Conveniently, my birthday happened to fall on the last day our group was going to be in Cuzco before leaving for excursions to Lima and Arequipa for two weeks (March 22). It was also, sadly, the day of our last Quechua class. In the class, our whole group performed a short play we had written in Quechua called "The Guinea Pig Suicide Cult" (typical of my group to come up with something like that) in which we all played guinea pigs who were suffering from a food shortage and had to resort to eating their children. After one guinea pig got eaten by a human, all the other guinea pigs decided to commit suicide. This tragedy was accompanied by live quena (Peruvian flute) music provided by Jenny.
My host mom also organized a special lunch for my birthday at the house. Miraculously, Rosita has actually been sitting at the table with the family ever since Ursula was here. When she tries to sit somewhere else, my host mom insists that she sit at the table. It's unbelievable to me that I could have witnessed such a radical change in just a few short weeks of living with a family. I also invited Mijael to eat with us, and so for the first time me, Rosita, Socorro, and Mijael all ate at the same table (along with Raquel, who had also come to join us). Admittedly the conversation was slightly awkward, but I was overjoyed that the scenario could even exist at all. Rosita made a dish called "aji de gallina," which is a typical Peruvian dish of chicken shreds covered in a yellow sauce made from peppers and cheese. It was delicious. My host mom also liberally served us all special flavored liquors, and scolded Rosita when she didn't finish hers. We were enjoying ourselves to such an extent that by the time Raquel and I actually got around to looking at the clock it was past the time our afternoon class was supposed to start, and we were both a little buzzed. My host mom said, in complete seriousness, "Oh, you're not going to go to class, are you?" She cracks me up. At times she's completely neurotic and at other times totally chill.
So Raquel and I showed up to class late and slightly under the influence. To our surprise, at the end of class Irma, our academic director, pulled out a couple of bottles of pisco (the Peruvian liquor) and proceeded to give us a short lesson about the difference between aromatic and non-aromatic pisco. (The funny thing about Irma is that she has a knack for turning everything into an academic experience.) Then she handed out shot glasses and poured us each two shots so that we could see the difference between the two types of pisco. It was a cultural experience, alright.
At night I met up with pretty much all of the friends I have made in Peru thus far (which turned out to be a very eclectic but fun group) and we all went dancing in Las Vegas, a discoteca where my host mom has forbidden me to go because she says there are lots of robbers, but which I love because almost no tourists go there. Since I knew I would have to meet the group the next morning at 6:00 am to take a bus to the airport to fly to Lima, I decided to skip out on sleep. Alas, I am pretty exhausted today, but totally content.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Hell has frozen over
Something absolutely incredibly happened in my house at lunch yesterday. For the last few days another of my host mom's daughters, Ursula, has been visiting from the United States. She lives in Seattle, in a vegetarian, and dresses just a little bit hippie. As we were sitting down to lunch yesterday, Ursula said to Rosita, "Rosita, why are you sitting over there? Come sit with us at the table." I expected Rosita to politely turn her down, but instead, she just thanked her and came to sit at the table with the whole family. If I hadn't been busy eating choqllo, I think my jaw would have dropped in that moment.
Later in the day I went with Ursula and my host parents to Gabi's house for dinner, and was fortunate enough to witness a debate about global warming and environmental issues, mostly between Ursula and Gabi's husband Pepe, who as you might assume from his name, is pretty much an airhead. If he wasn't Peruvian I would say he's your typical Bush-loving macho American. Worth mentioning is one very memorable interjection from my host mom: in response to Ursula's fear that the world's water supply is diminishing, Socorro scoffed and said, "I still have plenty of water in my house."
I'm starting to feel as if Rosita and Mijael are fighting over me. The last bit of drama to arise began with a piece of gossip Rosita told me yesterday: Socorro had told Rosita that someone had told her that Mijael had told that someone that I was in love with him (Mijael). I asked Mijael if it was true that he had told someone I was in love with him. He said he didn't know how Rosita had come up with that (I'm sure my host mom made it up). Then, to get back at Rosita for spreading rumors of that kind, Mijael accused her of sending him an insulting text message from my cell phone (which is a strange accusation, considering I never sent him any insulting text messages and I'm pretty certain Rosita has never touched my phone). Ayayay.
Later in the day I went with Ursula and my host parents to Gabi's house for dinner, and was fortunate enough to witness a debate about global warming and environmental issues, mostly between Ursula and Gabi's husband Pepe, who as you might assume from his name, is pretty much an airhead. If he wasn't Peruvian I would say he's your typical Bush-loving macho American. Worth mentioning is one very memorable interjection from my host mom: in response to Ursula's fear that the world's water supply is diminishing, Socorro scoffed and said, "I still have plenty of water in my house."
I'm starting to feel as if Rosita and Mijael are fighting over me. The last bit of drama to arise began with a piece of gossip Rosita told me yesterday: Socorro had told Rosita that someone had told her that Mijael had told that someone that I was in love with him (Mijael). I asked Mijael if it was true that he had told someone I was in love with him. He said he didn't know how Rosita had come up with that (I'm sure my host mom made it up). Then, to get back at Rosita for spreading rumors of that kind, Mijael accused her of sending him an insulting text message from my cell phone (which is a strange accusation, considering I never sent him any insulting text messages and I'm pretty certain Rosita has never touched my phone). Ayayay.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Weekend of nonstop cultural experience 3/17-3/18
Like I’ve said before about Peru, every day here is an adventure, but there are certain days that just feel like one giant cultural experience; days that make you think that maybe someone in the Middlebury study abroad office, or Jean-Jacques (a silly French man who is the director of this entire SIT Peru program) is actually a puppet-master pulling some stings behind the scenes just to make your experience extra-cultural. This weekend consisted of two of those days. From about noon to 2 pm on Saturday, I sat at the kitchen table with my family, innocently studying a poem I have to memorize in Quechua, and simultaneously witnessing machismo in action. My host parents had meant to leave for their weekend house in the campo at noon, so they were running late. My host mom (Socorro) was busily preparing food to take to the campo so they could eat lunch as soon as they arrived, and my host dad (Ramiro) was sitting at the kitchen table watching her. And complaining the whole time because they were running late, and it was all Socorro’s fault because she had woken up too late, and now they weren’t even going to be able to eat lunch until around 3. And it would not be an exaggeration or use of an unnecessary profanity were I to say that Ramiro does not do shit in the house. Ever. He comes back from his work in his development program in the mines about once a week or so, and then sits there are gets served on. At the same time that Ramiro was exercising his machismo, Socorro was freaking out because she didn’t know where Rosita had gone and when she was going to get back. She was worried that she wouldn’t get back before they left, and so I might have no one to put my already-prepared lunch in the microwave for me, and God knows, I might starve.
