September 5: the episode where my host mom gets attacked by a dog……yikes!

             Monday was my host sister Paula’s birthday, so I spent the morning working before her birthday lunch. I went up to the health post to interview the obstetrician, Zoila. She was a little too busy to put much thought into the answers she was giving me, but she said I could come back with my USB to get some of the health statistics; which should be a big help with my diagnostic. Lunch was our family and some staff from my health post and the health post where Paula works. After lunch they broke out the huayno music and the beer and had a good old fashioned drinking circle. The dancing was fun, but I have to admit…..huayno all starts to sound the same to me after a little while :-/ shhh, don’t tell anyone. Anyway, Paula invited me to go out dancing with all of her friends in Huaraz. I was already planning to go into the city the next day and after about 10 the next combi back from Huaraz isn’t until 4 AM; so I just decided to back my backpack and stay in the city.  We finally left Mancos around 7:30 to go to dinner, but when we got to Huaraz it turns out we have to go meet everyone at my host uncle’s house for “just a minute.” We end up hanging around the uncle’s house for about an hour and when we are finally about to walk out the door; the dog that lives on the roof gets loose. A little bit of info: Here in Peru lots of people keep dogs on their roofs to protect their houses.  They are not pets and you don’t play with them. Back to the story…..This dog is the size of a small horse and had realized there were people in the building that don’t normally live there. It chases my host mom, screaming, down the hall and bites her before she can lock herself in the bathroom. It then runs back down the hall and starts jumping at the doors of the room that I’m in. I’m trying to hide on a chair behind a TV stand, when my host Aunt makes me run into the kitchen. We have to hold the doors shut and wait for my host uncle to get the dog back upstairs before we can go out. At this point I’m pretty much ready to call it quits and head back to Mancos, but no; we patch up my host mom and go out for pollo a la brasa. Sheesh! I guess good food is the best way to go after an alarming evening :-P After dinner Paula and I met up with one of her friends and went dancing for about an hour. Not really the all-nighter she had planned, but I was sort of ok with that.