Tarma, upon arrival, smells like a stressless Christmas. The streets are full of people, calmly, though excitedly, (like the beginning of December, before the crazy rush of the holidays), meandering along, window shopping, watching street performers, pausing in the tranquil plaza outside the main church.
On certain days, the streets of Tarma are shut down to traffic and big, colorful marketplaces are constructed. All sorts of fruits, roots, vegetables and meats are presented, in every shape, form and color. It´s bustling, but not stressful. Colorful, but not overwhelming. It`s beautiful.
Un Dia en mi Vida Tarmeña
Wake up when I feel like it, take a mate de coca downstairs. Find quinoa con manzana, stroll around the sweet plaza that smells piney and a little like Christmas. Pay 1 sol to look at library books on the legends and myths of the region. Take a walk up a steep street I don`t know where it goes, take shelter from the rain in a nearby shop. Smile at the owner, nod, continue on my way as the rain lightens. Go eat a menù at George`s spot. George, aka Jorge, aka Koko and his wife Lupita, own a really sweet hole in the wall restaurant that serves consistently delicious, clean, tasty food, and there is always good company and conversation to be had.
Return to my ¨home¨away from home to practice violin in the big, empty, old haciendo that is now a hospedaje. Meander on over to the market place where I observe big, fried pancakes being served up with what looks like hot chocolate. Ask for one of those. Drink my hot chocolate, which has a very distinct, delicious flavor, and eat my fried pancake. Walk back to hostel feeling quite relaxed, happy...wait a second...tipsy?¿? Yes...the hot chocolate was spiked with something special. Take a nap. Wake up and do some lesson planning, write in my journal. Go back to the main street to eat Caldo de Gallina, a soup of noodles, rooster, hard boiled egg, and oil. Lots of oil. Too much oil. Return to the hostal with a stomach ache. Spend the next 3 hours throwing up and walking back and forth from the bathroom which is located downstairs from my room. Finally get to sleep, and wake up in the morning happy as a clam. Well, a clam that got tossed around on the beach a bit the night before, but still in tact and its pearl a little motion sick, but still nessled safe inside.
Another example of my day:
Wake up and head over to the library, then ask directions on the street for how to get to a pueblo nearby called Muruhuay. The woman I ask directions from turns out to be a teacher at the nearby high school and has a great interest in storytelling and oral narrative. We exchange numbers and make plans to meet up again soon to talk about possible projects.
Catch a colectivo to a nearby haciendo, where I stroll the gardens and wander alongside a little stream. The fields are empty, except for me and my new dog friend. We lay in the sun next to the stream, daydreaming then doing some lesson planning. Use a mud hut toilet, which then I realize drops directly into the nice little, dirty stream I was just sunbathing next too. Well, can`t win them all! I collect acorn tops, then read Mary Oliver out loud to the dog. Thank the gods for Mary Oliver!
Pop a few fruits, aguaymantos, that come in a leafy lacey flower pocket. Smile at the field of artichokes, meander back to the road. On my way up to the road I see the first person in a few hours, the owner of the hacienda, who offers hostal rooms in the haciendo on the property for much too much money. He asks me if I want to visit the hacienda and if I do that I need to pay 3 soles. I say, ahh, maybe I`ll be back later. All I wanted was to lay in your fields and use your mud hut toilet.
I begin to walk the road towards the other pueblo of Muruhuay where there are fiestas all the month of May. I flag down a combi and make it to the pueblo in time to watch a big gathering of people dancing, performing and playing music. I eat chicken and rice at a nearby spot where I chat up the señora and she tells me the story of the Señor de Muruhuay, apparently they celebrate every year how a crucified man appeared on the rock on the hillside.
I make my way back to the music where there are a few kids hanging around, little ones, and I can tell their a little surprised to see me. We play a little, talk, then I see one girl thinking, then she says, I want to call my dad, but I dont have 20 cents...then she looks at me curiously, wondering if I`ll take the bait. Where is your dad? I ask. Uhhh....She says. Then, he`s in Lima. I want to call him, but I dont have 20 cents for the phone. What`s he doing in Lima? Uhhh...Is he working? I say. Si! yes, he is working. The kids giggle a little. Mmmm. We watch the dancing more. Where are your parents? She asks me. I tell her my mom is at home in California. Where is your dad? My dad died. Silence. Big eyes. Then a little bit after, is he in a cemetary? Can you visit him? We watch the musicians begin to play and march. I get ready to continue walking. She tries one more time. I want to call my dad but don`t have the money...I smile, she smiles sheepishly back at me, understanding that I understood it`s a game for them. I appreciated the attempt. Might have worked on someone else. I give them all a goodbye wave, take care, see you later. They all grin and say goodbye.
I stroll up to the church where the supposed rock is. Enter, give my respects, then walk up around the back of the church and climb the mountain, precariously I might add, to the big cross in the middle of it, up above the whole town. It`s a beautiful view, a gorgeous valley, reminds me of home. I sit in silence for a while, contemplating what it would be like to have been walking here years ago and come upon a crucified man that appeared out of the rock.
Then I start walking back down the mountain and heading back towards the road for Tarma. On the outskirts of Muruhuay I see there is a fiesta happening, and I poke my head in to the courtyard, just to see. A circle of friends becon me in and wave me to come dance with them. I enter, and we begin to dance. Then I am handed a big cross, and a bottle of beer, and we are walking out to the street, and we are all piling into cars and we are heading to their pueblo, Muyloh, on the other side of Tarma. We arrive as it is getting dark, and enter into a home with a big courtyard, where the band and the orchestra set up their instruments, and the family begins to pass around food to all the guests. The entire pueblo is invited. I am introduced to the owner of the home, the grandfather, a wonderful old señor with blue eyes that tell entire worlds of histories. They invite me in like family. We eat, we drink, we dance in the rain until late. Then the band marches with us up to the main plaza in front of the church, and we dance more, and drink more. We drink beer, and we drink a hot liquor of many herbs that warms you up really nicely. They are constructing a big tower structure, that looks to me in its completion like a Peruvian version of Burning Man. Then the light show begins. They strike it up, this big tower structure and it comes to live, shooting, streaming, beaming with fireworks! One after another, and its very precarious seeming, and very exciting. Wow! Ah! Eek! We have to run for shelter at one moment, stray fireworks shooting off in crazy directions. It finishes, and we begin to dance again. then we head back to the house, and there is the last person leaving in their car for Tarma so I catch the ride quick and head back to my hostal. We bid farewell, and I head to bed, happy, full, satisfied.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Escape!
As I reflect on the last month, it is a bit
funny to think how much of my time has been spent trying to stay out of Lima or
when I am in Lima, thinking about how to escape.
So here are a few of my stories about
escaping Lima, and a few of my time back in Lima in between escapes J
My first escape in April was to go north,
up to Chiclayo, which upon arrival in the early morning I realized was also a
big city and immediately caught a minibus to the nearby (30 minutes away) beach
town of Pimentel. The very tranquil, quiet, sometimes ghostly pueblo of
Pimentel. Most people during the day are in Chiclayo for school or work, and
only return to Pimentel wherein they go to sleep. That being said there really
is not much to do in Pimentel except go to the beach, which might I tell you is
BEAUTIFUL. At least I thought it was really quite perfect, minus the fact that
being at the beach alone for many days on end becomes a bit lonely. It is
really quite pretty. There are fishermen in their very cool boats, and as I
came to find quite a bit of wildlife (both dead and alive). Apparently, unknown
to me before but I quickly realized, Pimentel is well known for its winds—very windy
days, making it somewhat uncomfortable to sit on the beach for too long without
cover! They also are known for one of the longest piers in southamerica (maybe
the world?) it stretches really far out into the ocean. One night I walked out
to the very end, and watched the sunset over the ocean water. I felt like I was
inside the sky. All I could see was the neverending blue ocean water and the
clouds all around, full of color. It was magical. And then it was cold. J
Upon arriving in Pimentel, I stepped inside
a little bodega to ask about where there was a hostal, and the señora who ran
the restaurant/store offered me an extra bed in her room upstairs. So for the
week I lived in her room with her, got to know her family and another family
that was renting from her. There were nine of us in the house. Señora Rosita,
very sweet lady.
Once I had all my things settled, I had all
the time in the world to wander the walk along the beach side, explore the few
streets of Pimentel, the very, very relaxed and quiet main plaza, and use the
internet—which surprisingly was very fast and very available. Rare for a small
town. In retrospect it seems a bad combination—easy, somewhat reliable internet
access, very quiet and unexciting town and being all alone for days on end. I
was pretty lonely for a while there. But I also spent a lot of time walking
along the beach watching the water, which is very healing and soothing for me.
Gave me much time to think about what I have, and what I was missing and what I
want or need in my life. I came upon a dead dolphin, and a sick pelican, who
then died because the next day I walked by he was being eaten by vultures. It
was a bit depressing.
Anyhow! Hah, my Pimentel experience turned
out to be a really important time for me, and I`m glad I experienced it. It
made me realize that I do need to stay out of the big cities here, but that I
also need to be in places where I have social interaction. On the last day of
my visit in Pimentel, I met two guys from Chiclayo, Ricardo and Carlos, taking
photos of Pimentel culture and the pier (muelle). We spent the evening talking
about art, photography, maravales (juggling and tricks), travel, Peruvian culture,
languages, etc. It was really great to converse after so much time conversing
with myself and the ocean. The next day we all went to Lambayeque, where there
is a really interesting museum about the Lord of Sipan, one of the big
archeological sites in the area. The museum was really impressively layed out
and had a lot of intriguing exhibits of the life of the people of Sipan back in
the day, and of the burial site that has been excavated. The actual site is in
a different spot, but all the real artifacts have been brought to the museum in
Lambayeque.
After a few days in Chiclayo, Carlos and I
adventured to Tarapoto, the jungle east of Chiclayo about 15 hours or so. Such
a difference! The climate, the culture, the air! Hot, humid and full of street
vendors of foods at night and surrounded by waterfalls and interesting day
trips. We made it to one waterfall, which was less than impressive, too touristy
for my liking, but the hitchhike ride back was cool, and the ride there was
even cooler—riding in the back of a truck with about 15 other people, standing
up, watching the beautiful scenery pass by as we entered further and further
into the jungle. Tarapoto is really just the entrance to the jungle. I have yet
to really experience the true jungle of Peru. One of the highlights for me in
Tarapoto was the food. Street vendors during the day selling fresh coconut
straight from the coconut with a straw, then chopped open to eat the fresh
fruit of the coco. Platanos cooked on the barbeque filled with Peruvian cheese
or crushed peanuts or chicharron (pig). Juanes, a bit like tamales, corn
pockets filled with chicken or fish wrapped in banana leaves. Yum!
We also checked out a chocolate factory,
and tasted jungle chocolate! Tasty!
