Dietary and cultural "adjustments"

During my first weekend here the Arrascue's took me to see both sets of grandmothers and aunts.  In Latin American cultures families stick together.  Aunts and grandmothers and other family members my live together and are visited regularly.  They do a good job of feeding the rest of the family and other visitors.

I can't seem to get enough Peruvian coffee and am drinking it at all opportunitiesSo I had a few cups with "lunch" which is at 9:30PM over at grandmothers house
This prevented me  from getting to sleep until something like 4 AM.  Of course this means that I overslept my "combi" pick-up time.  This is my ride to school in the morning that was pre-arranged. Eliana, my adoptive mother, made arrangements with the combi because she is an insider and very thoughtful about my needs and level of comfort.  So, I totally overslept and the combi is on the street honking its horn, this is what they do.  I'm trying to put my pants on and....well.....I have an "accident" as a result of eating lots of new, uncooked, rich, forgein food.  This is not a big problem, but it required a clean up and a change of clothes.  All the while the combi is honking its horn and my family members are yelling for me. It was a....moment....but it seemed to last for a long time.

This results in the combi driver being highly stressed because she has many other pick-ups to attend to.  The van is filled with school kids all going to the first day of school.  Well the situation is kind of stressed since we are late and everyone knows it.  Their is a range of ages, mostly gradeshcool.  Next thing I know one of the students vomits on himself and then partially in a plastic bag. ( At least I wasn't the only one with a gastrointestinal upset.)  The combi driver is at the ready with cleaning materials and is actually really good about dealing with this.  All the while she was taking calls on two cell phones and driving on a interstate-ish road, honking the horn.  She is actually passing the two phones back and forth with her assistant, the "cobradron".  The horn thing is hilarious because since everyone is doing it nobody listens to anyone else.  It's like subatomic particles annihilating one another and becoming a photon.  the "photon" is just a bunch of noise.

Well the driver gets to school on time because she is highly skilled and doesn't listen to anyone elses horn.  This means she yields right of way to nobody!  Well I feel bad and apologize and promise to be on time the next day and give her a monetary tip above the fare that I owed.  Since this was the first day I was supposed to pay for the whole month.  Since this was a substantial sum, I paid for a month's worth of rides, it was a substantial tip.  Well, this actually made the situation worse because in Peru a tip is seen as a clear indication that tip giver thinks they are of a higher social class than the recipient.  I of course was oblivious to this custom and was simply trying to be a good and repentant customer.  My adoptive brother, Sebastian age 15, filled me in on this.  The combi that drives the students to school is NOT like the other combis.  It is very nice and the driver is very professional.  The driver is doing well with this business.  My gratuity was something of an insult.  So tomorrow our transaction will be completed and I'll get the change.  I have to be careful with this in the future.

Anyway, so went the first hour of my first day.  It was Awesome!