Fiestas and an Embarrassing Tale

For the entire month of June in Cusco, there is a festival almost every day starting with Corpus Christy, a parade of saints around the town square which in Incan times was a parade of mummies, and ending with Inti Rhymi where I'm pretty sure we give thanks to the sun god...I'll let you know in my next post as the festival is tomorrow.

Almost every day for the past two weeks I have spent at least a few days watching a parade, dance, or going even going to a concert at night. My favorite of all of this was this past Saturday when thousands of people crowded into the town square to watch a great concert of Cumbia and other types of music, followed by a really good fireworks display. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole night, and was truly amazed by not only the fireworks, but also the safety standards used here as many of the commercial grade fireworks were shot off no more than 30 feet from the huge plaza crowd!

In addition to all of this, I have made it out to the local clubs a few times. These too are more endless parties ranging from salsa to standard American hits and techno music. One day last weekend I went out to dinner with some of the other American volunteers I'm working with. Afterward, we all headed to our favorite club, Inka Team. We all had a great time, staying out until about 2:30 in the morning. I was pretty happy with the experience as a whole until the next day when I talked with my host family. It turns out my host mom and host sisters were all out at a wedding on the same night. When that ended at 2:30, they hadn't quite had enough, so they decided to go to Inka Team, the same club I had just left, dancing and partying until 5:30 in the morning. At this point I was slightly embarrassed. I always thought I could hold my own at a party, but being out done by your 49 year old host mom is just humiliating! They really bring partying to a whole new level down here...looks like I'm going to need to step up my game.

Until next time, keep livin' the dream!

P.S. A link to a google map of my house if you're interested: Click here

A visit to the "Campo"

This past weekend was my first trip to a "Campo" or rural village. Life in the village of Pumamarka is a bit different than in Cusco and very different from anything I've seen in the States.

We took only a 20 minute cab ride up a twisty switchback mountain road to enter a whole new world. This small village of maybe 1,000 or so people is a typical or perhaps well off campo given its close proximity to Cusco. When I entered the small village of Quecha speaking people I was awed not only by their simple lifestyle and adobe constructed houses, but also by the beauty of the landscape only 20 minutes from my house. There were rolling hills of wheat crops and ice capped mountains off in the distance.

We pulled up to my "mom's" friend’s house to be greeted by a neighbor yelling at the top of her lungs in Quecha into the valley to call the family home for us. It really felt like I was in a movie! When the family arrived we had some chicha or beer made from corn, but not before we spilled a little bit on the ground as an offering to mother earth, something I had learned about in my Spanish class, but not really grasped until now.

After this, it was time to start preparing lunch; on the menu today, Whatia and river trout. To prepare the Whatia, we constructed a small igloo like structure from adobe bricks. When I say we, I of course mean the 10 year old boy in the family constructed it while the rest of us stood around and watched. After burning some wood and leaves in the structure for about a half an hour, we put potatoes and beans inside, collapsing the structure on top to cover the food, letting it cook for about an hour.

We later dug out our food to find fully cooked potatoes and beans. We promptly ate the Whatia with trout that was prepared in the house kitchen over an open flame all without utensils while sitting on the ground in the grass in a circle, sharing stories just like old days. It was a meal to remember!

Until next time, keep livin’ the dream!

Why's everyone laughing at me?

Things over the past week have been going pretty well. Last week I met with the director of my volunteer program to discuss exactly what I would be doing over the next few months. I'm really excited that he is actually giving me quite a bit of flexibility in choosing what I want to work on.

I've been spending most of my weekday mornings working as tech support for a small business that helps disabled citizens in the area. I've been fixing printers, installing drivers for USB so they no longer have to use floppy disks, and working on getting the internet up and running! In the afternoons I have been looking into some longer term projects I might be able to do. Right now if I can find some funding, I'm hoping I'll be able to work in rural areas to install clean burning wood stoves in houses who basically cook with indoor camp fires and no ventilation causing all sorts of respiratory and eye problems.

Before

After

After discussing volunteer opportunities with my program director, he introduced me to the rest of the volunteers working in Cusco this summer. All college students from the U.S. 13 girls and 1 other guy...Rough life for me, I know! The next day was time for my first salsa lesson with the group...let's just say I need to practice a bit more...my hips don't move quite as well as Shakira's just yet!

After returning to my house I told my "mom and sister" my embarrassing salsa tale. After I finished, they broke out a CD player telling me they would help me out, and boy did I need it! We had quite a few laughs (mostly them doing the laughing) and by the end of our 2 and a half hour dancing session, my other brother and sister were in on the act too...we kind of had an impromptu salsa dancing party at the house! It was a first for me as that definitely doesn't happen back home!

