Well! Another week has flown by. I don’t even know how long it´s been since I left Arequipa for Cusco…a week? The week was full of adventures. I cannot imagine being a tourist for very long…it is absolutely exhausting. All the near disasters, the crises, and the meeting of all sorts of people…good and bad. It is an absolute roller coaster! I will try to start from the beginning. I decided to go to Cusco because there was no INTIWAWA, and I couldn´t bear the thought of staying in the city for any longer doing nothing…so I went to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The city of Cusco is stunningly green this time of year, reminiscent of Coporaque. I arrive in Cusco at 5 in the morning after a arduous bus ride of about 10 hours. I am delirious, tired, and have to regain my strength inside the bus terminal for a half an hour before I can embark on the journey…first to find a hostel. I meet 4 lovely girls, who at first I assume are from Europe or something. They turn out to be from Argentina. I was later told this is the season of Latinos in Cusco. It´s their summer, and they are ready to travel, and it seems like half of Argentina´s young folks are in Cusco going to Macchu Picchu and other such sites. I went to Cusco to go to Choquequirao, which is a archeological site similar to Macchu Picchu. They say it´s older, and bigger, than Macchu Picchu, yet most of it is still covered in hundreds of years of overgrowth. Only in roughly the last 10 years has it been open to tourists. It´s cheaper, too. I decide to stay two nights in Cusco to prepare for my journey after I learn it is possible to travel solo on the trail. I want to go backpacking, and leave all this craziness behind. After recuperating from the long bus ride, I start getting all of my things together for a 4 day trek, food, tent, stove, etc. I get it all down to the last minute, and the next morning, I heard for Cachora. This is a miserable four hour bus ride. Because I bought my ticket an hour before departure, I get the blessing of having the worst seat on the bus. Number 3. This is the seat that went you open the door from the cabin to the seats, if you are my height, your knees get knocked, and then the person leasons on you to pass by, and shut the door. Normally this wouldn´t be a problem, but because there is very little transit in this area, it turns out to be a bus that stops every 10 minutes, like a combi, to drop people off in front of their homes on this main road and pick up more folks. Great. I realize shortly before my stop, that I´ll have to ask to get off, as it´s not a main stop. I thought Cachora was a big place. Turns out, it doesn´t even take you to Cachora, it takes you to the crossing where you will then take a collective-taxi for an hour down the most rocky bumpy road of my life. When I realize this, I think, I should get my back, so they don´t leave me with out it, or it becomes a big ordeal to get it out from underneath the bus at the last minute. I ask to get my back at an earlier stop where the bus driver decides he wants to he breakfast for 45 minutes, so we all get off, they put some water somewhere in the engine to prevent it from overheating…and this is the moment I lean my backpack, with everything I need for my trek, is not on the bus. It´s 5 hours behind us, left in the terminal by some incapable young worker. I naturally flip out, and demand a solution. They call back to the terminal, and luckily, we call a half hour before the next bus is due to depart from Cusco. They tell me it´s on the next bus, and I should wait where I get off, and flag down the bus, for my backpack. I hesitantly depart from the bus at my stop, Ramal, out in literally the middle of no where. There are 10 houses, and the rest is farmland. There is no where to go. I back in the sun, and then freeze when the clouds pass over the sun, for 6 hours. I meet a really nice young girl a few years older than me who is waiting for a ride down to the bottom of the valley to Cachora. She is Cusquena, and decided to come to Cachora after a trip here 13 years ago with her school, where she met a woman who is a friend of an aunt, or something along those lines. She was just going to show up after 13 years to see the woman. She kindly waits for my for some hours, until my backpack arrives, and we find a ride down to the bottom. It was so bumpy and loud, we couldn´t even speak in the car. At this point, my backpack is missing my nalgene I just hesitantly purchased for 10 dollars in Cusco. I am enfuriated at the situation, but we continue on. She helps me find hostal (there is literally nothing open, at this is apparently not the season for tourists, because it rains like you would not believe, everyday). Good to know. Wrong season. Check. Hostel, 10 soles, for a private room, and hot water. That is like $3.50 a night. Perfect. We have lunch, which we had to beg someone to make for us, as no restaurants are open this time of year. We get some greasy chicken, some shredded lettuce and of course, a mound of white rice. It is always a struggle for me to eat all of my food. We happily chat, and then go to the newly opened tourist agency with one young guy working there, Martin, who looks at me like I have completely lost my mind when I tell him I want to hike to Choquequirao alone. My new friend also thinks I am crazy. They tell me it´s impossible, dangerous, especially for women, and that I absolutely have to hire a guide and a mule. At this point, I am so overwhelmed and worked up, I want to head directly back to Arequipa to escape this mess I´ve gotten myself into. After a little while of weighing my options, having a good cry, I decided to do it. It will cost 240 soles for four days. $83. Whatever. I have no choice. I am too scared to go on my own after all of these bad omens, the bus, the backpack, the waterbottle, and later, I think my camera has been stolen from my backpack as well. They tell me they´ll get it arranged. I go to bed to 7 waiting for them to tell me they´ve found someone to go with me (it was bit of a challenge, as most of the guides have left Cachora for another city to work during the offseason is mines or other farms). No one shows up, and I have a worried sleep. I wake up early, at 530, to figure out what to do. I planned on leaving the day before, so I didn´t want to delay it any further. I search for the two people who said they´d help me out, and finally have to knock on Martin´s door (he is still sleeping) to ask him what the hell is going on. Oh yes, I stopped by your house, and they said you were sleeping! Alright, so what´s happening, then? It´s all arranged. The guide and the mule will be here at 7. Super. I eat as much as I possible can for the long journey, meet the guide, he piles my stuff on the mule, and we head off shortly after, him in sandals made of old tire rubber, and a small backpack, and no food. I think, my god, we are never going to make it. I later learn that there are little houses on the trial that offer food. (During the tourist season). The whole time, I am worried he is not going to get enough to eat, and then I´ll have to share, and then neither of us will have enough. Am I going to starve on this trip? Is he? I will not be the cause of someone else´s suffering, even if it is originally self-inflicted, just so he can make some money. That is crazy. At times, Paulino (the guide) and I have lively conversations about our very different lives and histories. Other times, we walk in complete silence, sometimes for hours. Sometimes we walk together, other times, I am alone, ahead on the trial, while he tends to the mule, and her seemingly tiny hooves, as they make their way up and down the mountain on the rocky, steep, slippery switch backs.
After 15 intense kilometers, the last two hours being in the high heat of the day, we finally arrive at our camp site. I meet a lovely young guy named Julian, who lives up in this seeming jungle, by himself, with a bum leg. He calls himself a mystic. He studied in university some kind of spiritual studies, still unclear of exactly what it could be equated to in English. Kind of like training to be a shaman, or a buddist…we have lively discussions all night long. We are nearly same age, and after a day with Paulino, it´s really nice to meet such a vibrant spirit up here in the mountains. I make my dinner on the ground on my little backpacking stove, Paulino makes his over the fire somewhere else, and slowly over the next few hours, a few more travelers and their guides arrive, exhausted, having taken hours longer than Paulino and I to travel the same distance, which means they were in the heat for even longer. They don’t eat dinner til 9, but I am in bed by then, after having heard some insanely creepy stories about ghosts, zombies, and other terrifying occurrances these locals have personally experienced. I lay in my tent, half asleep, and two cats start fighting intensely, ramming into my tent, scaring me enough to make me scream. I have imaginings of a possessed cat t hat has it out for me. Turns out, it´s Julian´s cat, which he calls little son, (hijito) and the cat from up the mountain, his aunt´s cat I believe, that weekly tries to kill his cat. Julian has tried to kill intruder a number of times, injuring it enough for it to lose an eye. He can identify it easily in the night now, he said. Dear god, I thought. Where am i?
I also have the pleasure of meeting an arrogant guy from Lima, 31, who is seems desperate to speak English. He lived in Florida for 7 years, and no matter what I do, he continues to switch back to English. It annoys the hell out of me, but is only the beginning of our journey, in which we will continue to butt heads and argue. He rudely corrects my Spanish continually, and switches to English when he doesn´t feel like asking me to explain myself in Spanish. I am irritated. I try to remain polite, but in the final hours of our trip a few days later, he asks me why I don´t like to be corrected. I said I didn´t mind, as another guide and I were correcting each other´s English and Spanish with no problems. It´s just that I don´t like to be corrected by you, I tell him. Oh, he says. And he finally stops correcting me. It only took 3 days!
On the second day, we arrive at Choque. I feel like crap. I didn´t eat enough for breakfast, it´s raining on and off, it is straight up hill, I´m slipping in the mud. I am miserable. Paulino takes me around to some of the sites, tells me what he knows about the Incas and their history here (some of which turns out to be entirely incorrect). The nostalgia is incredibly strong for the days of the Incas here. I feel for their nostalgia, but also am sure that they ran their society with just as many injustices as we have today. One empire for another. I am sure that that some of what Paulino is telling me is not correct, but I listen just the same, take photos and walk around, wishing I was alone, back in my tent, or somewhere dry, left to just look at this enormous valley which seems to continue forever. All you can see are mountains, covered in thick semi-jungle forest, and even further out, snow capped mountains. These mountains give me comfort for some reason. It´s good to know, perhaps, that in some places in the world, no one lives there. It´s just the rocks and the snow, and whatever else nature allows to thrive. It´s a comfort to know that some places are unreachable, insurmountable…that the impossible does exist. If everything was possible, I guess, you´d have to keep outdoing yourself. Besides the mountaineers and climbers that challenge the snow, glaciers and mountains, no one lives in these places. Only the sun and the moon reach the farthest reaches.
After a long trek back to the next camp, I settle in, meet some new people, play with too little boys, Jan and Juan Carlos, brothers, who are only a few years apart. I share my snacks with the little one, Juan, who is four, and has no fear of asking for a hand out. We share toasted corn together, and later, he even gets hot chocolate from another group and some crackers. He´s ridiculously cute, is learning to whistle, and his little nose continuously runs without bothering him. He shows me his scribble drawings of butterflys and houses in a newspaper from the new year, now a week old, and presumably, the only written news this family will see until their dad comes back from Cachora, attending some other farms. This family tends a few chickens, pigs, mules and the bathrooms, supposedly which have been put in place by the French Government. A French guy discovered Choque in the early 1900´s. There is an insanely strong French influence in Peru, from the NGO´s, the French language schools in the city, tons of young people who dream of travelling to France, and now, these bathrooms. They flush and everything. I have never been to such a remote place that still had some of the basic amenities we are used to at home. They are squat toilets, don´t get me wrong, but they flush. They have this crazy gravity system for a shower, using the toilet as the drain. Inventive. They journey back to Cachora is pretty intense. It´s a valley, so you have to descent one mountain down to the river, and then back up the other day. My legs are destroyed by the time we get to the river. And we aren´t even close. Luckily, the ascent and descent use different leg muscles, and I manage just fine up the other side, no thanks to the intense sun. Paulino and the other guides are worried about the tourists and the sun. They decide not to push them too much and we camp where the others must camp, as he is also short on places to eat. I graciously accept dinner made by the cook of another group in this little ramshackle structure, realizing I could use a change from the quinoa and rice i´ve been eating for every meal. It´s the last night, so I give him the rest of what I´ve got, carrots and oat meal, to share with augment when he´ll make for his group. The cook, Edwin, and the guide, Benji, of the the other group, one Peruvian guy (who I theorize is some kind of shaman in training) with his two German girlfriends who always sit on either side of him. The three of them speak German quietly, to the point you can´t even here them to determine what language they are speaking, and then run off for hours by themselves…which I also theorize they are smoking pot…which is fine, but why so secretive? Why so quiet? It´s a mystery to all of us.
