In less than two days, John and I will begin what we came here to do. And yet, here, Monday, I found myself in bed until almost noon munching delicious little galletas with sesame seeds on top, reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez in an "hospedaje" still reverberating with revving engines, dog barks, people shouting, slamming doors.
We tried to buy some kind of a sedative that would knock me out like a heavyweight punch and drown out any yips or crashes during the night. But you need a prescription for anything even mildly sleep-inducive. So I bought Valerian root and somewhere in the process managed to convince the pharmacist that I needed ear tampons.
It is as if for the last couple days we have been floating, suspended in some kind of limbo where we become increasingly distanced from work.
It turns out, also, that I will be teaching a group of 10-13 year olds. WHOOP!
In half an hour we will begin the search for housing, which apparently entails starting from square one, looking at classifieds. I have felt frustrated for the past twenty four hours because of my boss´s somewhat jovial bigotry--like celebrating Miller´s acquisition of Cusquena, the Peruvian beer, or lamenting not having enough places to play golf, or that African Americans´"accents" aren´t audible in dubbed films.
This plus my lack of sleep make for a sense of inutility or perhaps regret.
We passed by a woman swiming in a hammock next to a llama, looking over into the flowing current that runs through Arequipa. If only all suspension could be relaxing.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
El Condor Pasa
I miss Cuzco. Our last day taking in the green central fountain with white swans and lacy patterns, the huge flags, the bright red brass and boom marching bands for Independence Day...
We huffed and puffed to a playground perched halfway between the "Cristo Blanco" and the intermittent blasts of celebratory rifle fire below. Found some giggling kids who joked with us and sold us ornamented necklaces and then ran off as if we might take back the one sole we had given them...
Went to a museum of Pre-Columbian art and learned that Georges Braque actually claimed to have "been inspired by" (ie courteously stolen)a "primitive Peruvian cubism." Indeed, one of the sculptures dated between the years 1-800 AD was of a potato portrayed from every different angle.
At the door read: "Greatness of a people is not ascertained by conquests or rides but by development of social systems and relation to the natural environment."
Our bus ride yesterday took twelve hours. The bus had toilet paper for one hour. I was not nauseated for the same period of time. To comfort me as I staggered back up to the double deck after having paid homage to the toilet downstairs, John began telling me about the stories he would make up for Craig as a kid, going through the alphabet animals with replacing the adjectives to things like "Mass murdering moose."
"And one time, the vomiting vulture..."
I glared and turned to the arrid yellow of the hills stretching before us, scattered with stone houses, cemetaries with flowered crosses sticking up out of the dirt, sheep following blindly. People washing clothes in snakelike streams, towns that looked like military barracks.
Through Puno, where Lake Titicaca stretched and reclined. Over the Altiplano, which made John remember Clint Eastwood.
We stopped, too, in a rather desolate town that apparently produces the most counterfeit currency. As we left, we could see everyone in town running toward a building that was in the throws of a giant fire, flames shooting everywhere, engulfing a bus parked behind it.
As the sun set over cold, waving grass and far off mountains, we rather jarringly realized that we had been stopped for thirty minutes on the side of the road. No explanation, we just started moving again, eventually, as the impending darkness and isolation tightened.
One more stop at the Puestro de Control Cuarentenario, part of the Minesterio de Agricultura, and we could only make out shapes for the last three hours, which was comforting considering the long drop on either side of the winding highway.
Finally, I have started feeling homesick, helped only by blips of Cajamarca, a music resembling Appalacchian bluegrass, on the 70-year-old Radio Peru. I know that it has only been one full week, but the transition to this very dry and very Spanish-looking city has been a little sticky.
I was so enraptured by Cusco´s culture, that now I find myself bubbling over with negativity toward our new home which has a McDonalds and Radioshack and a mall.
Still, the week has just begun. And our real work starts in a few days. I will be working from 730-930am, then 5-9pm. I will let you know how to reach me as soon as I get my phone off of the black market, as reccomended by our boss.
I miss you all.
Lex
We huffed and puffed to a playground perched halfway between the "Cristo Blanco" and the intermittent blasts of celebratory rifle fire below. Found some giggling kids who joked with us and sold us ornamented necklaces and then ran off as if we might take back the one sole we had given them...
Went to a museum of Pre-Columbian art and learned that Georges Braque actually claimed to have "been inspired by" (ie courteously stolen)a "primitive Peruvian cubism." Indeed, one of the sculptures dated between the years 1-800 AD was of a potato portrayed from every different angle.
At the door read: "Greatness of a people is not ascertained by conquests or rides but by development of social systems and relation to the natural environment."
Our bus ride yesterday took twelve hours. The bus had toilet paper for one hour. I was not nauseated for the same period of time. To comfort me as I staggered back up to the double deck after having paid homage to the toilet downstairs, John began telling me about the stories he would make up for Craig as a kid, going through the alphabet animals with replacing the adjectives to things like "Mass murdering moose."
"And one time, the vomiting vulture..."
I glared and turned to the arrid yellow of the hills stretching before us, scattered with stone houses, cemetaries with flowered crosses sticking up out of the dirt, sheep following blindly. People washing clothes in snakelike streams, towns that looked like military barracks.
Through Puno, where Lake Titicaca stretched and reclined. Over the Altiplano, which made John remember Clint Eastwood.
We stopped, too, in a rather desolate town that apparently produces the most counterfeit currency. As we left, we could see everyone in town running toward a building that was in the throws of a giant fire, flames shooting everywhere, engulfing a bus parked behind it.
As the sun set over cold, waving grass and far off mountains, we rather jarringly realized that we had been stopped for thirty minutes on the side of the road. No explanation, we just started moving again, eventually, as the impending darkness and isolation tightened.
One more stop at the Puestro de Control Cuarentenario, part of the Minesterio de Agricultura, and we could only make out shapes for the last three hours, which was comforting considering the long drop on either side of the winding highway.