Finally at around 2:00 they left, and about 10 minutes later Rosita showed up. I told her what had happened, and she said she had gone to visit her cousin in the hospital, who got into a horrible bus accident about a week ago. According to her she had told Socorro exactly where she was going. We started getting into a conversation about how ridiculous and crazy Socorro is, and I mentioned the four heavy duty locks on the door and said I couldn’t understand why she’s so paranoid about getting robbed all the time. Rosita explained that a few years ago, the family was robbed while everyone in the house was asleep. The robbers came in through a tiny downstairs bathroom window and took the computer, some family jewelry, and a few other things. Rosita thinks it was a political crime, because at the time Ramiro was running for mayor of Cuzco, for a progressive political party called Popular Action or something like that. I couldn’t understand why that would make the robbers want to punish him; maybe they just don’t like politicians in general. Then we kept talking about how crazy Socorro is, and I said that she thinks that I can’t do anything by myself. Rosita told me that’s probably because there are a lot of things around the house that she herself can’t do, and that she frequently calls Rosita to ask her things like how to turn on the stove and the oven.
After lunch Rosita and I went to Gabi’s (Socorro’s daughter’s) house so Rosita could help her cook, since tomorrow is her birthday and she was preparing for a big party at night. I figured out that Mijael’s sister, Erika, is the maid at Gabi’s house. Well, one of his sisters, that is; he has five of them. And three brothers on top of that. Mijael is the youngest of the whole bunch. So back to Gabi’s kitchen—I spent about an hour helping Erika put together about a hundred little cheese pastries, while Rosita cleaned the patio. When we got back Rosita went to use an internet café for a little bit, and I went down to the fish store to say hello to Mijael and show him some pictures I had taken in Manu. Sometime in the half hour I was in the store, Socorro called the house wanting to talk to me for some reason (this wasn’t even the first time she’d called to talk to me since she’d left for the campo) and Rosita said I wasn’t in the house and she didn’t know where I was. Apparently Socorro started freaking out. “How is she not in the house?!!” “I don’t know, maybe she went for a walk or something,” Rosita told her. “Or maybe she’s down in the store.” (By the way, about a week ago I was instructed by Socorro not to go down to the store too much, “because it seems like Mijael isn’t doing his work.” Bullshit.) So when I came back up to the house after about a half hour, Rosita told me what had happened and said that Socorro was going to call again soon to make sure I was in the house. She never called, but that might have been because I spent so much time using the phone to rant to friends about how nuts she is.
After that I briefly met Rosita’s friend who she is writing her thesis with—she and Rosita came back to the house with some fried chicken and French fries and we made some good conversation for about an hour. I really really like her friend, whose name is Vanesa. Among other things Vanesa asked me what I think the difference is between American and Peruvian guys, and I told her that I think Peruvians are much friendlier and easier to talk to in general, but that there is definitely a lot more machismo here. She said that she thinks Peruvian guys also lie more than American guys, which I hesitated to believe, but when she gave an example I understood: Whenever a guy tells you he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he probably does. It’s an extension of machismo. Here’s an example from my own experience: I won’t get into great detail with this anecdote, but suffice it to say that after being blatantly hit on by my 30-year-old-ish guitar teacher in most of my lessons, I called his house today to talk about lessons I had missed, and guess who answered the phone! His wife! Huh, the guy who told me he wants to go dancing on the weekends but doesn’t know who to go with has a wife. The moral of the story is that you’ve got to be careful with Peruvian guys. They talk suave but they’re usually not that innocent. Ha. Also, Rosita is completely convinced that Mijael has a secret girlfriend, a suspicion that I'm not sure whether to take seriously.
The party at Gabi’s was another cultural experience, even thought I didn’t stay very long because I was exhausted. Gabi kept insisting that I drink Pisco sour, which is the typical Peruvian alcoholic beverage, consisting of a liquor called Pisco, sprite, and lime. I kept having to explain to her that the doctor had explicitly forbidden me to drink alcohol while I am on antibiotics. Gabi was all dressed up and perfumed; she’s definitely the type who you can tell loves nothing more than throwing parties for herself. She’s a sweet person, but so upper class it makes you want to vomit. When I told her beforehand about our group’s excursion to Huilloq, for instance, she said, “You’re spending two nights there? No, Noe, it would be better if you spent the night here. It’s very dirty there.” I politely laughed it off. I’ve gotten in the habit of referring to her as “La Señora Gabi” (“Miss Gabi”) because that’s how Rosita and Mijael both refer to her. All the guests at her party sat down in the living room and were offered Pisco sours, while Rosita, Erika, and Marleni (another random sister of Mijael’s) sat in the kitchen helping out with food or went upstairs to look after the children while their parents became intoxicated. I should clarify that they, too, were offered Pisco sours, but not to drink with the rest of the guests.
At the party, Erika (Mijael’s sister, the maid) invited me to come to her sister’s house the next day (the sister who owns the fish store) because it was going to be her neice’s 4th birthday. Mijael didn't show up, evidently because of some miscommunication, although at the time I was suspicious that he had gone to visit his supposed secret girlfriend. But in any case, I had a really good time meeting the rest of Mijael’s family: four of his sisters (Erika, Marle, Elisabeth, and one other whose name I can’t remember), one husband, and several of his nieces and nephews, including the little girl who was turning four, and a month-old baby. They seem like a really nice, down to earth family—probably what you could call the Peruvian middle class if there is one. We sat down to a meal that consisted of really watery flan, chocolate pudding, hot chocolate, chocolate cake, cookies, and marshmallows. Basically it was a shitload of sugar. The whole family kept trying to ask me questions in Quechua (they all speak Spanish as a first language, but their parents spoke Quechua), and usually I would give them a blank stare for a few seconds before understanding at least a couple words of what they had said, well enough to answer the question. The good thing is that whenever I say anything correctly, they tell me I speak really well because they’re impressed I can even speak it at all. Before leaving the party I took lots of pictures of the family, and, like in Huilloq, it was a big event for them for someone to have a digital camera. Except in this case I will be able to make them a CD of the photos rather than sending it by snail mail.
Finally at around 2:00 they left, and about 10 minutes later Rosita showed up. I told her what had happened, and she said she had gone to visit her cousin in the hospital, who got into a horrible bus accident about a week ago. According to her she had told Socorro exactly where she was going. We started getting into a conversation about how ridiculous and crazy Socorro is, and I mentioned the four heavy duty locks on the door and said I couldn’t understand why she’s so paranoid about getting robbed all the time. Rosita explained that a few years ago, the family was robbed while everyone in the house was asleep. The robbers came in through a tiny downstairs bathroom window and took the computer, some family jewelry, and a few other things. Rosita thinks it was a political crime, because at the time Ramiro was running for mayor of Cuzco, for a progressive political party called Popular Action or something like that. I couldn’t understand why that would make the robbers want to punish him; maybe they just don’t like politicians in general. Then we kept talking about how crazy Socorro is, and I said that she thinks that I can’t do anything by myself. Rosita told me that’s probably because there are a lot of things around the house that she herself can’t do, and that she frequently calls Rosita to ask her things like how to turn on the stove and the oven.
