There is really nothing I could make up that could possibly improve in any way the following story I have to tell.
Jarrard was walking home last night when he ran into one of our fifth-graders, Esmeralda, with her mother.
Kids here get really excited to see us around town, and because Jarrard lives so far away, he often walks home from school with them. This is pretty common.
Esmeralda and her mother walked with him for a while and seemed very intent on having him spell his entire name for them. Also not too unusual, considering the number of names the average Peruvian possesses far outnumber those that the average American possesses.
But as impressively as Jarrard has picked up on Spanish in the last eight weeks, I guess he couldn´t spell his name sufficiently for them, so they invited him into their house to write it down. They live right near his host family´s house, so once again, not too weird.
So he went into their house and wrote down his name. Then they asked him to write down my full name and Kelsey´s full name. Okay. That´s a little weird.
Then they brought out a baby that Jarrard estimated to be about two or three months old, and gave him the baby to hold. Jarrard asked the baby´s name. Well, it was Raul, he was told. But no longer. The baby would now be named Geoffrey Jarrard Cole.
Yes, this is correct. A random Peruvian family decided to rename their baby after Jarrard. Apparently if they have any more girl babies, there could be a little Eliza Simpson Kern or Kelsey Rushing Farson running around Ollantaytambo.
Never mind the fact that this family cannot actually pronounce Jarrard´s name, or that the baby has had the name Raul for the first three months of his life. Apparently these facts are irrelevant.
The best part is that Jarrard was entirely freaked out by this family naming their baby after him. I believe his words were, ¨I just wanted to go home and eat my dinner.¨
I told him he had to blog about the incident and he refused. He said it was an uncomfortable experience. Kelsey and I think it´s hilarious. But one thing is for sure, we all have to come back to Ollantaytambo in a few years to meet our namesakes.
Postcards From Peru 