I discovered as well in Tarapoto that the libraries of each town I go to are amazing resources to look up the legends and myths of the area. I hadn`t used them as a resource before, only going in to read my own books or write in my journal or use their free internet. I found many awesome collections of stories of the jungle region in the library of Tarapoto, and was able to photocopy them right below the library in the market for really cheap!
I discovered as well in Tarapoto that the libraries of each town I go to are amazing resources to look up the legends and myths of the area. I hadn`t used them as a resource before, only going in to read my own books or write in my journal or use their free internet. I found many awesome collections of stories of the jungle region in the library of Tarapoto, and was able to photocopy them right below the library in the market for really cheap!
Another favorite spot was Lamas, a small
pueblo about 30 minutes car ride from Tarapoto. In Lamas there is a community
that still practices its indigenous traditions from long ago. There is a small
museum dedicated to this culture and its history. I found two awesome books
filled with oral literature, narrations and stories on the legends and myths of
the region. There was also a really cool castle, old, but with a pool and all
sorts of great art on the walls. They also had tasty street food—we tried fried
seeds of some sort, I don’t remember the name.
After
talking to the tourist office, a tiny little office where an old man who was
excited to try to speak English to me and told me I had beautiful eyes, and
laughed a lot, we got a ride out to a waterfalls that was really nice, we were
able to swim in a small pool below it and on the walk back through the jungle,
we caught a ride in the back of a banana truck, where the others asked me if I
had bananas in my land, speaking in their native language and calling me
Gringa. It was funny, (en tu tierra? Hay
esto? Y esto?) As if I came from another planet.
Back in Tarapoto Semana Santa arrived and all the shops closed and people disappeared. The rain also came. We had planned to go to a Laguna about two hours by bus away, but with the weather we ended up traversing the empty streets of Tarapoto in search of food instead. The Laguna waters came to us anyhow, the streets were like rivers! There was so much rain for a few hours there!
The next stop was Chachapoyas, the cloud forest in the region of Amazonas. The bus ride here was interesting (as all the busrides here seem to turn out to be!) as a car crash had happened recently, so we all got off the bus and waited in the jungle for about an hour, then got back on and started going again, only to realize 15 minutes later we were missing passengers. So we stopped for another 30 minutes until they were collected again and back on the bus safe and sound. We arrived in Pedro Ruiz too late for the last minibuses to Chachas, so we, along with a mom and her daughter found a cheap hostal for the night. The next morning I went to the market and got so many bananas for super cheap! the cheapest I`ve found so far in Peru! 10 bananas for 1 sol. 2.8 soles is $1. Imagine that. We then caught a minibus to Chachapoyas. The region is absolutely spectacularly gorgeous, and has an incredible and intense special energy. I felt like I was settling back into the Earth. Very healing energy. We arrived in the town of Chachas on Easter Sunday. Very relaxed, calm spot, nestled in the mountains, with a weirdly cold yet tropically climate. The region of Amazonas also has a huge history of legends and stories--with the history of the Chachapoyas people at the center of it, a preincan culture whose ruins and culture survived much of the conquering of the Incas.
I don`t remember if I wrote about the discussion I had with my Spanish teacher back in Lima, about how it`s easy to think how terrible it is that the Spanish came and took all the Incans traditions and tried to block them out. It`s important to remember also that the Incans did the same thing to many preincan cultures. For this reason, many of the native peoples were happy to see the Spanish come, in a strange respect the Spanish were saviors to many. Killers, and saviors. A complicated history, as they all are. But I thought that was a really interesting point that my teacher reminded me of. The conversation came up because I was talking about how it depressed me to see the indigenous men and women in Quechua praying to the saints of the Spaniards.
Julio and I were going to try to have an event of storytelling in which I was going to be able to tell in English, but in the end it didnt work out. Too last minute.
I got to go to the Keulap Ruins though, a beautiful place with ruins that rival Macchu Picchu but are barely visited in comparison. That is part of their magic. Less people, more nature to yourself, and beautiful flora and fauna because it is a unique climate of cloud forest!
It rained as we were arriving to the ruins, and the tour guide had ponchos to buy, and of course the moment after people bought ponchos (for 5 soles! too much!), the rain stopped. Hah. Of course.
On our leaving of the ruins there was a rainbow! Arco Iris! Magic :)
On the ride back the tour guide (after I prompted him a bit) told us a bunch of stories from the region. A few favorites:
(This one gets lost in English because the kicker is a play on words in Spanish)
There is a pastry by the name of something I cant remember at the moment, but it is dough with meat stuck inside it, wrapped up tight. So the story goes--there were two young lovers. A guy and a gal, and they would go out all the time, hold hands, pass the day together. They both wanted more and were getting a little restless. Finally the guy says, I want to hug you, I want to hug you like the dough of the pastry I dont remember the name of. A very strong hug! The girl says okay and they begin hugging, and he squeezes tighter and tighter, like the dough of the pastry. But still, they are both unsatisfied. He squeezes more, and finally asks, but my dear I am hugging you like the pastry, what`s the problem? And she answers, Well, you^re missing the meat inside!
The other story is about when the Spanish came to Peru and there was a sacerdote, a religious man, a priest that would go around to all the houses in the pueblo collecting ¨Gods money¨. He would ask everyone for their bulls, the most valuable possessions. He didnt stand for the female cows, or chickens or nothing less than a bull. Every time he would come to the door and say hello, how are your affairs? well, to improve them I need you to offer your bull to God and give him to me. And they would give him the bulls, with regret, but they did it because he was a holy man and they needed all the help they could get. Each time he would say their fortunes would double, triple, that they would be very happy and wealthy soon.
There was one family, one woman who was very very poor. She had only a few chickens, a goat and a female cow. The priest came to the door and did his spiel. She said, but señor I only have very little. Can I give you a chicken? Señora, your cow will do. You want to have your fortunes grow 100 fold don`t you? For this to happen we need to offer God your cow. With regret the woman let go of her cow.
And so the priest made his way with his now 99 bulls, and the one cow. He was not very far from the village of the poor woman, when the cow began to get restless, she missed her home, she did not want to go with the Priest. So the cow turned around and began to run back to the house of her señora. Of course, being the only female cow, all the bulls also turned around and ran after her! The priest chased them far behind. When he arrived at the house of the woman, he knocked on the door and said, Señora, you^re you cow stole all my bulls, you have all 99 of my bulls and my cow. Please return them to me.
But no, Señor! You yourself told me that if I offered my cow, soon my fortune would grow 100 fold! And here it is, I had one cow before, now I have 99 bulls! I have 100 lifestock! Gracias a Dios! Thank God!
Hahahah.
To be continued soon....
Back in Tarapoto Semana Santa arrived and all the shops closed and people disappeared. The rain also came. We had planned to go to a Laguna about two hours by bus away, but with the weather we ended up traversing the empty streets of Tarapoto in search of food instead. The Laguna waters came to us anyhow, the streets were like rivers! There was so much rain for a few hours there!
The next stop was Chachapoyas, the cloud forest in the region of Amazonas. The bus ride here was interesting (as all the busrides here seem to turn out to be!) as a car crash had happened recently, so we all got off the bus and waited in the jungle for about an hour, then got back on and started going again, only to realize 15 minutes later we were missing passengers. So we stopped for another 30 minutes until they were collected again and back on the bus safe and sound. We arrived in Pedro Ruiz too late for the last minibuses to Chachas, so we, along with a mom and her daughter found a cheap hostal for the night. The next morning I went to the market and got so many bananas for super cheap! the cheapest I`ve found so far in Peru! 10 bananas for 1 sol. 2.8 soles is $1. Imagine that. We then caught a minibus to Chachapoyas. The region is absolutely spectacularly gorgeous, and has an incredible and intense special energy. I felt like I was settling back into the Earth. Very healing energy. We arrived in the town of Chachas on Easter Sunday. Very relaxed, calm spot, nestled in the mountains, with a weirdly cold yet tropically climate. The region of Amazonas also has a huge history of legends and stories--with the history of the Chachapoyas people at the center of it, a preincan culture whose ruins and culture survived much of the conquering of the Incas.
I don`t remember if I wrote about the discussion I had with my Spanish teacher back in Lima, about how it`s easy to think how terrible it is that the Spanish came and took all the Incans traditions and tried to block them out. It`s important to remember also that the Incans did the same thing to many preincan cultures. For this reason, many of the native peoples were happy to see the Spanish come, in a strange respect the Spanish were saviors to many. Killers, and saviors. A complicated history, as they all are. But I thought that was a really interesting point that my teacher reminded me of. The conversation came up because I was talking about how it depressed me to see the indigenous men and women in Quechua praying to the saints of the Spaniards.
In other thoughts...
I met up with Julio, a friend of my storyteller friend and teacher Wayqui, who works in Chachas and promotes narration, art and theater events in the area. He is from Spain, and I met his friend who is also from Spain who does workshops for adolescents on expressive arts for healing and exploration of creativity. Julio works for the library, and I found two more books on the stories of the Amazonas area. SO COOL! The woman I bought them from actually had written her own book about her experience overcoming colon cancer, and gifted me a copy, along with a bottle of natural pills that help with cancer apparently. Other things too. She told me how the fruit Guanabana has incredible healing properties, including preventing and curing Cancer. Pretty awesome.Julio and I were going to try to have an event of storytelling in which I was going to be able to tell in English, but in the end it didnt work out. Too last minute.
I got to go to the Keulap Ruins though, a beautiful place with ruins that rival Macchu Picchu but are barely visited in comparison. That is part of their magic. Less people, more nature to yourself, and beautiful flora and fauna because it is a unique climate of cloud forest!
It rained as we were arriving to the ruins, and the tour guide had ponchos to buy, and of course the moment after people bought ponchos (for 5 soles! too much!), the rain stopped. Hah. Of course.
On our leaving of the ruins there was a rainbow! Arco Iris! Magic :)
On the ride back the tour guide (after I prompted him a bit) told us a bunch of stories from the region. A few favorites:
(This one gets lost in English because the kicker is a play on words in Spanish)
There is a pastry by the name of something I cant remember at the moment, but it is dough with meat stuck inside it, wrapped up tight. So the story goes--there were two young lovers. A guy and a gal, and they would go out all the time, hold hands, pass the day together. They both wanted more and were getting a little restless. Finally the guy says, I want to hug you, I want to hug you like the dough of the pastry I dont remember the name of. A very strong hug! The girl says okay and they begin hugging, and he squeezes tighter and tighter, like the dough of the pastry. But still, they are both unsatisfied. He squeezes more, and finally asks, but my dear I am hugging you like the pastry, what`s the problem? And she answers, Well, you^re missing the meat inside!
The other story is about when the Spanish came to Peru and there was a sacerdote, a religious man, a priest that would go around to all the houses in the pueblo collecting ¨Gods money¨. He would ask everyone for their bulls, the most valuable possessions. He didnt stand for the female cows, or chickens or nothing less than a bull. Every time he would come to the door and say hello, how are your affairs? well, to improve them I need you to offer your bull to God and give him to me. And they would give him the bulls, with regret, but they did it because he was a holy man and they needed all the help they could get. Each time he would say their fortunes would double, triple, that they would be very happy and wealthy soon.