After lunch Rosita and I went to Gabi’s (Socorro’s daughter’s) house so Rosita could help her cook, since tomorrow is her birthday and she was preparing for a big party at night. I figured out that Mijael’s sister, Erika, is the maid at Gabi’s house. Well, one of his sisters, that is; he has five of them. And three brothers on top of that. Mijael is the youngest of the whole bunch. So back to Gabi’s kitchen—I spent about an hour helping Erika put together about a hundred little cheese pastries, while Rosita cleaned the patio. When we got back Rosita went to use an internet café for a little bit, and I went down to the fish store to say hello to Mijael and show him some pictures I had taken in Manu. Sometime in the half hour I was in the store, Socorro called the house wanting to talk to me for some reason (this wasn’t even the first time she’d called to talk to me since she’d left for the campo) and Rosita said I wasn’t in the house and she didn’t know where I was. Apparently Socorro started freaking out. “How is she not in the house?!!” “I don’t know, maybe she went for a walk or something,” Rosita told her. “Or maybe she’s down in the store.” (By the way, about a week ago I was instructed by Socorro not to go down to the store too much, “because it seems like Mijael isn’t doing his work.” Bullshit.) So when I came back up to the house after about a half hour, Rosita told me what had happened and said that Socorro was going to call again soon to make sure I was in the house. She never called, but that might have been because I spent so much time using the phone to rant to friends about how nuts she is.
After that I briefly met Rosita’s friend who she is writing her thesis with—she and Rosita came back to the house with some fried chicken and French fries and we made some good conversation for about an hour. I really really like her friend, whose name is Vanesa. Among other things Vanesa asked me what I think the difference is between American and Peruvian guys, and I told her that I think Peruvians are much friendlier and easier to talk to in general, but that there is definitely a lot more machismo here. She said that she thinks Peruvian guys also lie more than American guys, which I hesitated to believe, but when she gave an example I understood: Whenever a guy tells you he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he probably does. It’s an extension of machismo. Here’s an example from my own experience: I won’t get into great detail with this anecdote, but suffice it to say that after being blatantly hit on by my 30-year-old-ish guitar teacher in most of my lessons, I called his house today to talk about lessons I had missed, and guess who answered the phone! His wife! Huh, the guy who told me he wants to go dancing on the weekends but doesn’t know who to go with has a wife. The moral of the story is that you’ve got to be careful with Peruvian guys. They talk suave but they’re usually not that innocent. Ha. Also, Rosita is completely convinced that Mijael has a secret girlfriend, a suspicion that I'm not sure whether to take seriously.
The party at Gabi’s was another cultural experience, even thought I didn’t stay very long because I was exhausted. Gabi kept insisting that I drink Pisco sour, which is the typical Peruvian alcoholic beverage, consisting of a liquor called Pisco, sprite, and lime. I kept having to explain to her that the doctor had explicitly forbidden me to drink alcohol while I am on antibiotics. Gabi was all dressed up and perfumed; she’s definitely the type who you can tell loves nothing more than throwing parties for herself. She’s a sweet person, but so upper class it makes you want to vomit. When I told her beforehand about our group’s excursion to Huilloq, for instance, she said, “You’re spending two nights there? No, Noe, it would be better if you spent the night here. It’s very dirty there.” I politely laughed it off. I’ve gotten in the habit of referring to her as “La Señora Gabi” (“Miss Gabi”) because that’s how Rosita and Mijael both refer to her. All the guests at her party sat down in the living room and were offered Pisco sours, while Rosita, Erika, and Marleni (another random sister of Mijael’s) sat in the kitchen helping out with food or went upstairs to look after the children while their parents became intoxicated. I should clarify that they, too, were offered Pisco sours, but not to drink with the rest of the guests.
At the party, Erika (Mijael’s sister, the maid) invited me to come to her sister’s house the next day (the sister who owns the fish store) because it was going to be her neice’s 4th birthday. Mijael didn't show up, evidently because of some miscommunication, although at the time I was suspicious that he had gone to visit his supposed secret girlfriend. But in any case, I had a really good time meeting the rest of Mijael’s family: four of his sisters (Erika, Marle, Elisabeth, and one other whose name I can’t remember), one husband, and several of his nieces and nephews, including the little girl who was turning four, and a month-old baby. They seem like a really nice, down to earth family—probably what you could call the Peruvian middle class if there is one. We sat down to a meal that consisted of really watery flan, chocolate pudding, hot chocolate, chocolate cake, cookies, and marshmallows. Basically it was a shitload of sugar. The whole family kept trying to ask me questions in Quechua (they all speak Spanish as a first language, but their parents spoke Quechua), and usually I would give them a blank stare for a few seconds before understanding at least a couple words of what they had said, well enough to answer the question. The good thing is that whenever I say anything correctly, they tell me I speak really well because they’re impressed I can even speak it at all. Before leaving the party I took lots of pictures of the family, and, like in Huilloq, it was a big event for them for someone to have a digital camera. Except in this case I will be able to make them a CD of the photos rather than sending it by snail mail.
Manu (Amazon Jungle highlands) excursion 3/12-3/16
On Monday we left from Cuzco at 6 am to embark on a 12-hour bumpy bus ride, which ended up taking 14 hours because on the way there we were delayed by a landslide which had caused a huge pile of mud to be blocking the road. We were stuck for two hours while at first a bunch of guys tried to dig it out, and when that didn´t work, cut down a bunch of small tree trunks to cover the mud. Our bus made it over fine, but the big truck that went after us didn´t have so much luck, and got stuck in the mud. We didn´t stick around to see its fate. The ride was long and bumpy, but beautiful; as we descended from Cuzco we watched the landscape change from mountains to the “clouded forest” to the jungle highlands, which includes Manu. At around 8:00 at night we finally arrived in a very strange little town that hardly even look like a town; more like a really wide stretch of dirt with some buildings and a market sprinkled around haphazardly. From there we loaded all our stuff on a small boat and crossed the Amazon River to our campsite.
The next morning we woke up bright and early to go trekking through the jungle with rubber boots that they lent us, which were a really good idea. We walked right through a river and also through something that I would call quicksand if I hadn´t made it out alive (that doesn´t make much sense, does it). The best way to describe this place is that it is very green, very wet, and very big, and all of the creatures that live here are also very big. Here is a brief description of some of the more interesting plant life our guide told us about: a vine that grows along the ground like a snake, and is the same color as a certain venomous snake, but also coincidentally is used as an antidote when someone gets bitten by that same snake. A plant that recoils instantly when you touch it. A certain type of caterpillar that is incredibly poisonous, and which were completely covering the trunk of a tree, camoflauged to look like the tree. And a tree whose trunk was at least 10 or 15 feet in diameter, and apparently was a small example of this species. I’ve decided I´m more of a mountain person than a jungle person (I don´t like the humidity and am not crazy about the bugs) but I’m sure if I actually knew more about all the creatures that live here (the great majority of which have not yet been studied), I would be in heaven.
