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.

El Mercado, y La Fiesta

Yesterday I went to the most immense farmer´s market I have ever seen...there were more fruits and vegetables that were unfamiliar to me than I could have imagined...and instead of spreading out wide, the vendors have what looked like stairs up at least twenty feet into the air, packed with produce, the bright colors, textures, and smells and crammed with diligent local Arequipeñas...there was raw meat being processed, sweets being pawned on the innocent, a three piece traditional band, loads of pungent cheeses, unidentified sauces, infinite types of potatoes and all without refrigeration, a bit disconcerting for with the meats...and it was incredible how much food you could buy for so little money...which made me a little uncomfortable...It just seems like these people work just as hard for their money, but receive so little in return for their work...I struggle daily with the confusion between the disadvantaged, lowered standards, simpler, better or just plain different. My mind begs for a value classification on everything I see...but there seems to be none.

Last night almost all of the volunteers attended a birthday party and going away party for one of the german boys here who speaks impeccable English and Spanish, is tall, skinny and squeaky clean, with gelled hair, brand new suede shoes, slim jeans and a black collared western-style shirt...what a style. He is living with a host family...and because we waited for EVERYONE to be ready at the same time, before cramming 11 people in two mini-taxis, we were an hour and a half late for the 8:30 arrival time...I felt incredibly rude...and everything seemed a bit forced...When we walked into the house, I was impressed by the formality of their parlor, was it was referred to as...with overstuffed furniture, the white building stone, sillar, which rubs off on your clothes like chalk if you brush up against it...a white faux animal fur carpet atop ornate, patterned multi-shade wooden floors, which seem to be common, because they are also in our apartment...Jacob, whose party it was, told me that the rest of the house is normal, this is simply for first impressions...and what an impression it made on all of us...it was almost embarassingly formal for such an occasion. But, once we all had a few drinks, things lightened up a bit, and jokes about language and culture in our current and shared shared situation arose and everyone was merry...the problem was that we all had dinner before hand...and came to this house...expecting simply dessert, but there was also way too much on the side of hors d´oeuvres...after a few hours of being force fed by guilt and unsuredness of cultural expectations, a few of us left to go home and sleep off the food hangover...it was a marathon, and my stomach was exhausted. What I liked best is that we sang Happy Birthday in three languages...and the host family looked so pleased so see all of Jacob´s friends there. It was very sweet.

Overall, my Spanish is improving as I grow more comfortable speaking my mind, and making mistakes in front of native speakers and others who have had more practice than I. Because I like to be such an active participant and contributor to whatever I am involved in...I can´t help myself but to speak my mind at our weekly meetings for INTIWAWA...tonight we have a meeting with all of the parents of the children who attend the afterschool homework help and snack...I see a lot of problems with the students...especially unpreparedness for homework, weather that is a problem with the child and her motivation, or the teacher and their lack of fulfilling their duties to provide adequate information for the students to be able to do their homework. Often the students have advanced homework, with very little understanding of the basics...like expondents, without knowing how to multiply properly...or filling a basics of chemistry worksheet without a textbook, or prior notes from class. One school we work with might close...the parents think the school is so bad due to the teachers, that they are sending their children elsewhere...and there is certainly no shortage of schools...each little village has at least one...all are Catholic and private, where the parents get money to pay for school is still a mystery...the community we work in produces bricks, has a federal prison and a bull fighting ring just a few miles away...but this doesn´t seem to be enough to support everyone...because so many of the children have mutilated shoes, decaying teeth, and a generally poor education.

As everyone says here...vamos a ver...we will see.

Until next time.

