Heading Up North!

Today is our last full day in Lima. Tomorrow evening, we take flight out of Lima, heading for Denver by way of Miami and Chicago. I'm hoping for coolish weather in Miami, so Celeste can travel with us. That's why we're heading to Chicago - it's an earlier flight than the direct flight to Denver, and I know that if it's too hot or too cold at any point along the way, dogs can't travel.

Celeste is confused and worried. Her whole world was dismantled throughout the week and sent away to the house in Trujillo this morning. The only familiar thing left in the apartment is her own crate, and even that is probably too new for her to like just yet. Her old one was dismantled and sent to the trash, since it was made of wood and not up to airline standards. When the guys came this morning to pick up the furniture, she stood watching and following them around as the took things out and put them in a truck, checking with me once in a while to make sure it was okay for all this to happen.

I finally found a veteriarian who didn't try to swindle me, and Celeste now has all her paperwork, certified healthy and fit for travel and entry into the US. I know it will be a tough trip for her, having to be alone in the cargo hold through the entire journey. I looked for a dog toy for her that might make her feel a little better, but couldn't find a single squeaky toy anywhere. Maybe tomorrow I can find something fuzzy and soft in a pet shop in San Miguel.

I stopped working a week ago and my entire attitude has changed! Not that I hated my work - on the contrary, I enjoyed the work. But not having to pass through downtown every morning to see the drunks sleeping it off and the homeless begging for anything has made a huge difference for me. (A nice little severance package helped my attitude a bit, too!) I know I'm not cut out to live in a big city like Lima. So it's back to Cheyenne for me; O will be coming this time, but only for a month. Then he has to return till December, when his military commitment is up. He's got some options to consider and some things to compete, so he'll have about 6 months to get that stuff done.

So, the next time I update here will probably be from my sister's house in Colorado, where we'll be staying for a little bit, till I get the furniture put back in my house in Cheyenne.

Hasta la vista!

My World and Welcome to It

What a week! It's been just like the rest of my life: so full of odd little instances that it seems like my entire life is full of odd little instances. So it's like one big odd instance that lasts a whole week.

We're getting ready to move back to the US, at least I am, and to prepare, we're doing things! Yes! We're doing things! Not exactly the kind of things you might imagine, though. Behold:

Last Sunday, O and I went to get groceries at the local supermarket. We got his favorite greek-style olives that come in a plastic box full of olives and juice. They are a local product, really, Peru has almost everything necessary to be self-sufficient in the way of produce and natural resources. Anyway, these olives were carefully placed into a bag and loaded from the shopping cart to the back seat of the car. Then we unloaded all th grocery bags from the car to the steps of the apartment building. I only have so many hands, so I usually drop my cell phone and wallet into a bag with dry goods, like bags of rice and boxes of cereal, so I can carry everything up. So I did that, but somehow the box of olives got turned on its side and all the juice leaked out in to the bag they were in. When I lifted that bag to the counter, it went all catty-wampus on me and all the juice that had left the olives splashed out...into the bag with my cell phone and wallet. Oddly, everything in the wallet was totally dry, which was probably due to the fact that my cell phone soaked up a lot of the liquid, and ended up fried. Argh. Cell phone sautéed by its own battery, in olive juice.

Later that night some lady called for O, and upon discovering that he wasn't at home, she asked for his cell number. I had to tell her that I didn't know what his number was, since it was saved to my cell, I never bothered to learn it - just hit the speed dial to call him. After finding out that I was his wife, she proceeded to tell me what a terrible wife I must be, if I didn't even know my own husband's cell phone number and what was I going to do about it, and did he know that I was so slovenly and uncaring that I didn't keep track of his phone number and she was certainly going to tell him about it.

I hung up on her.

Then we sold the car. O was thrilled that he'd driven a hard bargain and gotten his price, which was really pretty good for a 1997 Mitsubishi Chariot minivan that had been rear-ended at east once and honestly needed some serious repairs. We transferred the title over and collected our money and walked back to the house, which was the moment that reality set in. OMG, it was like losing a child! O has been in mourning for a week, but shows signs of adjusting to life on foot again, or at least life on city bus.

The next day, O hitched a ride to class with a friend who lives in Chorrillos, an hour away from our neighborhood. That was really nice of the guy, but O forgot his keys in the friend's car and didn't realize it till he got home...then had to take a taxi all the way to Chorrillos to retrieve the key. He didn't get back home till around midnight. And then he told me that his taxi driver was either drunk or really tired because he couldn't drive without roaming all over the road and he kept falling asleep at the stop lights. SCARY!

On Thursday, when I stepped out the door to go to work, the doorman told me that the water tank would be cleaned on Friday about 10 am, and that the water would be off for a few hours. What he REALLY meant was that the water would be off for a FEW DAYS. The water was turned off before I got home from work on Thursday, and stayed off till this morning. Thursday night, I walked to the closest store to buy some 2.5 liter bottles of water so we'd have drinking water and something to brush our teeth, knowing that the water would be on in the morning for showers and washing dishes and whatnot. On Friday, I returned to the store to buy some more water to scrub off with. On Saturday, I went to the store AGAIN to buy water and found it sold out of water. GAAUUGH! Saturday
was particularly hot in the classrooms and I was feeling particularly self-conscious and stinky as I walked between the desks during the exams. It was more like squishing and sloshing between the desks as I sweated along. After two days of bathing in a plastic water bottle, I was beginning to feel like I'd been in the trenches for far too long. In short, I reeked. I was thankful for the end of the work day so I could get home and take a shower. Surely the water would be on by the time I got home.

