Carnaval games, "news", patronage, making guitars cry.

Carnaval festivities have finally come to an end, but not without a bang. On Sunday, the last day of Carnaval, Raquel and I went out looking for trouble. Unfortunately the plan to play with Mijael (formerly spelled incorrectly as “Mikhel”) and his friends fell through because Mijael had to replace someone at his other job at a hotel. But with just a little provocation, Raquel and I were able to make huge wet, foamy, chalky, confetti-covered messes of ourselves. Rosita made me fill up and carry all the balloons we had in stock, because she said I had to get some people wet for her too since she wasn’t playing. However, we used up most of the water balloons before we went out in a battle on Raquel’s patio with her dad, who had the advantage of a garden hose (luckily it was a warm day). After that we took a taxi to the Plaza de Armas to be in the center of the action. It wasn’t as crazy as I thought it would be, which may be because of something Rosita told me—apparently Carnaval gaming was officially prohibited this year because of an incident last year in which a pregnant woman’s baby was killed after someone dumped a huge bucket of water on her from a balcony. Of course this hasn’t stopped people from playing, but there’s a lot less of it than in past years. That having been said, it would have been impossible to return home unscathed even if we hadn’t been looking for trouble. Some highlights of the adventure: We witnessed a group of rambunctious tourists from somewhere in Europe spray foam on an entire tour group of elderly Japanese tourists. Needless to say they were not amused. Then we were recruited by a salsa teacher to come and throw water balloons at people from the balcony of one of the discotecas. That was fun. After we ran out of water balloons we decided we needed to buy a can of foam to spray at people. This purchase left us no cash for a taxi home, so we had no choice but to walk. There were several incidents on our way home, the most notable of which occurred right before we arrived in the community where we live. A truck full of guys stopped right next to us and loaded out onto the sidewalk with water balloons, foam, and buckets to fill with water. We ran past them and emerged wet and covered with foam, only to realize that we had passed our houses and had to go back the way from which we came. On the way back the boys were prepared with a bucket of water for each of us and plenty more foam. It was all in good fun, but I’m glad we didn’t have to walk very far after that.

This whole weekend was really fun because while my host parents were at their weekend house in Lamay I got to hang out with Rosita and Mijael. On Saturday I made brownies and bought a bottle of wine, and Jenny, Raquel, Mijael and I all sat around drinking it with our brownies, talking, and playing guitar for hours. I also had some more quality bonding time with Rosita. On Sunday night I got my first real taste of Peruvian television news; I hadn’t seen much of it before that because usually when the TV is on my family is watching American blockbuster movies dubbed into Spanish or ridiculous soap operas with titles like “Pasiones prohibidas” (“Forbidden Passions”). But on Sunday I discovered that news here is just as entertaining. Compared to this stuff, even Fox News would look like it has integrity. The first news story I saw was about a woman with breast cancer who had to have both her breasts removed. It might have been a moving story, except that the majority of the story was about how she went to this wonderful plastic surgeon who fixed her up, and after about 15 minutes I decided that this “news” story was actually more of an advertisement for plastic surgery. The second news story was about an outbreak of rabies which is being spread by vampire bats, mostly in the jungle areas of Peru (although kind of frighteningly close to the area where I am currently). This news story lasted a half hour and consisted of three parts: first, a debriefing on all the locales in which there’s a good chance you’ll be bitten by a bat; second, a series of interviews with people who had either been bitten or known someone who had been bitten by one of the bats, accompanied by some charming footage of a little girl dying of rabies in a hospital; third, a fragment entitled “The Hunting of the Bats” (I’m not kidding!) which was filmed in the style of The Blair Witch Project. Rosita told me the next morning that she hadn’t fallen asleep until 1 am the night before because she was so freaked out by the bat story.

