One month to go

I ran passed a hand painted rock wall this morning that said-

Vecinos, Juntos Somos Diferentes. Neighbors, Together we are Different.

(there was no sponsorship on the wall to be found)

There are some really crazy things happening in the world, as always. Together we strain to be different, to maintain our cultural and territorial dignity, as well as to remain united. Recently, the Prime Minister of Peru has said he will step down from his position because of his irresponsible actions-that of allowing the passing of legislation which will permit the degradation and separation of land in Northern Peru, the Amazon Jungle, from it´s indigenous inhabitants, without consulting them. After what has become a small war between the native people and the police fighting for the access to roads and water ways. The indigenous people want to close down access to areas the government wants to develop and exploit for it´s natural resources. The trouble is that Peru needs the money...but ironically, will sell this land to foreign companies.

Just a quick fact-From 2002 to June 2008, the portion of territory in Amazonas (north), San Martín (central) and Madre de Dios (east) granted to mining companies quadrupled, from 4.65 percent to 17.35 percent. Wow.

Friday I will travel to Puno, the site of Lake Titicaca. Yes, it does exist. It´s the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. I learned that in the Highlands in Puno, it gets to -18 Celcius, or 0 Fahrenheit. Mother of god. The trouble with cold like this is kids are catching pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses…dying from lack of medical treatment, oxygen, vaccines, warm clothes. My plan is to travel to the hospital and give whatever I can gather together from my neighbors and room mates that they no longer use. I am scared to arrive in a new place with no place to go with no real plan, as I am always scared to start something new. I will only stay the weekend, but I hope that I will be able to see some of what it´s really like there…

A briefing of last weekend…another in Coporaque. This time I was accompanied by a recent graduate of psychology, Renato. The first day, we directed the children to write instructions for games they play (other than soccer and volleyball). The trouble with writing with these kids is that half of them are really little, some don´t know how to write, and the few that do cannot necessarily be relied on. From what I can tell, these kids really lack a sense of creativity. It´s very hard to see a community full of children, and the majority of them either aren´t acquinted with INTIWAWA, or don´t have the time to come. Nearly all of the older boys, from age 11 to 13 could not make it one day because they had to collect the town garbage. The enormous truck drives around in the intense sun with 10 adolescent boys in the back…they are having a blast, and it is quite a sight…an older man walks along, grabbing the trash cans and passing them up to the boys to dump. After writing their ´traditional´ games, which the children have no idea what is traditional, what´s not…only, what it is that they do, and whether or not it´s fun. That is why I would prefer to work on cultural exploration with the older kids…but really, we had one older girl who was older than 13…and no boys…they are working on their farms, helping raise their younger siblings, washing clothes. It´s troublesome.

On Sunday, we cooked! This time, maz amorra de maiz…it´s a soup complete with really squishy potatoes that are dried, then soaked like beans, carrots, onions, alpaca meat, some peppery liquid, abas, kind of like huge lima beans, salt and powdered maiz. It was really good! It was cooked on a fire in a ceramic pot. I carried it up hill for quite a ways…it was very heavy, and lacks real handles (they are smaller than tea cup handles). The heat was so intense that we had trouble keeping the kids attention…but they did enjoy helping prepare the ingredients. I was hoping the kids would be excited about this dish as they were about the gelatin cake…but alas, they were not.

Saturday in Coporaque was another day of another Saint. That said...this one included a parade with a ridiculously shrouded box complete with garland of fruit and flowers...sitting a top was Senor Saint. After the parade, they had a mass, and then after that, the drinking began. I have never witnessed so many drunk people in my life. They had a good four hours of drinking before I joined the scene with Renato. The tradition it to go from house to house, eat, drink and be merry. It´s incredible, with what little some people have, they were feeding everyone full meals (two plates). People bring bags to take their left overs because it´s more than enough. They have a special drink called Chicha which is fermented corn juice, more or less. It didn´t have that great of a flavor...but apparently lots of people reeeallly like it. When we first joined the procession, it was just the stragglers in the back. Turned out to be Chocolate, the father who I went fishing with last weekend, and a few of his relatives, and a few other bizarre men. One woman was crying, falling over herself, and another very leathery man fitted with an enormous cowboy hat was hiding his teary eyes, tucking his chin to his chest...we finally made it to the actual party, the majority of the women are in their traditional beautiful dresses, the men casually dressed, ready to drink and fall down. There is a small brass band with a big bass drum....playing popular songs that are on the radio, not sure how old they are though. Those guys played for two straight days, starting early in the morning, around 8, playing late through the night, and were still playing when I left on Sunday at 2pm. Chicha must be some kind of energy drink...and apparently they make a lot of money. You can´t have a party without a live brass band! After this non sense, we headed back to our house, took a lap, ate half a dinner (tepid fish head flavored soup) and headed down to the river. I missed the hot springs like crazy but it is really quite an effort to get their and back.

Down their in the aguas calientes, the sky with lit up with stars. It was so bright you could see the silouhettes of the tips of the hills and trees. Like searching for figures in the clouds, Antonella and I passed the time making up what we thought the shadows were...animals, cowboys, families, tigers...it was really magical just flopping around in the hot water, pitch black besides the stars. The hour walk back was killer...everything is less defined now that all of the barley and corn have been harvested. It is a good thing I didn´t go down there just with Renato. I am sure we would have gotten lost.

Until next time!