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.