Cities

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day in the city center of Arequipa. With a population of just over a million people, it´s more than bustling. Although there are many ¨touristic,¨as they call it, ammenities, like restaurants, hotels, hostels, travel agencies, etc. people still stare at this tall white girl walking through the streets. The Plaza De Armas is a tiny park in the center, where most of these touristic things reside...and where what seems like a zillion people and pigeons come to hang out, half in the sun, half in the shade...There are police everywhere blowing their whistles and vendors to stop trying to sell in the Plaza...a humorously familiar sound, after life guarding most summers of my working life. All sorts of women and children are selling gelatin, ice cream, candy, bubbles for the kids, and bird seed (why do you want the pigeons to stay, and to poop everywhere???) Yesterday, there was a man shouting about the Bible and Jesus to the people in the shade, including me. I was bumping elbows the entire time with someone or other...there is never a spare seat left in the Plaza. Conveniently, I am able to block out what I normally wouldn´t be able to...it takes concentration for me to understand what people are saying, so without that, I am just lost in the noises, as if it isn´t even happening.

I sat on a park bench in the Plaza for hours, reading this poorly translated book called The White Masai, translated from German. I don´t often read travel literature...so this is interesting...A woman goes on vacation with her boyfriend in Kenya....and ends up marrying a year later, a Masai, some kind of indigenous tribe...the culture is a complete 180 degree spin from her life in Switzerland...its an incredible feat in patience and I suppose a bit of insanity to be able to adapt...from typical European standards...to living in a really tiny hut with her husband, his little sister his mother, and later what sounds like their daughter. Wow. Crammed.

Later I talked to a local woman who works selling glasses in an optometrist´s shop...and wants to become an architect, or an optometrist...Both of which she would need to move to Lima for...She wanted to know about the English language...and whether there were many kinds to learn...I talked about environmental education...and was able to manage a bit of environmental philosophy, despite my struggling Spanish. The Spanish English Dicctionary has become quite a presence in my life. Sometimes the words I hear aren´t in there, and then I am completely flustered. The woman seemed about my age I guess, or older, and told me she didn´t have a career in anything but selling things, and I said that can be a career, and in universities people study business and marketing. I hope she follows her dreams.

I decided to walk home yesterday, despite my lack of really knowing exactly how to get there. I have a general sense of direction as to where my house is, but I overshot it by a few blocks last night. I wanted desperately to get home before dark, and I arrived just as the sun was setting. I don´t know whether to feel safe or not walking alone. I do know that the smell of alcohol on a dark, desolate street terrifies me. Sunday seems especially bad, because people seem to return early to their homes. There are police on the busy streets, and are willing to give directions and stare fervently at the gringo...but so far, I feel I can trust them.

My walk started in the bustling center, and as I wandered further away, I realized how many bizarre things you can see in a city. I like to peek in every open door to see what I´ll find. I learned that playa, which I recall as beach, also means parking lot. In these dirt parking lots, which are empty lots crammed in amongst the buildings, the tenants also wash cars. I thought this a bit odd, due to the dirt floor of the lot, the excessive pollution in the air, and the chickens walking amongst the cars. And not just any chickens...I saw the most enormous chicken of my life, and that is saying a lot, considering I have been to the Pennsylvania Farm Show...it was the size of my dog. A few blocks later, I peeked into a little restaurant, which had lime green walls in the inside, was dimly lit despite the rapidly setting sun, and four men sitting around a table, one facing directly towards the door, holding as you would hold a 2 year old in his lap, his hairy, dirty, undeserving dog with a pony tail on the top of its head. It was both grotesque and entertaining at the same time. I don´t think I will ever forget that.

There was also the nicest man who reminded me of happy, wine saturated Italian, selling wine in a little shop. I asked where the bridge was, he corrected my Spanish, and then asked me which Bridge. I told him which one I thought I needed, and he warmly gave me directions, most of which I could not follow. I was led to the highway...so I turned back, and found I was only a few blocks off. If it weren´t for major landmarks...I would have never made it home.