Finally, I have started feeling homesick, helped only by blips of Cajamarca, a music resembling Appalacchian bluegrass, on the 70-year-old Radio Peru. I know that it has only been one full week, but the transition to this very dry and very Spanish-looking city has been a little sticky.
I was so enraptured by Cusco´s culture, that now I find myself bubbling over with negativity toward our new home which has a McDonalds and Radioshack and a mall.
Still, the week has just begun. And our real work starts in a few days. I will be working from 730-930am, then 5-9pm. I will let you know how to reach me as soon as I get my phone off of the black market, as reccomended by our boss.
I miss you all.
Lex
Thursday, July 26, 2007
the seeds of history
1) Ate guinea pig yesterday, and made some less than tactful jibes when a girl mentioned that she had one for a pet. It was tough but flavorful.
2) Last night John and I wandered out of our "family´s" home cooking haven and ate some of the most wonderful food I have tasted in awhile. Peruvian food is bueno.
3) We wandered into the self-proclaimed "highest Irish pub in the world," called Paddy O´Flaherty´s, where they had broadcast the first David Beckham in LA match earlier in the afternoon. Place was crawling with Irish, and with ESPN in the background, we might really have been anywhere.
That is what I am hoping to avoid as much as possible, the feeling of being a little ex-patriot in a bubble. I became impatient this morning when I realized that we don´t have anything to do at the school until 3 this afternoon, and what to do with myself? Stay in the chilly room? Wander around?
And wander around I did, self-consciously taking some pictures with my boyfriend´s dad´s manual camera that I borrowed in February and have yet to give back.
Some of the girls staying at Residencia Perez shocked us today by revealing that they did not, in fact, know from WHICH country the colonists won its "independence" back in 1775. They also, unapologetically, bemoaned the fact that one time at a bar someone had asked "all the girls" in their group how many states are in the United States, and they guessed 52.
It is independence weekend in Peru, mainly Lima, this weekend. I was asking which independence they were celebrating--rather sarcastically.
I was reading about Andean coca leaf rituals before rousting myself out of bed.
A ritual of blowing on "k´intu", or three of the best coca leaves in the bag, is called "phukuy." As you blow on the leaves in your hand, you make an invocation, mentioning Earth (Pacha, Pacha Mama, Santa Tira, and so on), Sacred Places, and your ayllu, or neighborhood.
Hallpakusunchis means "Let´s chew coca together."
The United States has launched a mission of trying to get rid of all Peruvian coca plants, because when you add lime to the coca plant and refine it, it produces, you guessed it, cocaine. This is not the first time that the US completely negated the value of all other cultures due to its short-sighted self interest.
As for me, the earthy tasting coca leaves in my tea have aided this outsider already.
2) Last night John and I wandered out of our "family´s" home cooking haven and ate some of the most wonderful food I have tasted in awhile. Peruvian food is bueno.
3) We wandered into the self-proclaimed "highest Irish pub in the world," called Paddy O´Flaherty´s, where they had broadcast the first David Beckham in LA match earlier in the afternoon. Place was crawling with Irish, and with ESPN in the background, we might really have been anywhere.
That is what I am hoping to avoid as much as possible, the feeling of being a little ex-patriot in a bubble. I became impatient this morning when I realized that we don´t have anything to do at the school until 3 this afternoon, and what to do with myself? Stay in the chilly room? Wander around?
And wander around I did, self-consciously taking some pictures with my boyfriend´s dad´s manual camera that I borrowed in February and have yet to give back.
Some of the girls staying at Residencia Perez shocked us today by revealing that they did not, in fact, know from WHICH country the colonists won its "independence" back in 1775. They also, unapologetically, bemoaned the fact that one time at a bar someone had asked "all the girls" in their group how many states are in the United States, and they guessed 52.
It is independence weekend in Peru, mainly Lima, this weekend. I was asking which independence they were celebrating--rather sarcastically.
I was reading about Andean coca leaf rituals before rousting myself out of bed.
A ritual of blowing on "k´intu", or three of the best coca leaves in the bag, is called "phukuy." As you blow on the leaves in your hand, you make an invocation, mentioning Earth (Pacha, Pacha Mama, Santa Tira, and so on), Sacred Places, and your ayllu, or neighborhood.
Hallpakusunchis means "Let´s chew coca together."
The United States has launched a mission of trying to get rid of all Peruvian coca plants, because when you add lime to the coca plant and refine it, it produces, you guessed it, cocaine. This is not the first time that the US completely negated the value of all other cultures due to its short-sighted self interest.
As for me, the earthy tasting coca leaves in my tea have aided this outsider already.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Chocolate Caliente para el alma...
We made an exciting discovery in a used book stand in an alley today. Chicken Soup for the Soul--more like patronizing drugery for the gullible--is translated here as Hot Chocolate for the soul. Which already makes it sound ten times more appealing to read!
I´m in the computer lab and as usual everyone is giving me the evil eye because I have already been typing away for forty five minutes. But while John and I are still free of work, class, and anything else, and it is dark outside, I might as well get in as much as I can.
We enjoyed the UV rays--the most intense in the world, apparently--today in Plaza de las armas, which is very touristy. Feels colonial with a looming cathedral in the middle, and gives an eery echo of BAVARIA, in GERMANY. And yet the red and brown rooftops, stacked shingles made of, I suppose, clay, are unique.
We climbed up a side road, stumbling on cobbled stones, marvelling at the houses built on top of the Inca stone walls that surround and web through the city. And looked down to where the blue and white uniforms and shouts of kids filled a basketball and soccor court at a colegio established in the early 17th century. The courts themselves were spraypainted with jarring advertisments for Kola Real, as if they´re training the young sport superstars for corporate soul-selling.
The tops of the houses stretched out below us, almost touching, forming a canopy that draped over its busy inhabitants, the Cusqueno flag, a horizontal rainbow, flying.