Brazos

Cuerpa Failure

I am back in my apartment after a treacherous 3 days which began at midnight on Thursday. I met up with the only other American to take the three hour bus ride to Chivay, which is the drop off point for gringos a plenty to visit Colca Canyon, as well as Cruz del Condor, something about massive condors (I saw a picture, and they are sadly large vultures). Anyway, the three hour bus ride, everyone was sleeping but me. I simply cannot sleep on buses. We get into Chivay, which is obviously dark and dead, as it is 4 in the morning. We take a motorcycle type vehicle with a box on the back for your things and your butt, inhaling the fumes from the exhaust. He drops us off god knows where, and we get a combi, (about the size of a VW van) who promises us10 soles, which is good (for the whole ride, for both of us,right? right!) and later charges us 10 soles each. Bastard. This apparently happens all the time. He drops us off in Corporaque after a 30 minute very bumpy, very dark, very unfamiliar terrain in the town center, just a 2 minute walk from the house we will stay at. Chris, who I traveled with, does this every Friday to meet with the kids. I am still unsure of what he was doing before this Friday, because it was his first English classes with this school. We arrive at the house in time for about an hour nap, woken up with rapid Spanish, bright light and a home made breakfast. I am sick with exhaustion. We eat breakfast, and walk to the school...6 grades, 40 minutes each, of the alphabet. I have never wanted to teach English, and it was confirmed. I feel like I have other things to offer besides my language. By the end of the school day, I could barely stand up, and I hated the alphabet. That day, Chris left in the afternoon, and I was left there to fend for myself with a family who speaks only Spanish, and the indigenous language, Quechua (no idea of the spelling). I did learn that Intiwawa, means children of the sun (I guess it was more of a reminder), but Inti means sun, and wawa means child. Nice, huh? The family has four children, the oldest of two are 14 and9 and get along perfectly. As far asI could tell, there wasn't a single problem amongst the family this weekend except for the fussy one year old who eats dirt and rocks. The two oldest take my mal-adjusted self up the side of a mountain with the most specatular views of ancient, Incan terraced walls, beautiful shades of green, which turned out to be small fortressed plots of farm land (explanation soon). At the top, there was an Incan cemetary, which had piles of human remains inside, a few recognizable skulls, two of which were in the windows of this little building. Kind of creepy, but so old, it is hard to believe it is still there. The children, Christian and Antonella told me that the Spanish had looted all the good stuff, and left the bones. Our hike was a few hour loop, in which I stopped a lot to avoid tripping over there puppy, or to take pictures. At the bottom of the mountainside, was more ruins, the bare bones of homes. All without roofs. My guess is that they were all thatched roofs, which many of the homes in Corporaque have now. After a few hours of playing with the children at their school the next day, in which Chewonki would be proud to know that I introduced a few games I learned there. They loved them, even if they were not introduced in the clearest way. They had fun, and I laughed at the irony of coming all the way to Peru only to teach them games. I cant remember why I have come, but just the same, I am enjoying the experience. After playing, we ate lunch with the family, and walked to the river at the bottom of the valley, an incredibly steep decline. I knew coming up would be hell. I paused at one of the terraces to look at the wheat bending in the wind, and put my hands on the top of the rock wall, only to jump back in pain. I had put my hand firmly on a cactus, and leaned in with my stomach. I pulled away, looked at my hand, and had 10 1 inch spikes sticking out of my palm and fingers. My hand still hurts! That was a great point of humor in the trip down. Later everyone was warning me of the cacti ahead so I wouldn't injure mzself. After a few hours in the hot waters, or hot springs, right next to the river, we all got out, changed under towels in the brisk cool air, and began our ascent. This included the entire family, with the mother carrying the plump infant on her back, an incredible feat. Christian was running up ahead of everyone, and once we caught up huffing and puffing, he was relaxing in the grass with his puppy. Show off. The last third of the ascent nearly killed me. Altitude sickness set in, I think. My hands turned white and cold, I was flushed, out of breath, overwhelmingly tired. I still feel like crap two days later. For a point of reference, for the last week, I have been stazing at 2325 m, or 7000 ft. Coporaque is 3957ft,or 12985 ft. I had no idea. Apparently altitude sickness can set in days later. I am back in Arequipa, with a stomach ache, back ache, switching from sweating to chills. It is entirely possible that I am simply dehydrated. This week, I get to sleep in a bed. Last week I slept on little kid mats, worse than at Chewonki. Last night was a terrible nights sleep, but I stayed in bed for at least 12 hours, and have been sleeping on and off all day today. The backache could be attributed to the insanely bumpy ride back to Chivay to catch the bus home in the back of a pick up truck with a bunch of other people, with nothing to hold onto. Ow. When we got to Chivay, we were surprised to hear that the bus tickets were sold out. The next bus won't be until 1am. This was very bad news, especially for me, because I could barely make it to the bus station. All this while I wasn' t sure I could even take this bus because I felt sick, but managed to make it anyway. The only possibility of getting home at a reasonable hour would be to take a taxi for 200 soles...50 bucks. Ouch. No friggen way. It is a three hour ride, and I guess that would cover his costs back to Chivay, but we just could't do it. After we stood around in disbelief for a few minutes, a taxi driver came abruptly over to us, speaking to the male Peruvian we were with, to tell us he could get us on a bus right now for a little more than we would have payed for the 1am. 20 soles, 5 bucks. Much better. we hop in his taxi, and I am thinking, there are no other towns, where the hell is he taking us? He drives for a few minutes with a Peruvian man scrunched in the back with our belongings, and pulls up behind a bus with its four ways on! The taxi driver had called the bus driver to tell him he had 5 passengers, and he pulled over to wait for us. What are the chances? I got on the bus, and it was FULL of tourists from all over the Northern Hemisphere. My god. We made it.

