ya pues... 5/16/07

Dear friends and family,

There´s no Quechua lesson today, but the subject of this email is something I hear Peruvians say every five minutes, and which can mean anything from 'oh well' to 'come on!' In this case it means something like, 'Well, that's it for the study abroad program, what is Naomi going to do in Peru now?'

I realize I’ve been avoiding sitting down to write another mass email because I have no idea how to express just how insane and amazing this last month has been. I want to tell everyone about my time in Huilloq, just how poetic and unique it was, and yet when I think back on it I realize that I really didn’t do much there. Instead of anecdotes I have a series of impressions.

One major thing I realized about life in Huilloq is how much my moods were affected by the weather. Like the rest of Peru, the houses in Huilloq obviously have no heat or air conditioning, but unlike urban Peru, people spend almost all of their time outside. When it’s light out, people work, and when it’s dark, they eat and sleep—simple as that. And that’s how all that stuff I’ve always been told about native people being connected with nature suddenly became real to me. There’s no getting around it: when the sun is out in Huilloq, it’s absolutely the most beautiful place in the world. In these moments it seems like blasphemy to do anything other than work the land, or just sit and think. Even reading a book is out of the question; it just would seem out of place and unnecessary. When the sun disappears for a few minutes behind the clouds, it’s freezing, miserable, and lonely—these were the first moments since I’ve been in Peru that I felt genuinely homesick. And I’m not even sure if it was homesick for the United States or just for Cuzco.

The first week I spent in Huilloq was probably the slowest week of my life, but the second week was one of the fastest. I started getting used to the rhythm of life there. I gave up on trying to read while I was there and just spent as much time as I could harvesting potatoes, going out with the kids to graze their animals, and exploring. The last few days I was there I stayed with families who live higher up in the mountains (a 45 minute to hour-long walk all steep uphill) and just spent all day there without coming back down to the road. I made some new friends; among them a 17-year-old girl who spoke Spanish because she’d spent a couple years working as a domestic servant in Lima, and the former president of the community, who is just about the nicest guy you could ever meet. I asked if I could stay with him in his house for one night, because I wanted to get to know his family. Of course, he wasn’t going to say he didn’t have room. I ended up sleeping on a bed made of wooden planks, in the kitchen, with the guinea pigs. It actually wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought.

Most of my best friends in Huilloq were 9- or 10-year-old boys. Mostly because they’re old enough to speak good Spanish but young enough not to have many responsibilities of have left the community. I was reunited with my old friend Rosalío, who I gave a little magnetic checkers game. I taught him how to play and he beat me on about the 4th game. Another family I stayed with higher up had a TV and DVD player, so with a 10-year-old boy named José I got a chance to watch such classics as “The Life of Jesus” in Quechua, and a show called “Los cholitos,” which I have no idea how to translate, but was basically a comedy show in Spanish involving two guys dressed in traditional clothing, one of which was a midget, performing slapstick humor and generally making good-natured fun of indigenous culture.

The last few days I was there I ate the most boiled potatoes I have ever eaten in my life. Either the entire meal would consist of a bowl of boiled potatoes, or I would be served a bowl of boiled potatoes as an appetizer before being served a huge bowl of potato soup or french fries with white rice. I learned an important life lesson: the point of not being able to eat any more potatoes comes well before the point of not being able to eat anymore. One of the most exciting moments during my entire stay in Huilloq was when someone brought out a bottle of ketchup, which happened only once.

I was surprised at how much I actually learned relating to my independent study topic in the short time I was there, even after spending the majority of the time harvesting potatoes. I don’t even want to begin talking about it because I won’t know where to stop, but if you’re interested you can request a copy of my 30-page paper. :-P

I’m now back in Ollantaytambo, where this journey began, where the last week of the program, evaluation week, is being held. After that I’m going back to Cuzco to figure out exactly what I’m going to be doing for the rest of the time I’m here (right now, my flight back is scheduled for the end of July). It will probably be some combination of traveling and volunteer work. I’ll be living most of the time with the sister of my friend the former president of Huilloq, who has a little store near the center of Cuzco and a little room for me behind the store. It sounds like a good compromise between living with a family and living on my own, and should be a lot of fun.