Wednesday was the day when all hell broke loose. I woke up feeling really nauseous and having bad stomach cramps, and could tell it was something sinister. Luckily, the bus ride to the next town with a health center was only a half hour, and I made it almost all the way there before getting out and puking all over the place. The doctor told me I had some kind of bacteria, and they took some blood to do a study to see what type it was. My academic director checked me into a hostel so I could lie down, and she waited to get the results from the doctor while the rest of my group continued on toward the next campsite. It turned out I had salmonelitis, which is something very similar to salmonella. The doctor said it was probably in incubation 7 days, which means I got it in Cuzco, and the only thing I can think of that I could have eaten in Cuzco is maybe a fried egg that wasn’t cooked enough (man, couldn’t that happen in the United States just as easily as the middle of the Amazon jungle?). So I took some Cipro, which is a really strong, magical anti-biotic, ate a little bit of bread, felt a little better, and decided to try to come along with Irma (the academic director) to the next town where the rest of my group already was. But as soon as I breathed in the hot, humid air and started getting bumped around in this truck that was from sometime in the 17th century, I started feeling sick again, and vomited twice within the first 10 minutes. So we went with plan B, which was that Irma would leave me in the hotel with a bathroom and lots of water, continue on to Huacaria (the campsite) because the 17th-century truck was also carrying all the food for lunch for the rest of our group, and send another group leader back to spend the night with me. I was pretty much fine just lying there for the rest of the afternoon, and found that as long as I didn’t move from my bed I wouldn’t have to vomit. By 5:00 the Cipro had started working wonders and I felt almost perfectly normal; I got up and spent two hours in the internet café in the hostel. My other group leader, Christina, finally showed up at 7:00, and told me that the reason she was so late was because the truck that Irma had been traveling had gotten stuck in a ditch on the way to Huacaria, and they had had to walk the rest of the way to the town to get help, so they didn’t actually arrive there until 5:00 and no one in my group had any food for lunch until then. She also told me that Irma hadn’t been able to talk to the doctor that much about my own illness because the same day, someone had gotten bitten by a very poisonous snake and the doctor had had to attend to him urgently. What a day.
The next day, Chris and I caught a ride to Huacaria in a truck that was slightly more recent (maybe 18th century). By this time I was feeling totally fine. Huacaria is a small, remote town with a group of indigenous people called Huacari that speak their own indigenous language in addition to Quechua and a little bit of Spanish. Unlike some other indigenous groups in the jungle, the Huacari people have chosen not to completely isolate themselves from the outside world. When we arrived at the campsite I was greeted by friends shouting, “You’re alive!” It was a warm welcome. That morning we had a little tour around in the jungle with a curandero (medicine man), who showed us various medicinal plants including Ayahuasca, which is kind of considered a spiritual cure-all. Before lunch we went swimming in a beautiful river right by the campsite, and the water was a perfect, refreshing temperature. After lunch we walked up to the village (about 5 minutes from our campsite) and played soccer with some of the men and one woman in the village. The woman was surprisingly good; as in Huilloq, they have actually organized a women’s soccer team there. After the game, we went into the school in the village (school for the kids hasn’t started yet, even though it was supposed to start at the beginning of March) and one of the elders in the village came to tell us a Huacari myth, which the curandero recorded and then translated for us into Spanish. Even though I understood most of the words he was saying in Spanish, the myth was so long and complex and so completely removed from anything resembling western culture that I was pretty much lost the entire time. My favorite part that I did understand, however, was that the tree of life grew out of a woman's vagina, and all of the animals in the world grew from that tree. How cool is that?
The last day, we walked about two and a half hours through the jungle back to the town where I had been staying while I was sick--a beautiful walk in which I gave up trying not to get my socks wet, and was absolutely exhausted by the end. I had a little bit or a scare when I saw a yellow and black snake in the middle of the road--and after staring at it for awhile in terror, then creeping towards it slowly, I realized that it had been run over by a car and was good and dead. The rest of the day was relatively uneventful with our 12-hour bus ride back to Cuzco, where we finally arrived at 10:00 at night--and then, of course, I went out dancing. :)
The next morning we woke up bright and early to go trekking through the jungle with rubber boots that they lent us, which were a really good idea. We walked right through a river and also through something that I would call quicksand if I hadn´t made it out alive (that doesn´t make much sense, does it). The best way to describe this place is that it is very green, very wet, and very big, and all of the creatures that live here are also very big. Here is a brief description of some of the more interesting plant life our guide told us about: a vine that grows along the ground like a snake, and is the same color as a certain venomous snake, but also coincidentally is used as an antidote when someone gets bitten by that same snake. A plant that recoils instantly when you touch it. A certain type of caterpillar that is incredibly poisonous, and which were completely covering the trunk of a tree, camoflauged to look like the tree. And a tree whose trunk was at least 10 or 15 feet in diameter, and apparently was a small example of this species. I’ve decided I´m more of a mountain person than a jungle person (I don´t like the humidity and am not crazy about the bugs) but I’m sure if I actually knew more about all the creatures that live here (the great majority of which have not yet been studied), I would be in heaven.
Wednesday was the day when all hell broke loose. I woke up feeling really nauseous and having bad stomach cramps, and could tell it was something sinister. Luckily, the bus ride to the next town with a health center was only a half hour, and I made it almost all the way there before getting out and puking all over the place. The doctor told me I had some kind of bacteria, and they took some blood to do a study to see what type it was. My academic director checked me into a hostel so I could lie down, and she waited to get the results from the doctor while the rest of my group continued on toward the next campsite. It turned out I had salmonelitis, which is something very similar to salmonella. The doctor said it was probably in incubation 7 days, which means I got it in Cuzco, and the only thing I can think of that I could have eaten in Cuzco is maybe a fried egg that wasn’t cooked enough (man, couldn’t that happen in the United States just as easily as the middle of the Amazon jungle?). So I took some Cipro, which is a really strong, magical anti-biotic, ate a little bit of bread, felt a little better, and decided to try to come along with Irma (the academic director) to the next town where the rest of my group already was. But as soon as I breathed in the hot, humid air and started getting bumped around in this truck that was from sometime in the 17th century, I started feeling sick again, and vomited twice within the first 10 minutes. So we went with plan B, which was that Irma would leave me in the hotel with a bathroom and lots of water, continue on to Huacaria (the campsite) because the 17th-century truck was also carrying all the food for lunch for the rest of our group, and send another group leader back to spend the night with me. I was pretty much fine just lying there for the rest of the afternoon, and found that as long as I didn’t move from my bed I wouldn’t have to vomit. By 5:00 the Cipro had started working wonders and I felt almost perfectly normal; I got up and spent two hours in the internet café in the hostel. My other group leader, Christina, finally showed up at 7:00, and told me that the reason she was so late was because the truck that Irma had been traveling had gotten stuck in a ditch on the way to Huacaria, and they had had to walk the rest of the way to the town to get help, so they didn’t actually arrive there until 5:00 and no one in my group had any food for lunch until then. She also told me that Irma hadn’t been able to talk to the doctor that much about my own illness because the same day, someone had gotten bitten by a very poisonous snake and the doctor had had to attend to him urgently. What a day.