We were accosted as we sat reading until the wind began blowing cold again, by armies of little kids trying to sell finger puppets and postcards. John got quite offended when one kid, after he was rejected, pointed at John´s belly and said something about "there´s a baby in there." They were pretty hilarious. A kid who came up to my knee leaned on my shoulder as I sat on the bench, regretting that I couldn´t or wouldn´t buy everything... ¨"Why? Why don´t you want?"
We tried to give a taxi driver a one Sol piece today and he informed us that it was fake. When I asked one of these little boys how I knew it was fake, he pointed out that it was too amarilla and too light. Then he asked me to give it to him, presumably to hustle some more. I bought a postcard from him and gave away the faulty coin with a sigh.
These kids are hardly entrepreneurs out of ambition or desire, and it is a grim reminder of my random position in the whirlwind of fat, as opposed to others, and I feel the overwhelming sadness--like when I saw a young girl in the Milan subway licking a trash can.
Of course, there would be more visible reminders of poverty in the U.S. if there weren´t laws ostrecizing and confining every seemingly negative aspect of capitalism to the outskirts, almost as if--as certain laws in Atlanta´s Piedmont Park will demonstrate--it is offensive for rich people to be reminded how rich they are.
I´m reading "Love in the Time of Cholera." Sadly, in translation. Actually, the most claustrophobic part of coming here is that I have realized my knowledge of Italian has only made me more inept at learning the Spanish quickly. But I´ll hopefully break out of my shell eventually.
Anyway, as we walked back to the school through clouds of exhaust and vendors, I was thinking of Marquez,
"the uproar of oil and motors from the bay whose exhaust fumes fluttered through the house on hot afternoons like an angel condemned to putrefication."
This time of day, dusk, is the same everywhere. I see shadows slipping down the mountain and don´t want to leave on Saturday, on the ten hour bus ride.
- Lex
I´m in the computer lab and as usual everyone is giving me the evil eye because I have already been typing away for forty five minutes. But while John and I are still free of work, class, and anything else, and it is dark outside, I might as well get in as much as I can.
We enjoyed the UV rays--the most intense in the world, apparently--today in Plaza de las armas, which is very touristy. Feels colonial with a looming cathedral in the middle, and gives an eery echo of BAVARIA, in GERMANY. And yet the red and brown rooftops, stacked shingles made of, I suppose, clay, are unique.
We climbed up a side road, stumbling on cobbled stones, marvelling at the houses built on top of the Inca stone walls that surround and web through the city. And looked down to where the blue and white uniforms and shouts of kids filled a basketball and soccor court at a colegio established in the early 17th century. The courts themselves were spraypainted with jarring advertisments for Kola Real, as if they´re training the young sport superstars for corporate soul-selling.
The tops of the houses stretched out below us, almost touching, forming a canopy that draped over its busy inhabitants, the Cusqueno flag, a horizontal rainbow, flying.
We were accosted as we sat reading until the wind began blowing cold again, by armies of little kids trying to sell finger puppets and postcards. John got quite offended when one kid, after he was rejected, pointed at John´s belly and said something about "there´s a baby in there." They were pretty hilarious. A kid who came up to my knee leaned on my shoulder as I sat on the bench, regretting that I couldn´t or wouldn´t buy everything... ¨"Why? Why don´t you want?"
We tried to give a taxi driver a one Sol piece today and he informed us that it was fake. When I asked one of these little boys how I knew it was fake, he pointed out that it was too amarilla and too light. Then he asked me to give it to him, presumably to hustle some more. I bought a postcard from him and gave away the faulty coin with a sigh.
These kids are hardly entrepreneurs out of ambition or desire, and it is a grim reminder of my random position in the whirlwind of fat, as opposed to others, and I feel the overwhelming sadness--like when I saw a young girl in the Milan subway licking a trash can.
Of course, there would be more visible reminders of poverty in the U.S. if there weren´t laws ostrecizing and confining every seemingly negative aspect of capitalism to the outskirts, almost as if--as certain laws in Atlanta´s Piedmont Park will demonstrate--it is offensive for rich people to be reminded how rich they are.
I´m reading "Love in the Time of Cholera." Sadly, in translation. Actually, the most claustrophobic part of coming here is that I have realized my knowledge of Italian has only made me more inept at learning the Spanish quickly. But I´ll hopefully break out of my shell eventually.
Anyway, as we walked back to the school through clouds of exhaust and vendors, I was thinking of Marquez,
"the uproar of oil and motors from the bay whose exhaust fumes fluttered through the house on hot afternoons like an angel condemned to putrefication."
This time of day, dusk, is the same everywhere. I see shadows slipping down the mountain and don´t want to leave on Saturday, on the ten hour bus ride.
- Lex
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Habitando en el Mayu
Well, my grandma thinks that the picture I have attached to my writing makes me look like a gremlin. Considering how immersed I have been in Harry Potter lately, perhaps I am one. Once I´m done, and free of jetlag and altitude sickness--mainly hitting me in the form of wanting to pass out every five minutes--I will have the vim and vigor to explore my new surroundings a bit more thoroughly. But I keep telling myself, I have time.
It is sad that we are leaving for Arequipa, "La tierra del Condor", in a few days--on Friday. Not only will we have to semi-relearn our workplace, though Oscar keeps assuring us that every Maximo Nivel is the same... but John and I have really become enamoured of Cuzco.
Orientation takes two hours a day, and we mainly go over the curriculum that we will be thrown into on Monday. The majority of our time so far has been curled up at the Perez Residencia, home of Marco and Yoko (!) Perez and their parents and adorable son, Toni, who just turned three last night. The whole compound habitates an entire family, and I am reminded of what seems to be missing in a lot of American culture--this sense of staying intact with the family structure, of spending grand amounts of time together.
Of course, the Dukes blow this out of the water.
But the Perez place has been warm and beautiful. Smells of cooking and a fireplace wafting upstairs. I have met some of the other volunteers, all of whom are here for much shorter stints. But then, they´re not getting paid. Mainly well-intentioned if somewhat juvenile at times young women. Who recount with giggles tales of tequila and tattoos in a manner that I am familiar with having studied abroad. Still, they´re very nice, and I have no complaint.