Aside from people laughing at me while dancing, the family also got a pretty good laugh when I attempted to wash my clothes by hand for the first time in my life! I guess I'm not a natural at that either! The laughing continued when I attempted to say my program director "he" wants me to do something. After mixing up a few pronouns I ended up telling my host family that I "want" my program director, sweet, now my family thinks I like men and I do drugs!

Washin' Clothes

Aside from that, I think I've been getting along pretty well with the language, which was my biggest concern before leaving the states. Now my biggest daily dilemma is weather or not to take a shower. I know I mentioned before that the showers here were cold...they haven't gotten any better, especially when you take them at night. 55 degree water mixed with 40 degree air in the bathroom makes for a bad combination! The showers along with the little dance I have to do in order to get myself psyched up for the shower are two things I don't think I'll ever get used to! More to come soon…

Until next time, keep livin’ the dream!

La Vida Nueva

After a long day of surfing in Lima, I went to bed pretty early on Friday only to get up at 2:30 am to catch my 5:30 flight to Cusco where I’ll be spending my next few months.

The sun rising over the Andes from 30,000 feet.

My new place

My new place part 2

I arrived at my new place around 7:30 am where I was greeted by my "host mother" and her 10 year old nephew who is living in the house for the next few months with his mom, dad, and 2 week old brother. Little by little, the rest of the family woke up and came to the kitchen to greet me and eat breakfast. After being in the house for about a half hour, I stood up to meet one of the cousins staying there when I knocked my cup of tea off the table only to watch it shatter over the ground...great start! Things got better after that when my host mother asked me if I did drugs, fabulous! I think she was joking as we were talking about "mata de coca" a tea made from coca leaves at that time, but considering I only understand about 70% of what the family says, there’s no way to really tell!

Aside from those two incidents I’ve been having a really good time and really like my host family thus far. I think the 10 year old, Jueseph, who talks non stop will really help me with my Spanish. The 24 year old college student, Cesar, and I are going to play some soccer later today and I think he’ll be fun to hang out with. Finally, I’m pretty excited to get to know the cute 26 year old daughter, Denisse, a bit more ;) I have plans to go salsa dancing next week with her and her friends!

Lastly, the house...I think it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment to the new standard of living. I was excited when I found out they had "hot" water in their shower, only to be later disappointed when I discovered that hot meant 55 degrees and not the normal 40 of the rest of the water in the house. To add to the cold, it gets down to about 35 here at night and there’s no heat or insulation in the house...sweatshirts, long underwear for me! Did I mention we’re raising guinea pigs to eat for dinner about a month from now when they’re big enough. In addition, we use buckets of water filled from the sink to flush the one toilet shared by 9 people.



That being said, I think I’m adjusting rather quickly, and the whole family is VERY nice. Hopefully in another few weeks I won’t even think about it!

Until next time, keep livin´ the dream!

Dinner!

The local supermarket

I made it!

It was a little odd, but up until the day I left for my trip, I really wasn't nervous at all. I guess I made up for that on my down to Peru!

About half way through my first conversation in Spanish I realized the large sweat patches under my arms; clearly I wasn't as confident with my speaking skills as I had once thought...I guess there was a reason it took me about 3 hours to strike up this first conversation with the guy sitting next to me in the plane!

Once I arrived, I was greeted by a friend of a friend who drove me to my hostel. Conversation number 2 went more smoothly. I was pretty excited because I felt like I actually understood most of what the guy was saying!

After checking into my hostel, I walked to my room only to be greeted by 3 roommates snorting lines of COCAINE. "Bienvinidos a Peru" they said. (Welcome to Peru) While I knew coca leaves were grown in Peru, I didn't expect cocaine would be the first thing I would be offered after landing here! I politely declined the roommates’ KIND offer to share their "coke." They left after about 10 minutes and I got some much needed sleep!








Thankfully, the rest of my adventure thus far was a bit more tame consisting of mostly wandering the streets and checking out the sites of Lima. While I really enjoyed the city, I think my favorite part was when my new Israeli buddy and I were ambushed by a mob of 10 year old school children anxious to speak to us using the little English they knew, get our autographs, and take pictures with us. I felt like a celebrity!











After a great dinner we checked out a really sweet park with cool fountains. I tried to be like the local kids and run through the fountain without getting wet...didn't work out so well for me :/

Until next time, keep livin’ the dream!