There was one family, one woman who was very very poor. She had only a few chickens, a goat and a female cow. The priest came to the door and did his spiel. She said, but señor I only have very little. Can I give you a chicken? Señora, your cow will do. You want to have your fortunes grow 100 fold don`t you? For this to happen we need to offer God your cow. With regret the woman let go of her cow.
And so the priest made his way with his now 99 bulls, and the one cow. He was not very far from the village of the poor woman, when the cow began to get restless, she missed her home, she did not want to go with the Priest. So the cow turned around and began to run back to the house of her señora. Of course, being the only female cow, all the bulls also turned around and ran after her! The priest chased them far behind. When he arrived at the house of the woman, he knocked on the door and said, Señora, you^re you cow stole all my bulls, you have all 99 of my bulls and my cow. Please return them to me.
But no, Señor! You yourself told me that if I offered my cow, soon my fortune would grow 100 fold! And here it is, I had one cow before, now I have 99 bulls! I have 100 lifestock! Gracias a Dios! Thank God!
Hahahah.
To be continued soon....
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Friday, April 4, 2014
Photoooos
My students from the 1st grade of Secondary, which is like 6th-7th grade in the States. Today we finished our Storytelling-English workshop/project. They are really wonderful and I`m pretty sad to leave them! I`m definitely going to have to come back to visit. 
Mural in downtown Lima, sooo cool. Dedicated to women it looks like ;) very awesome.
at the first lake of the Llaganuco Valley in the Cordillera Blanca, on the road to the hike for Laguna 69.Thursday, April 3, 2014
Free the pee!, Fear the sea!, Stop the bus!, Laguna--number que?
First of all: There was an Earthquake in Chile that has caused a few of the beaches in Lima to be closed, and a Tsunami warning to be issued. All is well, there seems to be very low risk, and there are routes of evacuation, though none have ever needed to be used (and I´d be really intrigued to see how they function with so many people in such a big city). But anyhow, I am safe, not to worry.
There are many systems here I have yet to figure out. One is the trash pick up at the apartment I am living at in Lima. Some days the cans are there, usually on days when I don´t need it, then the next day when I lug the fly filled bags down the 8 floors, they are no where to be found. With no rhyme or reason to the day or time.
When I step out onto the street and am just hoping to walk in peace in search of who knows what, I am greeted with beeps, honks, wonk wonk, weeeep, tweeet, calls for buses, honks from Taxis, whistles from bike taxis, all of which I do not want nor need at this time.
The next day, when I am late for my class, I run out to the street and....it is a ghost town, quiet, peaceful, completely empty of any taxis, any bikes, any buses. When I need them, they are no where to be found!
The second system I have yet to understand is the entire bus system of the city of Lima. There are millions of private ¨combis¨, that sometimes have the same prices or fares, other times depending on how the tarif taker is feeling it might be a little more, a little less. It is all pretty flexible. There is room for 100 in a 10 seater bus. Then there are note takers along the main roads that the tarif taker pays a small fee to keep track of their buses, what times they pass a particular point, and when the next one will likely be coming along. Apparently, this notetaker then let´s people on the street know when the next bus is coming, and depending on who pays their buses are given preference. I have not yet figured out if there are groups of combis under the same owner or if each one is private with the driver and tarif taker working together as business partners separate from anyone else.
There is also a funny skill I have been trying to learn, which is to baja (get down from) the bus without it fully stopping at your stop...they call it something special that involves or translates to getting down with your right foot first...getting down running actually. I did it today. It quite surprised me that I didnt totally biff it, to my luck I stayed standing and cooley continued on my walk home, feeling quite like a true Peruvian. :)
Next is how we pay for water, and then we pay to pee. I walk around here with the substance of life in a plastic container that I refill over and over...refilling my body over and over. Sometimes I pay little coins to consume the liquid that keeps me living, and then I pay coins to release the liquid into porcelein containers that deliver the liquid back to the ground.
The price of life.
I actually owe some guy S/.50 (fifty cents of a Sol, which is about maybe 15 or 20 cents of a dollar), on the highway to Lunahuana, south of Lima, when I ran to use the bathroom he told me it cost 50 cents, and I said I didnt have it but it was on the bus, so he let me pee, then I ran to get my money from the bus but the bus was on its way out so I had to run to jump in it and he called after me and I tried to rush to my bag but it was too late, we rushed away, leaving him in the dust, to contemplate how the Gringa girl stiffed him on 50 cents worth of pee time.
Again, I return to the concept of fear. We see the world the way we believe the world to be. When we believe the world is a scary, frightening place, we encounter a scary, frightening place. Sometimes we are broken out of our perspectives bubbles, we are surprised, even stunned by random acts of kindness, strangers attempting to make a connection through the fear and distrust. Often we have our beliefs reinforced, because that is what we are looking for, and that is what our attention rests on.
I find this so true, when I give in to the fear of news, and distrust that comes along with big cities and lots of people and poverty next to large amounts of money and corruption, I begin to see a scary place, I begin to distrust everyone. Luckily, on these days, I happen to sit next to señora after señora that talks to me about my life and becomes worried that I am traveling alone, but then gives me her phone number, tells me to call her for any reason, asks if I have a place to stay, that I am being taken care of, or goes out of her way to show me where to go or where to get off the bus. And then the bus drivers are extra helpful, and the student sitting next to me details to me exactly where I need to go to get where I am going, or the nursing student I asked about the bus times and stops, walks from all the way in the back of the busy bus to tell me that the next stop is the one I want to be sure I don´t miss it. There are so many good intentioned, good hearted people in every moment. Mix in a few challenging, perhaps even frightening characters, and you have got yourself a solid story going.
A few notes on language:
Dar Cuenta...to realize. to become aware of. to be given a telling of something. For something to tell you and you pay attention to it.
Una Historia.....a story. I remember learning in Italian how una storia, is how you say you have a relationship with someone. You have a story with them. I´ve always thought that was such a beautiful way to describe it! We have stories with so many people throughout our lives!
Dar a la luz--to give to the light, to give birth. What a beautiful way to describe the birthing of something!
I have also really come to appreciate how in Spanish, there is a built in manner to give respect to the people you are speaking with. I am aware of this every time I speak to an older woman or man on the bus or on the street, using the form of Usted, to address them, and how I can use the informal Tu to create the experience of friendliness and closeness. I always like the moment in the conversation when I switch my form usage---beginning with the Usted, and moving into a relationship of tu with the person. It´s kind of beautiful.
Lima is the largest city I´ve ever experienced. There are 11 million people that live in this city, and I would guess a bit more than that even. One third of the population of all of Peru lives in this city. It is placed next to the ocean, with many earthquakes and tsunami warnings. There is a depressing fog that makes its way over the sky and into your heart, the ¨garua¨, which has been written about by many prominent writers including Charles Dickens and Mario Vargas (a famous Peruvian writer). Here is Los Olivos, the district I am staying in and working at the school in, we mostly have sun, but when I take the bus in to the center or to the beach districts, I enter into the garua like a Halloweeney smoke machine.
There´s nothing like writing reflections of my time here in Peru set to a soundtrack of Usher´s ¨Yeah!¨
YEAH!
YEAH. Lima. Is. HUGE. I regularly spend 1-2.5 hours straight on the bus going from one part of town to the other. Often it is because of traffic, but beyond the traffic, Lima is just incredibly LARGE. There are many districts, many cars, and many people.
It makes for interesting adventures, often ending in exhaustion and stressful tension in all parts of my body. It is nice to leave the city which is what I have been doing as well.
Tyson visited me about 2 weeks ago, and after our adventure at the airport (hearing news of a murder that took place the night before in a ¨secure taxi¨, right before I got on a bus alone at 9pm to go to the airport and wait for 4 hours for him to arrive, and then a ¨friend¨ (a guy who was on the first bus with me to the airport) waiting with me at the airport until finally he told me his cousin he was waiting for wasn´t coming, and we could all take the taxi back together to where we lived--supposedly near in the same neighborhood, and me finding Tyson and ditching the ¨friend¨, lying straight to his face, which I felt bad about for about 3 days after, then securing and bargaining with the taxis outside and finally arriving home, safe to the apartment)......
....We took an adventure (as if that wasn´t an adventure enough) up into the mountains of the Andes. Siiiigh. Out and away from the city madness. The day before we left the city actually we also went to the school I have been working at and all the kids went absolutely crazy to see TWO Gringos!!! Not only Miss Celine, but a Mr. Tyson! We talked with a few classes, and had a goggle of girls surrounding us asking a zillion and two questions about life in the United States while we attempted to gobble down our lunches in the cafeteria before we were gobbled up by the little girls!!
That weekend we took a day bus to Huaraz that wound along the coast north of Lima, then darted inward to climb up into the Andes.
On the bus ride, I experienced one of the most stunning sunsets of my life. A melting sun into the horizon, wispy surreal mist rising up over the valley as we rose above it all, winding precariously up mountain sides, zigzagging so that we turned out heads every second to keep our eyes on the sinking sun. The mountains green and blue, and the mountainsides growing dark shades in the shadows as the sun sunk further and further. It truly felt like we were entering into the kingdom of gods, where Zeus lives, floating in the sky in another world above the world.
We arrived in Huaraz, at the base of the mountain ranges the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra. After an unfortunate bout of stomach ickiness for Tyson, (most likely due to the bus food), we made it finally to the full day hike into the national park of the Cordillera Blanca to the infamous Laguna 69. Don´t ask me why it is called Laguna 69, I think we may have passed Lagunas 67 & 68 on our way up, but I´m not positive.
The hike itself was magnificent. Like something out of a National Geographic photographic journey. Along with the altitude, it proved to be quite the adventure, climbing to about 4,800 meters...over 12,000 feet I believe. I once skydived at 15,000 feet in the air. Think about that. We HIKED to near the altitude you would skydive from.
Arriving at the Laguna was magical, appearing at the top of the mountain we traversed, after valleys and mountains and more valleys, was a pristine, crystal blue blue lake, an icy waterfall splashing down from the glacial covering of the mountain above. A few from our group dove into the lake´s icy waters, I humbly stuck my feet in. :)
The rest of our week spent in Huaraz involved meandering through the streets, me eating ceviche on the street, questioning it for hours afterwards, finding an awesome hostal with a fireplace and enjoying this service for a few days, checking out a hotsprings a few towns north of Huaraz, which turned out to be the most bizarre hotsprings that I´ve ever been to. The water was too hot for anyone to get in, only I immersed my body for about 1 minute at a time. The hotsprings had natural sauna caves in the side of the mountain, which with the combination of extra hot water immersion, and steamy, strange vapory and questionable sanitation in the room before entering the sauna, (mixed with my street ceviche experiment a few hours before), turned out some interesting bowel movement bathroom experiences almost immediately. That being said, we did not spend much time there, returning to the haven of our fireplace laden hostal.
