September 2011: blonde |
The
final countdown is on – only fifty more sleeps in Peru !
It
seems a little hard to believe that my time here is almost over but I know in
my heart the time is right to move on. Don’t get me wrong, I still love living here and
every day I find some little thing about life here that fascinates and delights
me.
But,
I also find myself becoming less patient with some of the more frustrating,
annoying, exasperating, trying, maddening, infuriating aspects of Peruvian
life. I was reading a blog yesterday, written by an Australian living in Hanoi , and she talked about “the expiry of the
statute of limitations on Keeping Your Shit Together” and I understood exactly what she was talking about.
When
you first arrive in a new place, you delight in everything you see and find the
peculiarities charming. But, as time goes by, your attitude to those
peculiarities changes, becomes less tolerant, less accepting, and it gets more
difficult to find joy in those little things, more difficult to keep your shit together.
Let
me give you an example. A week ago I went to have my hair cut and coloured –
time to banish the grey away! This was the same hair salon I’ve patronised
since coming to Cusco , so I’m not exactly a
stranger to them but, each time, my experience is a little different. I learnt
early on to agree a price for both the cut and colour when making the
appointment and, if they quoted a higher price – which was often, to tell them
I only paid X amount last time – so they would then agree to charge the same
this time.
December 2011: still blonde |
I’ve
become used to emerging with a slightly different hair colour each time I go –
not by choice and not because of my lack of Spanish – I point at a colour on
the chart and, usually, I come out with something resembling it. I presume
dying hair is not an exact science, even for professionals, so I have
always accepted a little variation.
March 2012: yep, blonde |
But
this time it was much more radical. I pointed to light brown and came out
almost black. How did that happen? I should’ve guessed something was up, as the
receptionist and the stylist had 2 or 3 whispered conversations huddled over
the colour chart, and the receptionist rattled about searching amongst the
tubes of colour for a good 10 minutes before phoning someone in a hushed voice,
after which the stylist came and asked me again which colour I wanted. But then
she began confidently squirting colour from a tube and mixing it up, so I just
assumed everything was cool.
May 2012: you guessed it! Blonde. |
How
wrong I was! And did they apologise? No! Peruvians – and here, I know, I
generalise but it is the truth as I have experienced it – most Peruvians have no concept of customer
service. The idea of the customer always being right would make them laugh. The
idea of apologising is totally alien. And did they give me a discount for
having made a mistake? No! They had cut my hair. They had coloured my hair.
They had done the job so they should be paid for it. The fact that they had
done part of it wrong was neither here or there.
And
what did I do? Well, I kept my shit together. There was no point in getting
angry or jumping up and down. It would have made absolutely no difference to my
hair and just made my blood pressure spike. I chose to believe the receptionist
when she told me it made me look younger, and I joked to friends and colleagues
that I was turning Peruvian.
September 2012: what???? Black!!!! |
But
it is becoming more and more difficult to keep my shit together in situations
like this. And that’s why I know it’s time to move on. Oh, I know that similar
things will happen in the next place I call home. Every place has its idiosyncrasies,
its eccentricities but, initially, these will be charming, and everything else will be fresh and new and stimulating
and exciting – and that’s what I so love about travelling!
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