WRONG.

The worst of it was that not only did I stink, but I had quite a good crop of fruit flies buzzing in and around my sinkful of dirty dishes and a pile of laundry like I hadn't seen since having surgery last year. It was too much for me, so I grabbed the last bottle of water before O could, slammed the kitchen door shut before the flies could take over the rest of the house, and took refuge in the bathroom to scrape off the top layer of dried sweat and car exhaust. I did leave the last half of the bottle of water for O...he stunk worse than I did.

This morning, before daylight, I checked for water in the bathroom. EUREKA!! We had struck water again and I leapt in the shower. After that, I attacked the kitchen with a can of Raid and scared the daylights out of the flies that had taken up housekeeping in the sink, beneath the dirty dishes. I'm sure I didn't manage to kill any of them, but I destroyed their stockpile of moldy and stinking food bits when I washed the dishes, so there's nothing worth returning for. I posted the Raid can on the window sill as a wicked reminder to any and all flies that my kitchen sink is an unfriendly environment for fruit flies.

What can this coming week bring that could possibly beat last week? Can't wait to see...

A rose is a rose...

I put on my favorite perfume today, before I went to work - Anais Anais. It smells of roses, but not like my grandmother's rose scent. This is a decidedly different rose. All the same, after riding through the city and exiting the bus between others, I arrived at work smelling like what I was - an exhausted rose. Make that vehicle exhaust. My Anais Anais is still with me, but so is a little exhaust. Hmm. It's almost impossible to escape the exhaust and exhaustion in this city. One seems to go hand in hand with the other.

I've been spinning, also. I've finished 4 ounces of Gypsy (superwash merino/sari silk/sparkles) and it's looking pretty good! I have about 400 yards of fingering weight, and still have another 4 ounces to go. It's moving pretty fast, and I should be finished plying the last of the latest spindle-full tomorrow. I managed to spill a glug of Coke on one spindle, so the soaking will be a welcome part of the processing and finishing. Sheesh! How clutzy can I be???

(Note to self: Coke is off-limits while using the computer AND while spindling.)

Celeste has sensed a change in attitude towards her since she's almost finished shedding her winter duds. She's now clean and pretty, and was actually invited to take a nap on the bed with O this weekend. It helped her little prima donna attitude bounce back, and when she had to vacate the bed so I could lie down, she made a face at me and retired to her own plushy-but-hairy bed.

I spent Thanksgiving in a funk for a couple of reasons. One - I had to work. Two - nobody celebrates Thankgiving here, so that was kind of bumsville for me. Three - Christmas will most likely be the same for me. Christmas here is so commercial it's ridiculous. You thought it was bad in the US, didn't you? Well, multiply that by 5 and add all your friends and relatives, godchildren, neighbors, and every Tom, Dick, & Harry who gets on the bus begging, and you've got the makings of a depressing holiday. And there's not even the remotest chance of a white Christmas here. Hmmmm....

On Friday, I got on the bus, and a young man followed me on. He gave us God's blessings, and began to talk about how he had just 5 hours earlier been released from prison. In order to prevent him from returning to his criminal ways, everyone on the bus was to pay him for his performance...and he took out a long handled tablespoon, which he pushed up his nose. I guess that trick is too common here in Lima, because he left the bus without much more than 50 centimos. He laid a curse on us all before he left. Luckily we all know Moises, from the previous post, who can break the curse and we'll all come out smelling like roses...exhausted roses, but roses all the same.

..and as if that weren't enough...

Folowing up on my last post about curanderos, there's this.

According to the article, there are 3 types of curanderos. Reading the definitions, it would appear that most of the people practicing around where I live are of the second type, those who are taught their skill, e.i. "These usually read coca leaves, and perform other rituals such as “pasar cuy” and “pasar huevo,” where the guinea pig, or egg, is gently rubbed over the person’s body in order to remove negative energy. The guinea pig is then killed, or the egg cracked open, to see what illness the person was suffering from. There are many of these all over Peru, and while some practice their trade well, others don’t."

I went back to Moisés, who's business card appears in the first photo of my last post. He claims to practice black magic, so I asked him what exactly that meant. He let me know that, for a modest fee, he will cast a spell on someone for the client. The spell usually involves causing some kind of illness to the target. This spell is performed there in his booth at the feria, then a "spirit helper", one of his messengers, delivers the notice of the spell casting to both the client and the target. Depending upon the strength of the beliefs of the target and the client, one will feel satisfied that vengence has been dealt, and the other may fall into the sick bed until payment has been made to another curandero to undo the spell and stop the illness.

This kind of thing seems to go against the stuff I've heard in talking to the witches in the US, but I don't know anyone who actually practices black magic, except now for Moisés.