I´m hoping to volunteer some myself in between our working hours. Once I can stand on my own two feet without panting.
It took a little red-faced explanation in my broken spanish to explain to Marco´s father that John is not, infact, my husband, with the shared knowledge that we are sharing a bedroom.
A strange calendar with a picture of Fujimori, the fallen ruler, and his endorsement of a 2006 candidate distracts me as I eat my meat, rice and boiled water.
On the side of the mountain plares a manmade message, ¨Viva el Peru Glorioso", as vans filled to the brim zoom by, honking with eagerness at anyone who looks like they might step into the calle, the colorful houses on the hill growing invisible with the pink, then orange, then dimming sky. It gets dark around six, which took some adjusting.
My camera has inexplicably decided to stop turning on... again. So pictures are forthcoming. The capricious piece of crap, however, is the least of my concerns at this point.
The dogs around here really are a sad thing to see... Mangy, deserted, unapprochable and overabundant, lifting up their sorrowful eyes from a mound of dirt as if you might be the one to throw them some food. But I don´t dare touch; I have already been warned plenty.
John and I went to a former Inca Temple called, in Quechuan, Qorikancha, which then became El Convento de Santo Domingo del Cusco when Pizarro´s brother Juan donated it to the Domincan order. Ole Pizzarro himself was so kind to take all the gold out before, so that those monks wouldn´t have to bother with it, in 1532. So nice of him!
Rumors have it that some treasures escaped Spanish plunder and remain undiscovered, but it´s hard to believe as Japanese and German tourist march through the halls and the great central garden. The architecture is by Tawantinsa stone workers, and the halls are decorated with Spanish art, including an anonymus 1569 sculpture of a very pregnant Virgin Mary.
John was captured by the exhibit on regional instruments, like trumpets made of shells. I was fascinated by a drawing of the Incan astronomy. They worshipped deities that were heavenly bodies and meteorological phenomenons.
"Mayu" is the term for celestial river--the milky way. And all the dark spots in the Milky Way are thought to be animals coming to drink from Mayu. Snakes here are not villainized. The star of the snake is called "Macha Cuay," and I notice that many instruments are in the shape of a divine water snake.
This city feels less full of tension and hostility than, say, Atlanta. Perhaps that´s my sunny illusion based on my being foreign.
But anyway, it will be nice to have finally settled into a space that is fully our own. But for now, I miss you all, but I´m so glad we came.
- Lex
It is sad that we are leaving for Arequipa, "La tierra del Condor", in a few days--on Friday. Not only will we have to semi-relearn our workplace, though Oscar keeps assuring us that every Maximo Nivel is the same... but John and I have really become enamoured of Cuzco.
Orientation takes two hours a day, and we mainly go over the curriculum that we will be thrown into on Monday. The majority of our time so far has been curled up at the Perez Residencia, home of Marco and Yoko (!) Perez and their parents and adorable son, Toni, who just turned three last night. The whole compound habitates an entire family, and I am reminded of what seems to be missing in a lot of American culture--this sense of staying intact with the family structure, of spending grand amounts of time together.
Of course, the Dukes blow this out of the water.
But the Perez place has been warm and beautiful. Smells of cooking and a fireplace wafting upstairs. I have met some of the other volunteers, all of whom are here for much shorter stints. But then, they´re not getting paid. Mainly well-intentioned if somewhat juvenile at times young women. Who recount with giggles tales of tequila and tattoos in a manner that I am familiar with having studied abroad. Still, they´re very nice, and I have no complaint.
I´m hoping to volunteer some myself in between our working hours. Once I can stand on my own two feet without panting.
It took a little red-faced explanation in my broken spanish to explain to Marco´s father that John is not, infact, my husband, with the shared knowledge that we are sharing a bedroom.
A strange calendar with a picture of Fujimori, the fallen ruler, and his endorsement of a 2006 candidate distracts me as I eat my meat, rice and boiled water.
On the side of the mountain plares a manmade message, ¨Viva el Peru Glorioso", as vans filled to the brim zoom by, honking with eagerness at anyone who looks like they might step into the calle, the colorful houses on the hill growing invisible with the pink, then orange, then dimming sky. It gets dark around six, which took some adjusting.
My camera has inexplicably decided to stop turning on... again. So pictures are forthcoming. The capricious piece of crap, however, is the least of my concerns at this point.
The dogs around here really are a sad thing to see... Mangy, deserted, unapprochable and overabundant, lifting up their sorrowful eyes from a mound of dirt as if you might be the one to throw them some food. But I don´t dare touch; I have already been warned plenty.
John and I went to a former Inca Temple called, in Quechuan, Qorikancha, which then became El Convento de Santo Domingo del Cusco when Pizarro´s brother Juan donated it to the Domincan order. Ole Pizzarro himself was so kind to take all the gold out before, so that those monks wouldn´t have to bother with it, in 1532. So nice of him!
Rumors have it that some treasures escaped Spanish plunder and remain undiscovered, but it´s hard to believe as Japanese and German tourist march through the halls and the great central garden. The architecture is by Tawantinsa stone workers, and the halls are decorated with Spanish art, including an anonymus 1569 sculpture of a very pregnant Virgin Mary.
John was captured by the exhibit on regional instruments, like trumpets made of shells. I was fascinated by a drawing of the Incan astronomy. They worshipped deities that were heavenly bodies and meteorological phenomenons.
"Mayu" is the term for celestial river--the milky way. And all the dark spots in the Milky Way are thought to be animals coming to drink from Mayu. Snakes here are not villainized. The star of the snake is called "Macha Cuay," and I notice that many instruments are in the shape of a divine water snake.
This city feels less full of tension and hostility than, say, Atlanta. Perhaps that´s my sunny illusion based on my being foreign.
But anyway, it will be nice to have finally settled into a space that is fully our own. But for now, I miss you all, but I´m so glad we came.
- Lex
Monday, July 23, 2007
Bags
Under my eyes. In my hand.