A couple more little things: yesterday (Monday) Rosita wasn’t around for lunch because she was traveling somewhere for her thesis work. To my surprise, my host mom and dad invited Mijael to come eat with us at the table, and he did after being told that Rosita wasn’t around. Apparently the real reason he doesn’t eat with us at the table most of the time is because he doesn’t feel comfortable. Rosita explained to me that when he was in high school Mijael lived for awhile in Gabi’s house (my host mom’s daughter), and one day there was an incident in which he came home really drunk and Gabi slapped him across the face (I’m not positive I got the story right, but that’s what I understood of it anyway). So now he doesn’t like eating with the family, although he is technically always invited to—in a kind of altruistic yet patronizing way. I can’t really blame him for not wanting to eat at the table I guess. Also, I figured out that the “fish tanks” in the garage under my house are actually a pet store which is owned by Mijael’s sister (OK, so maybe the fact that I hadn’t realized this until now tells you that I am not the most observant person on earth, but in my defense, my host parents never told me). His sister rents the space from my family, and Mijael works there during the day, then goes to his other job at the hotel from 10:00 – 1:00. And somewhere in between those things, he also studies. According to him he gets a maximum of five hours of sleep a night, between 1:00 and 6:00 am. And I get bitchy on anything less than 7 hours of sleep. Man.

One last thing to end off this entry on a more cheerful note: I learned in Quechua class today that the verb you use in Quechua to say you are playing guitar literally means that you are making the guitar cry. That is one of the coolest things I have heard in a long time. Speaking of which, I have another lesson in making my guitar cry in a few minutes, for which reason I will now end this entry.

Warfare and birthdays

So, the soccer game. It was pretty exciting, even though Cienciano lost to Toluca in the last five minutes. The crowd is unbelievable. It´s always fun to hear people scream insults at the opposing team at any sporting event, but it´s even more fun to hear people screaming insults in a language that´s not your own. You don´t have the same emotional associations with the words and everything sounds like a joke. There´s also one section in the stadium where all the students sit, and there was not one moment during the entire game when they weren´t chanting, stomping, throwing streamers onto the field, and/or lighting matches and/or firecrackers. In addition, that section of the crowd had a gigantic flag that they spread out every so often to cover about half of them, which urged the rest of the audience to vote for Machu Picchu for one of the new 7 wonders of the world. Additionally, there wer a ton of police guards that had to form a barricade for the other team whenever they entered or left the field. There were moments when I had to remind myself that I was in fact at a soccer game and not in the middle of guerrilla warfare.

Speaking of guerrilla warfare, I am currently in the middle of an ongoing water war with Mikhel. Since Carnaval water wars are always divided by gender, Rosita is on my team by default, but somehow Mikhel is still winning. This morning he foiled my plan to drop water balloons on him from the balcony by running up the stairs with a pitcher of water and dumping it on my before I even realized he was coming. This warfare will continue through tomorrow, which is the last day of Carnaval.

Yesterday was the 89th birthday of the ¨Abuelita¨(grandma) in my house, so the ENTIRE family was here to celebrate. There are a lot of them. And there was a ton of delicious food and cake. I walked in while everyone was eating because an obligatory SIT group activity had run longer than it should have, and as soon as I had gobbled down my plate of food Socorro pulled me aside to ask me if I knew how to play ¨Happy Birthday¨on guitar. I said no, but if she gave me about five minutes I could probably figure out the cords. I ran upstairs to my room to get my guitar, and had just finished tuning it when Socorro came up and said, ¨OK, ready? Do you know how to play it?¨I frantically scrambled to find the right cords but could not in my panic. ¨OK, just play anything!¨she said. On my way down the stairs I figured out a couple cords and just played really softly and badly while everyone was singing happy birthday. I don´t think Abuelita even noticed because she´s pretty hard of hearing. That´s probably a good thing.

Potatoes, pig fat, and music.

A lot has happened in the past couple days. Yesterday’s lunch was absolutely delicious, and believe it or not, it was just a plate full of potatoes with cabbage and a little piece of beef. I’m not even generally a huge fan of potatoes, but they have so many different varieties of potato here that it feels like you’re eating all different foods. This meal in particular is a special meal that’s eaten during Carnaval. About halfway through the meal, my host mother asked me if I wanted to try something. It was a hunk of pig fat. I cut it in half and tried it. It tasted ok but the consistency was horrible (it’s fat, for God’s sake!). Socorro asked me if I liked it (so far my answer to that question has been an affirmative every time). I said I didn’t know, that I had to think about it for a minute. Needless to say, I didn’t eat the second half. Thankfully, no one was offended.