And then there's this, which almost put me off eating at Doña Maria's Anticucharía a few blocks away. Hmm...not my idea of the best type of seasoning.

It seems like a lot of people in Lima believe in brujería, or there wouldn't be a curandero on every street corner. But belief in black magic and voodoo is strongest in the provinces of the north and the jungle. O told me that his mother is big believer in voodoo and the black arts, and she is scared to death of it. When she was younger, she heard through the grapevine that her cousin, who was called a witch by people in her neighborhood, had put a spell on her. O's mother was sick with headaches, vomiting, and general anxiety and weakness for weeks, until her husband finally called another witch doctor to break the spell by rubbing her forehead with a black guinea pig, then killing it and burning the entrails. Within a few hours she had completely recovered. Another Hmmmm...

What do YOU think?

The plan is coming together...slowly.

A week's gone by and I still have this head cold. It's in it's final phase, but what a pain in the rear - ...err... - head it's been. Classes have started once again and I have 6 full days of classes, from the very beginning in Basic 1 to Intermediate 3. Almost all of my students this time seem to be good ones. There are a few that will make me tired, but most of them seem to be enthusiastic and ready to participate and learn. At least for now.


I've been spinning, yes, and finally finished the Ginger & Plum fiber, plus two skeinlettes of complimenting orange yarn and purple yarn. Just enough of each to do toes and heels in socks, or a border of mostly solid color. So, I'm happy with that. I also started another set of batts in Enchanted Knoll Farm's "Gypsy". This yarn will be more along the worsted weight (I hope), but I have no real project in mind for it right now. I thought I did when I started spinning, but I've already got one spindle filled and all my great ideas have evaporated. Now, I guess I'll just see what it wants to become.


The most exciting news for me is that we've got a buyer for the apartment next spring. He's already made his offer, and we've accepted it. He'll give us our asking price and make a substantial down payment, then take over the remaining payments. He'll take possession of the apartment in May next year, so that will give me time to send things home to the farm, and repaint, and replace things as needed. Yeay! Maybe by that time, I'll have all of Celeste's fuzz trapped and under control. But, anyway, things do seem to be going according to plan.

O is off to see about a scholarship for a post grad program at the University of Northern Colorado - possibly. You never really know about things down here in Peru. They seem to go great guns, and then somebody stops for a beer, and things go off track for a few...well, ummm...months. We'll see how it all goes. Here's O (the tallest tree in this little orchard) and his compañeros, having left the track already, chowing down. Beer to come.

The Wild One-Oh-Four

A ride to work on the city bus is always a unique experience, but a ride on the 104 is a whole different ball game. I usually ride the Linea 48, a safe and more comfortable bus...but the 48 stops for 15 seconds and waits for no latecomer. So yesterday, I ended up taking the 104.

The 104 runs older buses; usually old Bluebird school buses that may or may not have the seats nailed down, rattle like mad, and the drivers seem to be convinced that with open windows and tremendous speed, even the oldest heavily-loaded vehicle might be coaxed into sprouting wings. There are times when not only the passengers and seat bottoms are launched from their usual places inside the bus, but the bus may also go airborne at various times of the day.

There are no shock absorbers on these buses and, I think because of that, you can always tell when the 104 is approaching from the racket of the rattling body, doors and windows. Step aboard and let your hair down...it'll be standing on end in just a few moments! Don't forget to get a good grip on something before take-off.

Linea 48 attracts a higher paid clientele, and due to that, it also attracts salespeople and performers of a higher caliber...or at least with higher expectations. The 48 often has traveling musicians who perform and sell their cds on the bus. The salespeople don't limit themselves to selling candies - they have 30 cent pens, sewing kits, and books. The real talent - the guys who push the screwdrivers up their noses - also finds itself on board the Linea 48.

ON the other hand, the 104 gets the candy sellers, the kids who sing through their mom's comb and a Kleenex tissue, the guy who can't play a guitar so he beats out a rhythm on a seat back with a coin or his wedding ring while singing off key, and the woman who rented her neighbor's baby to beg for money. The good thing is that they don't stay long - it's very hard for an off-key singer to be heard over the rattle of the 104 body panels, no matter how hard he pounds on the seat or the door frame. And women carrying rented babies have a hard time staying upright while the bus is airborne. So usually the beggars and the performers jump on, take a quick turn up and down the aisle, and jump back off. Knitting on board is almost impossible because of the bone-jarring, stitch scattering ride, but most people don't notice. They're usually totally occupied with hanging onto the OMG bars in front of them or over head.

This morning, while on my way home after my morning class, a man got on the bus to beg for money. As he started his speech, the driver said, "Hazlo en breve, amigo. No tendres mucho tiempo de hablar." (Make it brief, buddy. You won't have much time to talk.) No sooner did he get those words out of his mouth, when the bus lurched forward and we launched, rattling off down Abancay Avenue. The beggar seemed to be putting a lot of effort into his speech, but nobody could hear a word he said. Once we were airborne, he had no choice but to cut it short and get off at the nearest landing pad...errr...bus stop.

Small blessings in disguise.