When we finally arrive in Cachora on the fourth day, we are all pooped, Edwin, the Lima guy, and Benji and I walk most of the way together, arriving in one group of tired, filthy, stinky young folks. It feels SO good to know I can sit down soon. Paulino has gone ahead, presumably sick of hiking too, especially slower than he probably can hike on his own, as he does this some times five times a month with other groups, which he tells me about, laughing about how out of shape the tourists are, and how unprepared, some to never make it to Choque. He´s even had to carry someone´s baby on the trial! We decide to meet at the information agency so I can pay him. I get there, and I realize, after not having thought about money for four days…that I do not have enough to pay him. Not nearly enough. Less than half! Shit. I know Benji and Edwin don´t have anything to lend me because we just changed the Shaman guuy´s Euros so they could stay at a hostel an extra night. We are stuck with Euros. Completely useless until we get to Cusco. I am not coming back here, I decide. No way in hell. The journey is too long. I ask if I can leave money in Cusco for someone to take back to Cachora. Nope. Not possible. One option left. The Limean. The guy I did not get along with the entire trip. The only person I would rather not see again, and he´s the only one who can save me. I ask him, and he thinks he can lend me some of the money, but not all. He´s worried he won´t have enough, either, to get back to Cusco. But I know he´s fine, because he doesn´t have to buy anything until Cusco, because he and his group have a private van back to the city. He kindly offers me the money, finally, after I think I am completely screwed. Benji and Edwin and I stick together, barely scraping by enough money for the collectivo to the top of the mountain to Ramal. We know we don´t have enough money to get back to Cusco. We have to find a car that will take us, and let us pay at the end. Not happening. There are no cars to Cusco, only half way. They say we can get another car there. We manage the fee (all with Benji´s money) to the next town. We´ve got a pile of stuff, as Benji and Edwin are responsible for bringing back tents, a bottle of propane, some stools, and pots and pans back to Cusco. The rest stays in Cachora with some agency or somebody´s home. In the next town, drive, sunny, and crowded with people desperate to get to Cusco. Nobody´s driving there. They know they won´t get passengers back, so they choose to just drive between the towns out in the middle of no where, rather than make the 3 or 4 hour journey to Cusco, to return with an empty car. After more than an hour, we finally find a van, and cram in the back, our stuff behind us. This vans windows barely crack open, I have to keep mine open with a water bottle, and I sit, feverish, in the back, bumping along, desperate to sleep, terrified we are going to crash with this moronic driver. As the sun finally eases up, and the day passes, the rain begins its daily descent to the earth, it cools off. We run into traffic (in the middle of no where??) because two drivers, a bus and a small car, collide. The bus has tumbled to a halt off the side of the road, into a small farm, just 15 feet below. At the moment of the accident, the road is flat, straight, and it hadn´t begun to rain yet. Who knows how it happened. These drivers are so desperate to drive fast, they risk their passengers and their own lives every day driving like lunatics. I have been scared for my own life a number of times. This is the status quo. Everyday there are major bus and train accidents in the paper. You can tell someone has happened again when you pass by the little news stands, with the various news papers hanging for all to view, with a dozen people standing in front, chins up, reading what tragedy another bus has caused. The major causes of accidents (as was in the paper), starting with tired drivers, then driver negligence, then drunk drivers, I believe. Don´t quote me on that, but that´s roughly what I remember. The trips are so long, and I presume the businesses can´t afford to have two drivers in every car, taking turns, which is really what is absolutely necessary for anything over 9 hours, I think.
After s pending two more days in Cusco, hanging out with Benji, and meeting up with two friends from Chewonki who were visiting Cusco at the same time, which was completely surreal. Easier to meet in Cusco, Peru, than in Utah? Crazy. I departed, for the final leg of my journey, back to Cusco. I buy a more expensive ticket, with a seemingly fancy agency, as they have nice tickets, well dressed workers, and I someone advertising for them convincingly in the terminal. I was completely dooped. It started to rain in the early afternoon, and didn´t stop until we got out of the range of the storm, 5 or 6 hours down the road. The bus was not made for rain. Water was pouring down from the windows, the emergency exists, and the air vents. I was lucky enough to have a seat next to an emergency window. Completely permeable to the weather. I had to wear my rain jacket, the man next to me with a plastic trash back covering him, and a blanket over my head to keep from getting soaked. When the rain picked up even more, after hours of suffering, sweating to death in my rain jacket with this blanket over my head, I demanded a solution. They told me I could come sit in the cabin with the driver. I finally accepted, and sat up front, watching the crazy driver drive with a drink in one hand, wiping the window´s condensation with the other, driving this massive machine. All I could do was try to sleep. As we got up to higher altitudes, I started to freeze. We stopped somewhere to add water to the engine ,and they left the door open, and I couldn’t´take it anymore. I was so cold, bundled up with hat, scarf, many layers , a blanket, and even someone´s jacket draped over my legs. I had to leave the cabin. But I didn´t want to sit in my wet seat again. I asked the attended (like a flight attended, who hands out food, blanekts, etc.) what to do. She was sleeping on the floor in this little cubby between the cabin and where the passengers sit on the first floor of the bus, and there was another small cubby I could curl up in, but not for long, as my feet would fall asleep. I managed that for a while, but then, I was too cold there, and ascended to my seat on the second floor. It was just beginning to get light out, and people were starting to wake up. I felt a small, internal applause from those who were awake when they saw that I had survived the night. It was good to be back with them. I sat again next to Elmer, this old, political man, the former president of some collctive farming business, who rambled on about the state of things, haciendas, latifundios, the US, the Spanish, etc. All food for thought. But Elmer, seriously, I am tired. Can´t you tell I am not interested!? We finally arrive in Arequipa. I am exhausted, and so pleased so be off that bus. Back to…´reality´? Vacation camp starts Wednesday. I leave Thursday night for anther 16 hour bus ride. This time, I spend the extra money to get on a better bus to Lima. Cruz del Sur. I hate that there are only one are two businesses, who charge an arm and a leg, that can manage a decent bus trip. Grr. Oh yeah, and NEVER ride on Enlace. You´ll regret it. Don’t be deceived by their fancy tickets!! Until next time…
Monday, January 11, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Once Again
I´ve finally gotten myself together enough to write here again. It was a rough journey from the Northern Hemisphere down to Arequipa. I can´t even count how many modes of transportation it took to get me to the apartment I stayed in before. When I arrived, it was full of german chatter, save one American girl who has lived in Germany for five years, so the majority of the time, the volunteers speak German. It was quite uncomfortable at first, but we have gotten to know each other a Little better and I am more at ease. There have been so many people I decided to move to the roof top apartment that is a single room. I love it. It´s small, prívate, and mine, for two weeks! I am truly beginning to learn the value of solitude. The room reminds me of the one I stayed in in Puno. Basic, compact. After preparing for a few days and later and celebrating Christmas eve in San Isidro, things quieted down.
Organization and a sure-fire date for the beginning of vacation camp for the kids in San Isidro has been lacking, so I decided to head to Coporaque alone to see the family I had become accustomed to, including Christian, Antonella, Shamira and Little Ruby, who now walks and says a few recognizable words (like ma, for mama, and more, convenient, right?) I spend three days with them, recuperating from a nasty cold that has been spreading like wildfire in our apartment. The clean air and the higher altitude definitely helped, but I managed to wear myself out entirely but going fishing one day, and to the river the next. Two insanely arduous journeys, especially with a cold. Fishing was really fun, save for the fall I took walking on slippery rocks, gouging my shin bone. A week later, it´s still swollen. I mostly watched Chocolate (his long-held Nick name), the father of the children I mentioned, use his beloved net. He was bouncing back and fourth on these enormous river rocks in sandals made from tire rubber, throwing this next, pulling it back in, and there would be a few shiny, tiny trout. I was bummed they were so tiny, thinking how much of a pain it is to deal with so many Little ones instead of a few big ones, but it turned out that the Little ones are preferred, for their small, digestable bones, and their stronger flavor. I was later served the bigger ones, as the bones are more managable to take out, and I tried both, and like the bigger ones better. The taste was less fishy. Four two hours of walking to and from the river, plus the two hours of clammoring over rocks, dealing with their yelping puppy in training who was more of a wimp then you could possibly imagine, I returned barely alive, it felt like. I crashed after eating lunch the first two days for at least a couple of hours, plus the early bedtime of around 8 or 9, as there´s nothing to do, you are completely exhausted, and the roosters will soon begin to roost around 3 or 4, not that that will stop me from sleeping 12 hours. It was good to see the family, but strange to see how the town has changed over the last 6 months during my absence. It´s a fever of tourism, as Chocolate described it. People are fixing their houses, their walls, the plaza in the center is completely torn up for repairs, but there is still only one restaurant, which I´ve never been in, a few small stores with essentials, and a few family homes to host tourists. I hate to say it, but I really wouldn´t recommend this place to all types, as the walks to and from the beautiful sites are dangerous and tiresome I can´t imagine trying to run a business out there with so little information, or experience, risking injury to my guests, being so far from anything, and the incessant possibility of the food unsettling your guests stomach. As much as I love it there, I feel sick half the time. I suppose with time, and if I knew what I was eating, and really was able to determine all that I was doing, eating and drinking, it would probably be better. Complete with an awful stomach ache, I made the journey back to Arequipa in the early evening, and things just becamse more of a struggle.
After returning to Arequipa, and still no sign of the approaching preparation for vacation camp, and after arriving to a house FULL of people, I was overwhelmed, and knew I had to do something. I had decided at that moment, that I wasn´t going hanging around waiting around for who knows what. I thought about where to go, and finally, after talking to friends about a managable trip, I decided on Cusco. So, after a few days, food poisoning or god knows what, the most horendously painful, freezing cold 10 hour bus ride, I arrive in the rising sun in Cusco. I feel awful, and have to sit in the bus terminal for a half hour to regain my strength to begin my quest for a place to stay, and a trip to Choquequirao. I think to ask a bus business how much I should expect a taxi to be to the center, so I confidently leave read to not get ripped off. He told me I need to go further away from the terminal to get the cheaper Price. There was a group of four girls asking for prices, and I told them what I had Heard about prices, so we continued to search together. These girls were very nice, from Argentina, travelling for two weeks during their summer break from university. We were all so tired and delerious from our long bus rides, we slowly but surely moved around the city with our heavy packs, looking for places to stay. Two of the girls dropped their packs, and the other two and I waited for them for what seemed like an eternity to ask around. They finally found a place for the four of them together for a reasonably Price, and nearby, I finally found my sanctuary. A Little room, reminiscent of Arequipa and Puno. Just wanted I needed. It´s at a hostel, so there is a community kitchen. A holding ground for people from all over the world. It´s somewhat clean, the kitchen is a few steps away, and there´s a lock on my door. I can´t really ask for much more. I havealready fallen in love with Cusco. I feel even more at home here then in Arequipa because of its manageable size. The streets are narrow, and quite steep. It´s an earthen-colored versión of Arequipa in some respects. I´ve already been to their big market to buy some vegetables for lunch, and made a nice peruvian meal of veggies and potatoes complete with one of my favorite spicy green sauces. My favorite part so far is the lush green forest surrounding the city. Cusco is tucked inside a valley, with tall, sweeping eucolyptus trees. The mountains from here aren´t as tall as in Arequipa, but this place is full of beautiful, historic Incan ruins like Macchu Picchu and Choquequirao. It´s just so nice to see green again. The suni s intense, but the air feels cleaner, like in Coporaque. There is less dust, and clouds move about, blocking the suns rays on occasion, and you can feel the drastic difference in temperature. It´s a welcome respite in the face of Equatorial sunshine during the summer.
In the next two days I´ll set off for Choquequirao, starting with an early morning , several hour bus ride to the next city over, where we will take another combi up to the trail head, and embark on a four day trek to see this awesome, still being uncovered, archaeological wonder of the world. I know I will be blown away. I just hope my health improves and stays stable for the next week. Why beautiful things have to be so difficult?
After a semester in gradúate school studying international development, and then plopping myself back into a ´perfect´location for some development, I can see first-hand some of the crazy things I´ve been learning, that until now, have really just been vocabulary words. Spare parts, for example, is one that sticks in my mind. In my development economics class, this is a term that roughly alludes to equipment, machines, factories, etc. That have been exported to developing countries for use in industrialization or other such favorable types of development…and here we are, in Peru, with nearly everything we use, broken. Faucets, Windows, cars, toilets. Nothing is as it was in the beginning. It´s frustrating, to say the least, and it´s also a shame, that everythign has to be more complicated than necessary. Simple things are rendered unusable, and simply go to waste. The ingenuity I see here, selling and making new things out of used things is common and impressive. But there is still so much waste. And where is it going to go? I haven´t seen a landfill here, yet. But I do see the piles of trash people burn, the plastic, the chemicals, in the street, or near wáter that will be used for irrigation. The dead stinking dogs, the smell of urine on every street corner, the piles of trash that get picked up several times a week by trucks that say ¨Together, we can improve Arequipa.¨ But is picking up trash really improving a place? Isn´t it simply moving the problem to a new location? A former co-worker introduced me to an organization in Guatemala that Works with the children who live at-on-near the dump. The disease, the risk, the filth, is unimaginable. The chronic, long-term exposure of whatever is in these dumps, smoldering, seeping into ground wáter, is incalculable. What do we have to say for ourselves? I am embarassed to be part of a species that creates and changes nature for its own purpose with out a second thought.
