Peru and the Country of Love

Somewhere between Urubamba and Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley of Peru, our taxi driver decided we needed a break, so my daughter, her fiancé and I tasted canchita (popcorn), other corn products including corn beverages which I didn't enjoy as much as my daily Pisco Sour(s).  After a few sips at the roadside joint, the place where locals come for "Happy Hour," I really needed a bathroom break.  This photo was taken from an outhouse.   I wasn't leaning out of a window.  There wasn't one, just an opening in the graffiti-less clay.  Next to the outhouse there was a lean-to of sorts, chicken wire topped with a tin roof.  Not a chicken coop, it was filled with corn cobs, more like a grain bin.  As I relieved myself, several chickens that looked like Rhode Island Reds to me, pecked at the door.  If I was a dog, cow, donkey, or chicken I would want to live in Peru.  No cage.  No fence.

I didn't plan to travel to Peru this year, but when my daughter and her fiancé asked me to come help prepare for their August wedding, I said, "Yes!"  Use your imagination, but in that place where I took care of basic needs, I saw a metaphor between that particular outhouse and marriages in general.  My eyes were filled with wet gratitude for being able to  pee in an outhouse surrounded by lovely creatures and sights.  The loveliest was my daughter and her fiancé, witnessing their tender new love. I was in Peru for the first time, thirty-four years into the country of my marriage.  My daughter's fiancé was in the country where he was born and raised.  My daughter was in two new countries.  The country of love, if it's love, always brings you home.