I started out calm, which should count for something. Through the inefficient and discourteous check-in at Hartsfield International, and a detainment at random security check points, I remained tranquil as a butterly drunk on some particularly virile flower´s nectar.
But then came the four hour delay at the grimy, freezing Ft. Lauderdale ¨Hollywood¨ airport, our particular jet delayed for no apparent reason in clear, sunny Orlando. Seats then that would not go back because we were in the emergency lane. So we moved. And the seats were broken. A cacophonous chorus of screeching armrests filling the next six hours, and having to pay--with credit card--for every beverage and paltry snack that we were desperate enough to crave.
Spirit airlines. The best way to make sure you´re sullen and sickly when you meet your new employers!
Lack of water, food, sleep all made me want to curse every aspect of the trip, recant my desire to travel anywhere ever. I wish that this kind of pessimissm didn´t rear its head so easily in me.
I remember feeling a sense of familiarity when I read V.S. Naipaul´s¨"An Area of Darkness" three years ago. His first few chapters center around arrival in a sweltering, inefficient and uncaring Mumbai, and his narrative holds nothing back of the frustration and desperation that shake his whole countenance.
Even with a deep love of travelling, we are still imperfect journey makers, and thus fall prey to loneliness and fear in the moment we cease basking in what is easy, practiced.
When we finally got into Lima, I somehow managed to lose my record of vaccinations. Check.
Then a well-dressed older man named Francisco picked us up, threw our things into a van and wisked us for half an hour to the center of town to a lovely hotel that we could enjoy for an hour and a half only, our plane having gotten in too late for such a luxury as rest.
Francisco spent some time in Sardegna, and so he and I spent the whole carride chiacchiando in Italian while sleepy John watched the scenery. Cloked in early morning shadow, the industrial and military buildings, the deserted streets, reminded me somehow of Milan. The water tower that read "Ahorra agua cierra el cano¨"
I took a shivery shower as an attempt to sooth my tired bones, but wound up wasting more energy chattering the teeth. Then we got on a LAN plane to Cuzco, had to pay some kind of tariff just to go through security, and soared over the Andes in a stupor.
But arriving in Cuzco, our bellies momentarily sated by the generous breakfast that the Peruvian airline offered, I could smell wood burning. We descended stairs onto the tarmac and felt crisp, chilly air, saw colorful blankets draped to keep their owners warm, heard pipes playing as we picked up our luggage. The place felt like every wonderful fall memory I have ever had--from the Lake Eden Arts Festival in Asheville, to the Olde English Festival when I was little, and mountains all around us.
Cuzco is gorgeous. I am ready to collapse. John and I are scared that we won´t know the first thing about teaching English. But we have arrived for the moment with excitement intact.
I started out calm, which should count for something. Through the inefficient and discourteous check-in at Hartsfield International, and a detainment at random security check points, I remained tranquil as a butterly drunk on some particularly virile flower´s nectar.
But then came the four hour delay at the grimy, freezing Ft. Lauderdale ¨Hollywood¨ airport, our particular jet delayed for no apparent reason in clear, sunny Orlando. Seats then that would not go back because we were in the emergency lane. So we moved. And the seats were broken. A cacophonous chorus of screeching armrests filling the next six hours, and having to pay--with credit card--for every beverage and paltry snack that we were desperate enough to crave.
Spirit airlines. The best way to make sure you´re sullen and sickly when you meet your new employers!
Lack of water, food, sleep all made me want to curse every aspect of the trip, recant my desire to travel anywhere ever. I wish that this kind of pessimissm didn´t rear its head so easily in me.
I remember feeling a sense of familiarity when I read V.S. Naipaul´s¨"An Area of Darkness" three years ago. His first few chapters center around arrival in a sweltering, inefficient and uncaring Mumbai, and his narrative holds nothing back of the frustration and desperation that shake his whole countenance.
Even with a deep love of travelling, we are still imperfect journey makers, and thus fall prey to loneliness and fear in the moment we cease basking in what is easy, practiced.
When we finally got into Lima, I somehow managed to lose my record of vaccinations. Check.
Then a well-dressed older man named Francisco picked us up, threw our things into a van and wisked us for half an hour to the center of town to a lovely hotel that we could enjoy for an hour and a half only, our plane having gotten in too late for such a luxury as rest.
Francisco spent some time in Sardegna, and so he and I spent the whole carride chiacchiando in Italian while sleepy John watched the scenery. Cloked in early morning shadow, the industrial and military buildings, the deserted streets, reminded me somehow of Milan. The water tower that read "Ahorra agua cierra el cano¨"
I took a shivery shower as an attempt to sooth my tired bones, but wound up wasting more energy chattering the teeth. Then we got on a LAN plane to Cuzco, had to pay some kind of tariff just to go through security, and soared over the Andes in a stupor.
But arriving in Cuzco, our bellies momentarily sated by the generous breakfast that the Peruvian airline offered, I could smell wood burning. We descended stairs onto the tarmac and felt crisp, chilly air, saw colorful blankets draped to keep their owners warm, heard pipes playing as we picked up our luggage. The place felt like every wonderful fall memory I have ever had--from the Lake Eden Arts Festival in Asheville, to the Olde English Festival when I was little, and mountains all around us.
Cuzco is gorgeous. I am ready to collapse. John and I are scared that we won´t know the first thing about teaching English. But we have arrived for the moment with excitement intact.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Mariposas Del Infierno
I get to a point where I can no longer think because ideas are flying too fast. I can't sleep either. My stomach is gnawing me, and I'm forgetful.
Living at home in the days leading up to Sunday is preparing me to leave in a different way--I'll be eager to get out of the discomfort and the constant bickering. It's just the way that some people cope with preparing to miss someone.
I'm not complaining--the flutter of adventure is equal to the flutter of anxiety. I must keep referring to my jubilant conversation with Laura the other day, and her awe-inspiring pictures of Bolivia--landscapes from Dali.