I happened upon a book the other day, thankfully in English, in our apartment. It´s about what the world would be like if the human race ceased to exist one day. The first parts are about the deterioration of our homes and our cities. Much of what we´ve created will quickly be overcome by nature. Much of what we´ve created will also stay, perhaps indefinitely, like aluminum, and other nearly impenetrable materials homo sapiens have created. Think of all the buildings we´ve built, and then destroyed, in the name of progress, practice, or what have you, only to be send to landfills. All of that concrete, that metal. The author leaves Little to our imagination, as most of what would happen is easily seen by what has already happened in the past with abandoned homes, natural disasters, etc. It´s something to think about. What have we done? How do we feel about it? And what are we going to do about it? These are the things I think about every day, no matter where I am. Ask yourself, where is ¨away´ when we throw something away?
Organization and a sure-fire date for the beginning of vacation camp for the kids in San Isidro has been lacking, so I decided to head to Coporaque alone to see the family I had become accustomed to, including Christian, Antonella, Shamira and Little Ruby, who now walks and says a few recognizable words (like ma, for mama, and more, convenient, right?) I spend three days with them, recuperating from a nasty cold that has been spreading like wildfire in our apartment. The clean air and the higher altitude definitely helped, but I managed to wear myself out entirely but going fishing one day, and to the river the next. Two insanely arduous journeys, especially with a cold. Fishing was really fun, save for the fall I took walking on slippery rocks, gouging my shin bone. A week later, it´s still swollen. I mostly watched Chocolate (his long-held Nick name), the father of the children I mentioned, use his beloved net. He was bouncing back and fourth on these enormous river rocks in sandals made from tire rubber, throwing this next, pulling it back in, and there would be a few shiny, tiny trout. I was bummed they were so tiny, thinking how much of a pain it is to deal with so many Little ones instead of a few big ones, but it turned out that the Little ones are preferred, for their small, digestable bones, and their stronger flavor. I was later served the bigger ones, as the bones are more managable to take out, and I tried both, and like the bigger ones better. The taste was less fishy. Four two hours of walking to and from the river, plus the two hours of clammoring over rocks, dealing with their yelping puppy in training who was more of a wimp then you could possibly imagine, I returned barely alive, it felt like. I crashed after eating lunch the first two days for at least a couple of hours, plus the early bedtime of around 8 or 9, as there´s nothing to do, you are completely exhausted, and the roosters will soon begin to roost around 3 or 4, not that that will stop me from sleeping 12 hours. It was good to see the family, but strange to see how the town has changed over the last 6 months during my absence. It´s a fever of tourism, as Chocolate described it. People are fixing their houses, their walls, the plaza in the center is completely torn up for repairs, but there is still only one restaurant, which I´ve never been in, a few small stores with essentials, and a few family homes to host tourists. I hate to say it, but I really wouldn´t recommend this place to all types, as the walks to and from the beautiful sites are dangerous and tiresome I can´t imagine trying to run a business out there with so little information, or experience, risking injury to my guests, being so far from anything, and the incessant possibility of the food unsettling your guests stomach. As much as I love it there, I feel sick half the time. I suppose with time, and if I knew what I was eating, and really was able to determine all that I was doing, eating and drinking, it would probably be better. Complete with an awful stomach ache, I made the journey back to Arequipa in the early evening, and things just becamse more of a struggle.
After returning to Arequipa, and still no sign of the approaching preparation for vacation camp, and after arriving to a house FULL of people, I was overwhelmed, and knew I had to do something. I had decided at that moment, that I wasn´t going hanging around waiting around for who knows what. I thought about where to go, and finally, after talking to friends about a managable trip, I decided on Cusco. So, after a few days, food poisoning or god knows what, the most horendously painful, freezing cold 10 hour bus ride, I arrive in the rising sun in Cusco. I feel awful, and have to sit in the bus terminal for a half hour to regain my strength to begin my quest for a place to stay, and a trip to Choquequirao. I think to ask a bus business how much I should expect a taxi to be to the center, so I confidently leave read to not get ripped off. He told me I need to go further away from the terminal to get the cheaper Price. There was a group of four girls asking for prices, and I told them what I had Heard about prices, so we continued to search together. These girls were very nice, from Argentina, travelling for two weeks during their summer break from university. We were all so tired and delerious from our long bus rides, we slowly but surely moved around the city with our heavy packs, looking for places to stay. Two of the girls dropped their packs, and the other two and I waited for them for what seemed like an eternity to ask around. They finally found a place for the four of them together for a reasonably Price, and nearby, I finally found my sanctuary. A Little room, reminiscent of Arequipa and Puno. Just wanted I needed. It´s at a hostel, so there is a community kitchen. A holding ground for people from all over the world. It´s somewhat clean, the kitchen is a few steps away, and there´s a lock on my door. I can´t really ask for much more. I havealready fallen in love with Cusco. I feel even more at home here then in Arequipa because of its manageable size. The streets are narrow, and quite steep. It´s an earthen-colored versión of Arequipa in some respects. I´ve already been to their big market to buy some vegetables for lunch, and made a nice peruvian meal of veggies and potatoes complete with one of my favorite spicy green sauces. My favorite part so far is the lush green forest surrounding the city. Cusco is tucked inside a valley, with tall, sweeping eucolyptus trees. The mountains from here aren´t as tall as in Arequipa, but this place is full of beautiful, historic Incan ruins like Macchu Picchu and Choquequirao. It´s just so nice to see green again. The suni s intense, but the air feels cleaner, like in Coporaque. There is less dust, and clouds move about, blocking the suns rays on occasion, and you can feel the drastic difference in temperature. It´s a welcome respite in the face of Equatorial sunshine during the summer.
In the next two days I´ll set off for Choquequirao, starting with an early morning , several hour bus ride to the next city over, where we will take another combi up to the trail head, and embark on a four day trek to see this awesome, still being uncovered, archaeological wonder of the world. I know I will be blown away. I just hope my health improves and stays stable for the next week. Why beautiful things have to be so difficult?
After a semester in gradúate school studying international development, and then plopping myself back into a ´perfect´location for some development, I can see first-hand some of the crazy things I´ve been learning, that until now, have really just been vocabulary words. Spare parts, for example, is one that sticks in my mind. In my development economics class, this is a term that roughly alludes to equipment, machines, factories, etc. That have been exported to developing countries for use in industrialization or other such favorable types of development…and here we are, in Peru, with nearly everything we use, broken. Faucets, Windows, cars, toilets. Nothing is as it was in the beginning. It´s frustrating, to say the least, and it´s also a shame, that everythign has to be more complicated than necessary. Simple things are rendered unusable, and simply go to waste. The ingenuity I see here, selling and making new things out of used things is common and impressive. But there is still so much waste. And where is it going to go? I haven´t seen a landfill here, yet. But I do see the piles of trash people burn, the plastic, the chemicals, in the street, or near wáter that will be used for irrigation. The dead stinking dogs, the smell of urine on every street corner, the piles of trash that get picked up several times a week by trucks that say ¨Together, we can improve Arequipa.¨ But is picking up trash really improving a place? Isn´t it simply moving the problem to a new location? A former co-worker introduced me to an organization in Guatemala that Works with the children who live at-on-near the dump. The disease, the risk, the filth, is unimaginable. The chronic, long-term exposure of whatever is in these dumps, smoldering, seeping into ground wáter, is incalculable. What do we have to say for ourselves? I am embarassed to be part of a species that creates and changes nature for its own purpose with out a second thought.
I happened upon a book the other day, thankfully in English, in our apartment. It´s about what the world would be like if the human race ceased to exist one day. The first parts are about the deterioration of our homes and our cities. Much of what we´ve created will quickly be overcome by nature. Much of what we´ve created will also stay, perhaps indefinitely, like aluminum, and other nearly impenetrable materials homo sapiens have created. Think of all the buildings we´ve built, and then destroyed, in the name of progress, practice, or what have you, only to be send to landfills. All of that concrete, that metal. The author leaves Little to our imagination, as most of what would happen is easily seen by what has already happened in the past with abandoned homes, natural disasters, etc. It´s something to think about. What have we done? How do we feel about it? And what are we going to do about it? These are the things I think about every day, no matter where I am. Ask yourself, where is ¨away´ when we throw something away?
Saturday, August 15, 2009
What does it mean when you google your own name?
I should be showered, in bed, dreaming of stealing BMW's and torrential floods like last night, desperately searching for my beach house??? What is this pathetic existence I lead? I shouldn't be publishing this.
I found this, entitled Amanda Barker:
Henry got me with child,
Knowing that I could not bring forth life
Without losing my own.
In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.
Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived
That Henry loved me with a husband's love,
But I proclaim from the dust
That he slew me to gratify his hatred.
Poem by Edgar Lee Masters
I knew about this poem a long time ago, and had forgotten about it. After revisiting it...it's all becoming so clear
Henry gets me pregnant despite the fact that he knows I will die as a result...everyone back home things he loves me...I think he killed me because of his hatred? Is this a love story? Did he choose baby over me? Was he fulfilling the inevitable...or purposely ended my life?
quick bio on edgar:
Edgar Lee Masters (Garnett, Kansas, August 23, 1868 - Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1950) was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology, The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.
this poem sums up my life, doesn't it?
some connections we share...he died in pennsylvania...his wife's name was emma, and i was almost named emma, he is heavily tied to legal realism...and well...that one just goes without saying.
i will continue to investigate this, and i expect you to do the same. any rumors about him, i want to hear. something good. all these brief bios have been less than satisfying.
I found this, entitled Amanda Barker:
Henry got me with child,
Knowing that I could not bring forth life
Without losing my own.
In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.
Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived
That Henry loved me with a husband's love,
But I proclaim from the dust
That he slew me to gratify his hatred.
Poem by Edgar Lee Masters
I knew about this poem a long time ago, and had forgotten about it. After revisiting it...it's all becoming so clear
Henry gets me pregnant despite the fact that he knows I will die as a result...everyone back home things he loves me...I think he killed me because of his hatred? Is this a love story? Did he choose baby over me? Was he fulfilling the inevitable...or purposely ended my life?
quick bio on edgar:
Edgar Lee Masters (Garnett, Kansas, August 23, 1868 - Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1950) was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology, The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.
this poem sums up my life, doesn't it?
some connections we share...he died in pennsylvania...his wife's name was emma, and i was almost named emma, he is heavily tied to legal realism...and well...that one just goes without saying.
i will continue to investigate this, and i expect you to do the same. any rumors about him, i want to hear. something good. all these brief bios have been less than satisfying.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
More photos
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1724151007/a=47625438_47625438/
Alright folks, if you want to see these pictures, you've got to sign in. Use the email address ABarker1006@gmail.com and password amanda. If that doesn't work, email me! Happy photo perusing.
Alright folks, if you want to see these pictures, you've got to sign in. Use the email address ABarker1006@gmail.com and password amanda. If that doesn't work, email me! Happy photo perusing.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Pictures
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1490460007/a=47625438_47625438/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
La Playa!
Here I am updating again at a terribly slow pace. I am home searching for jobs on the internet. It all seems to irrelevant and stupid compared to my mentality while in Arequipa. I just reread my last entry, and realized I should clarify what I meant, towards the end, when I said that the information I learned in the nurse’s station in Puno would soon change someone else’s life. After 3 or so months of working every day of the week, I travel to Puno. The following Thursday, we are out listening to jazz music late at night. We all realize we have a free Monday coming up, and, one by one, we convince each other it is a good idea to escape to the beach for a few days. I am one of the last ones to be convinced in the initial group of people, Edwin, Leonel, Estiv, and I. After a mountain of organizing who will do what, when, and how we’ll get there...we leave the next day, Edwin, Leonel and I. This couldn’t be a stranger trio.
It’s only a few hours by bus, and the bus is pretty nice. The windows don’t open, which means there is clean, cool, dust-free air to breath. The windows are enormous, and I share Leonel’s music as I stare out the window for four hours watching the scenery fly by. I am thoroughly. We arrive in Camana, a small city a few miles from the beach. It seems just like all of the other small cities in Peru I have been to, only this one has sea food, though it’s winter, and there are no tourists. The three of us with our backpacks, sleeping bags, tents and a few bags of food and Pisco head off for the beach. We have to take a colectivo, or group taxi, to get there. We cram in the car with our packs. These people look at us like we’re crazy. When we arrive, there is only one restaurant open, and the beach is empty, save for a few fisherman in their underwear, and the occasional group who comes to enjoy the tranquility of the beach in winter. It’s not cold, but it’s not hot most of the time either. A few hours of cloudless skies during the day heat us up enough to go swimming. The water is some of the coldest I have felt.
