Snapshots

First things first: this is our house. It was pink last week, but now it's orange.

This is the street we live on. There was something fancy being filmed on it yesterday.

On the way to school we pass one cluster of motorcycle repair shops, another cluster of casinos, a few night clubs, chifa restaurants (see Oso Panda example), an Inca craft market, and Plaza San Miguel.

Plaza San Miguel is a giant mall with complete with a Tommy Hilfiger, a Billabong, and a Starbucks. It kind of terrifies me, but it's a great landmark for meeting up with people.

There is also a small theme park called Coney Park. I have a goal of stopping there on the way home from a stressful day of school to eat cotton candy.

Below are some pictures from El Centro in Lima. We went to see the catacumbas but they were closed; instead, we walked around la Plaza de Armas and ended the night with meal of lambs heart kabob, gizzards, and beer (though some of us opted for potatoes, salad and coffee ;o).

The changing of the guard took place while we were there, so we got to consume a healthy dose of Peruvian nationalism...

...complete with a marching band.

(Dios - Patria - Ley)

And lastly, we visited (just like todo el mundo) el Parque de Agua to see the fountains. However, our trip was marked by a singe of irony. We went to see these giant displays of water (which are in what used to be a giant public park but is now only open to those who can pay the S/4 entrance fee) right after we went to see a see a free performance called SED -- put on by local community groups to spread awareness about problems with water accessibility and corporatization.

But it was fun regardless, and as usual we learned tons from the wonderful María de los Angeles.

Vergüenza

Yesterday I was running late to get to my first class... surprise, surprise.

...and by late I mean a full 15 minutes late, because 5 minutes late to class often counts as early at la Católica...

But anyway, I was flustered and nervous because it was a class I'd never been to before and only decided to go at the last minute when I realized it would fulfill two UW requirements for me. After a combi stuck in traffic and not being able to find the building I needed on the map, I finally got where I was going. I had to make the most awkward entrance which involved walking in front of the professor and ducking under a computer cord. ¡Imagínate!

I was full of vergüenza ("roche" en Perú) for being that gringa, but sat down and was handed a syllabus. After gracelessly shuffling around in my backpack and getting poised with my notebook ready to absorb everything about Economía Política Internacional, I looked up at the powerpoint only to realize I was in a 3 hour long seminar about administration and gestation.

De repente, I was really that gringa.

Considering the trecherous path between my desk and the door, I just gave up and basked in my shame for nearly 2 hours before getting up enough courage to leave during the bathroom break. Then, having missed the class I was supposed to go to, I grabbed some cookies at the comedor and took a nap in the grass.

My life here truly is wonderful.

FAMILY INTRODUCTIONS A LONG TIME COMING

Raighne again,

Apologies for the lateness if this happened to be the one and only blog post you were desperately waiting for :)

The other Sunday (almost a week and a half ago now), our host family threw a back yard barbecue. The guests (cousins, nieces, nephews, and a few whose relations we couldn't quite figure out) were friendly, the pisco plentiful, and the sausages (although not brats or summer sausage), corn on the cob, and watermelon reminded me so much of a beautiful Wisconsin summer that seems like a long long time ago. All this combined, it was a shock to go from winter to idyllic summer scene without even so much as a single day of spring in between.

It was a great summer day with a great sunny food coma nap :)

Anyways, on to some brief introductions of the folks we live with:

Myriam: 60 something mother of the house and boss of it all. Great human being! We found out the other day that her father was born to a Jewish family in what is now present-day Ukraine and immigrated (by way of a series of Latin American countries) to Peru following WWI. I wish I knew more of the history of this region (Eastern Europe AND Latin America that is) and time period. So interesting to me nonetheless, especially considering that my Dad's grandma's first language was German and Myriam shares a similar story as he does of being part of the first generation following immigration unable to speak the language of its ancestors.