Upon returning to Lima, I finally lay eyes on Cecilia! My dear friend from Italy, who was an exchange student my Junior year of high school at Chico High. She lives in Lima now, working as an architect for a NGO as part of the civic service of Italy. Tyson, Ceci and Luccia another Italian friend, all went to Barranco, to explore the beaches and the famous Bridge of Sighs. We walked along the Pacific Ocean, passing many signs that had directions of how much sunscreen you should wear depending on skin color and tint, and a full on wedding set up that was to happen between the beach and the lovely big highway right next door.
For Tyson´s remaining few days in Lima, we walked the streets of Miraflores where we stayed in a really sweet family hostal, The Explorer´s House. We checked out the final Choco Museo, so that now I have visited all of the Choco Museo´s of Peru. Always nice to visit a free museum that dishes out free chocolate samples! ;) (Last night I actually discovered a second Lima location of the Choco Museo in Barranco! Of course, I had to taste and make sure their quality of samples was up to parr with the rest of them).
We also visited the famous Larco Museo, a museum that houses a huge amount of pottery, gold, jewelry, objects and weapons of various pre-inca cultures, including the only ancient Erotic pottery collection I´ve ever seen in a museum--including models of fallacio and masturbation. Pretty darn cool. Not a typical every day museum experience.
The week Tyson left, I continued to stay at the family hostal and to take Spanish classes at Elelatina, the school where I also had a Storytelling workshop with the lovely Claudia Cuentas! The workshop was for women, and we explored our stories through our bodies and the stories our bodies need or want to tell. After two full nights of workshopping, we all performed our stories at the Delfus Bar in Miraflores, for a decently large audience. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have come to be a bit more comfortable telling in Spanish, or perhaps I have just come to terms with a new manner of telling in which I don´t know all the words and I rely more on my movements, expressions, becoming more calm with pauses and being present with the audience. It´s sometimes fun to admit to the audience I don´t know the right word, and explore possibilities with them in the telling. Claudia´s workshop brought out many stories and ideas to work with, which I am excited to continue to develop and explore in my time here. The story I told at the bar was one about how my Hip turned into a grumpy old man, who eventually gets taught how to fly by a little bird, and as he flies he relaxes, becoming happier and happier, until he returns to the ground and has lost all his grumpiness and tension. It was a lot of fun to explore on stage. I ended up singing without planning to.
The next night I returned to that same bar to listen to another Storyteller, Roberto de Argentina, a comedian, an amazing performer, who told his personal story with passion and emotion to the audience. I understood about 60-70 % of his story, but was able to pick up on the emotions and appreciate his performance none the less. A very good example of a teller who can speak of very deep, intense and often sad experiences, at the same time bringing humor and cleverness to the experience.
My Spanish classes ended, and I moved back to Los Olivos to begin my own workshop with the elementary-highschool there. Over the weekend, Cecilia, Luccia and I went to Lunahuana for the night. A beautiful little town inland from the south of Lima, where a big River runs through and many wineries and bodegas are. We wine tasted, had borgoña wine which has such a strong flavor of the grapes it was really delicious and interesting. We met a group of Limeños who do outdoor education with a highschool and got to hear about all sorts of crazy stories of their experiences as guides and educators here in Peru. We had a fun ladies weekend, un descanso from work and the city.
This week began my workshop, on Monday I told the story of How the Night Sky was Created, to two fifth grade classes, one 6th grade, and the middle school class I am now working with on a longer term project. This week we have been discussing storytelling, story elements, and beginning to create our own story books of our own histories, all in English (since it is part of a English program for the school). Tomorrow is our last day, and I am hoping we will be able to finish our books and share them with the class. Yesterday we did some fun theater activities to get into our stories and today we began to put together our books.
I apologize for the lack of photos...it proves to be quite difficult to upload photos. I will try the next time to get a few up on here.
Until then, hope you are all well (all who are reading this).
The Tsunami warning here is still in effect, but it is really minimal. The areas that were most affected by the earthquake of Chile were much farther south. I´ll keep you posted of any developments in this area!
Alright, much love,
Celine
There are many systems here I have yet to figure out. One is the trash pick up at the apartment I am living at in Lima. Some days the cans are there, usually on days when I don´t need it, then the next day when I lug the fly filled bags down the 8 floors, they are no where to be found. With no rhyme or reason to the day or time.
When I step out onto the street and am just hoping to walk in peace in search of who knows what, I am greeted with beeps, honks, wonk wonk, weeeep, tweeet, calls for buses, honks from Taxis, whistles from bike taxis, all of which I do not want nor need at this time.
The next day, when I am late for my class, I run out to the street and....it is a ghost town, quiet, peaceful, completely empty of any taxis, any bikes, any buses. When I need them, they are no where to be found!
The second system I have yet to understand is the entire bus system of the city of Lima. There are millions of private ¨combis¨, that sometimes have the same prices or fares, other times depending on how the tarif taker is feeling it might be a little more, a little less. It is all pretty flexible. There is room for 100 in a 10 seater bus. Then there are note takers along the main roads that the tarif taker pays a small fee to keep track of their buses, what times they pass a particular point, and when the next one will likely be coming along. Apparently, this notetaker then let´s people on the street know when the next bus is coming, and depending on who pays their buses are given preference. I have not yet figured out if there are groups of combis under the same owner or if each one is private with the driver and tarif taker working together as business partners separate from anyone else.
There is also a funny skill I have been trying to learn, which is to baja (get down from) the bus without it fully stopping at your stop...they call it something special that involves or translates to getting down with your right foot first...getting down running actually. I did it today. It quite surprised me that I didnt totally biff it, to my luck I stayed standing and cooley continued on my walk home, feeling quite like a true Peruvian. :)
Next is how we pay for water, and then we pay to pee. I walk around here with the substance of life in a plastic container that I refill over and over...refilling my body over and over. Sometimes I pay little coins to consume the liquid that keeps me living, and then I pay coins to release the liquid into porcelein containers that deliver the liquid back to the ground.
The price of life.
I actually owe some guy S/.50 (fifty cents of a Sol, which is about maybe 15 or 20 cents of a dollar), on the highway to Lunahuana, south of Lima, when I ran to use the bathroom he told me it cost 50 cents, and I said I didnt have it but it was on the bus, so he let me pee, then I ran to get my money from the bus but the bus was on its way out so I had to run to jump in it and he called after me and I tried to rush to my bag but it was too late, we rushed away, leaving him in the dust, to contemplate how the Gringa girl stiffed him on 50 cents worth of pee time.
Again, I return to the concept of fear. We see the world the way we believe the world to be. When we believe the world is a scary, frightening place, we encounter a scary, frightening place. Sometimes we are broken out of our perspectives bubbles, we are surprised, even stunned by random acts of kindness, strangers attempting to make a connection through the fear and distrust. Often we have our beliefs reinforced, because that is what we are looking for, and that is what our attention rests on.
I find this so true, when I give in to the fear of news, and distrust that comes along with big cities and lots of people and poverty next to large amounts of money and corruption, I begin to see a scary place, I begin to distrust everyone. Luckily, on these days, I happen to sit next to señora after señora that talks to me about my life and becomes worried that I am traveling alone, but then gives me her phone number, tells me to call her for any reason, asks if I have a place to stay, that I am being taken care of, or goes out of her way to show me where to go or where to get off the bus. And then the bus drivers are extra helpful, and the student sitting next to me details to me exactly where I need to go to get where I am going, or the nursing student I asked about the bus times and stops, walks from all the way in the back of the busy bus to tell me that the next stop is the one I want to be sure I don´t miss it. There are so many good intentioned, good hearted people in every moment. Mix in a few challenging, perhaps even frightening characters, and you have got yourself a solid story going.
A few notes on language:
Dar Cuenta...to realize. to become aware of. to be given a telling of something. For something to tell you and you pay attention to it.
Una Historia.....a story. I remember learning in Italian how una storia, is how you say you have a relationship with someone. You have a story with them. I´ve always thought that was such a beautiful way to describe it! We have stories with so many people throughout our lives!
Dar a la luz--to give to the light, to give birth. What a beautiful way to describe the birthing of something!
I have also really come to appreciate how in Spanish, there is a built in manner to give respect to the people you are speaking with. I am aware of this every time I speak to an older woman or man on the bus or on the street, using the form of Usted, to address them, and how I can use the informal Tu to create the experience of friendliness and closeness. I always like the moment in the conversation when I switch my form usage---beginning with the Usted, and moving into a relationship of tu with the person. It´s kind of beautiful.
Lima is the largest city I´ve ever experienced. There are 11 million people that live in this city, and I would guess a bit more than that even. One third of the population of all of Peru lives in this city. It is placed next to the ocean, with many earthquakes and tsunami warnings. There is a depressing fog that makes its way over the sky and into your heart, the ¨garua¨, which has been written about by many prominent writers including Charles Dickens and Mario Vargas (a famous Peruvian writer). Here is Los Olivos, the district I am staying in and working at the school in, we mostly have sun, but when I take the bus in to the center or to the beach districts, I enter into the garua like a Halloweeney smoke machine.
There´s nothing like writing reflections of my time here in Peru set to a soundtrack of Usher´s ¨Yeah!¨
YEAH!
YEAH. Lima. Is. HUGE. I regularly spend 1-2.5 hours straight on the bus going from one part of town to the other. Often it is because of traffic, but beyond the traffic, Lima is just incredibly LARGE. There are many districts, many cars, and many people.
It makes for interesting adventures, often ending in exhaustion and stressful tension in all parts of my body. It is nice to leave the city which is what I have been doing as well.
Tyson visited me about 2 weeks ago, and after our adventure at the airport (hearing news of a murder that took place the night before in a ¨secure taxi¨, right before I got on a bus alone at 9pm to go to the airport and wait for 4 hours for him to arrive, and then a ¨friend¨ (a guy who was on the first bus with me to the airport) waiting with me at the airport until finally he told me his cousin he was waiting for wasn´t coming, and we could all take the taxi back together to where we lived--supposedly near in the same neighborhood, and me finding Tyson and ditching the ¨friend¨, lying straight to his face, which I felt bad about for about 3 days after, then securing and bargaining with the taxis outside and finally arriving home, safe to the apartment)......
....We took an adventure (as if that wasn´t an adventure enough) up into the mountains of the Andes. Siiiigh. Out and away from the city madness. The day before we left the city actually we also went to the school I have been working at and all the kids went absolutely crazy to see TWO Gringos!!! Not only Miss Celine, but a Mr. Tyson! We talked with a few classes, and had a goggle of girls surrounding us asking a zillion and two questions about life in the United States while we attempted to gobble down our lunches in the cafeteria before we were gobbled up by the little girls!!