Yesterday I also had my first guitar lesson at the music school in Cuzco. I am learning “Peruvian-style” guitar and my friend Jenny, the ambitious one, is taking lessons in beginning guitar, flute, and zamponia. Last week Jenny went in for her first flute lesson, and I came with her on the off-chance that the guitar teacher would be there too. The woman at the reception desk brought me to a little cement room with a cool echo effect, handed me a guitar to play while I was waiting, and told me that the guitar teacher would be there “ahorita.” This literally means “right now”, but in practice can mean anything between 5 minutes and 2 hours. It turned out that the teacher had been at the hospital getting a cavity filled, so when he finally got there an hour later we only had time to make up my schedule. Yesterday when we came in, there was another minor incident—the door to the room where all the instruments are kept was locked, and the person with the key was still out to lunch (again, we were told that she would be arriving “ahorita”). Luckily, we didn’t have to wait an hour this time, so Jenny’s lesson started a mere 20 minutes late. I had my lesson after hers, and the guitar teacher, David, used this first lesson just to tell me that the way I’d been holding the guitar is all wrong, that classical style is much more comfortable (I have to admit, he’s right), and making me repeat finger exercises that no other guitar teacher has ever put me through. I think it’s going to do me a lot of good though. I look forward to being able to play guitar “in Quechua.” When I told David that I was looking to buy a guitar for less than 200 soles, he told me to meet him at the music school the next day at 3, and when I got there, he already had a guitar for me that he had gotten for 180 soles (about $50). It’s not the best guitar in the world but it’s not bad either, and will definitely serve me well for a few months. What a nice guy.

Today I ate lunch with Mikhel and Rosita at the table, because the rest of the family was out. It was by far the most fun lunch I’ve had so far. Among other things, I started talking to Mikhel about music. My academic director lent me a CD of a “Quechua rock-blues” band called “Uchpa,” (which means “smoke” according to Mikhel), and he said he has heard of them. They’re interesting, to say the least—pretty much just loud electric rock/blues, but all the words are in Quechua. So anyway, Mikhel asked me what kind of music I listen to in the United States, and I said, “rock alternativo.” Mikhel said that he also listens to “rock alternativo”; especially the Cranberries, Dido, and Coldplay (I got a kick out of that). Although he lamented that none of the bands from the US ever come to Peru, and if they do they only stop in Lima and never get down to Cuzco. He then invited me to play “Carnaval games” (aka, throwing water balloons at each other) with him and his friends in the Plaza de Armas on Sunday, which is the last day of Carnaval. I’m highly looking forward to that.

In other news, I finally got the two boys, Nicholas and Josef, to talk to me. I won my way into their hearts with gifts: a moose stuffed animal (native to Vermont, I did not hesitate to point out!) and a stuffed Patrick toy (the Spongebob Squarepants character. Here he is called “Patricio” and Spongebob is “Bob Esponja”). Now they can suddenly both understand my Spanish and Josef at least has started talking to me. They're cute kids.

Tonight I am going to a soccer game, in which the Cuzco team, Cienciano, is playing a team from Mexico. That should be an experience. More on that later.

Unspoken rules--2/19/07

I finally had a real conversation with Socorro’s godson, Mikhel, today. It’s weird, there seems to be an unstated rule that neither Rosita nor Mikhel can sit with us at the table during meals, but when no one else but me is around, they both are allowed to sit down. I’m relieved that that is the case. Mikhel also speaks Quechua, and is also studying in a vocational school—again, tourism, which seems to be the most lucrative occupation around here. (Another interesting thing that I forgot to mention—Rosita told me that she is actually writing her thesis collaboratively with a friend, because it is cheaper than to write a thesis by herself. Hmm.) The first time I saw Mikhel he only said one thing to me, which was to ask me how to say “muy borracho” (very drunk) in English. Today I asked him why he had wanted to know, and he claimed that it was only to make fun of Rosita, that he really only drinks milk. He and Rosita seem to be pretty good friends—on Saturday, as part of the ongoing Carnaval celebration, Rosita dumped an entire bucket of water from the balcony onto Mikhel, who was on the patio. I got a big kick out of seeing that because it seems like it’s most often boys who participate in Carnaval “games,” throwing water balloons and spraying foam at girls in the street. I’ve somehow managed to keep pretty dry most days, except for Sunday, the official “day” of Carnaval, when I was completely soaked from the neck down with a bucket of water that was thrown on me, only to be nailed on back of the head with a water balloon ten seconds later. And there is still another week to go of Carnaval festivities. Tomorrow I'm buying some goddamn balloons.