The next day, Chris and I caught a ride to Huacaria in a truck that was slightly more recent (maybe 18th century). By this time I was feeling totally fine. Huacaria is a small, remote town with a group of indigenous people called Huacari that speak their own indigenous language in addition to Quechua and a little bit of Spanish. Unlike some other indigenous groups in the jungle, the Huacari people have chosen not to completely isolate themselves from the outside world. When we arrived at the campsite I was greeted by friends shouting, “You’re alive!” It was a warm welcome. That morning we had a little tour around in the jungle with a curandero (medicine man), who showed us various medicinal plants including Ayahuasca, which is kind of considered a spiritual cure-all. Before lunch we went swimming in a beautiful river right by the campsite, and the water was a perfect, refreshing temperature. After lunch we walked up to the village (about 5 minutes from our campsite) and played soccer with some of the men and one woman in the village. The woman was surprisingly good; as in Huilloq, they have actually organized a women’s soccer team there. After the game, we went into the school in the village (school for the kids hasn’t started yet, even though it was supposed to start at the beginning of March) and one of the elders in the village came to tell us a Huacari myth, which the curandero recorded and then translated for us into Spanish. Even though I understood most of the words he was saying in Spanish, the myth was so long and complex and so completely removed from anything resembling western culture that I was pretty much lost the entire time. My favorite part that I did understand, however, was that the tree of life grew out of a woman's vagina, and all of the animals in the world grew from that tree. How cool is that?
The last day, we walked about two and a half hours through the jungle back to the town where I had been staying while I was sick--a beautiful walk in which I gave up trying not to get my socks wet, and was absolutely exhausted by the end. I had a little bit or a scare when I saw a yellow and black snake in the middle of the road--and after staring at it for awhile in terror, then creeping towards it slowly, I realized that it had been run over by a car and was good and dead. The rest of the day was relatively uneventful with our 12-hour bus ride back to Cuzco, where we finally arrived at 10:00 at night--and then, of course, I went out dancing. :)
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Drama drama drama
I decided I should elaborate on this family drama more, since some people seem curious and it’s really pretty entertaining. Sometimes I feel like my mere presence here has thrown off the precarious balance of relationships between my family members; on the other hand, these are all really complex class and gender issues that go way back. Anyway, it all started last week when I started hanging out a lot during the day in the pet store under our house with Mijael. Usually he helps me with Quechua and I teach him some phrases in English, and then while he’s attending to customers I do my reading for class the next day. Admittedly this is not always the most efficient way of getting my work done, but it’s more fun than just doing it holed up in my room. Sometimes I bring my guitar down there to practice, and he also plays a little (he said he played pretty well, until one day when he left his guitar in a taxi and never got a new one). And then there was one day when I showed him ALL the pictures I have on my laptop (over 1000) because, well, he wanted to see them all.
Anyway, from the beginning I was a little nervous about how my host mom was going to react to this new habit of mine (of hanging out in the pet store), and I sensed that she would rather I spend more time in the house, but all she said was to let her know when I was going down there so she would know where I was. Then one day last week when I was down there, my friends Jenny and Raquel wandered in, and we were all taking turns with the guitar, talking, and having a good time. Then Mijael’s friend Carlos wandered in. Carlos is a Cuzqueñan who was just recently married to a gringa from Maine, but to make a long sad story short, she dumped him for some other guy literally a week after he had finally gotten his visa and moved in with her in Maine. The day we met him was his first day back in Peru, and unfortunately he has to go back to the US really soon to resolve some legal issues surrounding his green card. He’s a really funny guy though, pretty much always in good spirits. Anyway. The next day my host mom explained to me that it’s fine for me to hang out in the store with Mijael, but my friends aren’t allowed to be there because supposedly they are too much of a distraction. She made it sound like this was a mandate coming from his sister, who owns the store, but I think she was making that up because his sister is too nice to have ratted on Mijael and besides, she was never there at the same time as my friends were there.
So. Then there’s this other thing my host mom has doing lately that’s been bothering me, which is asking me to stay in the house for certain periods of time so that Rosita can go out. She’s afraid she might be robbed if the house is ever left alone, which is completely ridiculous, a) because we have at least 4 locks on the doors, b) Santa Monica is a very safe neighborhood, and c) Mijael is always in the store during the day (according to her, you can’t see from the store anything thats going on outside the store, which is also untrue). But I can’t say no to her when she asks me to stay in the house, because otherwise she won’t let Rosita leave. Well, one day when I was in the store my host mom came down there to ask me to go up to the house in a few minutes because she was leaving. I staid down there for another hour or so, in which time Raquel wandered in, and I told her she could stay for a few minutes because Socorro wasn’t around. Eventually I went into the house so that Socorro wouldn’t find me in the store when she got back. I told Raquel that she could stay at her own risk, but that if my host mom got back her best option was to hide, then run away. Well, sure enough, Socorro came back and found her there, along with Carlos and a couple of Mijael’s other friends. She got really mad at Raquel and gave her a tirade about how the store is not a public socializing space. Ironically though, when she walked in Mijael was attending to a customer (obviously not distracted), and she didn’t say a word to Carlos or any of the other guys who were hanging out there (I think because they were also friends of my host mom’s son, Javier). Instead she waited until Carlos and the other guys had left, then scolded Mijael about them having been there.
Then the next week my friends and I were planning on going out dancing with Carlos, and I invited Mijael to come along—he has nights free now because he quit his job at the hotel. He said he would come, but not to tell Socorro that I was going out with him (I also was instructued by Carlos not to tell her I was going out with him). We went dancing at some place where Jenny and I were pretty much the only two gringas in the whole place, and had a lot of fun (attempting) dancing to latin music with the guys, who of course all know how to dance. When we arrived back in front of my house in Santa Monica, it was around 1:30 and Socorro was most definitely asleep, but Mijael was scared shitless that she would see him with us if he got out of the taxi. “She’s watching! She’s watching!” he kept saying. He was so terrified that he even called Carlos right after he left in the taxi just to make sure that none of us would even do so much as mention his name anywhere in the vicinity of the house. The next morning I told Rosita that we had been out with Mijael, and then she spent the whole breakfast telling me about how Mijael lies all the time and you can’t trust him with anything. Even though he and Rosita are friends to some extent, both she and my host mom are constantly giving him shit and I’m not sure how much of it to take at face value. It makes a lot of sense to me that Mijael may have developed a habit of lying as a defense mechanism, after years and years of my family treating him like a poor misguided little indigenous boy who needs to be disciplined. Well, apparently that day (the day after we had gone out at night) Mijael overslept and came to the store late. Rosita asked him if he had been out the night before, he said no, and she called him a liar. Mijael was a little upset with me because apparently I wasn’t supposed to have told Rosita either, even though I know she would never rat on me to my host mom. What Rosita did report to her was that Mijael had arrived late. So I got to witness my host mom asking Mijael why he had been late. Had he gone out the night before? Mijael made up some long-winded story that I couldn’t quite follow, and to that my host mom responded, “Look, his nose is already a foot long!” “No, it’s still here,” Mijael responded, jokingly patting his nose. Luckily the subject was dropped after that. Man, so much drama, so much drama. And I always seem to be right in the center of it.