Lucía: daughter of Myriam. archeologist (studied and "TA'ed" at the university we now attend). adventurer (recently heard her accounts of helicopter rides through remote jungle canyons above raging rivers). Lucía is a member of the first generation of Peruvian archeologists to capitalize on a law that mandates that any large construction project in Peru must employ a team of archeologists to check for artifacts.

Lidia: The woman who does the cooking and cleaning and lives in the house with us. SO nice. Always willing to show us and explain the variety of fruits and vegetables we've come across so far in Lima (no. small. task.). Her pesto is the best I've ever had. I so so want to get to know her more and am frustrated that this is all I can say so far.

Ryo: Japanese exchange student starting his second of two semesters studying Spanish at PUCP and sharing the third floor of the house with Jean, Tom, and I. Before he left for a week-long trip to Bolivia, we had all just started to get out of the awkward "getting to know your roommates stage." Can't wait til he gets back!

and last but not least.....

Juaquín: son of Lucía. 2.5 years old. super lindo! The first and only 2.5 year old I've ever met who's asked me, "y tú... cómo estás?"



It's a good crowd and I'm very thankful to get to share their home.

Venados, Punta Hermosa y medusas que vuelan

School started this week. The closed campus of la Católica is in a busy part of town between our house and a giant shopping mall. The campus is beautiful, heavily watered, and also full of deer: hanging out, eating grass, having babies. I really want to know whose idea that was.

Our first day of classes was... overwhelming. I still don't know a dead on translation of that word in Spanish. It would come in handy to explain why I sit in class wide-eyed, still totally having a blast even though just being there is kind of stressful, and sometimes feeing incapable of processing all the information that is being thrown at me.

In our last days of summer before school started we went to two orientations on campus, including one about securtity which made it sound like just being in Lima is big game of Russian Roulette. I found out that the unarmed municipality police are called the Serenazgo. We were told to never bother asking for help from the official National Police because they /paraphrased quote/ aren't very good, generally come from a lower class background, are likely to hit on women, and often don't know a lot about the districts they work in. There is also a completly seperate Tourist Police Force in some neighborhoods that speaks English.

I'm still absolutely dying to get the low down on the local politics and opinions of policing.

A lot of the meeting addressed safety precautions that I would never have thought of, which I guess is good. But the lady giving the talk also warned people of "bricheros" and "chorros" with out any social explanation as to why such methods of acquiring money are used in Lima. It was obvious the security meeting had not been delivered as well as it could have been and that students didn't really understand what sort of societal forces are at play that put them at risk when a guy behind me raised his hand and asked, "What do the people who rob look like? How can you identify them when you're walking along a street?"

Before school started we also took a trip to Punta Hermosa, a beach just south of Lima where the top lady surfer from Perú lives. We went with three friends we met at orientation from Bolivia and another from DeKalb, Illinois. The waves were great, I tried some freshly caught fish and enjoyed it, and we had an improptu birthday party with chocolate cake. I'm so thankful to be hanging out with hispanoablantes even though I sometimes feel hella boring when I can't say exactly what I want to say. It's an absolute godsend that everyone we've met has been so patient with us.

This time, I didn't even get a smidge of sunburn :o)

Our combi for an hour and a half ride to Punta Hermosa only cost us 4 soles, about a $1.45.

We went to a cerviche restaurant and there were little bags of water hanging from the ceiling. Apparently this helps keeps mosquitos away. We had fresh squeezed lemonade and maize tostada. I was in heaven. Oh, and this guy was hanging out under the table.

¿como se dice...

2 quick things:

This morning, just before 7 am, I woke up (again) to chanting and the sound of synchronized footsteps outside my window: a group of over 50 people, mostly men I think, running through the road in straight lines yelling something I wasn't able to understand. Our host mother says it's the vigilante police force. They apparently don't have the power of arrest or the right to bare arms, but they're paid for by the municipality to make it safer.

I just want to know what they're all about, and what it is, exactly, that they do when they're not waking people up at 6:30 in the morning.