That weekend we took a day bus to Huaraz that wound along the coast north of Lima, then darted inward to climb up into the Andes.
On the bus ride, I experienced one of the most stunning sunsets of my life. A melting sun into the horizon, wispy surreal mist rising up over the valley as we rose above it all, winding precariously up mountain sides, zigzagging so that we turned out heads every second to keep our eyes on the sinking sun. The mountains green and blue, and the mountainsides growing dark shades in the shadows as the sun sunk further and further. It truly felt like we were entering into the kingdom of gods, where Zeus lives, floating in the sky in another world above the world.
We arrived in Huaraz, at the base of the mountain ranges the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra. After an unfortunate bout of stomach ickiness for Tyson, (most likely due to the bus food), we made it finally to the full day hike into the national park of the Cordillera Blanca to the infamous Laguna 69. Don´t ask me why it is called Laguna 69, I think we may have passed Lagunas 67 & 68 on our way up, but I´m not positive.
The hike itself was magnificent. Like something out of a National Geographic photographic journey. Along with the altitude, it proved to be quite the adventure, climbing to about 4,800 meters...over 12,000 feet I believe. I once skydived at 15,000 feet in the air. Think about that. We HIKED to near the altitude you would skydive from.
Arriving at the Laguna was magical, appearing at the top of the mountain we traversed, after valleys and mountains and more valleys, was a pristine, crystal blue blue lake, an icy waterfall splashing down from the glacial covering of the mountain above. A few from our group dove into the lake´s icy waters, I humbly stuck my feet in. :)
The rest of our week spent in Huaraz involved meandering through the streets, me eating ceviche on the street, questioning it for hours afterwards, finding an awesome hostal with a fireplace and enjoying this service for a few days, checking out a hotsprings a few towns north of Huaraz, which turned out to be the most bizarre hotsprings that I´ve ever been to. The water was too hot for anyone to get in, only I immersed my body for about 1 minute at a time. The hotsprings had natural sauna caves in the side of the mountain, which with the combination of extra hot water immersion, and steamy, strange vapory and questionable sanitation in the room before entering the sauna, (mixed with my street ceviche experiment a few hours before), turned out some interesting bowel movement bathroom experiences almost immediately. That being said, we did not spend much time there, returning to the haven of our fireplace laden hostal.
Upon returning to Lima, I finally lay eyes on Cecilia! My dear friend from Italy, who was an exchange student my Junior year of high school at Chico High. She lives in Lima now, working as an architect for a NGO as part of the civic service of Italy. Tyson, Ceci and Luccia another Italian friend, all went to Barranco, to explore the beaches and the famous Bridge of Sighs. We walked along the Pacific Ocean, passing many signs that had directions of how much sunscreen you should wear depending on skin color and tint, and a full on wedding set up that was to happen between the beach and the lovely big highway right next door.
For Tyson´s remaining few days in Lima, we walked the streets of Miraflores where we stayed in a really sweet family hostal, The Explorer´s House. We checked out the final Choco Museo, so that now I have visited all of the Choco Museo´s of Peru. Always nice to visit a free museum that dishes out free chocolate samples! ;) (Last night I actually discovered a second Lima location of the Choco Museo in Barranco! Of course, I had to taste and make sure their quality of samples was up to parr with the rest of them).
We also visited the famous Larco Museo, a museum that houses a huge amount of pottery, gold, jewelry, objects and weapons of various pre-inca cultures, including the only ancient Erotic pottery collection I´ve ever seen in a museum--including models of fallacio and masturbation. Pretty darn cool. Not a typical every day museum experience.
The week Tyson left, I continued to stay at the family hostal and to take Spanish classes at Elelatina, the school where I also had a Storytelling workshop with the lovely Claudia Cuentas! The workshop was for women, and we explored our stories through our bodies and the stories our bodies need or want to tell. After two full nights of workshopping, we all performed our stories at the Delfus Bar in Miraflores, for a decently large audience. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have come to be a bit more comfortable telling in Spanish, or perhaps I have just come to terms with a new manner of telling in which I don´t know all the words and I rely more on my movements, expressions, becoming more calm with pauses and being present with the audience. It´s sometimes fun to admit to the audience I don´t know the right word, and explore possibilities with them in the telling. Claudia´s workshop brought out many stories and ideas to work with, which I am excited to continue to develop and explore in my time here. The story I told at the bar was one about how my Hip turned into a grumpy old man, who eventually gets taught how to fly by a little bird, and as he flies he relaxes, becoming happier and happier, until he returns to the ground and has lost all his grumpiness and tension. It was a lot of fun to explore on stage. I ended up singing without planning to.
The next night I returned to that same bar to listen to another Storyteller, Roberto de Argentina, a comedian, an amazing performer, who told his personal story with passion and emotion to the audience. I understood about 60-70 % of his story, but was able to pick up on the emotions and appreciate his performance none the less. A very good example of a teller who can speak of very deep, intense and often sad experiences, at the same time bringing humor and cleverness to the experience.
My Spanish classes ended, and I moved back to Los Olivos to begin my own workshop with the elementary-highschool there. Over the weekend, Cecilia, Luccia and I went to Lunahuana for the night. A beautiful little town inland from the south of Lima, where a big River runs through and many wineries and bodegas are. We wine tasted, had borgoña wine which has such a strong flavor of the grapes it was really delicious and interesting. We met a group of Limeños who do outdoor education with a highschool and got to hear about all sorts of crazy stories of their experiences as guides and educators here in Peru. We had a fun ladies weekend, un descanso from work and the city.
This week began my workshop, on Monday I told the story of How the Night Sky was Created, to two fifth grade classes, one 6th grade, and the middle school class I am now working with on a longer term project. This week we have been discussing storytelling, story elements, and beginning to create our own story books of our own histories, all in English (since it is part of a English program for the school). Tomorrow is our last day, and I am hoping we will be able to finish our books and share them with the class. Yesterday we did some fun theater activities to get into our stories and today we began to put together our books.
I apologize for the lack of photos...it proves to be quite difficult to upload photos. I will try the next time to get a few up on here.
Until then, hope you are all well (all who are reading this).
The Tsunami warning here is still in effect, but it is really minimal. The areas that were most affected by the earthquake of Chile were much farther south. I´ll keep you posted of any developments in this area!
Alright, much love,
Celine
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
esta cerrado. no esta abierta? japon! japon!, muchas lenguas!
You know its a good day when:
Your bowel movements are less of a rushing river, and more of a solid, slow landslide.
You discover the napkin in your back pocket you geniusly stored away weeks ago for just this moment in the bus terminal restroom where no paper is in sight and the faucet does not work.
You discover the shirt you just slaved away scrubbing all morning, has in fact NOT been stolen, but has only flown across two rooftops and is now in your hands, only once again, covered in dust and grime.
The toilet has a seat for the weary traveler...beckoning you to ¨Take a load off my friend¨ ;)
A few notes on traveling thus far:
¡Esta cerrado! Que? no esta abierto? Exacto. esta cerrado. Oo. Graciasss. (Mi experiencia con todo en Arequipa durante mi viaje alli)
Necesito Japon? Que? Japon. Que? Japon...Japon! Para lavar? la ropa? Que? mmm...Oh! Jabon!? no...Olvidalo. (Regrese a la casa para lavar mi ropa a mano en Cusco :p)
Juevon! Pinchete! Huevo? (Arequipa).
Miercoles!! Mierdra. Piedra. No! Mierda, una mierda. Que Miercoles!
Quieres Juego? Que juego? JUego de naranja...JAJAJA, Jugo? ahhh...si. Jugo.
A Menu at a crepe joint in Arequipa--crepe with green cheese. (queso verde)...means like fresh, young cheese. hahaha. ew. green cheese please!
Yo despierte con muchas lenguas en mi cabeza. Lenguas?? QUE? lenguas diferentes... QUE? Ingles, español, palabras diferentes... Lengua..Ah. Idioma. Idiomas. ay dios. jajajjajaja. (Lenguas, en Mexico significa Languages. Aqui, en Peru, it means Tongues. Idiomas means Languages ;) )
The dog`s name at the house in Arequipa: `Yurdoc`....Your Doc. Your dog. jajajaja :)
AND REMEMBER! Donde el sitio es lleno, El almuerzo es bueno! (I made this up in Cusco :) translation: where the spot is full, the lunch is good. Much better in Spanish)
Ahorrita, estoy la chica de la clase que esta sentado atras en el corner...un salon de computadoras y el profesor esta enseñado en Español. que chistoso. Pase mi almuerzo con chicos y chicas que tienen 13 años. Ellos me preguntaron sobre One Direction, The Beatles, Inglaterra, la comida de California, y que significa ¨Twist and Shout¨ :) Conoci los estudiantes de la escuela hoy, 5 clases diferentes, de estudiantes con 9-13 años. Voy a hacer una programa con ellos que va a empezar el Miercoles de este semana. Vamos a tener una programa de cuentos en Ingles, para practicar escuchando, leindo, y hablando ingles.
Okay, muchas cosas han pasado hace la ultimo vez yo escribi. Bueno, estaba en Cusco para casi un mes. Yo fui afuerra en el valle sagrada para conocer sitios en la naturaleza, incluyendo Macchu Picchu...
Since the last time let´s see: We had a big family reunion party with Guillermo´s family at the house of his parents in La Rappa, un barrio de Cusco. It was an absolute blast, we danced all night and played silly dancing games with a broom (rojo, verde! red light green light, make pairs, etc. muy divertido), and Guillermo´s family knows how to enjoy themselves. I laughed so much my stomach and cheeks were exhausted by 12am. :) A few days later, we went to Carla y Leon´s house, friends of Guillermo´s for a BBQ of chicken and veggies. What began as an innocent day of BBQ and refrescos quickly turned into a full blown CARNAVAL explosion of arina (white flour), colored confetti and charcoal faces. We ended our day looking like the walking dead, or at least ghosts with colorful hair :) On my walk home, I forgot I had flour all over my face and body and entered a shop to pick up some things for the morning, the cash register woman and the two guys up front gasped as I entered. I was surprised by them, then remembered I looked like the walking dead!! We all laughed.
Guillermo returned to USA, and I moved to the area of San Blas in Cusco...the area that is arriba arriba muchas escaleras, many steps to reach it above the center of town. it´s a beautiful area, pretty touristy, and artsy, but my hostal was up really far and really tranquilo, calm, relaxed. We had a kitchen where I could cook and buy food from the market. Marie, my friend from Denmark met me there at the hostal, my second week living there. There we also made friends with a Russian visual-music-audio artist guy, named Bulat, and a Southern France caterer-clown-funny guy named Pierre. The four of us made up a little tribe of hostalers, and had a grand ol´time cooking together, drinking and playing music. One night we wearily created secret handshakes of all sorts,with the initial pound and ïnsert cool hand shake thing¨ only to be demonstrated in person I´m afraid. They included the fantastic original, the SQUID,the falling star, the Cactus, the hummingbird, and various others.