Anyway, Mikhel and Rosita both helped me with a paragraph in Quechua I was trying to write, and I taught them a couple English words. It felt good to break that barrier. It still blows my mind though, the unspoken rules in the household—I left the room for a few minutes to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, Socorro’s brother was sitting at the table, and Mikhel was, again, standing up and drinking his coffee. I still haven’t quite figured out where I fit into the family, but in a way it’s kind of nice being in between.

Another funny thing—from the few times Rosita has asked me about what a specific English word means, I have begun to realize just how important context is in a language. The first weird one was “pipe.” After I explained to her that a pipe was something you use to smoke, she pointed to the label on the refrigerator, and I realized that it was referring to a cooling pipe. Then today she was reading a magazine and asked me what a “loop” was. That was a hard one, but I think I did a pretty good job of demonstrating with a phone cord and a belt loop. Only to discover that the “loop” she was referring to was not a physical loop but a repeating musical phrase. Man. Language. What a trip.

Culture shock, maybe...

I think I might be beginning to enter the second stage of culture shock, or at least the closest I'm going to get to it, but not really because I'm disillusioned...this might sound really strange, but sometimes I just feel like everything is TOO beautiful. And I'm never going to be able to take it all in. There's always going to be another picture to take and another festivity to see and another beautiful handcraft to buy. And eventually it's going to seem almost normal. And then I'm going to get home to the United States and nothing is going to be as beautiful.

And then there's the fact that I just discovered the other day that I get wireless in my room. Which is pretty convenient, but also pretty contrary to the spirit of things. So I'm kind of falling back into old habits and realizing that I'm still the same person even though I'm in a foreign country...

but there's also the fact that I'm tired right now, and I may go back to goo-goo ga-ga-ing in wonder and amazement tomorrow. Let's hope so.

In any case, I'm already thinking about things I'm really going to miss when I leave here. Number one on my list is "mate de coca," tea made with coca leaves, which is so tasty that I have been drinking between 3 and 5 cups of it a day: one with breakfast, one when I arrive at class at 8:30, one at the start of my second class at 11:00, and one or two at dinner. Not having that available, I imagine, is going to be far more of a "shock" than anything I've had to adapt to coming here.

Little cages.

I’m still getting along well with my host parents, and have more extended family than I can keep track of, who seem to kind of wander in and out of the house. Socorro’s mom, better known as “Abuelita,” lives here most of the time, and Socorro spends the duration of our meals telling her mother to eat more, which takes a little bit of the pressure off me (although there was one incident in which Abuelita herself actually took a piece of corn off my plate and replaced it with an ear twice the size). Then there’s Socorro’s daughter Gabriela, who lives nearby with her two boys, Nicholas (4) and Josef (6), who like to pretend they are lions whenever they are here and who claim they don’t understand a word I say in Spanish.
I’ve particularly hit it off with the live-in maid, Rosita, which makes it all the more strange and uncomfortable that she is basically my servant; it’s like having a friend that does all your chores for you. My host mother insists that Rosita do my laundry (the second time around I just did it myself while Socorro wasn’t around), she cooks all our food and cleans the dishes, and when the family eats lunch, she sits alone at a different table in the same room, and only every once in awhile becomes peripherally involved in the conversation. Socorro also has a 22-year-old godson named Mikhel who comes by pretty frequently because he is helping maintain some fish tanks that my family has in their basement. The first time I saw him was during dinner, and I was confused about why he wasn’t sitting down at the table with his coffee and why Socorro wasn’t making more of an effort to get us to talk, considering we’re very close in age. Eventually I realized that the fact that he is Socorro’s godson, even though it implies a kind of familial relationship, also necessarily implies that he is lower on the social ladder. I am treated as a member of the family (and a spoiled one at that), but he is not, and knows that it is not his place to ingratiate himself with me. This has been the most frustrating and uncomfortable aspect of living in this house so far.
But aside from the discomfort the situation, it’s nice to have Rosita around. Being a maid is only her side job; she also happens to be in her last year at a university in Cuzco, writing a thesis on ecotourism (nope, not your everyday household servant). She has been helping me with Quechua. The other day I had homework that involved translating a song about animals and where they live, with the help of a fluent speaker. I asked Rosita how I could say that rabbits live under the ground.
“But rabbits don’t live under the ground,” she said, genuinely puzzled.
“They don’t?”
“No.”
“Then where do they live?”
“In little cages.”
At first I found it hard to believe that she had never seen a rabbit outside of a cage, but for someone who rarely even travels outside of Cuzco, I guess it’s actually a perfectly reasonable supposition. Feeling like I had to somehow prove myself, I explained to her that there is a well-known story in English where a girl falls down a rabbit hole. I’m not sure whether or not this convinced her, but it at least set my mind at ease. I guess it’s pretty strange that the best proof I have for rabbits living in holes is a fantastic children’s story.