Secondly, I was just wondering if anyone knows any ways to talk about or ask about someone's partner using gender nuetral terms in Spanish? I recently learned about putting an 'x' instead of an 'o' or an 'a' in the article of a word or in a gendered word itself, but I don't know how / if this is applied to oral conversation ever. So... if anyone has any insight, I am made of ears.

Now, off to orientation!

"Arte Nativo" y Pluspetrol en Barranco

Two days ago, Lucía and Joaquín (our host sister and her 2-year-old son) took Raighne, Tom, and I for a ride around some of the neighborhoods just Southeast of our own along the Pacific Coast. It was mostly just fun and really interesting (especially since Juaquín never fails to entertain), but there was one part of our trip that left me feeling really uneasy.

We were in Barranco, which Lucía told us used to be a rich summer home type party neighborhood and is now mostly known for its beautiful architecture, its restaurants, its lovers, its parks, and its "bohemian" feel. In one of its parks we came upon a huge exhibit called "Arte Nativo" sponsored by Pluspetrol, an oil extraction company that, in their own words, focuses their operations in "sensitive contexts, inhospitable zones and geological complexity, with technical expertise in: enhanced recovery, large gas fields, heavy crude extraction in remote zones, exploitation of mature fields and marginal areas. " There were photographs and information about "the people of the Amazon" and an area to buy crafts sold by people in traditional Amazonian attire. As one can imagine, this immediately but a bad taste in my mouth. These "inhospitable zones" that Pluspetrol focuses its efforts in happen to be home to over 400,000 people.

Sometime last year I started reading about the tension between Perú's federal government (under García) and some of the indigenous groups from la selva regions. The tension seemed to come to a head and get a lot of media attention in June of 2009 when over 30 people were killed after police officers attempted to break a 5,000 person blockade guarding the northern province of Utcubamba. I posted a video to my facebook (that is well worth watching) because I was surprised to hear a president say (outright and directly) that a large segment of his country's (native) population would not get any say in determining the region's future because they were irrational people trying to lead the country towards a "backward, primitive state." Yes, this was in response to the kidnapping and deaths-by-torture of several police officers, but if anything I think this just a testament to the severity of the tensions that exist. The number of indigenous people who have been killed or who are "desparecidos" as part of the unrest is unknown, but it easily surpasses any losses by the state.

Though I'm not familiar enough with this region's history to make any sort of sociological comparisons between this struggle (<-- that's not a strong enough word) and the atrocities of land and resource misappropriation that have been controlled by the financial and militarized elite in the U.S.... the process of "other-ing" that has to take place on a personal and institutionalized level in order for people to fuck each other over so badly is very familiar.

Seeing how Pluspetrol had created an "exhibit" to "educate" people about the ways of Amazonian life and about the ways in which their company is "working with the isolated communities" was unsettling to me because it seemed to be all about creating comfortable consumption of an atrocious situation. It allowed all of us walking around the park to commodify and objectify whole populations of diverse and struggling people into makers of bracelets, sellers of key chains, or people dressed "differently" who you could get your picture taken with. I could be wrong, but I really doubted that the people working at the exhibit had anything to do with the planning or presentation of their cultures.

I came home and started reading about Pluspetrol. I found this Reuters article, geared at investors in the U.S. Though it too, turns a crisis into commodity: a wild card thrown into the game of stock exchange-- it also makes it very clear, that Pluspetrol has a financial interest in keeping "social unrest" to minimum and that this will be difficult, considering the nature of oil extraction.

If anyone has any insight to add to all of this, I'd be grateful if you'd share. I'll add a few more pictures from the area we were in and catch you later.

SIXTO

Hi all you wonderful people (or maybe just Jean's mammy), Raighne here!