We make a fire, eat bread and fruit for dinner, and chat away the rest of the night. Only this doesn’t seem to me to be an ordinary camp fire with ordinary people. These are two of the most passionate, giving and emotional men I have ever known.
We are expecting our friends in the next few days, but we have no idea when they’ll come. Leonel and Edwin’s phones are dead, and I left mine in a taxi...so we are completely isolated. So, the next day, we eat, swim, roam around the beach, sleep, argue over who will go back into town to get more food and Pisco...and make a fire in the evening.
At some point we meet two very interesting men. One is a young guy from Argentina who has come to take care of a friend’s hotel during the winter months, to relax, make some connections, and learn to fish with a net. We have a hard time communicating at first with his Argentine accent, but we manage toward the end of our trip to understand one another. The other man is the owner of the lone restaurant...Dudu, is his nick name. He used to be the governor of this little beach town, which, by the way, looks like the apocalypse has come and gone.
About 10 years ago there was a Tsunami that hit here...and no one was prepared for it. I suppose no one ever is, but it completely devastated the little beach town, and many are too afraid to return, and have left fallen down houses. Others have rebuilt, and close down or move out merely for the winter. Dudu has two penguins, and lives right in front of where we’re camping on the beach. A convenient bathroom and fried fish supplier. He only remembers my name, so when we order food, he screams my name, and motions for us to come in. He reminds me of a Peruvian version of my grand father a little bit, with his big belly, and big heart. Both Marco, the Argentine, and Dudu, are philanthropists after our own hearts. Marco works with street children in Argentina, and Dudu works with groups like Marco’s, networking his business friends to donate food and put on events and what not. Dudu offers to host our children’s intercultural congress in November at the beach, during a festival time, when he knows his friends will be here and willing to donate and help out. Leonel accepts his invitation. These kids are going to die of excitement to hear they get to go to the beach again, I think. Most of them never travel unless it is with INTIWAWA. Few of our children we work with on the weekends outside San Isidro, which is only an hour away, go to Arequipa. Some have never been. They only know one place. Most of these children have never been to the beach either. Only the kids from San Isidro had that privilege last year.
The second night, after Dudu and Marco have gone to their homes, it is just Leonel, Edwin and I again. We always have INTIWAWA on our minds, and talk about it quite a lot. Our hopes, dreams, frustrations and disappointments. We tell stories, and learn more about each other. We have all shared some difficult and trying times together, and this weekend seems like a culmination of this. Part of this trip was a going away and reorganization trip for my departure. We knew when we both Leonel and I left INTIWAWA, things would change. I told the guys my uncle’s story about his little fluffy white dog that chased an adolescent boy down the street. The boy, to protect himself from this ferocious pooch, jumped on a neighbor’s car, and dented and scratched the roof and hood. My uncle would have to pay the damage, and received a fine from the police for not having control over his pet. They laughed at the ridiculousness of it. I also told them my story about Puno, similar to what you’ve read in my blog here. Leonel was hearing it for the second time, but wanted me to tell Edwin. Edwin is the most cynical person I have ever known. He has no hope in adults what-so-ever because they are selfish and blind and ignorant. He only believes the future is purely in the hands of the children and that hardly anyone in the world wants to help. We had a nasty argument over this in the past, but managed to move on despite our differences. This time, things would change. When I told him that 25 of the 30 children at the hospital in Puno were receiving free treatment, he cried. He didn’t know, he told me, that there was help. He thanked me and hugged me and told me I had given him hope. I cried too. We must have looked like lunatics out there on the beach, just the three of us. I will never forget that night.
Our friends arrive, and it's nice to have the new faces. We play soccer, eat at Dudu's restaurant...swim, and play music with odd instruments we've created. Water bottles, rocks, pens...someone has the idea to read a paragraph from a book as the lyrics of a song. The rest of us sing back up or play instruments, others just watch. It was fun making music with friends...something I am not personally used to. Normally I am a spectator. I think that speaks to my how comfortable I was around these friends. I still won't sing solo, but at least I piped up a little singing nonsense songs.
For now, this may be my last blog entry. I do plan to return to Arequipa and INTIWAWA (though I haven't really left, still dreaming, worry, and writing to volunteers making sure they're alright and answering questions) as soon as possible. I hope to be one of the few who returns.
"There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you won't you, be the one I'll always know
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down" - the fray
It’s only a few hours by bus, and the bus is pretty nice. The windows don’t open, which means there is clean, cool, dust-free air to breath. The windows are enormous, and I share Leonel’s music as I stare out the window for four hours watching the scenery fly by. I am thoroughly. We arrive in Camana, a small city a few miles from the beach. It seems just like all of the other small cities in Peru I have been to, only this one has sea food, though it’s winter, and there are no tourists. The three of us with our backpacks, sleeping bags, tents and a few bags of food and Pisco head off for the beach. We have to take a colectivo, or group taxi, to get there. We cram in the car with our packs. These people look at us like we’re crazy. When we arrive, there is only one restaurant open, and the beach is empty, save for a few fisherman in their underwear, and the occasional group who comes to enjoy the tranquility of the beach in winter. It’s not cold, but it’s not hot most of the time either. A few hours of cloudless skies during the day heat us up enough to go swimming. The water is some of the coldest I have felt.
We make a fire, eat bread and fruit for dinner, and chat away the rest of the night. Only this doesn’t seem to me to be an ordinary camp fire with ordinary people. These are two of the most passionate, giving and emotional men I have ever known.
We are expecting our friends in the next few days, but we have no idea when they’ll come. Leonel and Edwin’s phones are dead, and I left mine in a taxi...so we are completely isolated. So, the next day, we eat, swim, roam around the beach, sleep, argue over who will go back into town to get more food and Pisco...and make a fire in the evening.
At some point we meet two very interesting men. One is a young guy from Argentina who has come to take care of a friend’s hotel during the winter months, to relax, make some connections, and learn to fish with a net. We have a hard time communicating at first with his Argentine accent, but we manage toward the end of our trip to understand one another. The other man is the owner of the lone restaurant...Dudu, is his nick name. He used to be the governor of this little beach town, which, by the way, looks like the apocalypse has come and gone.
About 10 years ago there was a Tsunami that hit here...and no one was prepared for it. I suppose no one ever is, but it completely devastated the little beach town, and many are too afraid to return, and have left fallen down houses. Others have rebuilt, and close down or move out merely for the winter. Dudu has two penguins, and lives right in front of where we’re camping on the beach. A convenient bathroom and fried fish supplier. He only remembers my name, so when we order food, he screams my name, and motions for us to come in. He reminds me of a Peruvian version of my grand father a little bit, with his big belly, and big heart. Both Marco, the Argentine, and Dudu, are philanthropists after our own hearts. Marco works with street children in Argentina, and Dudu works with groups like Marco’s, networking his business friends to donate food and put on events and what not. Dudu offers to host our children’s intercultural congress in November at the beach, during a festival time, when he knows his friends will be here and willing to donate and help out. Leonel accepts his invitation. These kids are going to die of excitement to hear they get to go to the beach again, I think. Most of them never travel unless it is with INTIWAWA. Few of our children we work with on the weekends outside San Isidro, which is only an hour away, go to Arequipa. Some have never been. They only know one place. Most of these children have never been to the beach either. Only the kids from San Isidro had that privilege last year.
The second night, after Dudu and Marco have gone to their homes, it is just Leonel, Edwin and I again. We always have INTIWAWA on our minds, and talk about it quite a lot. Our hopes, dreams, frustrations and disappointments. We tell stories, and learn more about each other. We have all shared some difficult and trying times together, and this weekend seems like a culmination of this. Part of this trip was a going away and reorganization trip for my departure. We knew when we both Leonel and I left INTIWAWA, things would change. I told the guys my uncle’s story about his little fluffy white dog that chased an adolescent boy down the street. The boy, to protect himself from this ferocious pooch, jumped on a neighbor’s car, and dented and scratched the roof and hood. My uncle would have to pay the damage, and received a fine from the police for not having control over his pet. They laughed at the ridiculousness of it. I also told them my story about Puno, similar to what you’ve read in my blog here. Leonel was hearing it for the second time, but wanted me to tell Edwin. Edwin is the most cynical person I have ever known. He has no hope in adults what-so-ever because they are selfish and blind and ignorant. He only believes the future is purely in the hands of the children and that hardly anyone in the world wants to help. We had a nasty argument over this in the past, but managed to move on despite our differences. This time, things would change. When I told him that 25 of the 30 children at the hospital in Puno were receiving free treatment, he cried. He didn’t know, he told me, that there was help. He thanked me and hugged me and told me I had given him hope. I cried too. We must have looked like lunatics out there on the beach, just the three of us. I will never forget that night.
Our friends arrive, and it's nice to have the new faces. We play soccer, eat at Dudu's restaurant...swim, and play music with odd instruments we've created. Water bottles, rocks, pens...someone has the idea to read a paragraph from a book as the lyrics of a song. The rest of us sing back up or play instruments, others just watch. It was fun making music with friends...something I am not personally used to. Normally I am a spectator. I think that speaks to my how comfortable I was around these friends. I still won't sing solo, but at least I piped up a little singing nonsense songs.
For now, this may be my last blog entry. I do plan to return to Arequipa and INTIWAWA (though I haven't really left, still dreaming, worry, and writing to volunteers making sure they're alright and answering questions) as soon as possible. I hope to be one of the few who returns.
"There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you won't you, be the one I'll always know
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down" - the fray
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Puno
Forgive me for not writing!!!!!!!!! I am back home now, but I will attempt to write this collecting all that I can from my memory along the way. I will start with where I left off. I was heading to Puno on my own. After hearing on the news what was happening in that region, I decided on our first weekend off, I would go to Puno with clothes for the kids at the hospital. Puno is not only a city, where Lake Titicaca is located, but also a region. The region of Puno has seen some seriously high death rates, which repeats itself with out failure, every winter. Puno is high, and in the winter, it’s dry, and freaking cold. Generally all they raised up there, like in San Juan and Salinas, are llamas and alpacas. The vegetation is low to the ground, and there isn’t much to eat otherwise. The problem the people face there is sickness from the cold. I’m not a doctor, but the changes in temperature are pretty drastic from night to day, the cold can get really intense, like 18 below zero C, and the generally population in these areas is seriously under funded, and nearly forgotten. There is no insulation in the homes, they are made from dirt floors, thatched roofs, brick, and are generally windowless (well, yes, there are holes for windows, but no glass). So, I go to the used clothes market with Leonel, and we find fleeces for about 15 children, plus mittens, and whatever I can find in the box we keep in our house which is overflowing with clothing which will be donated during Christmas time. I fill a potato sack and a big shopping bag full, plus my belongings, and headed off to Puno at 7am on an 6 hour bus. I paid 5 dollars for the trip there, and it felt like I was riding first class in American Airlines. It was the nicest bus I’d been on. I curled up and slept well most of the way. I had only caught a few hours of sleep the night before.
I arrived in bright, “wow I am way overdressed for this sun,” Puno in early afternoon. First task, find a place to dump this immense amount of luggage and get something to eat. Went to an internet café, found a neat sounding hostel, lugged my stuff there, full. Walked around in circles, sweating to death, hungry, tired, and increasingly more frustrated and angry. Stopped in probably 5 hostels, too expensive...too fancy. Where is the cheap stuff? Oh, there it is. Let’s have a look. Oh god, no. Too cheap. I do not want to be the only person staying in this place, and it has shared bathroom stalls, no hot water. Please, this is my weekend off. Give me something! 150 places later, I found a cute little hotel type set up, not exceedingly nice, not terrible, reasonably price, friendly old man showed me the way. Door locks, hot water all the time, they even give you a towel. 10 bucks. Sold. Dump my stuff, and head back out to find some food. I didn’t get further than a block, found something interesting, one lonely tourist eating by himself in there...whatever. I am hungry. I order, oddly enough, coconut curry veggies and rice. It was amazing!!!! Fresh tea. Wow. I am in heaven. Leave there, roam around the touristy shops. Jesus, everything is so expensive. It seems worse than Arequipa, just smaller. I meet a nice girl in a shop who is struggling to communicate with the vendor lady, help her out with her expensive sweater situation, and we chat about what we are doing here by ourselves. She has a neat story to tell. She just quit her well paying job fixing the eyeballs of rich people. Literally, she is an optometrist. She says at first she is a doctor, but specializes in eyes. I don’t know their system, but I don’t bother to ask. We network a bit about INTIWAWA, and she promises she’ll contact us when she comes back to Peru. She’s traveling with a Peruvian guy she met in Mexico who has organized the whole trip. They are off the next day to check out the Islands in the lake. I have a tinge of “someday I am actually going to travel.” Whenever I meet tourists who are seeing everything, that tinge comes knocking on my door. I hate it. I love what I am doing, and I wouldn’t trader it for all the cheap hostels with hot water in the world. We part with smiles, and meet again 10 minutes later in another street looking at knitted hats. Finally we part for good. I manage to find my way to the lake as the sun is setting. It’s really big, but nothing terribly impressing. The good stuff is in the middle, away from all this algae and the taxi drivers and bicyclists.
