Peanut Butter and Oreos

I will start by emphasizing the true wondrous properties of peanut butter that I never encountered prior to Peru.

I’ve always liked peanut butter, but after a month in the jungle, I can confirm peanut butter is a nectar from the heavens. I believe that the Peruvians feel this way too, because here a humble jar of PB costs as much as a herd of cows or a prosthetic limb or an island.

We tend to categorize most things we see here by “American big” or “Peruvian big,” with “Peruvian big” being the much larger, more menacing version. For example:

Teammate 1: COME KILL THIS HUGE SPIDER
Teammate 2: Is it American big or Peruvian big???!
Teammate 1: …I guess it’s just American big
Teammate 2: You’re fine.

Unfortunately, our size system only applies to the bugs. While Peru has the largest insects I’ve ever seen, their jars of peanut butter are only “American big.” So a jar of “American big” peanut butter here in the jungle costs…drum roll please… TWENTY-FIVE SOLES.

A pair of pants costs twenty soles. Four apples, two bags of plantain chips, three waters, and two oranges is about nine soles. To eat lunch a lunch of chicken and rice and beans and plantains at a restaurant, it’s about seven soles. So paying twenty-five soles, aka over eight U.S. dollars, for a jar of American sized peanut butter is a horrific yet necessary labor of love.

I think my whole team feels that dropping a fortune on PB is appropriate because it is about the only familiar looking delicacy we can find in the market, along with Oreos. But when my team starting going all “Parent Trap” on me by dunking their Oreos into peanut butter, I thought that was a little too abnormal for me to partake in.

Of course I love peanut butter. Of course I love Oreos. I also love Nutella and pizza but I’m not tryna chew them at the same time (though as I write this, that seems like it might be sort of good, but I also haven’t tasted American food in a month so work with me). As I watched my teammates scoop PB onto their crunchy Oreos I shuddered; shouldn’t they be using their peanut butter for more efficient purposes, like perhaps using it to build a shrine or offering to God? My inner confusion continued until I was talked into trying this abnormal combination.

In case you were wondering, the only taste better than peanut butter itself is peanut butter with Oreos. It has changed my life. This weird combination that threw me off for a solid three weeks here in the jungle has made me a different person. Yes, part of my soul still feels like the only proper place for peanut butter is on a slice of bread or with a bite of banana. However, though this is a rather superficial example, I’m beginning to become very aware and thankful for the “not normals” of my experience here in Peru.

Wendy, our translator for two weeks, is not normal. In fact, on her first day with us, she joined our team outside as we were relaxing and (probably) talking about all the food we would eat at the Atlanta airport in a few weeks. She started talking by asking us about ourselves and what we are studying and what we want to be. With every answer she heard, from psychology to journalism to engineering, her eyes lit up as she exclaimed “I used to want to study that!” She elaborated that though choosing a major at college is as easy as clicking a button online for us, it’s different here. In Iquitos, the main city in the jungle where she’s from, you can’t just major in something because you love it. If you’re a part of the small percentage that even gets to go to university, you need to major in something that will give you money for food and laundry soap and other necessities.

Wendy transitioned into talking more about herself and her dreams. She loves languages, and she was fortunate enough to go to university and study English. Some words are tricky for her, but her level of comprehension is amazing considering her first time really learning English was for a few years in her twenties. She asked us why we didn’t know Spanish. Considering most of us have been in Spanish classes since kindergarten, and it took her like thirty seconds to learn English, we didn’t have a valid excuse. It was in that moment when I realized how blessed I am to have so many classes and options and futures at my disposal. I’m blessed that in America, having opportunities is normal.

Wendy went on to say that she is not normal. She grew up wanting to be more than what her mother was. She had no desire to become an adult at the age of 16, like many of the women around her, by getting married and having babies. She wanted to study and learn, so she did.

Wendy is a teacher. She doesn’t love it, but she does it because she feels like she needs to let her students know knowledge can steer them anywhere. She believes that learning is power. Sadly, most of her students have no interest in learning. She says the boys are lazy, and the girl’s dreams end at having babies of their own. But again, Wendy is not normal, and she has made it her mission to teach that being not normal is incredible. She knows that a society that dictates what normal should be, whether it’s in America or Peru or wherever, restricts opportunities and confines individuals not to what they could be but to what they should be.

I dwelled on Wendy’s philosophy of “more, not better.” She never said that she wanted to be better than her mother. She never said that she thinks these kids can be so much better than their parents. She thinks they can be more. They can be mothers and doctors. They can be fathers and engineers. They aren’t competing to out-do the generation before them, they are daring to do more than what has ever been done.

As we went into our first village this past week, Buen Pastor, I was drawn to some of the older girls named Arielita and Maria. I usually don’t have a huge interest in the older kids, and I’m always happy playing duck duck goose or coloring with the five year olds. Though I did my best to spend time with the little ones, I continually felt pulled toward Arielita and Maria. I wanted to make sure they were included and playing with us, even if we were doing dances intended for preschoolers. I wanted them to laugh and have fun and be silly. I wanted them to be reminded that they are kids, and that even though they are thirteen and fourteen, they don’t have to get married within the next few years. I wanted them to feel God’s love for them, a love so strong not because they are doing what they should, but because they simply exist. I’m not sure if I felt so excited about them because of what I had just heard from Wendy, or because God was pointing them out to me, or both, but spending time with those girls this past week and watching them laugh and be joyful was a beautiful experience I’ll always carry with me.

Oreos and peanut butter are not normal. I don’t think they should go together, but they do, and they are a delicious post rice-and-beans treat that reminds me of home.

Wendy is not normal. She is a woman with a career who is aiming to become a translator for missions groups here in Peru. She has a boyfriend but doesn’t want to get married now. She is driven and smart and puts every ounce of faith in God’s plans for her. I am so inspired by her not-normalcy, and I hope to share a fraction of the excitement she has for not-normalcy in Peru with the rest of the people I meet.