Democracy and chicha --2/15/07

Today is the Día de las Comadres, which, sensibly, comes one week after the Día de los Compadres. It sounded like there were festivities going on in the Plaza de Armas while we were in class this morning, so when we got out of class my friend Raquel and I went to check out the scene. The music had stopped and there weren’t many people in the plaza, but there was a big “comadre” doll displayed in front of the cathedral, and surrounding it on the ground were pieces of paper on which various people had written messages criticizing politicians that don’t listen and calling for the people of Cuzco to remember and stand up for their Incan heritage. A very hippy-looking Peruvian man came up to us and asked us if we wanted to write something. “We don’t know what to write,” we both said. He apologized, asking us where we were from and adding that he had thought for a minute we were Peruvian. “Thank you,” I said, and when he asked me why I was thanking him, we got into a conversation about how Peruvians are friendly, and Americans are always in a hurry and never want to talk to anyone, which of course inevitably led to a political conversation (you all can probably imagine what I said when asked what I thought of our current president). This hippy man, whose name was Shanty, was a traveler who spoke English, Spanish, and Quechua among other languages. His 8-year-old daughter was with him and whining about wanting to buy some kind of candy or something. He invited Raquel and I to come with him to have some “chicha,” and we figured we might as well. When we warned him that we had to be back in our houses by 2:00 so that our host parents wouldn’t be worried about us, he scoffed at us, saying we were typical Americans and should live more in the moment. We walked with him to a “picantería” (that’s what all the traditional Peruvian restaurants are called) and he ordered chicha with strawberry for Raquel and I and his daughter, and straight chichi (maiz alcohol) for himself. Raquel and I were amazed and somewhat horrified when the waitress set down in front of us two of the biggest glasses I have ever seen, which each contained what looked like about a liter of strawberry chicha. Our shock was compounded when the waitress then set the same size glass in front of the Shanty’s young daughter. Raquel and I both protested that if we drank all of it we would never get home—but fortunately, it turned out to be not that alcoholic. The man told us that there would be festivities taking place in the Plaza de Armas at 4:00, but when we came back later, there was nothing going on. We walked around for awhile and at around 5:00 were harassed by a couple of high-school aged boys trying to sell us postcards in the street (this is not at all uncommon in Cuzco—apparently there’s even a name for these people, “jaladeros”). They asked us where we were from and how old we were, and only after we told them we were 20 did they both claim that they were about to turn 21 (this is also not uncommon). They followed us back to the Plaza de Armas, where there was now a protest going on—the university professors were striking, the two boys explained. The Día de Comadres is often used as a day of protest. So instead of seeing another festival, we got to see Peruvian democracy in action. Not a bad adventure for one afternoon.