Hello! I added a post, but it seems to have failed itself. There have been numerous complications with communication, as in I don´t know how to use my cell phone yet, I don´t have a calling card, the phone in our apartment is broken, and as a result, so is the internet. The stove was even on the fritz, and last night there was no water coming out of the faucet when you turned on the hot...they are replacing the solar hot water heaters I guess. The apartment is just a half hour walk from La Plaza de Armas, a small but beautifully lush park surrounded by historical buildings and is bustling no matter what time of day.

My arrival into Arequipa was breathtaking-the view from the plane was absolutely stunning, vast desert cayons, ocean, islands, mountains and villages that fill in the crevaces of the lowlands...when I got off the plane, the sun was setting, we talked on to the tar mac into the tiny airport which was surrounded by some of the biggest mountains I have ever seen, snow capped Picchu Picchu, El Misti and Chachani, which is 6075meters, or nearly 20,000 ft. I was told that up until a week ago, the mountains were fully cloud covered, and you couldn´t see them at all. I arrived at just the right time. The weather is perfect, warm all day and cooler at night. I went to Tarea, or Homework help, from 3-5pm yesterday, my first visit to the Center (Intiwawa´s Community Center). The building is bare bones, simply brick, mortar, cement with a thin aluminum roof complete with the tap tap tap of pigeon feet at all times above you. The children are adorable...all different ages, many personalities, and they all greet and depart with a kiss on the cheek to ever elder in the room. They are patient with our language, I am not the worst, but I am not the best. We will see how I feel in a few days, and perhaps I will take language lessons. A teacher comes to our apartment to work with three different people, so I might join in, or have a private lesson. Most of the people I know speak German to each other, and English and Spanish are at about the same level of understanding...I do have the relief of speaking with my room mate who is an Australian dietician. People are constantly rotating out of the apartment I live in, on the floor, and I may move into a private room for a little more so we don´t anger the land lords. The set up is in an apartment building, with families all around, and apparently they complained about constantly seeing new faces and not knowing who to trust. We are trying to work it out. So much has happened in the few days I have been here...I managed a few minutes at an internet cafe in a random mall in the city where there is a dentist giving free checkups for the children...I left the house at 615am, took the bus to the Center to retrieve 2 kids and meet another volunteer, and then another hour back to the city. The first appointment took over an hour and a half...we think it is a check up with some education as well, but there is no telling. I think they are doing fillings so, which the kids probably need, because they drink more soda than they do water. Water has to be trucked into the villages from what I understand. There is a massive river bed that is dry...and a 9 year old girl told me that she remembers it having water...I will find out more. Maybe it was dammed for power or irrigation upstream, or maybe it is a natural occurence. I better get back to the waiting room. There is a lot of waiting to be done.

Brazos

I've made it!

After a solid 14 hours of travelling (really not bad considering I am in Southern Peru!!!! I woke up, climbed the beautiful, finished stairs to the roof to see massive snow capped mountains, a cornfield a block away, two cows living directly across the narrow, dead end road, as well as zillions of homes. An odd juxtaposition,especiallz because surrounding me on the westísh is a low lying, rocky, post-apocalyptic evaporated ocean floor. So far, everything is beautiful in it's own right. There are dogs barking, chickens clucking, and German English and Spanish are all intermixed here. I have some time explore before I go in to meet the kiddos, from kindergarten to sixth grade. It feels natural to be here!

Just a few more days

I'm leaving for Peru at 6:30 am on Monday...I haven't figured out how I am getting to the airport yet...I want to see everyone I can before I leave, I quit my job a few days earlier, thank god! so now I can do more. I am writing my personal statement for graduate school, but I have no idea what I'm doing. I want to finish it before I go. I read somewhere online that says "tell a story." So I am, and mixing in all the requirements. Fortunately, and unfortunately, it's a maximum of 800 words. Any advice?