one. The rooster, like most roosters in rural Peru, was tied with rope by one ankle to a fixed object, in this case, the leg of a wooden bench. It, like most roosters in rural Peru, was displeased with this arrangement. It had apparently been jumping up and down, trying to free itself, when it flew a little too close to the sun, got the rope slung all the way around the arm of the bench, and when I found it, had been helplessly hanging upside-down by one leg for undetermined length of time. The predicament was day-improving for one of us. In case I’m not telling it right, here is an illustration.

I, of course, laughed, told the rooster, “Let it never be said I’ve done nothing for your species,” and grounded him. He then made some threats, told me was going to get me, whatev, I’ve heard that before. I’ve heard that every day starting at 3:30 a.m. for the past seven months, to be exact.

Today’s main rooster-related interaction was much less pleasant. Some kid came to the house after Flor and Humberto had left for the morning at around 8, tied a rooster to the table in the living room (next door to my room), and left. Um, what? One of the very basic, non-negotiable truths of the world is that roosters have no place in enclosed spaces which humans also inhabit. Ever. For any length of time. All joking aside, the noise is absolutely intolerable. Torn from my pleasant morning of lying in bed, reading some Gaiman, and treating these wicked sniffles I seem to have come down with, I searched the house for an explanation. There was none, or at least no one there to provide me with one. Just as I left a scathing post-it on their door and congratulated myself on my conjugation of “MUÉVANLO,” the kid came back. I asked him if it was his rooster, he said yes. I told him to move it, he said he only needed to have it there for “un ratito.” Man, I hate that phrase 98% of the time. I told him it was “volviéndome loca,” reiterated that it was my house, and offered him the entire world, with the exception of the room adjacent to mine, in which to put his rooster. He looked confused and left to tie the rooster to the leg of the bench in the backyard. (Sucker.)

This was sort of strike three with obnoxious things happening in my house as of the past few days. Yesterday morning at 5:40, someone knocked on my door, finding it a perfectly reasonable hour to ask me where Humberto’s brother was. Last night at 11 o’clock (if that doesn’t sound late, consider the fact that every morning between 6 and 6:30, a loudspeaker comes on to inform the town who is selling yucca, having a meeting, or getting a phone call), Flor knocked on my door to ask me to let her in, and then expected me to search for her keys in the living room. I am very fussy about my sleep, especially when I am not at 100% health-wise. I fell apart some this morning, amidst the sound of firecrackers of unexplained origin and very loud huayno music. I went to Rachel’s house under the premise of needing to borrow some Sudafed, and then found myself crying uncontrollably to her host mom over organic coffee and homemade cheese. That’s another one of the absolute truisms in my world: roosters shouldn’t be indoors, cows are terrifying, and sometimes you just need a Mom. And if your Mom is a continent away, I’m sure there are lots of Moms where you live, too. In the case of Teo, she is the entire town’s Mom, and yet, when she moms you, you feel totally, individually, taken care of. It’s amazing. Teo gave me a hug, offered me a room at the house for whenever I needed, and fried me a tortilla, even though she was saving them for her son, who recently moved away for college and can’t find good tortillas in the city.

I have this basic aversion to being in a bad mood, like an immediate guilt that I’m sucking the universe’s energy or something. As soon as I finished crying, I helped a little boy with a sick Mom carry the breakfast Teo made his family back to his house, told Teo her tortillas are the best thing in the world (which is true), and, back at my own house, offered to take a message for Humberto from a woman who was looking to buy…a rooster. Written out, those really look like things I should do all the time, not just when I’m in a self-redeeming tizzy, but you know how these things go. Sometimes that’s just not how the rooster’s hanging.