Quechua classes -- 2/14/07

I started Quechua class this week, and am pretty amazed at how much I have learned so far, at the same time as feeling really overwhelmed. During a 6-week period we have the class 2 hours a day, five days a week. I forgot what it’s like to have zero knowledge of a language one day, then be able to speak a sentence in it the next. Pretty empowering, until you realize that you’re ability to actually communicate with people in that language is still almost nil. Quechua is a language in which sentences are formed using suffixes. This means that even if you’re familiar with a word, it’s very likely that you won’t recognize it once it is conjugated and/or has three or four suffixes added on to the end. For instance, “erqe” means “boy”, but “erqechakunallawanmi” means “certainly with children.” “Rimay” means “to speak,” but “rimashasqaraqmi” means “still had been speaking.” Quechua also has some interesting phonetics, so it’s fun to walk around repeating certain words under your breath and thinking it sounds really cool. A lot of Quechua words are onomatopoeic, which makes the language even more fun.

My blog title, "Noqa gringuita kani," means "I am a white girl" in my very own Spanish-infused Quechua.

My host family...and food. --2/11/07

Yesterday we took a bus from Ollantaytambo into Cuzco, and were met by all our host families for a reception in Centro Tinku, where our classes will be held starting next week. My host parents are actually grandparents. They have four children who are all grown and most of whom are married with children. One daughter lives in New Jersey and another in Washington state. My host mother, Socorro, is a teacher, and my host father, Romero, is the director of a big rural development project in the area surrounding a large copper mine several hours from Cuzco. The couple seems pretty wealthy, at least by Peruvian standards. They have a 3-story house and a maid, Rosita, who is 24 and speaks Quechua in addition to Spanish. One of Socorros’s sisters also owns a farm in the Sacred Valley (the “Sacred Valley” actually refers to a large area that includes Ollantaytambo), and Socorro and four other sisters all have little houses there at which they like to spend the weekends. So about an hour after arriving in Cuzco on Friday, my host parents drove me 45 minutes back in the direction from which I had just come to their little house in “el campo.” There’s not very much excitement in “el campo” for someone my age, but the couple seems very nice and I’m looking forward to meeting more of the extended family, especially the grandkids.

A word about food. It occurred to me yesterday that almost all of the food I’ve eaten since I’ve gotten here has been locally grown and produced. It’s nice to be in a place where that’s the norm rather than the exception. So far everything I’ve eaten has been quite good (although I admit I have had a couple very strong cravings for processed sugar and grease). Yesterday when we arrived at the country house, Socorro told me that we were going over to her sister’s house for “segundos,” which literally means “seconds.” Romero later explained to me that “segundo” normally refers to the third dish in a 3-course meal (there’s the “entrance” plate, the first course, and then, logically, the second). However, in this particular case it just meant that we were going to have another meal on top of the sandwiches Socorro and I had just eaten at the reception. The “entrance” dish at her sister’s house consisted of home-grown choclo (the corn I referred to earlier) and home-made cheese, followed by a delicious soup made from choclo, and for the real “segundo,” potatoes in a red pepper sauce. I had not anticipated anything more than a light snack, and so by the time the third plate of food came around I absolutely could not finish it. For this reason Socorro’s mother thought I hadn’t liked it. In general, if you leave so much as a bit of food on your plate, Peruvians either say that you didn’t like it or that you’re watching your weight. Saying that you’re “full” is really only an option for foreigners like me who don’t know any better. All I can say is I’m glad they don’t eat as much food at night as they do during the day.

Machu Picchu -- 2/9/07

So I promised I would include a report on Machu Picchu, but after visiting it I realized that I cannot possibly do the site any justice in one paragraph in an email. Again, my pictures will do a much better job of even coming close to expressing how breathtaking it was. Here’s my attempt though: one of the many cool things about Machu Picchu is that the Incas kind of carved the city out of natural land formations. There are some places where they set an aptly shaped stone in such a place that it would serve as an altar to the mountain it resembled. After walking around the ancient city, our group climbed to the top of one of the mountains to an altar to Inti, the sun god. We made an offering of coca leaves to Pachamama (“Mother Earth” in Quechua), and stuck them in a little nook between stones so that they could decompose and turn back into earth. But alas, one must also keep in mind that Machu Picchu is not only a spiritual and historical site but also a huge tourist attraction. Our group was crudely reminded of this several times when our academic director was stopped by security guards and tour guides and admonished for educating our group about different aspects of the site instead of hiring a tour guide. Repeatedly, she had to explain that she was a native Peruvian and the leader of an educational group, that she was not charging us, and that tour guides do not have a monopoly on all information regarding Machu Picchu. Still, her efforts to informally educate us were not taken kindly.

