On Food & Friends

Yesterday, I accepted Diego's offer to have lunch at his parents' home in Surquillo, a middle-class district about twenty minutes east of Miraflores. We took a combi to his neighborhood, a very nice maze of cul-de-sacs and quiet parks set away from the bussle of the major streets filled with traffic. Next to the gate to his apartment complex, a stray dog lounged on the sidewalk and I petted him, even if every guidebook told me not too. Only suckers get rabies.

Diego's family has a small one floor apartment on the second floor, and after a brief tour we settled down with Diego's mother for a little limonada and lunch. An appetizer of huancaina came first; sliced potatoes in a spicy cold cheese sauce. Next a lomo, a simple steak with mushrooms and rice. For dessert: Peruvians call them panqueque, but it's clearly a crepe. Still, a crepe with a banana and some condensed milk is pretty good, no matter what it's called. Dessert here is an event, and practically every corner in Miraflores has a churro cart selling hot caramel-filled churros, two for S/1 or about $.30. High levels of churro availability will probably keep me sane.

I briefly met Diego's father, an exceedingly happy and energetic man. He was wearing the same white 'Y' baseball hat my father wears.

Afterward lunch, Diego and I drove over to BrucePeru, the NGO both Diego and Jeff have been working with in a big campaign to get free education for Peruvian children. The volunteers there are all wonderful people, each with their own little story: Chris, the physics major from San Diego, seems to be semi-dating a girl here whose name I'm not quite sure of who may or may not be from Finland. Tom - a lanky Cockney - hooks up with a lot of girls by playing the "Tall White Guy" card, something that probably won't work at Fabric. Then there is Kat, a sweet British girl just this side of eighteen with a penchant for cursing at just the right time. These people are our only friends in a city of nine million, and most of them will be leaving at the end of the month.