Very exciting news!!! This week I accepted an internship working for an organization called Awamaki! They work in a small town in the Andes mountains in between Cuzco and Machu Picchu called Ollantaytambo. They call it the "Living Inca City" because they still live among and in original Inca ruins! The organization runs a weaving project for a group of about 40 indigenous Quechua women which helps them to develop and market their products. They also run an extensive volunteer program, have education classes, and an emergency health fund for the women. I will be the Programs Intern, meaning I will work closely with the director, Kennedy, and do a little of everything. Logistics, coordinating the projects, communicating with volunteer groups, budgeting, redoing websites, organizing homestays and volunteer activities, etc. I will live with a homestay family there and will also have a part-time hotel job to help pay for all of this (position itself is unpaid... so it goes...). This is EXACTLY what I've been looking for, so I'm SUPER excited!!!
Prospects of hot water: slim.
Prospects that I'll have to eat guinea pig frequently: almost certain.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Chapter 6: Out of Lima
Last week, I packed a backpack, hopped a bus, and left Lima for the first time since arriving in Peru. I went with my new friend Maurice, a great travel companion partially due to the fact that he's my own personal Peruvian encyclopedia. Ask him a question, he knows the answer. The bus took us four hours south to a town called Ica in the heart of the grape-growing region of Peru. I knew that Lima was situated in a desert that stretches all along the Peruvian coast line, but I was completely unprepared for what that desert would look like. It was positively Saharan. Sand dunes, zero vegetation, oasises.
We arrived in Ica and took a tika taxi to Huacachina, a tiny town that was literally an oasis in the desert. Lagoon, a few hostels, couple restaurants, palm trees, swimming pools, all surrounded by towering sand dunes, incredibly tranquil and picturesque. We checked in and then spent the afternoon visiting bodegas (wineries/piscoerias) in the area. One, Tacama, is the oldest vineyard in South America and a very popular Peruvian wine. The second was an artisinal winery with a great restaurant. Then, as soon as we got back to Huacachina, we climbed in the front seat of a sand buggy! The ride was a thrilling combination of rollar coaster and ice skating on sand. We stopped at several locations to go sand boarding! Seeing that I can't snowboard, you can imagine how adept I was at sand boarding. But then, the guide showed us how to sled head-first down the dunes, which was so fun! Some of the dunes we went down were 20 stories tall! We completed the adventure with a sunset over the desert; so beautiful!
The next morning we woke up and met two friends we had met the night before and hopped a bus to Pisco. The town was a disaster zone, having been 90% leveled by an earthquake in 2007. Rubble was piled outside the town for a mile long stretch. We took a long tour of Paracas National Reserve that day, located just outside of Pisco. It was stunningly beautiful, but made me feel strangely sad and lonely. It might have been the geography: mountains of rock and not a living thing for miles and miles all around. We did stop for lunch at a restaurant built right in the middle of the park and had some amazing freshly caught seafood. Yummy!
Later that day, Maurice and I headed to a nearby town called Chincha, known to be the heart of Afro-Peruvian culture. Although it was pretty quiet around town, we did manage to find a famous tourist restaurant for some good food before heading home.
All in all, it was great to get outside of Lima and see a bit more of Peru! I can't wait for my next trip!
We arrived in Ica and took a tika taxi to Huacachina, a tiny town that was literally an oasis in the desert. Lagoon, a few hostels, couple restaurants, palm trees, swimming pools, all surrounded by towering sand dunes, incredibly tranquil and picturesque. We checked in and then spent the afternoon visiting bodegas (wineries/piscoerias) in the area. One, Tacama, is the oldest vineyard in South America and a very popular Peruvian wine. The second was an artisinal winery with a great restaurant. Then, as soon as we got back to Huacachina, we climbed in the front seat of a sand buggy! The ride was a thrilling combination of rollar coaster and ice skating on sand. We stopped at several locations to go sand boarding! Seeing that I can't snowboard, you can imagine how adept I was at sand boarding. But then, the guide showed us how to sled head-first down the dunes, which was so fun! Some of the dunes we went down were 20 stories tall! We completed the adventure with a sunset over the desert; so beautiful!
The next morning we woke up and met two friends we had met the night before and hopped a bus to Pisco. The town was a disaster zone, having been 90% leveled by an earthquake in 2007. Rubble was piled outside the town for a mile long stretch. We took a long tour of Paracas National Reserve that day, located just outside of Pisco. It was stunningly beautiful, but made me feel strangely sad and lonely. It might have been the geography: mountains of rock and not a living thing for miles and miles all around. We did stop for lunch at a restaurant built right in the middle of the park and had some amazing freshly caught seafood. Yummy!
