Monday, September 17, 2012

Peace Corps Pranks

It's not uncommon for Volunteers to play little pranks on each other. Whether it's a prank call acting like the Peace Corps Peru Country Director or just trying to mess with someone, everyone seems to have a recent story about a prank. The last prank played on me was this:

The view as I entered my room.

...pretty scary to open your door to. 


Its what I came home to one day after a short absence from my site. I gave him my room key so he could borrow my bike, and in addition to returning my bike, set up a mannequin* in my room with all my clothes. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting a 7 foot, hooded man to be staring at me when I returned home. It scared the heck out of me (I'm proud to report that I didn't scream... too loud).


The mannequin itself was funny to me for two reasons:

1. Jeff borrowed it from the lady who cuts his hair in the market in Caraz. I guess they had been talking about it for weeks, and then the perfect time arose. Can you imagine allowing some weird guy with a funny accent take a mannequin from your store, not knowing when or if he'd returned it? Peruivans can be so nice.  Here's a picture of when we returned our buddy to the lady's shop:



2. The mannequin stayed in my room for about a week. I took his clothes off so they'd stay clean, and just propped him up in the corner so he wouldn't be in the way. Normal for me, but you could see major confusion in Yeferson's eyes every time he came into my room. The giant, naked, plastic man in the room was too much for Yefer, he just couldn't take his eyes off of it. We'd have a conversation, and whole time his eyes would be locked on the mannequin, as if it would come to life at any moment. The best/worst part was, he was too shy to ask me what it was, or why it was there. I've still never told him the story, and I'm sure the poor kid will always remember seeing that in the gringo's room.