Festival de Los Compadres -- 2/8/07

After being invited to it by some friends we made around town, we convinced our academic director to let us go to the Festival de los Compadres (Festival of Godparents) in the nearby town of Huilloc. It is a national festival that is celebrated annually, and is part of the “preview” for Carnaval (as far as I understand, there is a Carnaval day that is coming up in two weeks, but people begin celebrating Carnaval way before that). “Godparents” for Quechua people are basically mestizos with whom they develop a reciprocal relationship by giving them gifts (of bread or maiz, for example) or working for them, so that the wealthier mestizo will support them in times of need. It’s impossible to describe how incredible this festival was; I will put some pictures up on the web soon and maybe they will do a better job of explaining it. Hundreds of people were dressed in an orange traditional costume, and some joined in a procession carrying three altars to saints. There was also a brass band playing, and after the procession down the hill there was a dance performance. In addition to all the people dressed in traditional costume, there were some men and boys dressed in a special costume with a knit face mask and a whip, called ubucus (sp?) in Quechua. In the middle of the dance they began to battle it out with their giant whips. This, I was told, is meant to symbolize the resilience of the culture, to show that they can withstand pain. I don’t think there was any bloodshed, but there WAS a lot of noise. I won’t claim to understand all the symbolism involved in the festival, but the syncretism between Quechua and Spanish tradition is really interesting. For instance, we were surprised to see that the schedule for the day contained a “corrido de los toros” (running of the bulls)—obviously a tradition borrowed from the Spaniards.

Pachamanca lunch --2/7/07

Today we went to a “Pachamanca” lunch at the nearby house of a friend of our academic director. “Pachamanca” literally means “earth bowl” in Quechua, and in practice it refers to a meal that is cooked over hot stones in a hole dug in the earth. As our friends removed the food from the steaming pit, we passed around a bottle of Cerveza Cuzqueña. We each had to pour a little into a glass, pour a bit onto the ground in an offering to the earth, drink it, and pour out the remaining foam. Traditionally I suppose “chicha” would have been used for this type of ceremony (a very strong beer made from maiz), but Cerveza Cuzqueña was more readily available. Then we sat down to eat—the delicious meal consisted of chicken, beef, a large green type of bean called “abas,” a special variety of corn with enormous kernels called “choclo” (I’ve been told that it has the largest kernels of any corn in the world), and three different varieties of potato. Yum.

Medicine man -- 2/6/07

Today we were visited at our hostel by a medicine man who had come to deliver bread. He sat down and talked to us for awhile about his worldview. First he wanted to make sure we understood that America is NOT just the United States, it is ALL of America. Then he accused us all of reading too many books, proclaiming that in order to find yourself you need to awaken your memory, because all of human culture lies in memory. He started telling us about Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant. He said that Ayahuasca gives you visions, that it can cure you by opening your senses and helping you to find yourself. But then he added that Ayahuasca is not for everyone. Women, for example, don’t need Ayahuasca because they have eight senses, while men only have three (I’m not making this up). What better evidence for this than the fact that women give birth (in Spanish, the phrase for “giving birth” is “dar la luz”, which literally means “give light”)? We are light, the medicine man said, and the body is a vehicle to return to the sun. He then started talking about the apocolypse, which in Quechua is called “Pachacuti.” In the Quechua worldview, when the world ends, the Inca’s ancestors will be saved and live in a new world where the social hierarchy is reversed. According to the medicine man we are already living in the 10th Pachacuti (the most recent one was in 2002). He concluded his speech by saying that each person must find his or her own “medicine” to be reborn.

Ollantaytambo -- 2/5/07

There is an adorable, spunky 3-year-old at our hostel named Luis, who is the son of the owners. So far about half my pictures are either of Luis or taken by Luis (he’s gotten some pretty nice artsy shots). Luis has proven himself to be quality entertainment for the whole group. My favorite Luis moment: After I gave him a little fish stuffed animal, he put it on the table, used two pens to imitate a cutting motion with a knife and fork, and said to the fish, “Ciao, muerto.” I’m not sure exactly how to translate this, but it literally means “Goodbye, dead thing.”