Anyway, from the beginning I was a little nervous about how my host mom was going to react to this new habit of mine (of hanging out in the pet store), and I sensed that she would rather I spend more time in the house, but all she said was to let her know when I was going down there so she would know where I was. Then one day last week when I was down there, my friends Jenny and Raquel wandered in, and we were all taking turns with the guitar, talking, and having a good time. Then Mijael’s friend Carlos wandered in. Carlos is a Cuzqueñan who was just recently married to a gringa from Maine, but to make a long sad story short, she dumped him for some other guy literally a week after he had finally gotten his visa and moved in with her in Maine. The day we met him was his first day back in Peru, and unfortunately he has to go back to the US really soon to resolve some legal issues surrounding his green card. He’s a really funny guy though, pretty much always in good spirits. Anyway. The next day my host mom explained to me that it’s fine for me to hang out in the store with Mijael, but my friends aren’t allowed to be there because supposedly they are too much of a distraction. She made it sound like this was a mandate coming from his sister, who owns the store, but I think she was making that up because his sister is too nice to have ratted on Mijael and besides, she was never there at the same time as my friends were there.
So. Then there’s this other thing my host mom has doing lately that’s been bothering me, which is asking me to stay in the house for certain periods of time so that Rosita can go out. She’s afraid she might be robbed if the house is ever left alone, which is completely ridiculous, a) because we have at least 4 locks on the doors, b) Santa Monica is a very safe neighborhood, and c) Mijael is always in the store during the day (according to her, you can’t see from the store anything thats going on outside the store, which is also untrue). But I can’t say no to her when she asks me to stay in the house, because otherwise she won’t let Rosita leave. Well, one day when I was in the store my host mom came down there to ask me to go up to the house in a few minutes because she was leaving. I staid down there for another hour or so, in which time Raquel wandered in, and I told her she could stay for a few minutes because Socorro wasn’t around. Eventually I went into the house so that Socorro wouldn’t find me in the store when she got back. I told Raquel that she could stay at her own risk, but that if my host mom got back her best option was to hide, then run away. Well, sure enough, Socorro came back and found her there, along with Carlos and a couple of Mijael’s other friends. She got really mad at Raquel and gave her a tirade about how the store is not a public socializing space. Ironically though, when she walked in Mijael was attending to a customer (obviously not distracted), and she didn’t say a word to Carlos or any of the other guys who were hanging out there (I think because they were also friends of my host mom’s son, Javier). Instead she waited until Carlos and the other guys had left, then scolded Mijael about them having been there.
Then the next week my friends and I were planning on going out dancing with Carlos, and I invited Mijael to come along—he has nights free now because he quit his job at the hotel. He said he would come, but not to tell Socorro that I was going out with him (I also was instructued by Carlos not to tell her I was going out with him). We went dancing at some place where Jenny and I were pretty much the only two gringas in the whole place, and had a lot of fun (attempting) dancing to latin music with the guys, who of course all know how to dance. When we arrived back in front of my house in Santa Monica, it was around 1:30 and Socorro was most definitely asleep, but Mijael was scared shitless that she would see him with us if he got out of the taxi. “She’s watching! She’s watching!” he kept saying. He was so terrified that he even called Carlos right after he left in the taxi just to make sure that none of us would even do so much as mention his name anywhere in the vicinity of the house. The next morning I told Rosita that we had been out with Mijael, and then she spent the whole breakfast telling me about how Mijael lies all the time and you can’t trust him with anything. Even though he and Rosita are friends to some extent, both she and my host mom are constantly giving him shit and I’m not sure how much of it to take at face value. It makes a lot of sense to me that Mijael may have developed a habit of lying as a defense mechanism, after years and years of my family treating him like a poor misguided little indigenous boy who needs to be disciplined. Well, apparently that day (the day after we had gone out at night) Mijael overslept and came to the store late. Rosita asked him if he had been out the night before, he said no, and she called him a liar. Mijael was a little upset with me because apparently I wasn’t supposed to have told Rosita either, even though I know she would never rat on me to my host mom. What Rosita did report to her was that Mijael had arrived late. So I got to witness my host mom asking Mijael why he had been late. Had he gone out the night before? Mijael made up some long-winded story that I couldn’t quite follow, and to that my host mom responded, “Look, his nose is already a foot long!” “No, it’s still here,” Mijael responded, jokingly patting his nose. Luckily the subject was dropped after that. Man, so much drama, so much drama. And I always seem to be right in the center of it.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Weekend homestay in Huilloq
First day impressions (3/2/07):
So here I am in Huilloq, a small rural community in the district of Ollantaytambo, where my adventures in Peru began. As soon as our group got here our academic director pretty much just dropped each of us off with a different family and left. So far I have understood about 10 words total of what my host mom, Basilia, has been saying to me. One of my first attempts at Qechua was when I tried to ask her, “Are you cooking?” (“Wayk’ushankichu?”) but accidentally asked her if she was crying instead (“Wakashankichu?”). She laughed at me. Basilia has five children: Mikías, 3; Jeremías, 5; Rosalío, 11; Emilia, 14; and Elías, who seems about my age. The boys are all learning Spanish in school, and the two older ones speak it fluently (the other two are still too young to really know the difference, and speak to me in Spanish and Qechua interchangeably). The one daughter speaks a little bit more Spanish than her mother does, but not by much. The 11-year-old son, Rosalío, has been translating for me most of the time. Right now he’s standing next to me and just gazing out at the mountains. He’s been standing there for at least 10 minutes; it occurred to me that I’ve never seen my 13-year-old brother sit or stand still for that long, except when he’s watching TV. It is indescribably peaceful here; no sounds of the modern world polluting the air.
I will be sleeping on the second floor of a little hut, the bottom floor of which is home to a bunch of free-roaming guinea pigs which dart under the bed whenever someone approaches them. There is a ladder leading up to the loft, and next to my bed is a giant pile of potatoes and another pile of dry maize for the chickens. I helped Basilia peel potatoes for lunch. One of the first things she asked me (well, one of the only things she asked me that I understood) was how many children I have. She also said she wanted to learn English, so I taught her the names of some things—although most of the articles of clothing she pointed to were pretty much untranslatable because they don’t exist outside of the Andes, as far as I know. It was announced that Jeremías can sing songs, and I was asked if I would like to hear one. It was pretty adorable. For lunch, I was given a chair to eat off of like a table while the rest of the family just ate off the dirt floor. First I was served a bowl of toasted choqllo (corn), then a bowl of boiled potatoes (I mean like 6 good-sized potatoes—I only ate one), then a bowl of really good potato soup. They offered me a peach, but I had to turn it down because I was afraid I’d get sick from it. They have different standards of hygiene here, to say the least; the most noticeable of which is that they don’t consider the ground dirty. The entire area surrounding the house is also grazing land for livestock (pigs, chickens, cows, and a donkey), so the entire ground is covered in manure. They all wear sandals made out of recycled rubber and their feet are leathery and black. I saw one of the kids accidentally drop a peach in a pile of manure, then pick it up and eat it. Yet they all seem very healthy.