Bulat, the Russian, Marie, and I went on adventures together around town including one up to Tambomachay, old Incan ruins above the city, where you usually have to pay to enter the official ruins, but instead we hiked above to a little pueblo and had a picnic up above in the trees-fields (where Marie taught us how to rub avocado on your face for your skin to be more healthy, very nice, very nice :) ). Bulat and I had found a way up to Sacsaywaman too one day, the main ruins in Cusco, that normally you pay to get into, but since we were only searching for muña (an herb to make tea with), and found ourselves somehow inside the ruins on the outskirts then continued our way to the main part of the ruins (since, heck, we were already inside!).
The three of us also adventured to Andahuaylillas, a small pueblo to the south of Cusco, where our hostal manager lives with his family and adorable son and daughter. We took the bus, and sat up front (THE VERY FRONT window sill of the bus), packed in like sardines, taking turns holding this man´s baby son and a woman´s bag full of foods. We walked around the town with Freddy, our hostal owner buddy, saw a baptism happening in the church and the mummified body of an Extra Terrestrial in a tiny little museum. I believe it, dude, this little guy was very much an alien. We tasted real Chicha, a fermented drink made of maiz-corn, from a sweet old woman in her house off the side of the street. Mmm. We then enjoyed a big lunch of choclo con queso, which is corn on the cob but REALLY large corn kernels, from Freddy´s fields, and mango juice, and spaghetti con pollo. Afterwards Freddy´s son showed us how good he is at drawing, and then they took us to watch the women´s soccer games at the fields on the outskirts of town--it was awesome to see women playing soccer, as most of the times I´ve tried to find a place to play, or said that I like to play, I´ve been met with raised eyebrows, or shrugging shoulders, or directions to the field where the professional Cusqueño men´s team plays. After the game, we said our goodbyes, gifting Freddy with a big watermelon we had carted with us from Cusco in Bulat´s backpack (another thing we juggled while on the sardine packed bus!).
Back in Cusco, my storytelling workshop began (fully in Spanish). I had two weeks of it, working with Cusqueños in IPNAC, an organization of Peru-norte america, that has lots of workshops in teatro, idiomas, dance, etc. Wayqui, our profesor, led us through different activities, games, to get us thinking and moving in our bodies, to get me to not think so much about my words in Spanish and just feel them. I fell in love with my compañeros, my workshop buddies, all were absolutely wonderful. And what a GREAT way to learn a language! Through theater and stories! My goal at the beginning of the workshop was to tell a story in Spanish at the end of it. To feel comfortable telling stories in Spanish and to learn more of the stories and legends of Peru. And...SUCCESS! Exito!
I told my first story fully in Spanish on Friday, February 21st to my class. I told them the story of The Key Flower, a story that comes from Wales. First, in the first week of the workshop, I told a story of Yogi & Booboo bear :) it was a little difficult, as I didn´t have all the vocabulary for it. Marie and Bulat listened to me tell my Key Flower story in English on our picnic up to the ruins, and then the two of them and Pierre, our French friend, came to my official telling the night of February 23rd, a night of storytelling with all of my compañeros de clase. We each told our story, and I was the last one of the night! The whole night I was full of nerves, waiting, waiting, until finally AH! it was my turn to tell my story...in SPANISH. To a whole packed room full of SPANISH SPEAKERS! Hah. it was fine, I told my story, finished, with only a few words being lost-forgotten, one moment of complete terror and the audience helped me out with the word ¨recoger¨to pick up-collect! haha. A great experience. and such a rich one to tell stories with my friends from class, such a pleasure and a unique opportunity. My improv teacher was even there in the audience! Que chevere :) I had also given my special stone rock to my friend in the first row, as part of the story, and apparently he had passed it around to everyone in the audience, and in the end, I said, wait, where is my special stone??? and he was like, OH! I thought it was to share with everyone! Eventually I found it in the hands of my teacher, Wayqui, smiling, so it ACTUALLY is a precious stone (not just part of my story) :) Yes. Thank you! On leaving the event, my teacher passed out 10 soles to each of us who performed! My first time to be paid for my storytelling services! (besides getting paid in conference entrance or food). A very cool evening!
After this, our cuatro amigos returned to the hostal to have a last cena together. We ate dinner at midnight. The next morning, Marie and Bulat and I finally made it to the cafe that has UNO, the card game, and we played a last game (Bulat had been talking about it for days), before Marie and I took off on our ridiculous adventure to get to Macchu Picchu (eventually). And that is a WHOLE other story in itself. Which, shall come at another time.
Quickly--Marie and I visited Macchu Picchu, hiked hours and hours up mountains (MOUNTAINS), did not make friends with the llamas (they make me nervous!), caught rides on the backs of motos, hiked again and saw salt pans, old pueblos, the ruins of Moray (old Incan experiments with plants like a laboratory in the shape of concentric circles-which were cool, but in the end I would say not necessarily worth the money and effort...the hike is worth it, the taxi ride from Maras to the ruins and the actual ruins, mas o menos, take it or leave it), relaxed in Ollantaytambo--the town of rest, Tambo means Descanso in Quechua, which means Rest in English--hitchhiked back to Cusco with a super friendly mom and son in their big truck and they told us of legends of the lagoons outside of Cusco where an old Incan ghost waits for people on the full moon to take their souls, and experienced an intense hail storm on our return to Cusco. Marie and I parted ways, with a ceremonial last sunset watching on some old ruin rocks near San Blas with helados (icecreams). Marie on her way to Puno and then on to Bolivia, and I on a night bus to Arequipa...
There I would experience my first serious stomach bug infection, enjoy the company of two very funny friends from Arequipa, watch a lot of Peruvian TV in Spanish, see an old monastery with some of the oldest books (handmade some of them) in Peru, and find most other places I wanted to see to be closed for vacations. :) Eventually getting to the beach, which is a desert! and trying my first Ceviche on the coast, and swimming in the Peruvian Pacific.
THEN, LIMA. Now, I am in Lima. Everyone told me it was a big ugly city. It IS a big city, it actually reminds me in a lot of ways of NEw York, and its actually quite beautiful, right on the beach-Pacific OCean. its very big and chaotic, and busy and dusty and in the desert basically, but there are lots of pretty little parks, lots of different people and places and businesses and activities and such. I miss the natural beauty of Cusco and the history and culture of Cusco area, but Lima has its own culture and history, one that is more Spanish influenced, more European seeming, more Western and internationally influenced, which is interesting in itself, along with the history of colonialization and the former inhabitants-cultures, pre-españoles, y pre-Inca tambien. Peru feels in some moments very similar to the USA. Lima in particular is very much a big city like New York or San Francisco in a lot of ways. They just all speak Spanish! :)
I´m enjoying having home stays with friends of friends, getting to know the family values and realizing really how precious, how sacred family is to Peruvians. I appreciate it, as family is ever more and more important to me in my life. I adore seeing so many older adult men with their mothers, living with them, but also caring for them, truly, genuinely, fully. It illuminates my own internal conflict of desire to be independent and free to travel and be far away from what I know, and the desire to be close to those I love and care about, those who I have grown up with, my family,my family friends from childhood. Dependency, interdependency, independence-individuality.
There is a big of a contradiction in North American culture, where we overly protect kids from stories of news in the world, stories where the ending is not happy, and yet then early on they see movies listen to songs that have adult content, movies of sex and scandal and horror and gruesome war scenes. Kids are told what to do and have to listen, until suddenly, at the age of 18, they somehow are supposed to have full responsibility and care for themselves, move away from what they know, and be separate in their own individual lives far from family. Here in Peru, the stories told to children don´t always have a happy ending. The realities of life are realized earlier on, and responsibilities are taken on earlier on as well. Except that then children of parents stay living with them until after 30 years old, even when they marry sometimes they will live just above in the second floor apartment of a building with their parents and kids. In both cultures there seems to be a contradiction of independence and dependence, individuality and freedom and communality and responsibility.
Perhaps more about that later. Those are just initial thoughts on the mind at the moment.
A few other thoughts---I find it frustrating when people assume that I am not street savvy or that I am innocent and don´t have travel smarts because I smile a lot or am friendly to strangers. Often those strangers (who then turn into the friends that tell me to be careful or that I need to be more discerning about who I talk to), are good people, and for this reason I talked to them. One thing I have realized is that probably the most important aspect of myself that I appreciate the most, is my ability to read people and to intuit their intentions. If I were to lose this or doubt this ability, Im really not sure who I would be. A very different person that is for sure. Of course, I`ve found myself in bad situations, where people turn out to be different than I originally though,t, but almost always I have had a feeling about them initially and the problem came from me not trusting or following that initial intuition about them.
For example, the man who robbed me on the bus in Cusco. I had a funny inkling about him, but I didnt follow it, I dismissed it, and then my wallet got dismissed. It just makes me sad that people assume that a person who is friendly and nice doesn`t know the world like they do. They think that if I knew the world like they did, I would be harder, meaner, less open to people. That is sad to me. I have been hardened at times, I`ve lost trust in people, been more jumpy, doubtful, distrustful. It doesnt serve me. What does serve me is to be observant, to trust my instincts, and trust with full common sense in effect. I trust that there are good people all over, and that there are people with bad intentions too. We`re all mixed together and some days the usually good intentioned are bad intentioned. That happens. It doesnt make me feel the need to stop being nice to people.
A quote from a year ago while talking with Marie ¨Just because others are assholes, doesn`t mean I need to be one¨. I also find that friendliness in itself can be used as a very street savvy tool to diffuse certain situations and avoid others. That´s all on that for now too.
I will eventually get around to the epic Macchu Picchu adventure story, don´t worry! Until then! Hasta pronto, and remember! donde el sitio es lleno, el almuerzo es bueno...most of the time ;)
SQUID ouuuut
Your bowel movements are less of a rushing river, and more of a solid, slow landslide.
You discover the napkin in your back pocket you geniusly stored away weeks ago for just this moment in the bus terminal restroom where no paper is in sight and the faucet does not work.
You discover the shirt you just slaved away scrubbing all morning, has in fact NOT been stolen, but has only flown across two rooftops and is now in your hands, only once again, covered in dust and grime.
The toilet has a seat for the weary traveler...beckoning you to ¨Take a load off my friend¨ ;)
A few notes on traveling thus far:
¡Esta cerrado! Que? no esta abierto? Exacto. esta cerrado. Oo. Graciasss. (Mi experiencia con todo en Arequipa durante mi viaje alli)
Necesito Japon? Que? Japon. Que? Japon...Japon! Para lavar? la ropa? Que? mmm...Oh! Jabon!? no...Olvidalo. (Regrese a la casa para lavar mi ropa a mano en Cusco :p)
Juevon! Pinchete! Huevo? (Arequipa).
Miercoles!! Mierdra. Piedra. No! Mierda, una mierda. Que Miercoles!