As Jean has mentioned, we've been doing a lot of traveling lately. Because taxis are so cheap here in Lima (and because we've been as of yet too scared to explore the Lima bus system), we've spent a lot of time in taxis and met a lot of taxi drivers. My favorite so far has been Sixto, one of the friendliest humans ever, the father of three children (two of whom are students at La Catolica), who often works at Metro (across the street from New York City) near our house getting shoppers and their yellow-bagged groceries home safe and sound. He gave us the rundown on Lima's higher education system, including his son's thesis research on alternative heating energy sources, and finally wrote down his phone number and told us to visit him at work if ever we're around.

Since taxi fare is prearranged, it's been a trick to overcome the U.S. mindset of feeling ripped off when a ride gets stuck in traffic or the driver's lost. Instead: lost driver (as we had yesterday afternoon) = discount tour of the city and conversations galore.

I hope they're all as nice as Sixto.

It's official: Lima is a Country (y por eso no se puede salir)

So, I've moved in with my host family, and they're wonderful. But I don't have pictures or the time to introduce them so that will come in some other post.

A few days ago Raighne, Lena, and I thought it would be great to take trip outside of Lima before school starts. First we thought, vamos a Trujillo, but because that was going to be an 8 hour bus ride and there weren't going to be safe places to camp (according to our family) we decided to aim for someplace closer. We selected Huarmey because our guide books and the municipality's website said there were great places for camping. From what we could find there was only one bus from Lima to Huarmey. We took a taxi al Centro to catch it at 4pm, but we missed it by 10 minutes.

On the bright side, we got to get stuck in the best traffic jam of our lives. I don't know if I can even describe how the cars were facing every direction, playing a dozen games of chicken at once, honking, people screaming and putting their hands out windows in attempt to prevent other cars from moving forward. We stayed inside the intersection for upwards of 10 minutes. Maybe Raighne will grace us with an aerial sketch later.

Which, by the way, leads me to mention that the one and only Raighne Mitchell-Luft shall appear occasionally as a guest writer on this here blog. So keep your eyes peeled if you know what's good for you.

Anyway, after returning home embarrassed to face our mother, but not defeated, we picked another location to try. This time we set off to Asia. Yes. Asia. One of of our host family's vacation destinations of choice. The bus to Asia cost 6 USD and featured a movie called the Bridge of Dragons. We arrived in pitch darkness, pitched a tent, ate food we'd bought at Metro, drank Boris with jugo de piña, and made some friends. There were three women just a year or two younger than us from Lima. They were fun to talk to when they were teaching us slang, the warning us of the civil laws in Perú, and sharing their knowledge of MTV celebrities.

Then they kindly went on to warn us of what clubs we should avoid, a.k.a the ones full of "los gays" ...how convenient.

(photo credit to Lena)

We also learned that the beach is not as comfortable to sleep on as it looks, and that the jellyfish here are more colorful than I imagined.

(photo credit to Lena otra vez)

The ocean was glorious the next morning. And though I suffered a sunburn because of it, I was so glad I got to be 10 years old again and fully enjoy the thrill of waves throwing me around and have the sea-salt-fish smell to wake up to. We saw a bit more of Asia headed home after Raighne and Lena tried shared a plate of Cerviche Mixto and I had a bowl of Chaufa (fried rice Chifa style... Chifa being Chinese food, with Limeño influence).

(you can see some people dragging nets out to the ocean for some early morning fishing, as far as I can tell)

The presidential elections are coming up next year. My knowledge of Peruvian presidential history is limited, but what I know is incredibly interesting and full of drama. Por ejemplo... Keiko Fujimori is probably going to run for president; she is also working to get her father out of prison for the crimes of murder, kidnapping, and human rights abuses he is being charged with (from his own presidency in the 90s). I have yet to get a decent handle on how people align politically and what role the wars of the 1980's and 90's play in shaping the federal government's dynamics. More understandings to come, I hope. For now, here's a video of Keiko Fujimori's talking about her father's trial.

Una iglesia amarillo, en estilo colonial, como siempre...

And lastly, a few photos taken while waiting at a paradero along the Panamerican Highway on our way back to Lima.