The Men's Room

Public bathrooms here in Peru are not desirable places. Practically all of them reek of bodily waste. It's expected to be so here, but honestly, it disgusts me. I assumed (erroneously) that it was from the fact that the Peruvian sewer system is not set up to handle toilet paper, so the used paper is dropped into a trash can next to the toilet. Most of the time, it is dropped into the trash can...sometimes the aim is bad, and it lands on the floor...also a disgusting fact about Peruvian public bathrooms.

So when my own bathroom began to reek of urine, I freaked out. I'm not one of those people who just assume that the bathroom will stink no matter what. And after a little investigation and sniffing things out (literally) I discovered that not everyone has the same bathroom habits and expectations that I do - and that someone is a man that lives in this apartment. I'll leave it to you to figure out what man I'm talking about, but his first initial is O. And worse, after his friends and family members come over, the bathroom absolutely smells like a ketchpen after branding.

We've had several discussions about the choice of taking aim at the toilet, and actually having a good sit-down, and each time, he assured me that it wasn't HIM who missed the toilet. Well, guess what - there are only two of us living in this apartment, and I don't depend on my ability to make a good shot at the toilet. We talked about it today, again, and no headway was made. I just cleaned it at 11 am, and it already smells like somebody missed and shot the floor instead. Which he did. The fact is that "real" men are expectd to take aim on foot, and not shoot from close-up.

He has a need to be a "real" man. Hmm...smells like the men's room in here.

frustrations

Okay. I just spent the last month teaching 100 students pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and colloquialisms in the English language. Yesterday, I asked each of them if they had done their homework, and fully HALF of them said, "No teacha, I ause yeseday," (No teacher, I was absent yesterday.)

So, why go to all the trouble to present this stuff, if they are so willing to throw it aside when they have the opportunity to use it in a more authentic way than a contrived dialogue written in their textbooks? Never mind the fact that most of them WERE NOT absent - why NOT add what they learn to their repertoir, rather than stick with the "I ause yeseday"? What better way to personalize and make an authentic conversation than to talk about something real for them?

Today they have their final written exam, tomorrow they have to present a project in spoken and written form, and on Thursday, they have an oral exam in which they have to make use of all the language they have in their lessons. "I ause yeseday" gives me no confidence at all that they have learned or have tried to learn anything. I guess I'll see.

I've been told by the administration that I'm too demanding and that I expect way too much from my students. I wonder if that's bad. I expect them to be motivated and study. I expect them to come to class. I expect them to do their homework. I absolutely expect them to respond in some way, be it a correct answer, an "I don't know," or even "I don't really care." At the end of the cycle, many of them try to wheedle a better grade out of me by whining and tearing up or batting their eyes and flirting with me. Some try to intimidate me into raising their grades. Still others use guilt trips and head games, and one even resorted to the traditional Peruvian way - bribery.

I don't remember school or the few college classes I took being anything remotely like this. Maybe all those years working for the Air Force made my world too sheltered and structured. What ever happened to integrity, responsibility, and impeccability? Actually, I'm not that hard of a person. If I can see some TRY in a student, I'm willing to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. But to spend the cycle piddling around, talking about boyfriends, trying to sleep in class, or just not coming, and THEN try to squeeze extra points out of me? Sorry baby, I'm not that easy.

Have a drinky-poo

Everywhere on the west coast of Peru, people use the diminutive when they speak. "Quesito?" (A little cheese?) When I was first learning about this phenomenon, I read that it is used to express endearment or cuteness. An example would be "tengo un perrito" (I have a cute little dog). Okay. I could understand that. But typically, I hear things like this: "Aqui estamos en el mercadito. Gaseosita? Solamente cuesta un solcito. Toma esta bebidita. Y carnecita? Come un poquitito y regresamos en la nochecita, amorcito. Llegamos a la casita en un ratito. Y entonces jugamos con tu perrito. Es presiosito!"

I translate this in the most literal way, because that's mostly the way my mind works, and because it makes me laugh. Then later, I go back and think about what the person really was saying. So at first, the Spanish comes into my mind like this:

Here we are in the cute little market. An itty bitty soda pop? It only costs one cute little sol. Have a little drinky-poo. And a little bit of meat? Eat a little bitty bit and we'll go back at nighty-poo, my cute little lovey dovey. We arrive at the housey-poo in a little minute-winute. And then we'll play with your little doggy-poo. It's so cutie-wootie!

Yeah. Makes me laugh and then makes me gag a little bitito. Too much sugar makes me ill.

names...

So, I'm on my lunch break at work now. I've been thinking about my students a lot lately. Some of their parents are sending them to study here because they want them to travel to the US and have a better life than they could have in Peru. I think they must have always wanted that, because of some of the names they give their kids. I think (and I could be completely wrong about this) that they want them to have good American or English names, so they do their best. For example....

I have a student in Basic 9 this month whose name is Buby (pronounced "Booby"). The poor guy insists that he be called "Moises" (the Spanish version of "Moses"), which is his middle name. I gladly oblige him. I can't imagine waking up with a name like "Booby" every day, either.

I have another student named Rut. I believe it is meant to be Ruth. And there's Grake...Grace? Butsy...Bootie or maybe Betsy? Parents, parents...please check your spelling!