The plane flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Lima is only five hours. But we'll be camping in the airport for seven. The getting there is always hardest. I remember the first day in South Africa after 24 hours on one plane in one seat, my lungs and limbs begging for a reprieve.
It is raining outside, and I feel jumpy, itchy, and utterly unfocused.
Living at home in the days leading up to Sunday is preparing me to leave in a different way--I'll be eager to get out of the discomfort and the constant bickering. It's just the way that some people cope with preparing to miss someone.
I'm not complaining--the flutter of adventure is equal to the flutter of anxiety. I must keep referring to my jubilant conversation with Laura the other day, and her awe-inspiring pictures of Bolivia--landscapes from Dali.
The plane flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Lima is only five hours. But we'll be camping in the airport for seven. The getting there is always hardest. I remember the first day in South Africa after 24 hours on one plane in one seat, my lungs and limbs begging for a reprieve.
It is raining outside, and I feel jumpy, itchy, and utterly unfocused.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Someone else's words, and some of my own.
"The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself...
"Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss...
"So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an actual factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct which I do not possess."
- Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook
I would like to note now how truly madly deeply I will miss Servapan and Molotov--The Boys--with their earnest and dainty stare downs, and their feline eccentricities.
"Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss...
"So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an actual factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct which I do not possess."
- Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook
I would like to note now how truly madly deeply I will miss Servapan and Molotov--The Boys--with their earnest and dainty stare downs, and their feline eccentricities.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Wisdom
I just learned an expression in Portuguese. "Tenho saudades." According to Wikipedia, it is one of the hardest words to translate. It means "I have a deep longing/homesickness."
John pointed out to me yesterday that one only writes well while in the midst of a feverish optimism about oneself, or one's life. I think I just might follow that sage advice.
John pointed out to me yesterday that one only writes well while in the midst of a feverish optimism about oneself, or one's life. I think I just might follow that sage advice.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
OIIIIL... oiiiill...
So I'm a bit rusty at this business of "thinking."
TEFL has me completely stumped but I have to finish it, somehow, over the weekend.
Staring at the computer screen for the last half hour. My mind is turning into cheese under the lure of glowing information highway. I have added one sentence to the grammar assignment that has plagued my last week.
On another note... last night I arrived in Columbus and my grandmother showed me pictures of the snake farm in Sao Paolo where she used to take visiting dignitaries' wives as part of her duties at the American Consulate. Some black and white shots of some guy milking the venom out of these beautiful predators.
TEFL has me completely stumped but I have to finish it, somehow, over the weekend.
Staring at the computer screen for the last half hour. My mind is turning into cheese under the lure of glowing information highway. I have added one sentence to the grammar assignment that has plagued my last week.
On another note... last night I arrived in Columbus and my grandmother showed me pictures of the snake farm in Sao Paolo where she used to take visiting dignitaries' wives as part of her duties at the American Consulate. Some black and white shots of some guy milking the venom out of these beautiful predators.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Parallel-o-Gram
You know, I was just considering that my grandmother made a similar venture when she was almost exactly my age... travelling with the man she loved to a South American country that she knew so little about.
My grandparents' honeymoon transpired on a boat headed to Sao Paolo, Brazil, where my grandfather had an engineering job waiting for him. No sooner had their suitcases hit the ground than my grandfather was summoned on what should have been a two day work detail (building railroads).
What should have been a brief interlude arduously dragged into a month. The roads had closed down without warning and, in a cellphone exempt age, he had no way of contacting her at their temporary hotel lodging. With barely any grasp of Portuguese, my grandmother only timidly ventured outside, where she remembers invisible hands pinching her posterior unmercifully.
Quite the looker, my grandmother used to tutor a Brazilian man she worked with at the American consulate in English, until she came to understand that he had no interest in the language aspect of their lessons. When he invited her to dinner and she declined because her husband was out of town, he became infuriated and asked why on earth she thought he had been putting up with all of these early morning meetings??
She was once followed by a group of machismos who finally forced her to break feminine propriety and whack them all with her purse. She might have been in troubled waters, but a police officer came and shooed them. And then proceeded to hit on her himself.
Despite its rather agonizing moments, Grandma often recalls their sojourn in Brazil glowingly, as a defining moment, something that pushed her into self-reliance.
I go to Columbus, Ohio tomorrow after second attempt at shots. Grandma, with her faithful companion, the orange hoss-cat Bummer, have promised that the next few days will be full of cooking, stories--some new, some true favorites--and perhaps a visit with one of her Peruvian contacts. Perfect.
- Lex
My grandparents' honeymoon transpired on a boat headed to Sao Paolo, Brazil, where my grandfather had an engineering job waiting for him. No sooner had their suitcases hit the ground than my grandfather was summoned on what should have been a two day work detail (building railroads).
What should have been a brief interlude arduously dragged into a month. The roads had closed down without warning and, in a cellphone exempt age, he had no way of contacting her at their temporary hotel lodging. With barely any grasp of Portuguese, my grandmother only timidly ventured outside, where she remembers invisible hands pinching her posterior unmercifully.
Quite the looker, my grandmother used to tutor a Brazilian man she worked with at the American consulate in English, until she came to understand that he had no interest in the language aspect of their lessons. When he invited her to dinner and she declined because her husband was out of town, he became infuriated and asked why on earth she thought he had been putting up with all of these early morning meetings??
She was once followed by a group of machismos who finally forced her to break feminine propriety and whack them all with her purse. She might have been in troubled waters, but a police officer came and shooed them. And then proceeded to hit on her himself.
Despite its rather agonizing moments, Grandma often recalls their sojourn in Brazil glowingly, as a defining moment, something that pushed her into self-reliance.
I go to Columbus, Ohio tomorrow after second attempt at shots. Grandma, with her faithful companion, the orange hoss-cat Bummer, have promised that the next few days will be full of cooking, stories--some new, some true favorites--and perhaps a visit with one of her Peruvian contacts. Perfect.