Quieres Juego? Que juego? JUego de naranja...JAJAJA, Jugo? ahhh...si. Jugo.
A Menu at a crepe joint in Arequipa--crepe with green cheese. (queso verde)...means like fresh, young cheese. hahaha. ew. green cheese please!
Yo despierte con muchas lenguas en mi cabeza. Lenguas?? QUE? lenguas diferentes... QUE? Ingles, español, palabras diferentes... Lengua..Ah. Idioma. Idiomas. ay dios. jajajjajaja. (Lenguas, en Mexico significa Languages. Aqui, en Peru, it means Tongues. Idiomas means Languages ;) )
The dog`s name at the house in Arequipa: `Yurdoc`....Your Doc. Your dog. jajajaja :)
AND REMEMBER! Donde el sitio es lleno, El almuerzo es bueno! (I made this up in Cusco :) translation: where the spot is full, the lunch is good. Much better in Spanish)
Ahorrita, estoy la chica de la clase que esta sentado atras en el corner...un salon de computadoras y el profesor esta enseñado en Español. que chistoso. Pase mi almuerzo con chicos y chicas que tienen 13 años. Ellos me preguntaron sobre One Direction, The Beatles, Inglaterra, la comida de California, y que significa ¨Twist and Shout¨ :) Conoci los estudiantes de la escuela hoy, 5 clases diferentes, de estudiantes con 9-13 años. Voy a hacer una programa con ellos que va a empezar el Miercoles de este semana. Vamos a tener una programa de cuentos en Ingles, para practicar escuchando, leindo, y hablando ingles.
Okay, muchas cosas han pasado hace la ultimo vez yo escribi. Bueno, estaba en Cusco para casi un mes. Yo fui afuerra en el valle sagrada para conocer sitios en la naturaleza, incluyendo Macchu Picchu...
Since the last time let´s see: We had a big family reunion party with Guillermo´s family at the house of his parents in La Rappa, un barrio de Cusco. It was an absolute blast, we danced all night and played silly dancing games with a broom (rojo, verde! red light green light, make pairs, etc. muy divertido), and Guillermo´s family knows how to enjoy themselves. I laughed so much my stomach and cheeks were exhausted by 12am. :) A few days later, we went to Carla y Leon´s house, friends of Guillermo´s for a BBQ of chicken and veggies. What began as an innocent day of BBQ and refrescos quickly turned into a full blown CARNAVAL explosion of arina (white flour), colored confetti and charcoal faces. We ended our day looking like the walking dead, or at least ghosts with colorful hair :) On my walk home, I forgot I had flour all over my face and body and entered a shop to pick up some things for the morning, the cash register woman and the two guys up front gasped as I entered. I was surprised by them, then remembered I looked like the walking dead!! We all laughed.
Guillermo returned to USA, and I moved to the area of San Blas in Cusco...the area that is arriba arriba muchas escaleras, many steps to reach it above the center of town. it´s a beautiful area, pretty touristy, and artsy, but my hostal was up really far and really tranquilo, calm, relaxed. We had a kitchen where I could cook and buy food from the market. Marie, my friend from Denmark met me there at the hostal, my second week living there. There we also made friends with a Russian visual-music-audio artist guy, named Bulat, and a Southern France caterer-clown-funny guy named Pierre. The four of us made up a little tribe of hostalers, and had a grand ol´time cooking together, drinking and playing music. One night we wearily created secret handshakes of all sorts,with the initial pound and ïnsert cool hand shake thing¨ only to be demonstrated in person I´m afraid. They included the fantastic original, the SQUID,the falling star, the Cactus, the hummingbird, and various others.
Bulat, the Russian, Marie, and I went on adventures together around town including one up to Tambomachay, old Incan ruins above the city, where you usually have to pay to enter the official ruins, but instead we hiked above to a little pueblo and had a picnic up above in the trees-fields (where Marie taught us how to rub avocado on your face for your skin to be more healthy, very nice, very nice :) ). Bulat and I had found a way up to Sacsaywaman too one day, the main ruins in Cusco, that normally you pay to get into, but since we were only searching for muña (an herb to make tea with), and found ourselves somehow inside the ruins on the outskirts then continued our way to the main part of the ruins (since, heck, we were already inside!).
The three of us also adventured to Andahuaylillas, a small pueblo to the south of Cusco, where our hostal manager lives with his family and adorable son and daughter. We took the bus, and sat up front (THE VERY FRONT window sill of the bus), packed in like sardines, taking turns holding this man´s baby son and a woman´s bag full of foods. We walked around the town with Freddy, our hostal owner buddy, saw a baptism happening in the church and the mummified body of an Extra Terrestrial in a tiny little museum. I believe it, dude, this little guy was very much an alien. We tasted real Chicha, a fermented drink made of maiz-corn, from a sweet old woman in her house off the side of the street. Mmm. We then enjoyed a big lunch of choclo con queso, which is corn on the cob but REALLY large corn kernels, from Freddy´s fields, and mango juice, and spaghetti con pollo. Afterwards Freddy´s son showed us how good he is at drawing, and then they took us to watch the women´s soccer games at the fields on the outskirts of town--it was awesome to see women playing soccer, as most of the times I´ve tried to find a place to play, or said that I like to play, I´ve been met with raised eyebrows, or shrugging shoulders, or directions to the field where the professional Cusqueño men´s team plays. After the game, we said our goodbyes, gifting Freddy with a big watermelon we had carted with us from Cusco in Bulat´s backpack (another thing we juggled while on the sardine packed bus!).
Back in Cusco, my storytelling workshop began (fully in Spanish). I had two weeks of it, working with Cusqueños in IPNAC, an organization of Peru-norte america, that has lots of workshops in teatro, idiomas, dance, etc. Wayqui, our profesor, led us through different activities, games, to get us thinking and moving in our bodies, to get me to not think so much about my words in Spanish and just feel them. I fell in love with my compañeros, my workshop buddies, all were absolutely wonderful. And what a GREAT way to learn a language! Through theater and stories! My goal at the beginning of the workshop was to tell a story in Spanish at the end of it. To feel comfortable telling stories in Spanish and to learn more of the stories and legends of Peru. And...SUCCESS! Exito!
I told my first story fully in Spanish on Friday, February 21st to my class. I told them the story of The Key Flower, a story that comes from Wales. First, in the first week of the workshop, I told a story of Yogi & Booboo bear :) it was a little difficult, as I didn´t have all the vocabulary for it. Marie and Bulat listened to me tell my Key Flower story in English on our picnic up to the ruins, and then the two of them and Pierre, our French friend, came to my official telling the night of February 23rd, a night of storytelling with all of my compañeros de clase. We each told our story, and I was the last one of the night! The whole night I was full of nerves, waiting, waiting, until finally AH! it was my turn to tell my story...in SPANISH. To a whole packed room full of SPANISH SPEAKERS! Hah. it was fine, I told my story, finished, with only a few words being lost-forgotten, one moment of complete terror and the audience helped me out with the word ¨recoger¨to pick up-collect! haha. A great experience. and such a rich one to tell stories with my friends from class, such a pleasure and a unique opportunity. My improv teacher was even there in the audience! Que chevere :) I had also given my special stone rock to my friend in the first row, as part of the story, and apparently he had passed it around to everyone in the audience, and in the end, I said, wait, where is my special stone??? and he was like, OH! I thought it was to share with everyone! Eventually I found it in the hands of my teacher, Wayqui, smiling, so it ACTUALLY is a precious stone (not just part of my story) :) Yes. Thank you! On leaving the event, my teacher passed out 10 soles to each of us who performed! My first time to be paid for my storytelling services! (besides getting paid in conference entrance or food). A very cool evening!
After this, our cuatro amigos returned to the hostal to have a last cena together. We ate dinner at midnight. The next morning, Marie and Bulat and I finally made it to the cafe that has UNO, the card game, and we played a last game (Bulat had been talking about it for days), before Marie and I took off on our ridiculous adventure to get to Macchu Picchu (eventually). And that is a WHOLE other story in itself. Which, shall come at another time.
Quickly--Marie and I visited Macchu Picchu, hiked hours and hours up mountains (MOUNTAINS), did not make friends with the llamas (they make me nervous!), caught rides on the backs of motos, hiked again and saw salt pans, old pueblos, the ruins of Moray (old Incan experiments with plants like a laboratory in the shape of concentric circles-which were cool, but in the end I would say not necessarily worth the money and effort...the hike is worth it, the taxi ride from Maras to the ruins and the actual ruins, mas o menos, take it or leave it), relaxed in Ollantaytambo--the town of rest, Tambo means Descanso in Quechua, which means Rest in English--hitchhiked back to Cusco with a super friendly mom and son in their big truck and they told us of legends of the lagoons outside of Cusco where an old Incan ghost waits for people on the full moon to take their souls, and experienced an intense hail storm on our return to Cusco. Marie and I parted ways, with a ceremonial last sunset watching on some old ruin rocks near San Blas with helados (icecreams). Marie on her way to Puno and then on to Bolivia, and I on a night bus to Arequipa...
There I would experience my first serious stomach bug infection, enjoy the company of two very funny friends from Arequipa, watch a lot of Peruvian TV in Spanish, see an old monastery with some of the oldest books (handmade some of them) in Peru, and find most other places I wanted to see to be closed for vacations. :) Eventually getting to the beach, which is a desert! and trying my first Ceviche on the coast, and swimming in the Peruvian Pacific.
THEN, LIMA. Now, I am in Lima. Everyone told me it was a big ugly city. It IS a big city, it actually reminds me in a lot of ways of NEw York, and its actually quite beautiful, right on the beach-Pacific OCean. its very big and chaotic, and busy and dusty and in the desert basically, but there are lots of pretty little parks, lots of different people and places and businesses and activities and such. I miss the natural beauty of Cusco and the history and culture of Cusco area, but Lima has its own culture and history, one that is more Spanish influenced, more European seeming, more Western and internationally influenced, which is interesting in itself, along with the history of colonialization and the former inhabitants-cultures, pre-españoles, y pre-Inca tambien. Peru feels in some moments very similar to the USA. Lima in particular is very much a big city like New York or San Francisco in a lot of ways. They just all speak Spanish! :)
I´m enjoying having home stays with friends of friends, getting to know the family values and realizing really how precious, how sacred family is to Peruvians. I appreciate it, as family is ever more and more important to me in my life. I adore seeing so many older adult men with their mothers, living with them, but also caring for them, truly, genuinely, fully. It illuminates my own internal conflict of desire to be independent and free to travel and be far away from what I know, and the desire to be close to those I love and care about, those who I have grown up with, my family,my family friends from childhood. Dependency, interdependency, independence-individuality.