More highlights (3/4/07):
My host family turned out to be incredible. I really became attached to Rosalío and kind of wanted to take him home with me. He’s really a brilliant little kid; the whole time he translated for me, explained things to me about how things are done in the village, and showed me around. After lunch on the first day he took me on a walk on the outskirts of the village, and then we both sat down on a little mud hut for animals and looked out at the mountains for a good 20 minutes without speaking. Rosalío is wise beyond his years, and everything about him gives the impression of his being a miniature man: his facial expressions, the way he stands, and the sheperd hat he always wears.
After that walk, we met up with some of Raquel’s host brothers and sisters and took another walk halfway up one of the mountains. The kids pretty much just ran up the side of the mountain while Raquel and I took our time, clinging to the side. Then we went down and played soccer with some more kids and some other girls in our group. The kids weren’t bad players and had the advantage of being accustomed to the altitude, whereas I was pretty much pooped within 10 minutes. After that I went home and took my contacts out after washing my hands in the river that runs right by my house. There was a group of about 5 kids watching me “take my eyes out”, and they thought it was just about the coolest thing they had ever seen. Rosalío wanted to know how much the lenses had cost. At dinner that night, Basilia asked me through Rosalío how much it had cost to come to Peru. I told them 500 dollars, which is less than it had actually cost. The family misunderstood and thought I had said $150, but still acted as if this was an unimaginable sum of money. Basilia then told me that she has a sister that wants to come to the United States, and asked me if I could take her with me. I think there’s a very good chance she was serious.
I was surprised by how good the food was. Even though potatoes and choqllo are somehow incorporated into every meal, we never ate the same meal twice. These people are not poor from a nutritional standpoint; their diet is limited to things that grow in and around the village, but there is never a lack of food. The first night we had a soup made from ground maize with potatoes, the next morning I had a plate of fried potatoes (french fries!) with a fried egg, the next lunch was quinoa soup (a grain, kind of like wheat, they have a lot of here) with potatoes, carrots and alpaca meat, and for dinner, a guinea pig, which they cooked on a stick next to the fire. Once the guinea pig had been taken off the stick and served to me with rice and green beans, I actually wasn’t too repulsed and thought it was quite good. The one thing I was slightly uncomfortable with was the fact that they served it to me in the same room where the other guinea pigs live. I thought that was a little inconsiderate. But back to food: one thing they all like to do is put toasted choqllo in their tea and kind of sip out the kernels and chew on them one at a time. It's pretty delicious. For breakfast on the last morning they gave me a delicious hot, sweet drink made from ground habas (large fava beans). Mmmm. I could not have been happier.
The next day my whole group walked down the mountain a little to a central location where all the weavers gather to do their work (they’re all officially registered in a kind of collective), and got to watch them all at work. The women in the village all wear traditional clothing on a daily basis, and make their own skirts, shawls, and ponchos for the men in the family. Not all the yarns they use are natural though, and one might think it a little ironic that the “traditional” color of Huilloq is neon orange. Emilia, my host sister, taught me to spin yarn from wool, which for the record, is really hard, but which all the women do as they’re walking. Later in the day I took a walk with Emilia, some other young weavers, Jenny, and Rachel and we sat down in a scenic spot, helped roll synthetic yarn into balls, and then, upon the suggestion of one woman who spoke Spanish, started a game of “telephone” in Qechua. As you might imagine, this game is a lot more interesting when not everyone in the group is proficient in the language, and all the original messages ended up as something completely different then what they’d started as. The first few messages that the Qechua women started all took the format of "(Insert Qechua woman's name) is going to live with (insert Qechua man's name)." There were lots of giggles. We tried playing the game in English and then in Spanish, and the game was equally ridiculous in each because there was no language everyone in the group spoke fluently. The funniest one started as “A Jenny le gusta la música” (“Jenny likes music”) and ended up as “Hay un bebé en el hospital” (“There’s a baby in the hospital”). I felt equally lost later on when Emilia tried to teach me to weave a bracelet. Somehow as many times as she showed me how to do it I just could not figure out what was going on. It seemed just about as magical to me as “taking my eyes out” had seemed to the little kids. Emilia kept asking me “Now do you understand?” and I just kept shaking my head.
I met Basilia’s husband, Pablo, on the second day, because the first day he had been out working in the city. I think he works for a tourism agency. He’s incredibly friendly and speaks good Spanish. All day he kept asking me what I wanted to learn in Qechua, and whenever he told me a work in Qechua I would tell him the word in English. He also asked me a lot of questions about the United States, including who the president is now. When I told him it was George Bush, he said, “Still? He has been elected four times, right?” I explained that two different George Bushes had been president, but that I, like him, could not understand how the second one had been reelected. Then he told me about how a “campesino” (farmer) had almost become the president of Peru (Ollanta Humala is a socialist with a military background who's campaign was funded by Hugo Chavez, and who my academic director said she feared would have turned the country back to a military dictatorship had he been elected). But he’s going to enter again in the next race, Pablo assured me.
The next morning before I left, I announced that I wanted to take a picture of the whole family. As soon as I said this everyone ran to put on their traditional clothing (the women wear it all the time, but the men usually don’t wear ponchos while they’re working). Afterwards I showed them all the pictures I had taken of them over the course of the weekend, and they laughed at every one of them. I promised them I would make them copies of the pictures and bring them to them sometime before I leave Peru.
So here I am in Huilloq, a small rural community in the district of Ollantaytambo, where my adventures in Peru began. As soon as our group got here our academic director pretty much just dropped each of us off with a different family and left. So far I have understood about 10 words total of what my host mom, Basilia, has been saying to me. One of my first attempts at Qechua was when I tried to ask her, “Are you cooking?” (“Wayk’ushankichu?”) but accidentally asked her if she was crying instead (“Wakashankichu?”). She laughed at me. Basilia has five children: Mikías, 3; Jeremías, 5; Rosalío, 11; Emilia, 14; and Elías, who seems about my age. The boys are all learning Spanish in school, and the two older ones speak it fluently (the other two are still too young to really know the difference, and speak to me in Spanish and Qechua interchangeably). The one daughter speaks a little bit more Spanish than her mother does, but not by much. The 11-year-old son, Rosalío, has been translating for me most of the time. Right now he’s standing next to me and just gazing out at the mountains. He’s been standing there for at least 10 minutes; it occurred to me that I’ve never seen my 13-year-old brother sit or stand still for that long, except when he’s watching TV. It is indescribably peaceful here; no sounds of the modern world polluting the air.