- Lex
Monday, July 9, 2007
What They Call Cold Feet
I can't stop this gnawing in my stomach. It set in the minute that we stepped back onto Atlanta soil last night--well, Lilburn is more or less Atlanta (representative anyway). Four and a half days at the beach has burned away all motivation for movement, especially the sudden and essential movement the next two weeks will require. Already I have slept away a good part of the morning, and I can't seem to start with the first thing on my list.
So I'll write about Florida.
It was a rich and lazying week. Beginning, for me, with the discovery that the Dukes' collie Bonnie's will only drink filtered water over the coastal sludge.
Then so many stars, you forget how many.
I tried my hand at fishing for the first time. The first time that counts--I threw a fly out once with my ex-step-grandparents, when I was thirteen and still technically a vegetarian, wincing at the worm squirming on its hook, utterly horrifyed by the growling a fish makes as it struggles in vain for air. Then in March or so I went fish-catching with Kris and John at Lullwater, to feed not our bellies or our egos but the burgeoning aquarium at Harwood. Lullwater versus Flagler Beach proves an unfair comparison.
We stood outside Ron's bait shop for hours, and somehow the name on my license still wound up reading "Victoria A. Hulk."
My hands smelled like raw shrimp, and in mixing with the heat caused my stomach to rise and fall like the mysterious, fish-withholding waves. John, his mom Ceci and I went to the pier after dinner one night, and were greeted by cockroaches, and a depressing cast-aside exterminated stingray under dim lamplight. And nothing on our lines but seaweed.
Tortoises figured prominently in the visit. They're everywhere and have personality in excess. The first we spied busily scarfing down grass in the park, ignorant of our presence as one who has learned to tolerate constant outside attention.
We biked fifteen miles down historic highway A1A, and came across a dying turtle on the highway, deserted in the middle of the road but clinging to life like every animal does when it's doomed. Its durable shell was no match for the unforgiving crunch of a truck's tires. You could see its spine rising and falling as it breathed. John ran desperately out to the creature's aid, lifted it up gently and sadly, as blood gently cascading through the cracks in its shell. We placed it out of sight on a bed of grass, horrified for several moments, as if we too had been rolled over by something heavy.
The shock and grief of the helpless turtle's death, so easily avoidable, stirred up other sadness that afternoon. Other senseless images of death came to mind. But following our own humanness, we quickly became emmersed in the other wonders the beach held for us. Surrounded by blue in the evening, ocean and sky seeming as one and no way to distinguish the shoreline.
A wild storm overtook us the last day, and I sat with my swimsuit still on, watching the silvery flash of water skim across rooftops like steam in a pan.
We stopped by Greenbough yesterday and I got to see Thomas's tree. A holly that in a gentle rain seemed to have tear-stained its silvery bark. As we walked through the nature preserve the other day, a hawk kept diving just in front of us, and Ceci said it was Thomas's way of letting us know he's here. It's a bad time of year for all that--his birthday in ten days.
But we're back now, and I must get to work. I miss the kids at the Autism Center and had plenty of time during our lengthy carride back to regret the fact that I won't see certain smiling faces. Let's see if I can muster the energy to leave this couch.
- Lex
So I'll write about Florida.
It was a rich and lazying week. Beginning, for me, with the discovery that the Dukes' collie Bonnie's will only drink filtered water over the coastal sludge.
Then so many stars, you forget how many.
I tried my hand at fishing for the first time. The first time that counts--I threw a fly out once with my ex-step-grandparents, when I was thirteen and still technically a vegetarian, wincing at the worm squirming on its hook, utterly horrifyed by the growling a fish makes as it struggles in vain for air. Then in March or so I went fish-catching with Kris and John at Lullwater, to feed not our bellies or our egos but the burgeoning aquarium at Harwood. Lullwater versus Flagler Beach proves an unfair comparison.
We stood outside Ron's bait shop for hours, and somehow the name on my license still wound up reading "Victoria A. Hulk."
My hands smelled like raw shrimp, and in mixing with the heat caused my stomach to rise and fall like the mysterious, fish-withholding waves. John, his mom Ceci and I went to the pier after dinner one night, and were greeted by cockroaches, and a depressing cast-aside exterminated stingray under dim lamplight. And nothing on our lines but seaweed.
Tortoises figured prominently in the visit. They're everywhere and have personality in excess. The first we spied busily scarfing down grass in the park, ignorant of our presence as one who has learned to tolerate constant outside attention.
We biked fifteen miles down historic highway A1A, and came across a dying turtle on the highway, deserted in the middle of the road but clinging to life like every animal does when it's doomed. Its durable shell was no match for the unforgiving crunch of a truck's tires. You could see its spine rising and falling as it breathed. John ran desperately out to the creature's aid, lifted it up gently and sadly, as blood gently cascading through the cracks in its shell. We placed it out of sight on a bed of grass, horrified for several moments, as if we too had been rolled over by something heavy.
The shock and grief of the helpless turtle's death, so easily avoidable, stirred up other sadness that afternoon. Other senseless images of death came to mind. But following our own humanness, we quickly became emmersed in the other wonders the beach held for us. Surrounded by blue in the evening, ocean and sky seeming as one and no way to distinguish the shoreline.
A wild storm overtook us the last day, and I sat with my swimsuit still on, watching the silvery flash of water skim across rooftops like steam in a pan.
We stopped by Greenbough yesterday and I got to see Thomas's tree. A holly that in a gentle rain seemed to have tear-stained its silvery bark. As we walked through the nature preserve the other day, a hawk kept diving just in front of us, and Ceci said it was Thomas's way of letting us know he's here. It's a bad time of year for all that--his birthday in ten days.
But we're back now, and I must get to work. I miss the kids at the Autism Center and had plenty of time during our lengthy carride back to regret the fact that I won't see certain smiling faces. Let's see if I can muster the energy to leave this couch.
- Lex
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Medical Bureaucracy Exists!
I realize now why I originally shied away from having this damn blog. It's so easy to pop in, scribble some terribly thought out rant on yourself, and then feel secure in being a published author.
This really is some of the worst writing of my life.