There is a big of a contradiction in North American culture, where we overly protect kids from stories of news in the world, stories where the ending is not happy, and yet then early on they see movies listen to songs that have adult content, movies of sex and scandal and horror and gruesome war scenes. Kids are told what to do and have to listen, until suddenly, at the age of 18, they somehow are supposed to have full responsibility and care for themselves, move away from what they know, and be separate in their own individual lives far from family. Here in Peru, the stories told to children don´t always have a happy ending. The realities of life are realized earlier on, and responsibilities are taken on earlier on as well. Except that then children of parents stay living with them until after 30 years old, even when they marry sometimes they will live just above in the second floor apartment of a building with their parents and kids. In both cultures there seems to be a contradiction of independence and dependence, individuality and freedom and communality and responsibility.
Perhaps more about that later. Those are just initial thoughts on the mind at the moment.
A few other thoughts---I find it frustrating when people assume that I am not street savvy or that I am innocent and don´t have travel smarts because I smile a lot or am friendly to strangers. Often those strangers (who then turn into the friends that tell me to be careful or that I need to be more discerning about who I talk to), are good people, and for this reason I talked to them. One thing I have realized is that probably the most important aspect of myself that I appreciate the most, is my ability to read people and to intuit their intentions. If I were to lose this or doubt this ability, Im really not sure who I would be. A very different person that is for sure. Of course, I`ve found myself in bad situations, where people turn out to be different than I originally though,t, but almost always I have had a feeling about them initially and the problem came from me not trusting or following that initial intuition about them.
For example, the man who robbed me on the bus in Cusco. I had a funny inkling about him, but I didnt follow it, I dismissed it, and then my wallet got dismissed. It just makes me sad that people assume that a person who is friendly and nice doesn`t know the world like they do. They think that if I knew the world like they did, I would be harder, meaner, less open to people. That is sad to me. I have been hardened at times, I`ve lost trust in people, been more jumpy, doubtful, distrustful. It doesnt serve me. What does serve me is to be observant, to trust my instincts, and trust with full common sense in effect. I trust that there are good people all over, and that there are people with bad intentions too. We`re all mixed together and some days the usually good intentioned are bad intentioned. That happens. It doesnt make me feel the need to stop being nice to people.
A quote from a year ago while talking with Marie ¨Just because others are assholes, doesn`t mean I need to be one¨. I also find that friendliness in itself can be used as a very street savvy tool to diffuse certain situations and avoid others. That´s all on that for now too.
I will eventually get around to the epic Macchu Picchu adventure story, don´t worry! Until then! Hasta pronto, and remember! donde el sitio es lleno, el almuerzo es bueno...most of the time ;)
SQUID ouuuut
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Flowers, Water, Libraries and Improv
I realized today that the title of my blog was more than incorrect in the creative license way that I intended...Cuentos is what I meant to write, not cuentas, that´s like ¨you tell¨. The rest of the incorrectness was intentional...since my name is Celine Bean, therefore I am an UNA, feminine, even though Frijoles are ¨¨los¨¨ (are those quotation marks?, I cannot tell)
<I´m not entired certain of this keyboard!" ahhh that´s the quotation mark! Foreign keyboards are always fun to navigate Ñ=! that´s a smiley face!
Since I wrote you all last, let´s see...
I took a stroll from the house I´m staying at to the center of town, and found myself in the midst of beautiful outdoor gardens in between apartment homes. It´s the rainy season down here, though technically it is summer, but it makes all the flowers bloom and the mountains green, it really is an incredible site.
A few things to get used to:
1. The smog, any time driving anywhere or on the bus, uhhh the exhaust is terrible. I really should have brought that mouth-nose cover you gave me Marta! I forgot to pack it! Although I feel like I´d look a little ridiculous walking around with it on. Weighing the pros & cons: look like a ridiculous foreigner and have respitory health, blend in (not really because I am a ridiculous foreigner) and have trouble breathing. I think I´ll try a little bit of both and see how it goes....
2. Remembering to throw the toilet paper in the bin next to the toilet, not in the toilet, AND remembering to take along toilet paper in my pocket or bag when I leave the house to any public places. most places don´t have paper for you, you need to bring your own, or get really good at the Shakira shake or the Beyonce bounce, really up to you which one you prefer. For me, I use both, it´s much more effective, covers all your bases.
3. And drinking water---it´s amazing how much water I feel I ingest or feel the need to ingest compared to others here. It´s a product of growing up in a culture where water is always available and easily accessible. Here in Cusco we boil the water, not because of micro organisms in the water, but more because it has really high levels of Chlorine in it. Since you have to boil it first (an extra step to drinking it) then let it cool, it really makes you aware of how much you drink, and how much we need to value each drop of drinkable water. It worries me about California and the drought we´ve been in. It´s interesting to think that it won´t even be a matter of dirty water that you have to boil, but a matter of no water at all.
In other news...
At the end of my walk to town, I found the Biblioteca! (the library)! Many of you know how much I love libraries, and for those of you that don´t...Well, I LOVE libraries. Some people travel to a place to see the churches, go to the shops and buy cool trinkets, see famous statues, and I like to find the libraries. Ñ) smiley face again.
It´s really a pretty library, La Biblioteca Municipalidad, and I found a room of windows in the back where people were studying all at this big long table, so I pulled out my Spanish study materials and my markers and paper and commenced studying as well. It was lovely. quiet, silent individual time amongst other peers. I really enjoy that kind of thing.
After my library enjoyment I went on a mission to find a new wallet, which I found! woohoo! Despues, I people watched in the Plaza de Armas, looking up at La Catedral! I watched teenage girls in different outfits model for a photographer and dance near the fountain, Argentinians selling food on a platter, little kids trying to polish shoes that didnt need polishing, and I met a Brazilian whose Spanish was worse than mine and made me feel super capable! hah.
After my centro adventure I returned home to cook a semi-Italian meal for the family I´m staying with. Earlier I had gone to the market to pick up vegetables and pasta and cheese and such. I made a salad with cranberries and almonds I´d brought from Chico, and a big pasta with sauteed onions, tomatoes, bell peppers spinach, garlic etc. It turned out pretty tasty. We even had some white wine to go along with it!
Afterwards I taught Guillermo how to play Gin Rummy, mas o menos, seeing as I don´t know the exact rules but we had fun anyways. We played cards while we attempted to jailbreak-unlock my old phone on his computer. It´s halfway there, soon I´ll (hopefully be able to use here as a Peruvian phone!)
This morning I went to an Improv group here at a performance space in a wonderful woman´s home, her name is Dalia. She teaches groups of Improv and other teatro groups. It was hilarious and SO much fun. I can say I successfully (more or less) did improv in Spanish! The other players were great and lots of fun, and we made up some pretty silly scenes. It makes me really excited to get more involved in the arts-performance scene here in Cusco, and in Peru in general. Dalia and I also talked about the possibility of me offering a workshop or doing a performance at the space there, so Í´m excited to follow up on that and see what possibilities there are!
That´s all for now folks! I´m going now to catch my 2nd bus (this time very carefully) to go to Guillermo´s family´s reunion-going away party for him!
Chao! hasta pronto!
<I´m not entired certain of this keyboard!" ahhh that´s the quotation mark! Foreign keyboards are always fun to navigate Ñ=! that´s a smiley face!
Since I wrote you all last, let´s see...
I took a stroll from the house I´m staying at to the center of town, and found myself in the midst of beautiful outdoor gardens in between apartment homes. It´s the rainy season down here, though technically it is summer, but it makes all the flowers bloom and the mountains green, it really is an incredible site.
A few things to get used to:
1. The smog, any time driving anywhere or on the bus, uhhh the exhaust is terrible. I really should have brought that mouth-nose cover you gave me Marta! I forgot to pack it! Although I feel like I´d look a little ridiculous walking around with it on. Weighing the pros & cons: look like a ridiculous foreigner and have respitory health, blend in (not really because I am a ridiculous foreigner) and have trouble breathing. I think I´ll try a little bit of both and see how it goes....
2. Remembering to throw the toilet paper in the bin next to the toilet, not in the toilet, AND remembering to take along toilet paper in my pocket or bag when I leave the house to any public places. most places don´t have paper for you, you need to bring your own, or get really good at the Shakira shake or the Beyonce bounce, really up to you which one you prefer. For me, I use both, it´s much more effective, covers all your bases.
3. And drinking water---it´s amazing how much water I feel I ingest or feel the need to ingest compared to others here. It´s a product of growing up in a culture where water is always available and easily accessible. Here in Cusco we boil the water, not because of micro organisms in the water, but more because it has really high levels of Chlorine in it. Since you have to boil it first (an extra step to drinking it) then let it cool, it really makes you aware of how much you drink, and how much we need to value each drop of drinkable water. It worries me about California and the drought we´ve been in. It´s interesting to think that it won´t even be a matter of dirty water that you have to boil, but a matter of no water at all.
In other news...
At the end of my walk to town, I found the Biblioteca! (the library)! Many of you know how much I love libraries, and for those of you that don´t...Well, I LOVE libraries. Some people travel to a place to see the churches, go to the shops and buy cool trinkets, see famous statues, and I like to find the libraries. Ñ) smiley face again.
It´s really a pretty library, La Biblioteca Municipalidad, and I found a room of windows in the back where people were studying all at this big long table, so I pulled out my Spanish study materials and my markers and paper and commenced studying as well. It was lovely. quiet, silent individual time amongst other peers. I really enjoy that kind of thing.
After my library enjoyment I went on a mission to find a new wallet, which I found! woohoo! Despues, I people watched in the Plaza de Armas, looking up at La Catedral! I watched teenage girls in different outfits model for a photographer and dance near the fountain, Argentinians selling food on a platter, little kids trying to polish shoes that didnt need polishing, and I met a Brazilian whose Spanish was worse than mine and made me feel super capable! hah.
After my centro adventure I returned home to cook a semi-Italian meal for the family I´m staying with. Earlier I had gone to the market to pick up vegetables and pasta and cheese and such. I made a salad with cranberries and almonds I´d brought from Chico, and a big pasta with sauteed onions, tomatoes, bell peppers spinach, garlic etc. It turned out pretty tasty. We even had some white wine to go along with it!
Afterwards I taught Guillermo how to play Gin Rummy, mas o menos, seeing as I don´t know the exact rules but we had fun anyways. We played cards while we attempted to jailbreak-unlock my old phone on his computer. It´s halfway there, soon I´ll (hopefully be able to use here as a Peruvian phone!)
This morning I went to an Improv group here at a performance space in a wonderful woman´s home, her name is Dalia. She teaches groups of Improv and other teatro groups. It was hilarious and SO much fun. I can say I successfully (more or less) did improv in Spanish! The other players were great and lots of fun, and we made up some pretty silly scenes. It makes me really excited to get more involved in the arts-performance scene here in Cusco, and in Peru in general. Dalia and I also talked about the possibility of me offering a workshop or doing a performance at the space there, so Í´m excited to follow up on that and see what possibilities there are!
That´s all for now folks! I´m going now to catch my 2nd bus (this time very carefully) to go to Guillermo´s family´s reunion-going away party for him!
Chao! hasta pronto!
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