Sunday January 23^th, 2011

Today we tried to walk to Sacsayhaumán (well-known Inca ruins site) with the dogs (yes, all 5). Of course I say ‘tried’ because we failed. The dogs are all small and not used to being walked, so they tired out pretty fast. We made it as far as a market where we bought a bunch of food, then walked back.

Of note with the food in the market are the mangos and avocados. I didn’t recognize the mangos as mangos at first because they look completely different than the mangos sold in the US. They’re smaller and yellow with dark spots and taste wonderful. They’re a bit tricky to eat but worth the effort. I never liked mango when I tried it before, but I liked these mangos. The avocados are notable because they are about twice the size of those sold in the US. Sometimes they’re almost over-ripe and a little bitter, but besides that they’re delicious (and abundant) as well.

Monday January 24^th, 2011

Last week I bought a bottle of lotion. This sounds simple and trivial, but frankly, it wasn’t. I enter the pharmacy, where all the products are encased in glass below the counter or behind the counter on shelves. As you can imagine, it’s a bit more challenging to shop this way, squinting to read the labels from afar, looking past the employees behind the counter. But I found the lotion I wanted, told the señora and she took it off the shelf. I started to get out my money to pay for it, but she indicated that I needed to take the slip of paper she gave me and cross to a different window to pay. After paying at this window, I was given another slip of paper to take over to a different window to pick up my lotion. I was obviously confused during this process because I’d never encountered anything like this before while trying to buy lotion. It seems way overkill to me, but I guess this just shows that shoplifting/thieving/poverty are even bigger problems than I thought. Who knew buying lotion could be such an eye-opening experience…

Wednesday January 26^th, 2011

I had taken note that when Alberto speaks to me he often uses the infinitive form of verbs. For example, he’ll say to me “Yo llevar tasas” instead of “Yo llevo tasas.” I just assumed he always spoke this way, but I recently found out via Paty that this is the way he speaks to the foreigners who stay with the family. As I understand it, normally the visitors have less experience with the language so he simplifies his speech for them. Of course, I generally understand when verbs are used in their conjugated form and want to be immersed in correctly and naturally spoken Spanish, so upon discovering this intentional dumbing down of the language I was frustrated and a little offended. I realize he probably just does it out of habit, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling like he’s speaking to me as if I were a child. So to try and break this habit, I’ve taken to (ironically) correcting him when he does this. He’ll say “Yo lavar platos” and I’ll respond with “Tu lavas platos?” and I’ve said to him “Alberto, I want to learn to speak Spanish well, not like a child!”

Speaking of children, here’s a recounting of a couple of gringa moments earlier this week. I don’t know if I’ve described this before, but the combis (microbuses I take to the school) are operated by a driver and a second person who opens and closes the sliding door and collects the fares. This second person (in my experience) can be a man or a woman, but is usually a younger male. As I found out earlier this week, this person can also be a child. Obviously I was surprised by this—don’t you have to be at least 14 to work in the US? Apparently there aren’t rules for that here (or there are rules that no one follows) since this kid could not have been more than 10 years old, although I think that’s a high estimate. I want to say he was more like 8 years old.

 Anyway, sometimes interacting with children is depressing for me because they speak better Spanish than I do (or at least speak it faster). This was no exception. At one point the kid was asking me to do something, and I truly did not understand him. I eventually figured out he wanted me to scoot over to make more room for another person to sit on the bench. This really just meant that I made myself into a squished sandwich because the person to my left didn’t move as I scooted over for another person to sit on my right. Riding in combis is just delightful sometimes… The second gringa moment came when I paid just before getting off at my stop. I gave him 1 sol and was expecting 0.40 in change, but the kid instead asked me for 0.10. With the attempted explanations of the other people on the bus I figured out at the last second that the kid wanted 0.10 so that he could give me a 0.50 piece in change. I successfully ride the combi with Peruvians the majority of the time, but apparently when trying to do so with a child for a door operator, I make a fool of myself.

On a totally different subject, I want to share something I learned on my hike two Sundays ago with Jean-Jacques and Telma. My first impression of Cusco (as seen from airplane) was that it was a city in a valley, therefore it inherently had limits. I thought that the city had grown to the size it could, that the land at a shallow enough grade to build upon had already been built on and the rest would remain undeveloped. However this vision of Cusco as a city that had grown to its limits and now sustained constant population levels (little to no growth) was shattered by the knowledgeable Doctor Jean-Jacques. Apparently the city has continued to grow till this very day up the mountains. In some areas it has even expanded into areas owned by the government and officially called “parks.” It is unfortunate that it continues to grow, especially considering that the homes constructed are of fairly poor quality and it seems that many areas lack things like garbage service (yes, garbage can be a significant problem in some parts of the city).

To change subjects completely again (I must work on my segues…) I wanted to follow up on a statement I made earlier about it seeming strange to write and think in English. Well, it seems that switching between Spanish and English is like anything—it gets easier with practice. Thanks to things like writing this blog, listening to music, and watching television with the family my brain is frequently exercising this ability to transition. Let me back up a minute and explain that listening to music and watching tv help me practice this because there is a pretty strong English language influence here. Some songs that are popular in the US are popular here as well and many of the cable tv channels are in English. Some are voiced-over, but others just have Spanish subtitles. Of course I prefer to watch the channels in Spanish, but sometimes the best shows are in English. For example, last night I got to watch the Big Bang Theory (!) Does anyone else think that show is as downright hilarious as I think it is?? But I digress. The bottom line is just as spinning and dance aerobics every morning has been making me stronger, practicing the language switch has made my brain more flexible. One language doesn’t have to dominate my brain; they can simply coexist in peace J 

Saturday January 29^th, 2011

Today I washed my clothes. The interesting part about this is that before doing so I found out that they have a washing machine. This was a bit of a shocker to me, since if you asked me which is better for washing clothes (your own flesh, muscle, and bone or a machine) I would say machine before you even finished the question. As it turns out, Alberto believes that the washing machine uses more water and doesn’t wash the clothes as well. So I subjected myself once again to this labor (I didn’t go to the gym this morning exactly for this reason).

I have little else interesting to say, so here are the promised photos and a couple extras:

The live music for the dances.

Twirly skirts and colors!

More colors! Sorry these photos are blurry—the dancers just wouldn’t stop moving ;)

Baila, baila, baila!

Mimi and Hade sleeping. These two are the least crazy of the five.

Mimi and Abita. Abita is normally bouncing off the ceiling, so catching her in this position was a rare moment.

This is Blanca (or Blanquita) and is of the same temperament (crazy) as Abita, so again this is a rare moment of tranquility.

This fifth dog, Perika, is a little shy, so I don’t have a photo of her, but she pretty much looks like Blanca and Abita. 

PS. For those of you leaving comments inquiring about a certain person, stop your imagination before it runs away with you. He's actually much more likely to be with someone whose name I will not mention, due to the sensitivity of the situation...