I found out that there was a period of time, about 1960, when in Peru it was illegal to name your child anything except a Biblical name. If it wasn't found in the Spanish version of the bible, it was illegal, and the application for a name would be rejected by the governmental agency for vital statistics. Goodness...talk about control freaks. No wonder there are so many women named Maria and so many men named Jose and Jesus!

Birthday weekend

Last week I had a birthday. I celebrate my birthday in a much different style than most people here in Peru. For my birthday, I prefer to forget about parties and have a quiet day. This year, both O and I were working, so there was no party planning on any one's part. O knows I don't go for parties, but his friends are pretty determined to take advantage of any excuse to have a fling. This year, thanks to my job, there was none of that. There was, however, a birthday lunch at some one's house.

Rosa and Flover live in Rimac, which is a very nice part of town, except for the smallish area where they live. Their neighborhood is SCARY. They have no car, and they live a little too far away from the market or the grocery store to walk, so we often give them rides to wherever they need to go. They repay the favors by making lunch occasionally, inviting us to barbecues, parties, and other events. I rarely go, but now it's understood that I just prefer a quieter lifestyle.

Anyway, Rosa insisted on a birthday lunch on the 2nd. Rosa is from the highlands and her taste in food is a little different than mine. My special lunch was actually Rosa's favorite: chanfainita, a typical highland dish.



How does it look? Tasty, right? Chanfainita is stew, made from chopped potatoes and cow's lungs. Now, I know she went to a LOT of effort to prepare this delicacy, but there are just some things that I don't want to eat. Lung tissue is one of those things that I choose not to eat. I think Celeste would enjoy this stew immensely.

Luckily for me, there was plenty of picante sauce and a good bottle of dry red wine. If not for those, I couldn't have managed to eat any of it. Rosa would have been offended and I would have been embarrassed to pieces. So I poured on enough hot sauce to set the house on fire added handfuls of chopped mint, and washed it all down with judicious sips of wine. Everything ended quite well. I didn't ask for seconds, but Rosa felt well pleased.

On Sunday, O and I went to dinner at Club Sullana, where we had a fantastic steak cooked with annato oil and fried yuca and banana slices. Then we went to see "Ice Age 3" and went home.

Complicated lives

While the US and the rest of the world is mourning the passing of Michael Jackson, Peru is feeling the pain of losing one of their own musical stars, Alicia Delgado. Alicia died last week, murdered at the hands of (supposedly) her chauffeur. It's a complicated tale, which gets more and more complex and twisted as the police dig further into her life.

From what I can gather, Alicia was known as the "Princesa de Folclor" (Princess of Folklore) and was a very popular singer of huayno (Peru's brand of country music.) The story is that she was married and later divorced from her husband, then hooked up with another female huayno singer, Abencia Meza, who later became Alicia's closet lover. After a time of performing together, they decided to come out of the closet. This was complicated by the fact that Alicia also had a male lover, a fact which really torqued Abencia's jaw.

Sooo...last week, Alicia was found, killed by a bullet to the brain. Several people have been arrested, and as the investigation continues, more and more people appear to be implicated, right down to Alicia's own mother, who made it known that if anything were to happen to Alicia, her mother would be able to sell Alicia's apartment for quite a pretty penny. Alicia's chauffeur claims that Abencia paid him to kill Alicia, so it's not his fault and he isn't guilty. Hmmm. That's as far as the things went last night. Maybe the news tonight will reveal still more twists in this confusing story.

Celeste is so confused by this sordid tale that she felt the need to leave a trail of dog food pieces from her bowl to the living room...you know, just in case she can't find her way to bed tonight. Hopefully there are no crows to come behind her and eat her crumbs. She might end up missing her bed and wind up in the witch's cottage deep in the forest, with Hansel and Gretel!

Okay, now I'm the one who's confused. Anyway, here's a Youtube flick of Alicia, and one of Abencia. Don't you just love a good "Whodunit"?

Protestation, violation, retaliation, and examination

Well, this last week has been interesting!

there has been a growing unrest among the indigenous people of the Amazon region. For years there has been a law protecting the Amazon rainforests and the indigenous people who live there. But within the last year or so, the government of Peru has opened up that area to logging and oil. This decision affects the property and lifestyles of the people who live in this area, and it was done without consulting them or allowing them to vote on it, or to express their opinions in any way. It has led to numerous non-violent protests and roads blocked with stones and people, typical of the way the Peruvian people usually express their disagreement with government actions. But, as I said, unrest has been growing, culminating in a confrontation between the indigenous and national police who were sent to clear a roadblock near Tarapoto. This confrontation resulted in several indigenous people being killed...which in turn led to police in a different area (Bagua) being killed or taken hostage, in retaliation for what happened in Tarapoto. Bloodshed there in Bagua (pronounced Bá-Wa) continued for a week, during which time the leader of the Bagua indigenous faction fled to the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima to avoid arrest.