I head back on foot, mostly to demonstrate to the taxi drivers that dammit, I can walk, even though I am white. I walk a few blocks, and here I am in another market. Fruits, veggies, rice, potatoes, shampoo, cheese, ceviche, raw meat, and lots of wide open eyes. I am the only white person here...I assume because it’s dark, and tourists have no need for these fresh food markets. They eat at restaurants. Alas, this time, I am essentially a tourist. I really don’t have any need for any of this. I buy only apples, avocado, and bread. Dinner. I head back home. It’s nearly 6. I should be in bed soon. I should be doing as much sleeping as possible on this trip to make up for lost time. I make avocado and apple sandwiches, after borrowing a butter knife from the front desk to make this situation a little easier, using newspaper as my plate, but still turns out to be a terribly unavoidable mess. Anyway, it was delicious. I surprisingly have a television in my room, and it has a remote. More than I could ask for. I flip through the excessive amount of stations a few times, get bored, and switch off the light. Here I am. Me and me, just hanging out for the night, and it’s probably 7pm. I am tired. I wake up the next morning, and decide to venture for a shower. I’ve noticed how awfully small the bathroom is. The whole thing is about as big as my bathtub at home, but also includes stand up shower, sink and toilet, all conveniently located in the same place...literally. The sink is actually in the shower...there is no tub. The entire room is tiled for protection. First, I have to shut the shower curtain, which now separates the toilet and the “shower.” Then, I have to stand on the toilet so I don’t soak myself or stand in the freezing cold water while it waits to warm up. I forgot to close the bathroom door, so water lakes out a bit into the bedroom. Tight quarters. wow. I finally manage myself into the shower, and the water is hot. This is the first hot shower I have had in a long time. Not to mention a shower. Excellent. I pack my stuff, and head out. I don’t have a lot of time to waste. I leave at 1pm for arequipa. 24 hours in Puno doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was packed with Amanda adventure. I walk out my hotel door, turn right onto a pedestrian/tourist only type street, walk a block, and find a moto taxi driver half asleep in his motorcycle. He pulls around, I load my stuff into the very back...and OH MY GOD he’s driving away!! Those things don’t go very fast, so I run to catch up with him and I’m there in just a few leaps, I’m banging on his door, “I am not inside!!!!!!!!!!!” “Oh oh, sorry sorry.” Idiot. He felt all the weight bear down in his taxi, and assumed I was in, too. This is really what happens when you assume. I get in, half freaked that he was actually trying to steal my stuff, and to the hospital we go. We arrive at the front entrance in a few minutes... “It’s closed, you know.” (Sunday). “Wow, REALLY?! You knew that before? You couldn’t have told me that before???” How the hell is a hospital closed? I think to myself. Okay, “So what if there is an emergency, what do people do?” “There’s an emergency entrance that’s open on the other side.” Then what the hell are we doing sitting at the closed front entrance if there is another entrance? This guy is killing me this morning. “Let’s go!” He drops my annoyed butt off, and all of my things, at the emergency entrance. There are people loafing around, as usual. But, they are very helpful, and one man offers to help carry my things, and escorts me around the hospital looking for where we need to go. After a few flights up and down the stairs (and it is really cold in the hospital stairwell), we arrive. The nurse’s are scampering around talking to parents and kids, making tea, preparing cotton balls by hand from a mountain of cotton...she’s brought clothes for the children, the man explains. They are very excited, and want me to wait here in their office/everything else room a minute while the visiting nurse finishes up. We are going to deliver the clothes personally to each child. Oh my. I was just thinking of dropping them off, I think to myself. Here we go. We separated the clothes into Mom size and baby size. Two nurses and I set off for all of the rooms. There are 30 children in total. All are under the age of 3, it seems. They are really tiny, all bundled up in these big beds. Three children to a room. Many of their mothers are their by their side. I feel very out of place here, like an intruder. The nurse’s take care of everything, explain what I am doing, take clothes out of my arms according to the size of the mom and child, toss it on the bed or to the mom, and off we go! Wow, this woman knows what she’s doing. Scarves, mittens, fleeces, and in minutes, our arms are nearly empty. One room is a steam room, it’s like 200 degrees in there and 99 percent humidity I think. Another room has two itty bitty infants sleeping. I ask how many months this one is, she looks at her chart, and says one year. Sepsis and pneumonia. I would have guessed 6 months old. She’s way too small. Sepsis is an infection in your blood, and a baby with pneumonia is never a good thing. She’s very sick, but she is sleeping pleasantly, and looks like a little doll baby. I choke back tears. Every one of these children is suffering from pneumonia or another cold weather related illness. We head back to the nurses’ station to wait for the visiting nurse to do her thing. After about an hour of waiting, we finally get to hang out the last of the clothes to the rest of the children. The mothers nod and smile in thanks, and I can’t say anything or I know I’ll cry. Despite the coughing and the crying, half the children are asleep, or are calmly lying in their beds with their mothers sitting in a chair next to the bed. They look at me in wonder.
I arrived in bright, “wow I am way overdressed for this sun,” Puno in early afternoon. First task, find a place to dump this immense amount of luggage and get something to eat. Went to an internet café, found a neat sounding hostel, lugged my stuff there, full. Walked around in circles, sweating to death, hungry, tired, and increasingly more frustrated and angry. Stopped in probably 5 hostels, too expensive...too fancy. Where is the cheap stuff? Oh, there it is. Let’s have a look. Oh god, no. Too cheap. I do not want to be the only person staying in this place, and it has shared bathroom stalls, no hot water. Please, this is my weekend off. Give me something! 150 places later, I found a cute little hotel type set up, not exceedingly nice, not terrible, reasonably price, friendly old man showed me the way. Door locks, hot water all the time, they even give you a towel. 10 bucks. Sold. Dump my stuff, and head back out to find some food. I didn’t get further than a block, found something interesting, one lonely tourist eating by himself in there...whatever. I am hungry. I order, oddly enough, coconut curry veggies and rice. It was amazing!!!! Fresh tea. Wow. I am in heaven. Leave there, roam around the touristy shops. Jesus, everything is so expensive. It seems worse than Arequipa, just smaller. I meet a nice girl in a shop who is struggling to communicate with the vendor lady, help her out with her expensive sweater situation, and we chat about what we are doing here by ourselves. She has a neat story to tell. She just quit her well paying job fixing the eyeballs of rich people. Literally, she is an optometrist. She says at first she is a doctor, but specializes in eyes. I don’t know their system, but I don’t bother to ask. We network a bit about INTIWAWA, and she promises she’ll contact us when she comes back to Peru. She’s traveling with a Peruvian guy she met in Mexico who has organized the whole trip. They are off the next day to check out the Islands in the lake. I have a tinge of “someday I am actually going to travel.” Whenever I meet tourists who are seeing everything, that tinge comes knocking on my door. I hate it. I love what I am doing, and I wouldn’t trader it for all the cheap hostels with hot water in the world. We part with smiles, and meet again 10 minutes later in another street looking at knitted hats. Finally we part for good. I manage to find my way to the lake as the sun is setting. It’s really big, but nothing terribly impressing. The good stuff is in the middle, away from all this algae and the taxi drivers and bicyclists.
I head back on foot, mostly to demonstrate to the taxi drivers that dammit, I can walk, even though I am white. I walk a few blocks, and here I am in another market. Fruits, veggies, rice, potatoes, shampoo, cheese, ceviche, raw meat, and lots of wide open eyes. I am the only white person here...I assume because it’s dark, and tourists have no need for these fresh food markets. They eat at restaurants. Alas, this time, I am essentially a tourist. I really don’t have any need for any of this. I buy only apples, avocado, and bread. Dinner. I head back home. It’s nearly 6. I should be in bed soon. I should be doing as much sleeping as possible on this trip to make up for lost time. I make avocado and apple sandwiches, after borrowing a butter knife from the front desk to make this situation a little easier, using newspaper as my plate, but still turns out to be a terribly unavoidable mess. Anyway, it was delicious. I surprisingly have a television in my room, and it has a remote. More than I could ask for. I flip through the excessive amount of stations a few times, get bored, and switch off the light. Here I am. Me and me, just hanging out for the night, and it’s probably 7pm. I am tired. I wake up the next morning, and decide to venture for a shower. I’ve noticed how awfully small the bathroom is. The whole thing is about as big as my bathtub at home, but also includes stand up shower, sink and toilet, all conveniently located in the same place...literally. The sink is actually in the shower...there is no tub. The entire room is tiled for protection. First, I have to shut the shower curtain, which now separates the toilet and the “shower.” Then, I have to stand on the toilet so I don’t soak myself or stand in the freezing cold water while it waits to warm up. I forgot to close the bathroom door, so water lakes out a bit into the bedroom. Tight quarters. wow. I finally manage myself into the shower, and the water is hot. This is the first hot shower I have had in a long time. Not to mention a shower. Excellent. I pack my stuff, and head out. I don’t have a lot of time to waste. I leave at 1pm for arequipa. 24 hours in Puno doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was packed with Amanda adventure. I walk out my hotel door, turn right onto a pedestrian/tourist only type street, walk a block, and find a moto taxi driver half asleep in his motorcycle. He pulls around, I load my stuff into the very back...and OH MY GOD he’s driving away!! Those things don’t go very fast, so I run to catch up with him and I’m there in just a few leaps, I’m banging on his door, “I am not inside!!!!!!!!!!!” “Oh oh, sorry sorry.” Idiot. He felt all the weight bear down in his taxi, and assumed I was in, too. This is really what happens when you assume. I get in, half freaked that he was actually trying to steal my stuff, and to the hospital we go. We arrive at the front entrance in a few minutes... “It’s closed, you know.” (Sunday). “Wow, REALLY?! You knew that before? You couldn’t have told me that before???” How the hell is a hospital closed? I think to myself. Okay, “So what if there is an emergency, what do people do?” “There’s an emergency entrance that’s open on the other side.” Then what the hell are we doing sitting at the closed front entrance if there is another entrance? This guy is killing me this morning. “Let’s go!” He drops my annoyed butt off, and all of my things, at the emergency entrance. There are people loafing around, as usual. But, they are very helpful, and one man offers to help carry my things, and escorts me around the hospital looking for where we need to go. After a few flights up and down the stairs (and it is really cold in the hospital stairwell), we arrive. The nurse’s are scampering around talking to parents and kids, making tea, preparing cotton balls by hand from a mountain of cotton...she’s brought clothes for the children, the man explains. They are very excited, and want me to wait here in their office/everything else room a minute while the visiting nurse finishes up. We are going to deliver the clothes personally to each child. Oh my. I was just thinking of dropping them off, I think to myself. Here we go. We separated the clothes into Mom size and baby size. Two nurses and I set off for all of the rooms. There are 30 children in total. All are under the age of 3, it seems. They are really tiny, all bundled up in these big beds. Three children to a room. Many of their mothers are their by their side. I feel very out of place here, like an intruder. The nurse’s take care of everything, explain what I am doing, take clothes out of my arms according to the size of the mom and child, toss it on the bed or to the mom, and off we go! Wow, this woman knows what she’s doing. Scarves, mittens, fleeces, and in minutes, our arms are nearly empty. One room is a steam room, it’s like 200 degrees in there and 99 percent humidity I think. Another room has two itty bitty infants sleeping. I ask how many months this one is, she looks at her chart, and says one year. Sepsis and pneumonia. I would have guessed 6 months old. She’s way too small. Sepsis is an infection in your blood, and a baby with pneumonia is never a good thing. She’s very sick, but she is sleeping pleasantly, and looks like a little doll baby. I choke back tears. Every one of these children is suffering from pneumonia or another cold weather related illness. We head back to the nurses’ station to wait for the visiting nurse to do her thing. After about an hour of waiting, we finally get to hang out the last of the clothes to the rest of the children. The mothers nod and smile in thanks, and I can’t say anything or I know I’ll cry. Despite the coughing and the crying, half the children are asleep, or are calmly lying in their beds with their mothers sitting in a chair next to the bed. They look at me in wonder.