Later that day, Maurice and I headed to a nearby town called Chincha, known to be the heart of Afro-Peruvian culture. Although it was pretty quiet around town, we did manage to find a famous tourist restaurant for some good food before heading home.
All in all, it was great to get outside of Lima and see a bit more of Peru! I can't wait for my next trip!
Chapter 5: La Corrida de Toros
I didn’t hate it. I thought I would hate it. I wanted to hate it. Wasn’t it terrible, what they did to the animals? I mean, they kill eight of them in three hours. And it’s not even like they do it differently,; they do it the same every time. Why not just kill one? And they do it slowly. It is torture, really. But I didn’t hate it. I may have even liked it.
There is no mystery in bull fighting. There is only one outcome: the bull will die. The only thing that saves the bull is if he will not fight, and that almost never happens. The few times it does happen, they kill him anyways, because he won’t fight.
I had never seen anything die before, not right before my eyes. When the first bull died, I watched so carefully, straining my eyes, blocking the sun with my uplifted hand. I thought I would feel a shiver, an ache, a wave of pity and sadness wash over my body, some significant feeling that would be the bodily manifestation of the bulls life leaving the earth. The bull shuddered, twitched, and lay still. And so did I. I felt nothing. And then I felt like a monster. Why couldn’t I feel it? I should be disgusted. Maybe the next bull.
I had not really paid attention too closely to the first bull before he died. I was too distracted trying to be disgusted and horrified. With the second bull, I studied its movements, trying to reconcile the idea that in only 15 short minutes, unbeknownst to itself, it would be dead. Somewhere in my study, I lost track. I was caught in the movements, the prancing, the panting, the angry butting of the head, the frustrated scraping of the ground. My eyes danced with the hot pink and yellow capes, my breath short and quick at each turn. When the red cape came out, the matador, I no longer knew who I was rooting for. I watched as he and the bull fell into step, a dangerous dance for the matador and a deadly one for the bull. It was like a seduction. The blood poured down the side of the bull, so thick I would have sworn it was red paint. But I was enchanted. Lively, adventurous music played in the background, but at the time I would have sworn it was a waltz. The matador was not the murderer but the deliverer of death. He wooed the bull closer and closer, teasing it, letting it just graze the side of his body. He could no doubt feel the heat from the bull’s sweating side. His feet together, arms to the side, his body arched back, the matador was beautiful. He wore hot pink tights and a tight-fitting sequined uniform in a light purple hue, yet he was machismo incarnate. With only a flimsy cape and a thin sword, he defeated the universal symbol of masculine strength and sexual might.
It wasn’t until the eighth bull died that I finally felt it, that redeeming ball in the back of my throat, the tight chest, the blurry vision. Not so much sadness at the cruelty, but sadness for man. Why do we like this? The violence. The beautiful violence. We ritualize something, call it tradition, name it culture, and experience the grotesque act as something sublimely beautiful. When the bull is dragged by the horns through the dirt and out of the plaza, we look away, ashamed at what we’ve done, or enjoyed seeing, paid to witness. We are ashamed at our inclination towards violence, but it only lasts a few short minutes, enough time to refill our cup with pisco, until the next bull charges into the ring.
There is no mystery in bull fighting. There is only one outcome: the bull will die. The only thing that saves the bull is if he will not fight, and that almost never happens. The few times it does happen, they kill him anyways, because he won’t fight.
I had never seen anything die before, not right before my eyes. When the first bull died, I watched so carefully, straining my eyes, blocking the sun with my uplifted hand. I thought I would feel a shiver, an ache, a wave of pity and sadness wash over my body, some significant feeling that would be the bodily manifestation of the bulls life leaving the earth. The bull shuddered, twitched, and lay still. And so did I. I felt nothing. And then I felt like a monster. Why couldn’t I feel it? I should be disgusted. Maybe the next bull.