Last Thursday, the protestors followed their leader to Lima and staged a protest on Abancay Avenue, where the Ministry of the Interior is located, as well as being just half a block from where I work. The police were prepared, but none of the local people were aware of what was going to happen until it happened. About 3:30 in the afternoon, hundreds of university students and indigenous people marched on Abancay Avenue, armed with clubs, steel pipes, and 2 x 4s, waving flags and banners, and makng a huge racket with horns, pipes, loud speakers, and the like. I was in my classroom and couldn't hear what my students were trying to say.

Then something went awry and the protest turned violent. Police reacted by shooting tear gas into the crowds and chasing a good number down to the middle of the block (where I work!) with gas bombs. Although the steel doors on our building were closed and the windows were closed to the second floor, gas still managed to enter the building. Between the noise and the effects of the gas, classes had to be temporarily stopped. And, heh, I had one student who just couldn't resist opening a window and sticking his head out to see the spectacle. He got a good doses of tear gas.

Oddly, I wasn't affected by the gas. I had several students who complained of sore throats and itchy eyes. I didn't feel anything. Huh. Musta been all those years of gas mask training in the Air Force, with real tear gas. We were locked down for about an hour, then students were allowed to go home out the back way, to avoid the remnents of the protest.

And then, on Saturday, I had to take an English proficiency exam provided to the institute by the University of Michigan. I'm not sure how I did, although it seemed to be to easy to be real, for me. I wonder if this will benefit me in some way. Every ICPNA instructor has to take the exam and pass it, but what will it do for me in the future? Nothing, probably. English is my first language, and at my age, I expect that I should be proficient in it.

All last week, I had substitutions. I'm not sure what was happening...maybe everyone was sick? I don't know, but I had 10 hours of work every day. Love the extra money, but the hours really sucked. Wah.

El Mercado Negro

On Friday, O and I went to a place called "Polvos Azules" (Blue Dust). It is knock-off heaven. There are copies of almost everything you can think of, as well as originals, from sunglasses to tennis shoes to music and videos to Waterford crystal. Some of the copies are licensed, but most of them are not. Every year the police go through and seize illegal copies of dvds and cds, and almost immediately after, they start up again.

In Polvos Azules, you can find some very good deals, but you also have to be careful. Buying illegal copies is illegal even here in Peru, and often the copies are of poor quality. You could buy a pair of tennis shoes, thinking they are original Nikes, only to find out after you get them home that they are cheap imitations. After they fall apart the first time you wear them. Professionally done logo, but substandard workmanship.

The black market is very big here, too. Usually the stuff on the black market is stolen. When our car was broken into, we lost three headrests. O went down to the black market (yep, it even has a building where everyone knows they sell black market items!) to see if he could find them. They didn't have them, but offered to "acquire" what we needed by the following day. The strangest thing for me is that while it is illegal to sell anything on the black market, the building is well known and even patrolled by Peruvian National Police.

A quote from "Professional Travel Guide", http://www.professionaltravelguide.com/Destinations/Lima-Peru/See-and-Do/Shopping/Stores/Markets/Polvos-Azules-p1835405

"Completely overlooked by the higher-ups, Polvos Azules is Lima's largest, thriving black market. Almost all goods, such as DVDs, CDs, video games, electronics, clothes, shoes and luggage, are pirated or cheap knock-offs. The place is a maze, and you can visit 10 times before seeing everything. Daily 9 am-8 pm. Ave. Paseo de la Republica (2 blocks from Plaza Grau, downtown), Lima."

So weird. I've always heard of the black market, but never thought to find it so conspicuous and well-used by the average citizen. When I think of "the black market", it always conjures up thoughts of clandestine meetings to pass banned firearms and stolen cars, usually between hardened criminals. This place is three stories with a parking garage in the basement, restaurants on the rooftop, and an ATM conveniently located in the middle of the first floor, owned by one of the foremost banks in Peru, Interbank.

I almost said, "Only in Peru," but I suspect this might be more common throughout Latin America than I care to imagine.

The answers

Okay, so I took my concerns to my supervisor and other teachers to get an idea of how things like this are handled, and basically what I got was "Do Nothing."

Most people who spend a lot of time sleeping on the street and in various states of undress are considered to be mentally ill. If their families cannot take care of them, there is nowhere for them to go until they become a hazard to themselves or others. Then they go to prison, where they either improve or die. Although Peru seems to have socialized medicine and is actually quite advanced in their medicine, there is no long-term care for anyone unless some money is provided. There is no state funding or social security of any kind (that I can find out about) for poor people with chronic mental illness. There isn't even a state mental institution. So the treatment for poor, mentally ill people in Lima is to turn them into the streets and ignore or avoid them until they die or commit a crime. Street vendors feed them when they can, and their diet consists of whatever the vendors can spare - soda, candy bars, and potato chips usually. I don't know where they go when it gets cold, but I imagine I'll find out one of these days.

These are not good answers for me, but I don't know what I can do to make things change. I hope someone will read this and tell me that I'm mistaken here. I hope they'll tell that there really is someplace that people can get treatment when they are at their worst and have hit rock bottom.

I wonder if it's the heat.

Saturday and today presented me with social challenge that I haven't figured out yet.