I will be sleeping on the second floor of a little hut, the bottom floor of which is home to a bunch of free-roaming guinea pigs which dart under the bed whenever someone approaches them. There is a ladder leading up to the loft, and next to my bed is a giant pile of potatoes and another pile of dry maize for the chickens. I helped Basilia peel potatoes for lunch. One of the first things she asked me (well, one of the only things she asked me that I understood) was how many children I have. She also said she wanted to learn English, so I taught her the names of some things—although most of the articles of clothing she pointed to were pretty much untranslatable because they don’t exist outside of the Andes, as far as I know. It was announced that Jeremías can sing songs, and I was asked if I would like to hear one. It was pretty adorable. For lunch, I was given a chair to eat off of like a table while the rest of the family just ate off the dirt floor. First I was served a bowl of toasted choqllo (corn), then a bowl of boiled potatoes (I mean like 6 good-sized potatoes—I only ate one), then a bowl of really good potato soup. They offered me a peach, but I had to turn it down because I was afraid I’d get sick from it. They have different standards of hygiene here, to say the least; the most noticeable of which is that they don’t consider the ground dirty. The entire area surrounding the house is also grazing land for livestock (pigs, chickens, cows, and a donkey), so the entire ground is covered in manure. They all wear sandals made out of recycled rubber and their feet are leathery and black. I saw one of the kids accidentally drop a peach in a pile of manure, then pick it up and eat it. Yet they all seem very healthy.
More highlights (3/4/07):
My host family turned out to be incredible. I really became attached to Rosalío and kind of wanted to take him home with me. He’s really a brilliant little kid; the whole time he translated for me, explained things to me about how things are done in the village, and showed me around. After lunch on the first day he took me on a walk on the outskirts of the village, and then we both sat down on a little mud hut for animals and looked out at the mountains for a good 20 minutes without speaking. Rosalío is wise beyond his years, and everything about him gives the impression of his being a miniature man: his facial expressions, the way he stands, and the sheperd hat he always wears.
After that walk, we met up with some of Raquel’s host brothers and sisters and took another walk halfway up one of the mountains. The kids pretty much just ran up the side of the mountain while Raquel and I took our time, clinging to the side. Then we went down and played soccer with some more kids and some other girls in our group. The kids weren’t bad players and had the advantage of being accustomed to the altitude, whereas I was pretty much pooped within 10 minutes. After that I went home and took my contacts out after washing my hands in the river that runs right by my house. There was a group of about 5 kids watching me “take my eyes out”, and they thought it was just about the coolest thing they had ever seen. Rosalío wanted to know how much the lenses had cost. At dinner that night, Basilia asked me through Rosalío how much it had cost to come to Peru. I told them 500 dollars, which is less than it had actually cost. The family misunderstood and thought I had said $150, but still acted as if this was an unimaginable sum of money. Basilia then told me that she has a sister that wants to come to the United States, and asked me if I could take her with me. I think there’s a very good chance she was serious.
I was surprised by how good the food was. Even though potatoes and choqllo are somehow incorporated into every meal, we never ate the same meal twice. These people are not poor from a nutritional standpoint; their diet is limited to things that grow in and around the village, but there is never a lack of food. The first night we had a soup made from ground maize with potatoes, the next morning I had a plate of fried potatoes (french fries!) with a fried egg, the next lunch was quinoa soup (a grain, kind of like wheat, they have a lot of here) with potatoes, carrots and alpaca meat, and for dinner, a guinea pig, which they cooked on a stick next to the fire. Once the guinea pig had been taken off the stick and served to me with rice and green beans, I actually wasn’t too repulsed and thought it was quite good. The one thing I was slightly uncomfortable with was the fact that they served it to me in the same room where the other guinea pigs live. I thought that was a little inconsiderate. But back to food: one thing they all like to do is put toasted choqllo in their tea and kind of sip out the kernels and chew on them one at a time. It's pretty delicious. For breakfast on the last morning they gave me a delicious hot, sweet drink made from ground habas (large fava beans). Mmmm. I could not have been happier.
The next day my whole group walked down the mountain a little to a central location where all the weavers gather to do their work (they’re all officially registered in a kind of collective), and got to watch them all at work. The women in the village all wear traditional clothing on a daily basis, and make their own skirts, shawls, and ponchos for the men in the family. Not all the yarns they use are natural though, and one might think it a little ironic that the “traditional” color of Huilloq is neon orange. Emilia, my host sister, taught me to spin yarn from wool, which for the record, is really hard, but which all the women do as they’re walking. Later in the day I took a walk with Emilia, some other young weavers, Jenny, and Rachel and we sat down in a scenic spot, helped roll synthetic yarn into balls, and then, upon the suggestion of one woman who spoke Spanish, started a game of “telephone” in Qechua. As you might imagine, this game is a lot more interesting when not everyone in the group is proficient in the language, and all the original messages ended up as something completely different then what they’d started as. The first few messages that the Qechua women started all took the format of "(Insert Qechua woman's name) is going to live with (insert Qechua man's name)." There were lots of giggles. We tried playing the game in English and then in Spanish, and the game was equally ridiculous in each because there was no language everyone in the group spoke fluently. The funniest one started as “A Jenny le gusta la música” (“Jenny likes music”) and ended up as “Hay un bebé en el hospital” (“There’s a baby in the hospital”). I felt equally lost later on when Emilia tried to teach me to weave a bracelet. Somehow as many times as she showed me how to do it I just could not figure out what was going on. It seemed just about as magical to me as “taking my eyes out” had seemed to the little kids. Emilia kept asking me “Now do you understand?” and I just kept shaking my head.
I met Basilia’s husband, Pablo, on the second day, because the first day he had been out working in the city. I think he works for a tourism agency. He’s incredibly friendly and speaks good Spanish. All day he kept asking me what I wanted to learn in Qechua, and whenever he told me a work in Qechua I would tell him the word in English. He also asked me a lot of questions about the United States, including who the president is now. When I told him it was George Bush, he said, “Still? He has been elected four times, right?” I explained that two different George Bushes had been president, but that I, like him, could not understand how the second one had been reelected. Then he told me about how a “campesino” (farmer) had almost become the president of Peru (Ollanta Humala is a socialist with a military background who's campaign was funded by Hugo Chavez, and who my academic director said she feared would have turned the country back to a military dictatorship had he been elected). But he’s going to enter again in the next race, Pablo assured me.
The next morning before I left, I announced that I wanted to take a picture of the whole family. As soon as I said this everyone ran to put on their traditional clothing (the women wear it all the time, but the men usually don’t wear ponchos while they’re working). Afterwards I showed them all the pictures I had taken of them over the course of the weekend, and they laughed at every one of them. I promised them I would make them copies of the pictures and bring them to them sometime before I leave Peru.
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