While waiting with the nurses, we chatted about the health care system a bit. What happens if the families don’t have money?, I ask. They don’t come, she answers. They don’t receive treatment. No one? I clarify. Well, most people, no. You can petition the government, she explains, for help. Most people are lazy and stupid and don’t write to help themselves or their children, she explains resentfully. And the children here? Does the government help any of the children here? 25 of the 30 children here are here free, she tells me. I am shocked.
Most of the people I have talked to in Peru have no idea this is possible. They think there is no hope. These children don’t receive much here in the hospital, but at least they are in a warm bed, receiving fluids. The one’s who don’t receive any treatment out there in the cold are the one’s who don’t make it. This information has changed my life, and will soon change someone else’s. I leave sad and confused and sorry I couldn’t hang out with the kids and play with them. Back to Arequipa I go.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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!
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!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Hecho con Manos
The last two weekends I have spent in Coporaque. I forgot to mention my fun farming experience. We made the slippery trek down to the river after working with the kiddos two Saturday´s ago...the sun was still strong and it felt good to be walking, free of worries. After finally reaching the little plot we were headed for (no one every says how long it will take to get somewhere) we find ourselves first in front of the borrows. They are being prepared to be loaded up with corn stalks and huge sacks filled with dried maize to carry back to the village. The weight is enormous, and takes 2, nearly three people to pick up the bag and heave it on to the back of the donky. None of the three donkeys is excited. After watching them pull the final donkey´s by the ears as hard as humanly possible into submission, loading this one up with less weight because he is in training, we went to the next little plot. There we met our enormous pile of recently cut corn stalks. They are all piled together like a sequoia. The task is to shuck the corn. The corn stalks are about 4 or 5 feet long, and lay in a pile (the system I chose, because you get to sit). You sit on the pile, and pull stalk after stalk out one at a time, find the corn cob, take it in one hand, use the little fat tool sharpened like a pen cil to pierce the top of the leaves, split it in half, rip the leaves off, then throw it in the pile. Most of the corn is semi dry. They harvest the corn much later than we do. What is really cool is that every cob is different. Some are purple, some are purple and white, some are orange, red, yellow or plain old white. My favorites, and of course the rarist, where the red ones. The next day, in the morning, we picked out the still fresh ones and pulled off all the kernels. The kernels were then boiled and we used them to make a delicious salad (nearly the same as a pasta salad, only with corn instead, flavored with cumin and black pepper, yum!)
I can´t remember the last time I was truly so content, sitting out their in the sun, chatting away with new friends, shucking corn. I surrounded by nothing but land, mountains and sky, with the river just a ways away. The only trouble I had was that I was wearing someone else´s shoes, which were entirely too small. Long story short, I brought only street shoes...and thought smaller sneakers would be safer than my clogs. I still can´t say what would have been better. Maybe bare feet.
AFter the long trek back up the mountain, and a long wait for our dinner, I had one of the best sleeps of my life. Nestled up in my sleeping bag, and piled on top of me was 5 or 6 more wool blankets, I didn´t want to leave my little nest the next morning.
My second experience, full of surprises, was fishing with the father and son of the family we stay with. Complete with a huge fishing net, a couple of sacks, and an truck tire inner tube. What the hell are we going to do, I wondered. This was after we walked an hour straight down the side of a mountain to get to the river...a different part of the river than I had been to before. This path is not nearly as...clear. I carefully made my way through many spiny plants...and shortly before arriving at the river, I slipped, fell on my ass, and caught myself on a cactus...just the left hand. OW not again, I thought. I looked, and there were just three or four 1.5 inch spines sticking out of my hand...I quickly ripped them out...whined for a bit...and then carried on. Now, we are at the river. We need to cross, they tell me. I look around, up and down stream...there´s not a really great place to cross rock hopping, I think to myself. Meanwhile, both father and son are rolling their pant legs up. They have sweatpants on, and sandals that stay on well, made of recycled tire rubber. I have my hiking boots on, and jeans. No matter how well prepared I am, I am never fully prepared. I can´t roll my pants like you, it doesn´t work, what can i do? I can´t soak my pants or I will freeze. Right...off with boots...and the pants. Here we go, holding hands with a grown man, father of 4, so I don´t slip on the river rocks...jeans and boots around my neck. I cannot believe my life, sometimes. It was cold, but not freezing...the freezing would come later.
So, we´re on the proper side of the river now...in a canyon. Cool. Ah, and windy. Here are some hot springs...very small. Might come in handy later. By now, its about 3 30pm. They lay out all the stuff we´re to use...including the net that looks like a tangled mess. The top half is connected with little white pieces of styrofoam. The bottom has litte rubber bands to tie to rocks so the net stays upright.
Christian, the son, who is 14, blows the inner tube up while we deal with the net. Then, he ties the two sides of the tube together to make it more oval shaped, puts a tarp on top, brings it to the waters edge, fully clothed, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, belly down on the make shift boat, and Chocolate, the dad´s nickname, as it were, shoves him off into the river. My god, I think, I Hope he knows how to swim. I do not want to go in there after him. The walk home would be horrible. So, little by little, we send off the net...one hour later of swimming and squirming arond in the river...still not sure exactly what he was doing moving up and down the river...one can only assume he was getting the net just right, he swims down stream (paddling with hands and forearms, rather) with the rope of the net in his mouth, makes a big circle, Dad grabs the net, and painfully slow, pulls the net in. During this time, helping, holding the wet rope, wet rocks, etc, my fingers are going numb. I watch him pull in the net, fetch what fish we have trapped (they are all tangled, yet relatively calm), and in the bag they go. 9 the first time. well, I think, at least I know there are enough fish to feed us all tonight. (4 family members, and me).
Half the reason we are even fishing is beccause Rosio, the mom, is in Lima, working on a artisan vending project...and Chocolate doesn´t know how to cook very well, he says.
So, I tell him I want to go home, because my hands are numb. Just 20 minutes...half hour more, he says. I know I can´t leave...I don´t know the way, and it´s getting dark. Dammit. Warm your hands in the hot spring, he says. Good idea. I do so, and a half an hour later, my hands are finally getting their feeling back...but they are still multi colored.
I go back during the second, faster round of netting the fish…4 more. Sweet…I have to say it was really exciting to see him pull the net in, little by little, to make sure they don´t escape. And just barely befote he pulls them to the beach, you can see their shiny silver skin. Trucha…Trout. They are spotted trout.
Quickly we gather our things…and set off, straight up the mountain. I asked if we were going to take the same route, because I know how hard it was comino down…literally sitting on your butt to asend various drop offs. He considered an alternate route, and decided it wasn´t worth the risk…there are bad dogs, he says. They are big, and bad. Oh Lord…I don´t know which is worse…the route we took, or the dogs. I had no choice. We took the same route back. It was really dark, but it was a full moon. I actually had to shield my eyes at times from the blinding Light. Despite being terrified I was going to grab on to a cactus, the walk home was incredibly beautiful. I will never forget it.
I can´t remember the last time I was truly so content, sitting out their in the sun, chatting away with new friends, shucking corn. I surrounded by nothing but land, mountains and sky, with the river just a ways away. The only trouble I had was that I was wearing someone else´s shoes, which were entirely too small. Long story short, I brought only street shoes...and thought smaller sneakers would be safer than my clogs. I still can´t say what would have been better. Maybe bare feet.
AFter the long trek back up the mountain, and a long wait for our dinner, I had one of the best sleeps of my life. Nestled up in my sleeping bag, and piled on top of me was 5 or 6 more wool blankets, I didn´t want to leave my little nest the next morning.
My second experience, full of surprises, was fishing with the father and son of the family we stay with. Complete with a huge fishing net, a couple of sacks, and an truck tire inner tube. What the hell are we going to do, I wondered. This was after we walked an hour straight down the side of a mountain to get to the river...a different part of the river than I had been to before. This path is not nearly as...clear. I carefully made my way through many spiny plants...and shortly before arriving at the river, I slipped, fell on my ass, and caught myself on a cactus...just the left hand. OW not again, I thought. I looked, and there were just three or four 1.5 inch spines sticking out of my hand...I quickly ripped them out...whined for a bit...and then carried on. Now, we are at the river. We need to cross, they tell me. I look around, up and down stream...there´s not a really great place to cross rock hopping, I think to myself. Meanwhile, both father and son are rolling their pant legs up. They have sweatpants on, and sandals that stay on well, made of recycled tire rubber. I have my hiking boots on, and jeans. No matter how well prepared I am, I am never fully prepared. I can´t roll my pants like you, it doesn´t work, what can i do? I can´t soak my pants or I will freeze. Right...off with boots...and the pants. Here we go, holding hands with a grown man, father of 4, so I don´t slip on the river rocks...jeans and boots around my neck. I cannot believe my life, sometimes. It was cold, but not freezing...the freezing would come later.
So, we´re on the proper side of the river now...in a canyon. Cool. Ah, and windy. Here are some hot springs...very small. Might come in handy later. By now, its about 3 30pm. They lay out all the stuff we´re to use...including the net that looks like a tangled mess. The top half is connected with little white pieces of styrofoam. The bottom has litte rubber bands to tie to rocks so the net stays upright.
Christian, the son, who is 14, blows the inner tube up while we deal with the net. Then, he ties the two sides of the tube together to make it more oval shaped, puts a tarp on top, brings it to the waters edge, fully clothed, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, belly down on the make shift boat, and Chocolate, the dad´s nickname, as it were, shoves him off into the river. My god, I think, I Hope he knows how to swim. I do not want to go in there after him. The walk home would be horrible. So, little by little, we send off the net...one hour later of swimming and squirming arond in the river...still not sure exactly what he was doing moving up and down the river...one can only assume he was getting the net just right, he swims down stream (paddling with hands and forearms, rather) with the rope of the net in his mouth, makes a big circle, Dad grabs the net, and painfully slow, pulls the net in. During this time, helping, holding the wet rope, wet rocks, etc, my fingers are going numb. I watch him pull in the net, fetch what fish we have trapped (they are all tangled, yet relatively calm), and in the bag they go. 9 the first time. well, I think, at least I know there are enough fish to feed us all tonight. (4 family members, and me).
Half the reason we are even fishing is beccause Rosio, the mom, is in Lima, working on a artisan vending project...and Chocolate doesn´t know how to cook very well, he says.
So, I tell him I want to go home, because my hands are numb. Just 20 minutes...half hour more, he says. I know I can´t leave...I don´t know the way, and it´s getting dark. Dammit. Warm your hands in the hot spring, he says. Good idea. I do so, and a half an hour later, my hands are finally getting their feeling back...but they are still multi colored.
I go back during the second, faster round of netting the fish…4 more. Sweet…I have to say it was really exciting to see him pull the net in, little by little, to make sure they don´t escape. And just barely befote he pulls them to the beach, you can see their shiny silver skin. Trucha…Trout. They are spotted trout.
Quickly we gather our things…and set off, straight up the mountain. I asked if we were going to take the same route, because I know how hard it was comino down…literally sitting on your butt to asend various drop offs. He considered an alternate route, and decided it wasn´t worth the risk…there are bad dogs, he says. They are big, and bad. Oh Lord…I don´t know which is worse…the route we took, or the dogs. I had no choice. We took the same route back. It was really dark, but it was a full moon. I actually had to shield my eyes at times from the blinding Light. Despite being terrified I was going to grab on to a cactus, the walk home was incredibly beautiful. I will never forget it.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Devil´s Seat
This past weekend with the children of Coporaque, we prepared food together. It´s always a treat, of many of you know, to watch 20 children with knives, fruits or vegetables prepare what you are about to eat. He´s eating, her finger is bleeding, and this one is waving a knife around. Oddly enough, I ask far fewer questions here than I do at home. Often, it´s because I am too tired to care enough to think of how to say it in Spanish, or, more often, there really is no answer to be found, so why bother? I am learning a new kind of patience. Hours and days pass without realizing it. An hour bus ride half asleep, sweating, with my ass half asleep seems normal, though still a tad uncomfortable. Waiting at the dentist for 3 and a half hours with the kids also seems trivial as time passes. I did escape the dentist for a little while to write this and check my email.
