What lies ahead

I had my cards read in my site.

My best friend in my site, Kathy (pronounced Kah-tee), a 16 year-old and recent high school graduate, came over to visit me while I was sick (if it's not giardia, it's sinus infections, and now I have ear infections in BOTH ears due to the paint that got in them during carnaval!). While she was over she mentioned taking her cousin to a woman here in town who reads tarot cards. I had no idea there was a person who read tarot cards in my small town, although I shouldn't have been surprised. Like I've said before, Peruvians can live the duality of being faithful Catholics and getting cards read or visiting shaman. 

My curiosity was piqued, so I asked Kathy if she would take me to the woman. A few days later we met up and her and her boyfriend walked with me to get my cards read.

We hardly walked 200 yards past my house when we turned left, walking on a sand path to a house set back from the road. While we walked Kathy said the woman had lived here several years, and while her mother was working in the municipality she had helped the woman learn how to write in Spanish.

“She writes very strangely,” she said, “in symbols, like Arabic.”

As we approached we saw a man and a woman sitting on a patio talking, and we all walked up and greeted them. In the U.S. I think I would be embarressed to walk to a stranger's house uninvited and interrupt whatever they were doing to ask them for something, but that's not the way it is here. It was not strange that we walked on her porch and greeted them with kisses with no pretense of why we were there or knowledge of whether she was open for business. In Peru, every home-business is always open for business. 


The man and the woman greeted us without any hint of being bothered by our intrusion. The woman had a handkerchief tied in her hair, looped earrings, and a gold tooth-- simple things that might make you think of gypsies. She did not look Peruvian and her skin was olive-toned, but if no one had said anything, I may have assumed she had Spanish heritage. Without any questions Kathy simply told me to walk into the house with the woman while they waited outside.

We walked into her living room and she motioned to a table with two chairs.

“¿Como puedo ayudarte?” she asked with the hint of an accent I couldn’t place, but her ¨r´s¨ seemed thicker.

“I heard you read cards,” I replied, “and wondered if you had the time to read for me.”

She smiled, looking not just pleased but complimented in the request. She grabbed a notebook and flipped through it. It was filled with random notes and the writing Kathy had mentioned, much of it symbols and markings I was not familiar with. She wasn’t finding what she was looking for in this notebook, so she went and got another one.

She asked me my name and where I was from so that the spirits of my homeland would come and assist with the information. She wrote my name in a way I have never seen my name written, the “a’s” were a curly vertical scribbles. She asked me what brought me to Peru and I told her I was a volunteer working in development.

She pulled out a set of cards that looked older and more faded than any cards I had ever seen. They were not big and square like cards I have seen friends and other readers use, but rectangular with curved edges, the pictures on them barely visible by what had obviously been years of handling, black smudges almost engulfing the entirety of some images.

“What do you want to know about? Love? Work? The past?”

“Work, and my life in Peru,” I said.

She shuffled the cards some more and then had me cut the deck three times.

Upon having the cards in three stacks she motioned to the last stack I had placed.

“Comprometida,” she said with raised eyebrows. “Promised,” in some contexts it can mean fiancé or engaged (¨betrothed¨). I acknowledged that I did have a boyfriend, but said nothing more than that.

She picked up one of the stacks of cards and started laying them out like you would a game of solitaire. She said if my boyfriend hadn’t already visited me, he would. She said he is faithful and so am I, and that I would not leave him for any Peruvian because, well, they are all ugly. (her words! not mine) Also, we are exclusive and in a serious relationship, but after laying down a few more cards realized that marriage is still a ways off, and while we may be commited, I am not engaged.

“You are very stressed,” she said. She talked about how I have accustomed myself to Peru more or less, but that I worry about a lot of things. I worry about my time in Peru, about my safety, about the health of my family, about my health. She said the stress from work was fear of not accomplishing anything. She told me to take caution, but that my family is fine, I will be fine, and I will have lots of success in my work and with whatever I want to do.

“You are not a woman who sits back and watches things happen,” she said. “You will succeed with whatever it is you want to succeed in.”

She repeated the main themes of the reading: my boyfriend, with whom things are good and will continue to be so and who will come and see me; the stress and worry that I carry with me over work and distance from home, but that things are good at home; that my work will be successful, and that I will achieve whatever I want to achieve in my time here.

It was a short reading, a simple one. And while she very possibly could’ve gotten almost all of that information from gossip in town about the gringa who will live here for 2 years and had a big hairy boyfriend come visit her, it didn’t change how I felt about the part I came there for. To have someone acknowledge that I am stressed about my capabilities in my job and tell me that it will all work out fine is something I will always be happy to hear. “Mucho exito” she kept saying over and over again. “Lots of success.”

Afterwards we chit-chatted about Peru for a moment and she said it was a nice place that she thought I would continue to like, as she had in her 11 years here. When I asked her where she was from she said, “Turkey.”  I asked her how long she had read cards for and she said since she was a little girl. Her whole family does it and she had been taught since childhood. I think I found a real gypsy.

I thanked her for her time, told her I would like to come visit her again sometime, and walked out onto the patio. Kathy and her boyfriend stood up and we all said our goodbyes and walked off.

It was an interesting experience, and the first time I had ever had my cards read for me in Spanish. When I told my host family about it my host mom’s eyes grew big, intrigued as she had never had her Tarot cards read. My host brother mocked me, saying anyone could’ve fed her all the information about me.

It’s very possible. But even so, the possibility that someone fed her information so she could give me good news makes me smile. (And I had a ¨follow-up¨ reading with a friend that confirmed a lot of what she said.) It couldn't have come at a better time, really. I got my cards read from her just before the new school year started and another in-service training in Peace Corps where we worked developing projects and writing plans for the year. 


The brunt of my service lies ahead of me-- the chance to make a difference and get things off the ground is near. I've spent my time in site making connections, I've more or less figured out who will help me and who won't, and now I have to put all these factors in my favor and create a plan with people in my community that will stick. The time for standing back and watching is over, we are in the thick of planning mode, and next month we'll see how it all works. 


I have a slight feeling that I'm setting myself up for big losses and broken spirits if things don't work out. This is one of those moments to hope for the best but expect the worst. And don't get my wrong, I definitely expect the worst. But there's something different about things this time. I can't seem to shake the optimism. Even with possible and foreseeable setbacks and roadblocks, I am excited about the months to come. Lets just hope that ¨mucho exito¨ really does follow me in whatever I do.