I had not really paid attention too closely to the first bull before he died. I was too distracted trying to be disgusted and horrified. With the second bull, I studied its movements, trying to reconcile the idea that in only 15 short minutes, unbeknownst to itself, it would be dead. Somewhere in my study, I lost track. I was caught in the movements, the prancing, the panting, the angry butting of the head, the frustrated scraping of the ground. My eyes danced with the hot pink and yellow capes, my breath short and quick at each turn. When the red cape came out, the matador, I no longer knew who I was rooting for. I watched as he and the bull fell into step, a dangerous dance for the matador and a deadly one for the bull. It was like a seduction. The blood poured down the side of the bull, so thick I would have sworn it was red paint. But I was enchanted. Lively, adventurous music played in the background, but at the time I would have sworn it was a waltz. The matador was not the murderer but the deliverer of death. He wooed the bull closer and closer, teasing it, letting it just graze the side of his body. He could no doubt feel the heat from the bull’s sweating side. His feet together, arms to the side, his body arched back, the matador was beautiful. He wore hot pink tights and a tight-fitting sequined uniform in a light purple hue, yet he was machismo incarnate. With only a flimsy cape and a thin sword, he defeated the universal symbol of masculine strength and sexual might.
It wasn’t until the eighth bull died that I finally felt it, that redeeming ball in the back of my throat, the tight chest, the blurry vision. Not so much sadness at the cruelty, but sadness for man. Why do we like this? The violence. The beautiful violence. We ritualize something, call it tradition, name it culture, and experience the grotesque act as something sublimely beautiful. When the bull is dragged by the horns through the dirt and out of the plaza, we look away, ashamed at what we’ve done, or enjoyed seeing, paid to witness. We are ashamed at our inclination towards violence, but it only lasts a few short minutes, enough time to refill our cup with pisco, until the next bull charges into the ring.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Chapter 4: New Home, New Friends, New Sport
The past two weeks has seen much progress for Hayley and I, getting settled in Lima. We are all moved into our new apartment!! 28 de julio 399 depto. is where we now call home. It is an apartment rented to mostly international students, newly remodeled, and in a perfect location. We have a hammock in our living room and a glimpse of the ocean from our very dirty windows! The only drawback we can see so far is the street noise that comes in through the windows, which are not designed to seal shut due to the always-warm weather in Lima and the fact that it NEVER storms. Every once in a while I wake up in a panic attack from all the honking, the Limenos' favorite driving activity.
I'm also making a nice little group of friends here. Magnus, Norwegian former roomate. Maurice, Peruvian-grew-up-in-the-US friend of Magnus, and now friend of mine. He's very adventurous and has been great in getting me to meet people. Ryan, lovable scardy-cat American frat boy. Bea, one of my first girlfriends! She's Peruvian and is starting Ensena Peru, the Peruvian Teach for America. I look forward to inviting all these people to the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner Hayley and I have already begun to plan!
I had accepted long ago, being from northern Minnesota and having no immediate plans to spend an extended amount of time in southern California, that I would probably never learn how to surf. So I surprised myself a bit when Maurice asked if I wanted to take a surfing lesson, and I enthusiastically said "Yes!" Yesterday I squeezed into a wetsuit, hopped on a board, and tried my hand at surfing! It was physically exhausting, paddling uses muscules I generally do not use on a daily basis, but terrifically fun. I would never say I actually SURFED yet, but I got close, and will defintiely be returning to the water to try again soon.
Each day Hayley and I exclaim at some point in the day, "I can't believe we're here, in LIMA, in SOUTH AMERICA!" We are surprised each day at some new facet of the Peruvian culture, some new market we just discovered, or some new delicious fruit called chirimoya that had been hiding from us all our lives. Lima, not an initially charming city, is slowly showing us her personality, and we're loving it.
I'm also making a nice little group of friends here. Magnus, Norwegian former roomate. Maurice, Peruvian-grew-up-in-the-US friend of Magnus, and now friend of mine. He's very adventurous and has been great in getting me to meet people. Ryan, lovable scardy-cat American frat boy. Bea, one of my first girlfriends! She's Peruvian and is starting Ensena Peru, the Peruvian Teach for America. I look forward to inviting all these people to the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner Hayley and I have already begun to plan!
I had accepted long ago, being from northern Minnesota and having no immediate plans to spend an extended amount of time in southern California, that I would probably never learn how to surf. So I surprised myself a bit when Maurice asked if I wanted to take a surfing lesson, and I enthusiastically said "Yes!" Yesterday I squeezed into a wetsuit, hopped on a board, and tried my hand at surfing! It was physically exhausting, paddling uses muscules I generally do not use on a daily basis, but terrifically fun. I would never say I actually SURFED yet, but I got close, and will defintiely be returning to the water to try again soon.
Each day Hayley and I exclaim at some point in the day, "I can't believe we're here, in LIMA, in SOUTH AMERICA!" We are surprised each day at some new facet of the Peruvian culture, some new market we just discovered, or some new delicious fruit called chirimoya that had been hiding from us all our lives. Lima, not an initially charming city, is slowly showing us her personality, and we're loving it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)