Visit to grandma postponed. Pennsylvania called off--far too ambitious. What matters is that I have bacteria injected into my blood, ASAP! And that I find someone with a needle who works for free!
(With such selective criteria I am bound for success)
My morning passed like a bloody stool: two and a half hours reading about Paris Hilton's miraculous reformation, there from my stagnant perch at the walk-in clinic. My failed attempt at inoculation before teatime.
I wound up having to cough up almost a hundred smackers just so that a doctor I don't know could hand me a printout of information from the CDC's website. My consultation mainly revolved around how much each shot would cost because, oh yeah, vaccines on short notice apparently equal the price of the actual ticket to your disease-ridden destination.
Am I being vague?
Apparently Piedmont Minor Emergency Clinic doesn't take health insurance, which I do still and now have thanks to my dad's wild financial success--another reason that Ms. Hilton and I are kindred spirits, I suppose, this unrestrained nepotism... They don't take health insurance in the case of TRAVEL VACCINATIONS; for everything else, yes.
So the doctor advised me to just get the vaccines that I would "really need." Like Yellow Fever as opposed to Tetanus. Which I distinctly remember getting--the shot, that is. And which will make my arm fall off if I get another too soon. Curse this failing memory! Curse this failing health care system!
At least it allowed me the fascinating conversation with a teacher from Guyana who shared my annoyance. For her summer of separation from the middle school math minions, she had received a grant to do research in Singapore.
I mentioned that my roommate had been living there with her family and was now working on a PhD in "some kind of physics." I wish I could have offered more about Sandhya; it's sad to have completely ignored the details about someone I have lived with for a year.
The professor--whose name I immediately forgot, a reprehensible habit of mine--said that her son was a student at Emory, too, noticeably disappointed when I answered that, no, my Oxford University shirt was my boyfriend's--and he studied for two months there, over the summer.
"He would never study at UGA or Georgia Tech," she said with a sigh. "He says he's too smart and doesn't want people thinking he's there just 'cause he's black." The nurse wisked her away and the hallway was empty once more.
No matter. Voluntary Duke-beaching on the horizon. Second trip to Florida ever. I say goodbye to my children tomorrow, marking a surreal end to a week which saw my return to freshman year--chatting till all hours with the Marco, Gabi, Lauren contingent at Java Monkey as the stormy winds gave an impish allusion to autumn.
Now I return to a bedroom filled with boxes, themselves filled with high school, college, papers that need to be thrown out but prove impossible to let go.
- Lex
This really is some of the worst writing of my life.
Visit to grandma postponed. Pennsylvania called off--far too ambitious. What matters is that I have bacteria injected into my blood, ASAP! And that I find someone with a needle who works for free!
(With such selective criteria I am bound for success)
My morning passed like a bloody stool: two and a half hours reading about Paris Hilton's miraculous reformation, there from my stagnant perch at the walk-in clinic. My failed attempt at inoculation before teatime.
I wound up having to cough up almost a hundred smackers just so that a doctor I don't know could hand me a printout of information from the CDC's website. My consultation mainly revolved around how much each shot would cost because, oh yeah, vaccines on short notice apparently equal the price of the actual ticket to your disease-ridden destination.
Am I being vague?
Apparently Piedmont Minor Emergency Clinic doesn't take health insurance, which I do still and now have thanks to my dad's wild financial success--another reason that Ms. Hilton and I are kindred spirits, I suppose, this unrestrained nepotism... They don't take health insurance in the case of TRAVEL VACCINATIONS; for everything else, yes.
So the doctor advised me to just get the vaccines that I would "really need." Like Yellow Fever as opposed to Tetanus. Which I distinctly remember getting--the shot, that is. And which will make my arm fall off if I get another too soon. Curse this failing memory! Curse this failing health care system!
At least it allowed me the fascinating conversation with a teacher from Guyana who shared my annoyance. For her summer of separation from the middle school math minions, she had received a grant to do research in Singapore.
I mentioned that my roommate had been living there with her family and was now working on a PhD in "some kind of physics." I wish I could have offered more about Sandhya; it's sad to have completely ignored the details about someone I have lived with for a year.
The professor--whose name I immediately forgot, a reprehensible habit of mine--said that her son was a student at Emory, too, noticeably disappointed when I answered that, no, my Oxford University shirt was my boyfriend's--and he studied for two months there, over the summer.
"He would never study at UGA or Georgia Tech," she said with a sigh. "He says he's too smart and doesn't want people thinking he's there just 'cause he's black." The nurse wisked her away and the hallway was empty once more.
No matter. Voluntary Duke-beaching on the horizon. Second trip to Florida ever. I say goodbye to my children tomorrow, marking a surreal end to a week which saw my return to freshman year--chatting till all hours with the Marco, Gabi, Lauren contingent at Java Monkey as the stormy winds gave an impish allusion to autumn.
Now I return to a bedroom filled with boxes, themselves filled with high school, college, papers that need to be thrown out but prove impossible to let go.
- Lex
Monday, July 2, 2007
Sam Peckinpah and my subconscious
I have been having very vivid and interesting dreams in the countdown to South America.
One of them, the other night, saw Paul Newman and I having a "salad off." I won but then found myself consoling a bereft Newman by giving him pointers--"It's all in the cucumber, kid."
Before that I dreamt that some of the kids from my class at the Autism Center were begging me not to send them to Iraq. I kept telling them that they were too young.
...
I won't bore you with interpretations. But I do plan to retrain myself to remember when I wake.
I am amazed at how full life can seem when you're waiting to leave.
One of them, the other night, saw Paul Newman and I having a "salad off." I won but then found myself consoling a bereft Newman by giving him pointers--"It's all in the cucumber, kid."
Before that I dreamt that some of the kids from my class at the Autism Center were begging me not to send them to Iraq. I kept telling them that they were too young.
...
I won't bore you with interpretations. But I do plan to retrain myself to remember when I wake.
I am amazed at how full life can seem when you're waiting to leave.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