In Arequipa there seems to be a lot of sitting around. I don´t know what everyone is doing, whether is warming in the sun, waiting for a bus, chatting with friends, watching the chaos, or just avoiding home life...there are people sitting everywhere. It might have something to do with the astronomical rate of unemployment...its 16 % in Arequipa, and only 7% in Lima, and is about the same for the entire country...I don´t know how they track this accurately, because there are so many little pueblos tucked into every little corner of Peru.

Saturday, I wondered around the city center as well, and ended up in one of the very highly covered Alpaca shops, with a young girl (very difficult to tell peoples ages here), everyone looks significantly younger than they are, mostly because of their size. I asked the girl for what I was looking for...and they didn´t have it (a weaving to use as a bathmat...which through her off a bit. When I told the Germans this later...they thought it was ridiculous too. Why the hell am I going to buy something I cannot use????? If someone could please explain the so called practicality of impractical things...it might help. Why not buy something I know is sturdy, beautiful, made in Peru of Alpaca and relatively inexpensive to USE, rather than hang on my wall to collect dust? Tell me, what is more impractical? Anyway, that rant was not the point of this particular story...the girl I spoke with was excited to hear why I was in Peru, for how long, and whether I wanted to be an English conversation partner...I told her I don´t teach English, but, somehow I managed to get her to come the next day as a volunteer to San Isidro. She connected with a few of the kids, got to see the village, and played some volleyball with them. It worked out quite nicely. She had to go early because she is a very busy girl with only a short amount of time to see her cousin who is in town, and left on the bus, but promised to be back either for homework on Wednesday, or next Sunday. We are confident she´ll return. Her name is Noelia. While we were collecting children to come play for Sunday activities...I got to see my first rigamortis dog. It was white, and looked exactly as it did in life...minus a few details. My first instinct was the urge to get this thing out of here. It´s in the path, and it doesn´t seem safe to me to have children running around with this animal here to contaminate things. It seemed to well preserved, which is I am sure due largely to the bountiful sun that shines here almost constantly. At least it won´t be contaminating a water supply. Another volunteer asked the children what will be done with the dog, and he was told that they will just let it there to die. There are so many bony, mangey, dehydrated, starving dogs running around, it amazes them how any of them survive. I was also a bit disconcerting to see one adult dog chasing around a pregnant, or mother dog, trying to steal some milk.

This same day, as if this wasn´t enough of a spectacle...the children grew tired of volleyball, couldn´t organize themselves for soccer and could really not focus enough to do group challenges like I am used to doing, started wandering off...and I began to panic. Chris, the American, suggested we leave, but I knew were were schedule to be here for three hours...so I asked the children if they wanted to walk through their village...and they all excitedly pointed to the top of something halfway between a hill and a mountain, to Los Tres Cruces...The Three Crosses. Religious icons are very prominent here...even at the top of a ridiculously steep incline. So we all set off for what ended up being an hour to the top. The kids were wearing everything from sneakers, rubber tire sandals, flip flops to knock-off crocs. I was amazed. Half of them ran up, the other have could barely make it to the first cross, which was only halfway, because they were so tiny. We left them behind, and continued to the top. It was quite a view. No camera, of course. But it was such a vast view. In one direction, was the scrub covered low lying mountains with nothing between us and them but more scrub, rock and sand. Down below, we could see the village. It is nothing but brick buildings, many of which are only half build, a small mining sight for the material they must use for the bricks, and than off in the distance in another direction, it´s green. Trees, pastures and farms. Socabaya, the town next to San Isidro. It is absolutely dumbfounding as to why these people live here. Other than being close to the mines and the brick making industry...there is nothing. No water. Why can´t they live in Socabaya, and work in San Isidro? Why did they settle in San Isidro to begin wtih? No one who volunteers here seems to know the answers. I am going to ask Senora Martina, the women who cooks the food for the children in during homework help. She is the most well off looking woman there, complete with clean clothed, white teethed children who go to a good school. I was told she gives her children everything she has. They live as others do, but with more water, and what a difference it makes.