On Saturday, I walked around the corner of the block on my way to work to find a woman lying on the sidewalk, apparently taking a nap. She was an older lady, I think she might have been in her late 50's. And standing next to her was a policeman. I wondered what was going on, but really, there are many people in this city who simply drop down wherever they happen to be and take a nap. I stepped around her, asked the policeman if she was okay and, getting a curt, "Yes lady. She's fine," I continued on to work. Everyone else stepped over her or around her and didn't worry about her.

Later that day, I went to have lunch in the local Metro supermarket comedor and stepped over this lady again! She was awake this time, lying in a different part of the block, in the middle of a busy sidewalk, stripped naked to the waist and apparently taking in some sun. She smiled and waved to me and I waved back. But I was and still am confused about her. People stepped over and around her and basically ignored her.

This morning while on my way to the bus stop to go home for lunch, I crossed paths with a woman who was completely naked, save for her woven shawl that she wore around her shoulders. She was apparently in no mood to talk and marched resolutely on, bare-footed and bare everywhere else, except, of course, for her shoulders. People and policemen did nothing, said nothing and simpy ignored her.

I wonder what happened to these two women. If I were in the US, the policeman wouldn't have been standing idly by while the first woman caught a nap in the middle of the sidewalk. He might have called for an ambulance or some other kind of asistance, and let her know that there were other places to doze. Later, people might have suspected that both women been assaulted because of their states of undress and called 911, or at the very least offered to help them find some clothing.

Is it the heat? Is it strange that no one else seems to think it's strange to see the isolated naked and half-naked women on the sidewalk in a modern city, regardless of how dangerous or overcrowded it is? Doesn't it bother people to see others like this, especially in dangerous places like this inner city area?

It just frickin freaks ME out. I think need to go talk to my supervisor about what I should be doing in situations like these. Maybe doing nothing like everyone else is the correct thing to be doing, but it sure doesn't feel right to me.

We Don't Read Here in Peru

I have heard, since I first began to teach English here in Peru, that "here in Peru, we don't read." For the most part, it seems to be true. Many of the instructors that I worked with in CIVIME confessed that they do not read anything, except what is absolutely necessary to complete their lesson plan for the week or the day (and their English vocabulary was severely lacking, yet they did nothing to improve it. How you teach a language if you don't speak it is completely beyond me.) People tell me they just don't have time to open a book. I find that appalling. One of the best ways to increase your understanding and vocabulary is to read, especially things that are of interest to you. I've had a hard time getting people here to accept that idea. There is no real emphasis on literacy here, even in Spanish.

So I decided to do an experiment this month. ICPNA, where I work, is launching a reading program for the English courses of Basic 8 through 12. Nothing is done for Basic 1 through Basic 7, perhaps the idea is that they don't have sufficient vocabulary to understand a reading...I'm not sure. But I know that from the time my daughter was born until she was in the fourth grade, I read her bedtime stories. When she was 4, she began to actively participate in the story telling, reading one page or maybe just a paragraph if she was tired, and then I would read another. Through the reading and the funny character voices and the pictures, she learned a lot of vocabulary and grammar. I didn't test her and we only read things that were fun and interesting. It was just for fun. Now she's a voracious reader, quite an articulate speaker and outspoken in her opinions. I can't take any credit for that. She did it on her own. I did what I enjoyed doing, and she did what came naturally to her.

This month I took "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" to work with me and read it and acted it out in my Basic 4 class, on the second Friday of the cycle. I simply read it and used a couple of pictures and different voices to represent the characters or the story. I didn't test them over it, I didn't explain anything, and then I sent the story home with them. I asked them to bring it back the following Friday and we'd read through it again. Just to see what they thought of the idea. Just for fun.

They LOVED the story. In fact, they had all taken the story home and read it several times and learned some words and could participate in the story. When I read "trip-trap, trip-trap went Little Billy Goat Gruff's tiny hooves", all the students were pounding their feet on the floor till LBGG made it across to the other side safely. When the Troll leaped up on the bridge to confront a goat, they all yelled in a deep, cranky voice, "HAAARRRR! Who's that crossing my bridge?!" And when Big Billy Goat Gruff charged the troll and sent him up the river, they cheered for BBGG, just like my little girl did when she was 3 years old.

So, who says that here in Peru, they don't read? Given a fun or interesting piece to read, I think anyone would be willing to read, even if they are in Peru. I think I'll do this again next month, if I have any classes from Basic 1 through 7, and just see what happens. I think if I can appeal to the kid in them, the students might read just for the fun of it. It's only three talking goats and an ugly troll, but maybe from that could spring great things. I think the instructors from the public school system and other institutes are doing the students here a terrible disservice to assume that they will not read, or that they don't want to. To perpetuate an attitude like that is disgusting to me.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff and I are on a literacy crusade in my part of Lima.