Back to last weekend...it has to be one of the best weekends of my life. We pulled off both days of working with the kids with out to many problems, none of which were serious. After working on Saturday, I played with our host family´s kids. We all piled into my and my room mate´s bedroom, starving, freezing, but content. The quick dinner we were told to expect came over two hours later...and I ate two full plates of rice, salad and chicken and two mugs of tea. Wow. After a meal like that you can do nothing more than sleep. We all crawled into our cold beds, and I slept soundly for what felt like a century. After working with the kids on Sunday, we departed Coporaque for Chivay to send off our friend in the bus...we had decided to wait for the 1 am bus so we could go to the hot springs. This time, the hot springs were more of a public pool situation, and not in the river like the one´s in Coporaque. The benefit to these is that the walk there isn´t nearly as treacherous (but perhaps more beautiful and longer). We walked there as the sun was setting, along Colca River, watching the light change the forms of the massive rocky plateaus and mountains. After two hours of prune-ating in the hot water (which was deep enough to swim around and play in!!!!) we were rushed out as the last taxi was about to depart (we were planning on walking back, and didn´t get what the rush was...then i realized, it´s the last taxi for the workers too...oops). We walked back, the moon half full, lighting up the road, making crazy shadows. Earlier, I was told about the Devil´s Seat (in the light) centered in a big rock slab, where a cross now sits, and when we passed it on the way back, I admit I was a little freaked out. Later, we decided to take a rest on the side of the road and stare up at the stars. You can see the milky way...Via Lactia...so clearly. As I am enjoying the view, I hear a rustling in the bush right next to me, and look over...I see a small black form...oh god, I think, an animal! I picture it getting freaked out, jumping on me, screaming, and me losing my mind. I froze...said to Leonel, what is that!!?? I cautiously took the flashlight, and shone it on the mystery object...a black plastic bag rustling in the wind. I hate that I am so freaked out about potential animals now after that damn dog in San Isidro. I think what I need is another attack, only this time, I win, and I scare the thing away. Merely to regain my confidence.
This weekend, I will be returning to Coporaque, but solo. We will have an extreme drought of volunteers, and we have to change things around. Our volunteer who has been switching every other weekend in our two sites (like me, but opposites places) cannot do it on Saturday´s because he has to take classes. Crap, one Peruano down. Anyway, I am familiar with Coporaque, so it won´t be too much of a stress...and I won´t have Leonel to tell me, Amanda, tell the kids a story. Sing them a song. People, I need time to prepare. Give me a minute. I am good, but not that good.
Back to last weekend...it has to be one of the best weekends of my life. We pulled off both days of working with the kids with out to many problems, none of which were serious. After working on Saturday, I played with our host family´s kids. We all piled into my and my room mate´s bedroom, starving, freezing, but content. The quick dinner we were told to expect came over two hours later...and I ate two full plates of rice, salad and chicken and two mugs of tea. Wow. After a meal like that you can do nothing more than sleep. We all crawled into our cold beds, and I slept soundly for what felt like a century. After working with the kids on Sunday, we departed Coporaque for Chivay to send off our friend in the bus...we had decided to wait for the 1 am bus so we could go to the hot springs. This time, the hot springs were more of a public pool situation, and not in the river like the one´s in Coporaque. The benefit to these is that the walk there isn´t nearly as treacherous (but perhaps more beautiful and longer). We walked there as the sun was setting, along Colca River, watching the light change the forms of the massive rocky plateaus and mountains. After two hours of prune-ating in the hot water (which was deep enough to swim around and play in!!!!) we were rushed out as the last taxi was about to depart (we were planning on walking back, and didn´t get what the rush was...then i realized, it´s the last taxi for the workers too...oops). We walked back, the moon half full, lighting up the road, making crazy shadows. Earlier, I was told about the Devil´s Seat (in the light) centered in a big rock slab, where a cross now sits, and when we passed it on the way back, I admit I was a little freaked out. Later, we decided to take a rest on the side of the road and stare up at the stars. You can see the milky way...Via Lactia...so clearly. As I am enjoying the view, I hear a rustling in the bush right next to me, and look over...I see a small black form...oh god, I think, an animal! I picture it getting freaked out, jumping on me, screaming, and me losing my mind. I froze...said to Leonel, what is that!!?? I cautiously took the flashlight, and shone it on the mystery object...a black plastic bag rustling in the wind. I hate that I am so freaked out about potential animals now after that damn dog in San Isidro. I think what I need is another attack, only this time, I win, and I scare the thing away. Merely to regain my confidence.
This weekend, I will be returning to Coporaque, but solo. We will have an extreme drought of volunteers, and we have to change things around. Our volunteer who has been switching every other weekend in our two sites (like me, but opposites places) cannot do it on Saturday´s because he has to take classes. Crap, one Peruano down. Anyway, I am familiar with Coporaque, so it won´t be too much of a stress...and I won´t have Leonel to tell me, Amanda, tell the kids a story. Sing them a song. People, I need time to prepare. Give me a minute. I am good, but not that good.
Friday, May 29, 2009
i miss you
extrañar
1. to surprise (sorprender)
- me extraña (que digas esto) -> I'm surprised (that you should say that)
- no me extraña nada que no haya venido -> I'm not in the least surprised he hasn't come
2. to miss (echar de menos)
- extraña mucho a sus amigos -> she misses her friends a lot
3. to find strange, not to be used to (encontrar extraño)
· he dormido mal porque extraño la cama -> I slept badly because I'm not used to the bed
4. to banish (desterrar)
Isn´t it interesting how vast the differences there are in definitions of the same word. Surprise. Yearning. Unaccustomed. Hm.
Every day I feel a little more anxiety towards leaving
One of my main concerns here is- are the children going to their appointments at the right time, the right place, with the right person? Most of the time, the answer seems to be no. My thought process- Someone´s missing. Someone´s incredibly late. Someone forgot. Dammit. I forgot my jacket, and now I am going to freeze. I am starving, again. Do I have enough change to get home and buy something to eat? Is there enough time to go home, relax, do my laundry, sleep, hang out with friends, go out, call home, write emails, organize appointments, pick up the bread, and the yogurt, and make it on time to the dentist? Somehow, that answer has been yes. Minus the sleep. I am forever tired, and falling asleep on the bus. It´s a terrible place to try to sleep. I am always at the point of closing my eyes, wow this is so nice…and asleep for 5 seconds before my chin reaches my chest and I am jolted awake by my own body torturing me. One of these days, I will fall asleep, and I will miss my stop. I did it more than once in
Speaking of the lack of sleep, I will depart for Coporaque once again at 3 30am…the four hour drive will get us there just in time to freeze our asses off in the rising sun, sit for another 45 minutes in a combi (plus the time waiting for the combi to depart, full, unless you want to pay the extra 2 dollars) and then when we arrive in Coporaque, eat some bread and butter, and off to rally children. The good news is, lunch will be delicious, and we end around 1. After, there is time to relax, and we generally go to sleep around 6 to make up for lost time, plus there is nothing to do in Coporaque at night. This weekend, we might go to Chivay, where we catch the combi to go to Coporaque, which is where the bus station is, and lots of shops, restaurants and a few bars. If that´s the case. I will be ridiculously tired. I can sleep when I am dead, right?
So, back to the biting dog, which I am sure you are curious. As always, I was waiting for two kids at the regular meeting spot, when I became a little impatient and decided to go see where the kids were and if they had left their school or not. So, I take off down a semi-populated dirt road towards the school, right next to the prison. What a nice scene. Anyway, I spoke with a few adults and children about when the kids get out of school, and did they know so and so, and did they know where they were. Without finding the kids, I returned back to the meeting spot, along the same, now deserted road in the middle of the bright, hot dry day. This time, accompanied first only by a truly disturbed man wearing two pairs of pants, the second layer of which was open completely, as he mumbled and stumbled to himself. Odd, I thought. I continue on, and then my new favorite friend, a standard San Isidro dog, starts barking at me and running towards me…I have had very good luck in general with the dogs, read, none of them have attacked me…most of them are nice, or only bark and don´t chase, or are asleep or dead, the later two of which are preferential, honestly. Not this time. I was a bit worried, since the road was completely deserted, but I stayed as calm as I could (truly, they can smell fear) and talked calmly to it (in Spanish, to be sure he understood) and walked away slowly and meekly. It didn´t work, he continued to bark, take a few steps toward, than back, over and over, until I really did get scared, and he ran up to me, and bit me in the side of my thigh. Well, he made his point. I won´t ever go back on that road. I was too afraid to even pick up a rock to scare him off. He was close enough more than once for me to kick him, but I was terrified it would make him angry and then he would tear my leg off, which is really want I was trying to avoid. No, I don´t have rabies, he thankfully did not break the skin. But, he did break my faith in those stupid dogs. I really hate them even more now. I know it’s not their fault they keep having millions of babies every few months, and that they are all starving and stealing food from children’s hands if they can…but really, we have to have exceed some capacity. But who is going to fix the dogs? And feed and care for the ones that are injured? Nobody has the money for that.
Nuestra cancion
This is likely the strongest emotional attachment I have ever had to a song. I hope it finds a place in your soul too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbKDUPh-IFI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbKDUPh-IFI
Monday, May 18, 2009
INTIWAWA:Ninos del Sol:Children of the Sun
INTIWAWA has a very special place in my heart, and I have only been here for two months. As you know, working with any group of children will change you. I am learning how necessary it is sometimes to step aside from your own desires to make way for the needs of someone else, especially children. We work with over 130 children in three locations. Our everyday site, San Isidro, is where we are most active. We provide breakfast two about 35 children every morning in a kindergarten and primary school. Of all of the children we tested for nutritional deficiencies in San Isidro, every single one of them is clinically considered malnourished. They have high sugar, high protein, high starch diets. Very little vegetables, fruit or dairy are consumed on a daily or weekly basis. We have a very special woman who lives in San Isidro and who has two young boys, 13 and 6 approximately, who volunteers her time on a daily basis, often all of her time. She prepares breakfast and lunch for the children, goes shopping for the weeks amenities in the town center with one of our volunteers, as well as picks up whole wheat bread (an incredibly difficult task in itself to organize!!) and her modest home is essentially of a hub of compassion in San Isidro. She is currently the only parent in San Isidro that has committed more than a few days.
The lunch we provide is what I would call snack, but is actually referred to as lunch, is for about an equal number of students that are in primary and secondary school who choose to come to homework help Monday through Thursday. We work in the community center, which is shared by many other activities, has no running water, a toilet, nor much storage space for our modest library and school supplies. The children work on their home work alone, in partners or groups, or with a volunteer and are rewarded with lunch which includes includes some calcium, and as of just last week, now will include some vegetables. The children are as rambunctious as any other group despite their situation.
The gravest situation of the children of San Isidro is perhaps their home life. 45% of the children interviewed in San Isidro experience domestic abuse-mostly at the hands of an alcoholic father. Currently on hold, we have a group of psychologists who come to homework help to meet in small, private groups with the children to work on boosting self esteem as well as discussing their home life. The psychologists work for free.
In San Isidro, we are planning to construct a home for INTIWAWA. We currently have no united space where we can store all of our belongings for the children and for our projects. We store things in the home of our San Isidro volunteer, some in the community center, and most of it in our apartment, an hour away from the children. We have had a lot of complications with sharing the community center, as there is a lot of suspicion amongst the community as to why we are even in San Isidro. We continue to have meetings, and try our best to keep the communication lines open, but many parents have expressed their dissatisfaction and suspicion. I hope to be a part of a change here in communication lines. We want nothing more than to support their children, but even in our own lives, when we incite help, we often feel others are judging us. The violence in the homes, the poor diets, as well as the 100% of children tested who tested positive for parasites. This are all very intimate subjects.
We also have a large project running for the children of San Isidro to take them to the dentist. Most of the children need to visit at least four times, often much more, for various treatments. Tooth removal and cavity fillings being the most prevalent. We pay for the materials required to work on their teeth. We have yet another heroin, our dentist. She has committed to start and finish the project, alone. An enormous task.
Most of the children have rotting teeth due to the high sugar content of their diet. It could be that a lack of calcium is weakening their teeth as well. We just started to buy water for the children of our homework help project to wash their hands before they eat. There is no running water in homes, and the assumption is that they are still drinking water containing parasites. It has been suggested by the doctors that they are reinfecting themselves because of their dirty fingernails. With the threat of the swine flu tearing through a third world country, we are trying to be more careful. Children without good nutrition have difficult resisting illness that the rest of us could survive, nor can they afford the treatment if they were to become ill.