We were broken up into groups of three and sent on missions to different markets to buy different food items in order to prepare a dish for dinner. My group had to buy all the grains we could find in the Ollantaytambo market. We decided to use the trigo (wheat cereal) for cooking, and got a soup recipe from a 12-year-old girl we ran into on the playground, who said she cooks all the time at home. We paid her 1 sol for her service. The soup actually turned out to be really good.

I bought a bag from a vendor in the plaza because I had been looking for a new purse. After scoping out four different stands, I realized that all the vendors sell the exact same things. Same styles, same colors, same everything. And all of them will tell you their products are hand-made. Some will even tell you how long it took them to make the item, personally, if you ask. I am still in doubt as to whether my bag was even hand-made at all. But it’s made of alpaca wool and has a llama on it, so no one will ever know.

First impressions 2/4/07

I´m proud to report that the very first thing I did after walking out of the Cuzco airport was to buy a bag of coca leaves from a vendor in the parking lot. This traditional remedy for altitude sickness has been recommended to me by various Peruvians and travellers (pretty much everyone I´ve asked), and I´m not sure whether or not it was chewing the coca leaves that did it, but so far the altitude hasn´t seemed to affect me at all. Despite all the controversy in the united States surrounding drug trafficking, it´s not at all hard to find coca leaves here (they hardly resemble cocaine, which is refined), and they sell it in various forms, including coca tea and coca candy. The coca leaves basically taste like chewing on green tea, but the tea made from the leaves is more mild, and delicious. No, I have not yet gotten noticeably high from it. :P

Right now I am sitting in an internet cafe in Ollantaytambo, a quaint little tourist town about an hour and a half drive from Cuzco. Our group is staying in a hostel here for our week-long orientation before we move in with our homestay families in Cuzco. On the drive here, I got a chance to take in some of the landscape. Let me just say that I had a romanticized image in my head about what this place would look like, and the reality is similar to that image except even more breathtaking. Imagine this: roads lined with small adobe huts with a backdrop of rolling hills, expansive fields, and the most enormous mountain peaks you have probably ever seen. As many different shades of green as you can imagine, offset by the deep red-brown color of the earth in places where the land breaks off. Every so often, a clifftop stuck with a giant red billboard advertising ´Cerveza Cuzquena¨(the Cuzco brand of beer).Indigenous women in traditional clothing walking along the road with babies wrapped in colorful shawls on their backs. Children playing outside the houses, people tending to various livestock (pigs, donkeys, llamas, bulls, sheep, you name it). A few boys on the side of the road squirted our bus with water guns as we passed, because it is currently the holiday of Carnival, during which time the tradition is to squirt water and/or throw water balloons at everyone and everything that passes.

The city (village?) of Ollantaytambo is also a gorgeous place. It is a small tourist town smack dab in the middle of a valley, surrounded on all sides by towering green mountain peaks. The whole place seems so miniature compared with the surrounding mountains that it´s not hard to see why Quechua people believe that the mountains are animate beings that watch over them. It is also called ¨The Sacred Valley of the Incas,¨ and another tidbit is that part of The Motorcycle Diaries was filmed here. Imagine a tiny town, probably about half the size of the Middlebury campus, with stone, mud and cement buildings and narrow cobblestone streets. Now add to that picture an occasional man or boy leading a bull through the street by a rope, and a handful of indigenous street vendors selling traditional (or ¨traditional¨) crafts to tourists from all over. Now add to that scene a slew of giant trucks, vans, and tour buses that plough through the narrow streets at all hours of the day. Just as you think you have narrowly escaped getting run over by a bus, a speeding motor-cart type things whizzes by--apparently the purpose of these things is to transport incredibly lazy tourists around the city. It´s got character, this place--last night a few friends and I, exploring, wandered into a bar playing Manu Chao that had an upstairs room furnished with blacklights, a hammock, a wooden swing, and a wooden pole that you could use to slide back down to the regular bar.