El Museo del Real Felipe

Today we went to the city of Callao (pronounced Ky-yow': Ky, with the y pronounced like "sky") and visited the museum belonging to the Peruvian Army. It's actually a now defunct fort made of stone and mortar, built by the Viceroy José Antonio Manso de Velasco of Spain and name after King Phillip V of Spain. The construction began in 1747 and the whole thing took 27 years to complete. The architect was French. The fort is done in the shape of a pentagon with an exterior perimeter of 1580 meters with walls 2 1/2 meters thick (about 6 feet thick). It is complete with an exterior moat and drawbridges at the entrance and at each structure of importance. It's like something right out of the medieval times



Inside the walls of this fort are various towers and structures, also made of stone and mortar - the Queen's Bastion (a tower with a prison inside), the King's Tower complete with cannons on all sides, the Governor's House (I can't imagine living in this enormous dark place), and various buildings that housed troops and weapons of all manor.


(heading inside the Governor's house)

The Towers are just as I imagined the tower that Rapunzel was imprisoned in - filled with dark spiraling stairways, steep and treacherous to pass through, twisting and turning hallways lit with the occasional (now electric) torch, and dimly lit cells where prisoners were kept. They were only given bread and water twice a week, so I doubt that they had an over-crowding problem. There were no chains on the walls, so I guess the torture chamber must have been in the dungeon, if there is one.


(entrance to the Queen's Bastion)

(a view of the Queen's Bastion)


(this is a view of the King's Tower. You can see the little drawbridge at the very narrow principal entrance.)

The whole tour took about 2 hours and was well worth it, I thought. You can see more pictures, as well as these that I posted here, at this link and more photos here. I hope you enjoyed the little tour!

A Walk Down the Block

I just came back from having lunch. Lunch here is always late, just like everything else is. Late is a way of life here in Peru and I had a meeting at work, so lunch was at 3 pm. I left work and went down the block to a new place (for me, anyway) called Pikalo. Nice inside, but hotter inside than outside. I ordered a cheese burger and an Inka cola. I ended up with a piece of hamburger meat and edam cheese on a bed of really good fries, and two salads. TWO salads? Yup. I looked for the hamburger bun, but there wasn't any. I waited for a bit, just in case they had forgotten to put the bun on the plate - gave them time to bring it, but I guess that's the was Pikalo burgers are served...bunless and with 2 salads. Didn't Hardees have this idea a few years ago? Low carb lunch, I guess, except for the mountain of potatoes underneath the meat.

On my way back to work, I took my time. Walking on the sidewalk in downtown Lima is always so interesting. There are always people who work in the stores out on the walk, hawking their wares like carnival criers. And there are the vendadores amulantes: vendors that have no fixed facility. They usually sell food, candies, and pencils, shine shoes, or sell things like watches and orange juice from a push cart that they take home every night.

Now that it's summertime, there are ice cream sellers all over the place. They have a bicycle that is set up with a big cooler on the front and they sell Popsicles and ice cream sandwiches out of them. Remember the musical truck that they sold ice cream from at home in the states? Here, Donofrio (a subsidiary of Nestle) gives it's ice cream sellers a squawker that sounds like a goose with a plugged nose...for me, anyway. It must be like sweet music to the ears of the children, though, because when the ice cream man peddles his bike up the sidewalk and squawks on his...umm...squawker, the kids turn out in dozens to get a Popsicle. Today, there were three yellow Donofrio squawkers on the corner, competing against 4 red Lamorghini ice cream sellers. They don't get squawkers. All they can do is tap a coin against their cooler lid.

Which brings me to another type of cold goody they are now selling on the street - marcianos. Marcianos are long plastic tubes filled with fruit smoothy and frozen. These are always homemade, and sold from a cooler that they strap around their shoulders. They have no squawker, either, so they yell, "MARCIANOS!" and beat a coin on the top of their cooler lids. There are dozens of these vendors walking up and down the sidewalks.

It's not recommended to buy homemade foods from street vendors. That's a wonderful way to get a gut bug, so I generally pass them up. So many vendors are clustered around the block where I work, not only because of the huge amount of students that we have, but also because Abancay Avenue is a major stop for the city buses that bring people to the central market. So, combine all those vendors screaming, squawking, hawking, and beating coins on their cooler tops with the tooting of bus and taxi horns and the constant buzzing of conversation of people passing by, and you've got a cacophony of noise...

...just another day in downtown Lima...

Fresh disasters

I came home from work for lunch about an hour ago. I was just going to take Celeste out for a walk, then quickly go pay the house payment and then get some lunch. But when I opened the door - oh. Wow. From the smell of things, Celeste was having a bad day. Her crate was a mess and she was looking sad. I went into the bedroom to change my clothes and prepare to clean up the mess and found O on the bed, holding his stomach, feeling rotten, too.

It seems that both of them went on an eating binge last night, from stress, from boredom, from high spirits - who knows why - but together they indiscriminately ate their ways through the refrigerator and the kitchen cupboards until they couldn't find anything else. I found tuna fish cans, cracker wrappers, apple cores, lime rinds, carrot tops, bread crumbs, potato peelings, a wrapper from a package of spagetti, an empty package of mushroom gravy, and the empty wrapper from an entire 2-pound panetone in the trash and on the floor. O with a touchy gall bladder and Celeste with a stomach so sensitive that an extra piece of toast will give her the runs. Hmm. What a feast they apparently had.

I looked at my apartment as I came back from the bank, and I guess I need to spend a little time cleaning. The smell of disaster is lingering...