In addition to these projects solely existing in San Isidro, we have our intercultural project, which spans across our three sites. This involves recognizing the beauty in ones village, the differences that exist, the traditions, histories, songs, food, etc. and sharing them with other children. Once a year, we have a congress for the children. It is a big event, bringing 120 or more children together in one place to share their culture. The three sites that are several hours away from the city are indigenous communities, and there is often racism towards these groups. Part of the idea is to raise consciousness that it is okay to live in an indigenous community, and that is something to take pride in. Little by little, indigenous communities are disappearing. As I look out the window, travelling to three communities, I can see empty villages, homes without roofes, and nothing left but weeds.
I know we are all facing difficult times financially, and I am the last persons to solicit donations from anyone, but my heart has found a home for now, and I would love to see INTIWAWA in your heart as well. If you can find the time, I would ask you to send this to others whom might find our story interesting, and if you can find a little extra money four INTIWAWA, we would be eternally grateful. You are welcome to use the website to donate money. There are no administrative fees in INTIWAWA.
Please feel free to view our website at http://www.intiwawa.com/ in English Spanish and German! The English version has much less information than in Spanish, unfortunately. Please feel free to email me with questions at abarker1006@gmail.com. Thank you for your patience and interest in reading about INTIWAWA.
My Best,
Amanda Barker
The lunch we provide is what I would call snack, but is actually referred to as lunch, is for about an equal number of students that are in primary and secondary school who choose to come to homework help Monday through Thursday. We work in the community center, which is shared by many other activities, has no running water, a toilet, nor much storage space for our modest library and school supplies. The children work on their home work alone, in partners or groups, or with a volunteer and are rewarded with lunch which includes includes some calcium, and as of just last week, now will include some vegetables. The children are as rambunctious as any other group despite their situation.
The gravest situation of the children of San Isidro is perhaps their home life. 45% of the children interviewed in San Isidro experience domestic abuse-mostly at the hands of an alcoholic father. Currently on hold, we have a group of psychologists who come to homework help to meet in small, private groups with the children to work on boosting self esteem as well as discussing their home life. The psychologists work for free.
In San Isidro, we are planning to construct a home for INTIWAWA. We currently have no united space where we can store all of our belongings for the children and for our projects. We store things in the home of our San Isidro volunteer, some in the community center, and most of it in our apartment, an hour away from the children. We have had a lot of complications with sharing the community center, as there is a lot of suspicion amongst the community as to why we are even in San Isidro. We continue to have meetings, and try our best to keep the communication lines open, but many parents have expressed their dissatisfaction and suspicion. I hope to be a part of a change here in communication lines. We want nothing more than to support their children, but even in our own lives, when we incite help, we often feel others are judging us. The violence in the homes, the poor diets, as well as the 100% of children tested who tested positive for parasites. This are all very intimate subjects.
We also have a large project running for the children of San Isidro to take them to the dentist. Most of the children need to visit at least four times, often much more, for various treatments. Tooth removal and cavity fillings being the most prevalent. We pay for the materials required to work on their teeth. We have yet another heroin, our dentist. She has committed to start and finish the project, alone. An enormous task.
Most of the children have rotting teeth due to the high sugar content of their diet. It could be that a lack of calcium is weakening their teeth as well. We just started to buy water for the children of our homework help project to wash their hands before they eat. There is no running water in homes, and the assumption is that they are still drinking water containing parasites. It has been suggested by the doctors that they are reinfecting themselves because of their dirty fingernails. With the threat of the swine flu tearing through a third world country, we are trying to be more careful. Children without good nutrition have difficult resisting illness that the rest of us could survive, nor can they afford the treatment if they were to become ill.
In addition to these projects solely existing in San Isidro, we have our intercultural project, which spans across our three sites. This involves recognizing the beauty in ones village, the differences that exist, the traditions, histories, songs, food, etc. and sharing them with other children. Once a year, we have a congress for the children. It is a big event, bringing 120 or more children together in one place to share their culture. The three sites that are several hours away from the city are indigenous communities, and there is often racism towards these groups. Part of the idea is to raise consciousness that it is okay to live in an indigenous community, and that is something to take pride in. Little by little, indigenous communities are disappearing. As I look out the window, travelling to three communities, I can see empty villages, homes without roofes, and nothing left but weeds.
I know we are all facing difficult times financially, and I am the last persons to solicit donations from anyone, but my heart has found a home for now, and I would love to see INTIWAWA in your heart as well. If you can find the time, I would ask you to send this to others whom might find our story interesting, and if you can find a little extra money four INTIWAWA, we would be eternally grateful. You are welcome to use the website to donate money. There are no administrative fees in INTIWAWA.
Please feel free to view our website at http://www.intiwawa.com/ in English Spanish and German! The English version has much less information than in Spanish, unfortunately. Please feel free to email me with questions at abarker1006@gmail.com. Thank you for your patience and interest in reading about INTIWAWA.
My Best,
Amanda Barker
Friday, May 15, 2009
La luna
Every night I wait for the moon to rise. It comes up late, and leaves me wondering what it´s doing while I am waiting…and every day, the moon appears different. As the moon changes, the world follows in her footsteps.
Peru is changing me, but I am not sure how exactly. I feel a bit different sometimes. I feel good. Strong. But still lost.
I wrote an incredibly long entry, and then accidentally deleted it as I was about to post it. The story of my life! The furthest back I can remember of things to share is last weekend. My trip to San Juan and Salinas. It began with a night of drinking and being merry, staying up until 4, then waking up late, in a crazy hurry, at 6, to be at our bus by 6 30. I was panicked, not knowing what to expect. I was told to prepare well. The sun will be brutal, the altitude very high, and for the love of god Amanda don’t get sick. I was mentally prepared for the apocalypse I think. Except for being late. We made it to the bus in plenty of time, because everyone was busy loading what seemed like a life time supply of everything. I was welcomed on to the bus, with nearly front row seats, by smiling seemingly familiar faces. I was accompanying Leonel, and they all know him from so many trips to San Juan. It would be a four or five our bus ride…with bleached blue curtains to block out the beating rays of the morning sun. I didn´t know the sun could be so intense, even when it was still cold.
Although the bus seemed full, more people climbed in, sat on eachothers´ belongings in the aisle, children at on laps, bags sat on childrens´ laps. The roof was piled to the sky. This is a weekly trek for the people of San Juan. They live at such a high altitude that nothing grows except for Alpacas, Llamas, Vicunas and people. How the animals and people are surviving is beyond me.
I could feel the excitement of fervor of returning home from what was probably a hectic time in the city, collecting their necessities. Everyone I have ever met always has something special they´ve bought that they know won´t last long…like a reward for shopping. This time, I spotted a cake in a woman´s lap, and people were selling sweet tamales and hard boiled eggs and potatoes in a bag for breakfast. I was far too sleep deprived to consider eating anything. So, we finally went on our way. The sun was bright, but the view was too beautiful to keep the curtains closed the whole way. I felt like a little kid peeking around someone to see what they have in their hands as a surprise. Between the curtains, and tops of heads, I could see a really beautiful land. It is an odd tint of green and yellow. As we made our way what seemed like thousands of miles, leaving behind dust and city life. The trip there was mostly filled with cat naps abruptly ended by quick jolts to the neck from the bumpy road, or smacking heads with Leonel, or some other unpredictable event. With a bus filled with the conversation of friends and family, I couldn´t help but feel safe and sound.
When we finally arrived, I realized how cold it was despite the sun, especially indoors. There is absolutely no insulation in homes but the cement it´s made from. When we arrived, the driver climbed up top of the bus and tossed down our belongings. We made our way to the hotel (believe it or not) that we would stay in. My guess is the hotel is there primarily for the workers of the salt mines nearby. We met two little brothers hanging out in the center, and we chatted with them for a while. We would meet them later, after lunch and a nap. Shortly after, we had a nice lunch of a fried egg, white rice, french fries and tea. Very typical Peruvian food! There is nothing like two pounds of starch to fill your belly.
Two boys came to our room to wake us up with the sound of the dribbling a soccer ball like a basket ball. The echo was really quite impressive.
We chatted with the boys as one sloppily ate jello, and pumped up some soccer balls. They seemed happy and content to be together and chatting, like two old men. These two boys witnessed Carlito´s accident just a week or two before. They replayed it in gruesome detail for us, including sound effects. They seemed removed from it.
I could go on for hours about how beautiful the rest of the trip was…including the salt flats and salt lake (which I had no idea existed in Peru!!!) and the second day, including a festival in Salinas. All was spectacular! I was happy as a clam.
So, after this experience, among many others in my last two months, I have decided to extent my stay another month, to return on July 14 instead of June 11. Hopefully by the end I will have some money for a snack in the airport…but we´ll see.
We have very few volunteers here now…so things are changing rapidly, and we are all trying to fill in the blank spots. I am the only person who has been here longer than two weeks that is involved in the every day projects. So, it´s a bit crazy and busy, but I feel I can thrive on this.
Peru is changing me, but I am not sure how exactly. I feel a bit different sometimes. I feel good. Strong. But still lost.
I wrote an incredibly long entry, and then accidentally deleted it as I was about to post it. The story of my life! The furthest back I can remember of things to share is last weekend. My trip to San Juan and Salinas. It began with a night of drinking and being merry, staying up until 4, then waking up late, in a crazy hurry, at 6, to be at our bus by 6 30. I was panicked, not knowing what to expect. I was told to prepare well. The sun will be brutal, the altitude very high, and for the love of god Amanda don’t get sick. I was mentally prepared for the apocalypse I think. Except for being late. We made it to the bus in plenty of time, because everyone was busy loading what seemed like a life time supply of everything. I was welcomed on to the bus, with nearly front row seats, by smiling seemingly familiar faces. I was accompanying Leonel, and they all know him from so many trips to San Juan. It would be a four or five our bus ride…with bleached blue curtains to block out the beating rays of the morning sun. I didn´t know the sun could be so intense, even when it was still cold.
Although the bus seemed full, more people climbed in, sat on eachothers´ belongings in the aisle, children at on laps, bags sat on childrens´ laps. The roof was piled to the sky. This is a weekly trek for the people of San Juan. They live at such a high altitude that nothing grows except for Alpacas, Llamas, Vicunas and people. How the animals and people are surviving is beyond me.
I could feel the excitement of fervor of returning home from what was probably a hectic time in the city, collecting their necessities. Everyone I have ever met always has something special they´ve bought that they know won´t last long…like a reward for shopping. This time, I spotted a cake in a woman´s lap, and people were selling sweet tamales and hard boiled eggs and potatoes in a bag for breakfast. I was far too sleep deprived to consider eating anything. So, we finally went on our way. The sun was bright, but the view was too beautiful to keep the curtains closed the whole way. I felt like a little kid peeking around someone to see what they have in their hands as a surprise. Between the curtains, and tops of heads, I could see a really beautiful land. It is an odd tint of green and yellow. As we made our way what seemed like thousands of miles, leaving behind dust and city life. The trip there was mostly filled with cat naps abruptly ended by quick jolts to the neck from the bumpy road, or smacking heads with Leonel, or some other unpredictable event. With a bus filled with the conversation of friends and family, I couldn´t help but feel safe and sound.
When we finally arrived, I realized how cold it was despite the sun, especially indoors. There is absolutely no insulation in homes but the cement it´s made from. When we arrived, the driver climbed up top of the bus and tossed down our belongings. We made our way to the hotel (believe it or not) that we would stay in. My guess is the hotel is there primarily for the workers of the salt mines nearby. We met two little brothers hanging out in the center, and we chatted with them for a while. We would meet them later, after lunch and a nap. Shortly after, we had a nice lunch of a fried egg, white rice, french fries and tea. Very typical Peruvian food! There is nothing like two pounds of starch to fill your belly.
Two boys came to our room to wake us up with the sound of the dribbling a soccer ball like a basket ball. The echo was really quite impressive.
We chatted with the boys as one sloppily ate jello, and pumped up some soccer balls. They seemed happy and content to be together and chatting, like two old men. These two boys witnessed Carlito´s accident just a week or two before. They replayed it in gruesome detail for us, including sound effects. They seemed removed from it.
I could go on for hours about how beautiful the rest of the trip was…including the salt flats and salt lake (which I had no idea existed in Peru!!!) and the second day, including a festival in Salinas. All was spectacular! I was happy as a clam.
So, after this experience, among many others in my last two months, I have decided to extent my stay another month, to return on July 14 instead of June 11. Hopefully by the end I will have some money for a snack in the airport…but we´ll see.
We have very few volunteers here now…so things are changing rapidly, and we are all trying to fill in the blank spots. I am the only person who has been here longer than two weeks that is involved in the every day projects. So, it´s a bit crazy and busy, but I feel I can thrive on this.
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