What I See Walking Around Cusco

I walk a lot here. I walk to my project. I walk from my project to class. I walk from class to the house. Here are some of the things I see:

Stray Dogs. I actually play a weird little game - guessing what breeds were mixed to yield each creature. Not that I like them. At all. They poop everywhere and growl at people.

Kids Playing Soccer. The kids are bizarrely obsessed with soccer and will play in the streets in groups with a ball or wadded up bags, or they will play alone walking down the sidewalk kicking a plastic bottle. They're always kicking things.

Raw Unrefrigerated Meat. I walk by stands selling meat quite often. Most of it isn't bad enough to make me gag, however it is incredibly unpleasant.

Little Old Peruvian People. They're usually dressed in traditional clothes and selling fruit, vegetables, bread, popcorn, or random odds and ends like mirrors or spray bottles or fingernail clippers. Not all of them have stuff to sell though; some of them are just begging.

Women With Neon Yellow Lanyards. The neon yellow lanyard means she has a cell phone that you can pay her to use. They're everywhere in the plazas and along the main street. They yell "llamadas, LLamadas, LLAMADAS!!!!" and swing their lanyards, usually while bouncing a small child on their hip.

Tour Groups. There are basically two kinds of tour groups. The Old White People and The Japanese. They are equally conspicuous. Whenever you're running late, you can count on having a tour group very effectively blocking sidewalk traffic. Oh, and one must never make eye contact with these people as this is typically translated as "Why of course I'd be willing to take as many photos of you as you'd like in front of this building/statue/rock"

Lost Gringos. I've become fairly adept at spotting lost gringos. If there is more than one, they are usually pointing in different directions. Usually they are on a street corner and looking at the Free From The Airport Map. The Free From The Airport Map is a dead giveaway that they just got here and are probably lost. If they are not only looking at it, but also turning it in circles while they look at it, they are most definitely lost. I give directions fairly often. I have drawn several maps for such people. If where they're going (trying to go) is on my way, I'll take them. I often end up pointing out notable buildings, good places to eat, important streets, etc during our walk. I might enjoy finding the Lost Ones a little too much. A couple weeks ago, I was on my way home, but I was taking a semi-sketchy way that I wouldn't have taken after dark. I happened to glance down a side street and I saw a little old couple - could have been my great grandparents - standing on a corner, turning the telltale Free From The Airport Map in circles. They were far enough away from downtown that where they were wasn't even on the Free From The Airport Map. I decided to rescue them. I walked up to them and confirmed that they were indeed lost, and ask them where they were staying. They couldn't remember the name of their hotel. I ask if it was close to the Plaza. They weren't sure. They had thought so, but had ventured out to find it that afternoon and had gotten horribly lost. I spent the next two hours walking them back to the downtown area and looking around for their hotel. We finally found it, but for a while I thought we might not. They invited me to eat dinner with them, but I politely declined after drawing them a map. I was exhausted and took a taxi to the house, getting there just in time for dinner.

Young Well-Dressed Peruvian Girls Trying To Hand Me Brochures/Cards/Fliers. You can't take more than 5 steps around the Plaza De Armas (the main square) without having one of these girls try to get you to take one of their handouts. They repeat "Massage? Manicure? Pedicure? Waxing?" over and over again.

Small Children Selling Things. They are everywhere in the touristy part of town. They sell finger puppets, hats, postcards, cards, cigarettes, gum, coca leaves, anything a tourist might want to buy. They are excellent salesmen, especially the kids with puppets and hats. Basically if they get you talking, they've made the sale. I have had several kids - like young kids- 6-9? - ask me where I'm from and then start this shpiel about the US in English that goes something like this: "OH! The United States! Very good country! Capital Washington D.C., President Barack Obama. Barack Obama very good President! George Bush very bad. Barack Obama very good. Washington D.C. maybe good maybe bad. You want buy puppets?"

Traditionally Costumed Girls Toting Baby Llamas. They're cute the first time you see them. They hang out in front of old pretty buildings smiling and petting their llamas... and asking you for money to take their picture.

Honking Taxis. The taxis are ridiculous. They honk all the time and all their horns sound different.

Men With Menus. Outside almost every restaurant is a guy trying to get you to look at the menu. I walk by the same guys every day and every day they try to get me to look at their menus and every day I decline. You'd think they'd start to recognize me after six weeks of this, but no. Every day, "Excuse me Miss, ... " ugh.

Hmmm.... that's all I got for now. More soon. Promise.

Weekends

Hey, who's for an upbeat, light-hearted post?  

So, I blogged about my first weekend, when we went to Sacsayhuaman.

People in the house go on weekend trips all the time. They go to Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, Arequipa, various villages in the Sacred Valley, random ruins near the city, etc. The list is long, but I'll tell you about where all I've been. 

My second weekend here, Holly, Katie, Audrey and I (the same group as my first weekend adventure) went to Pisaq. Pisaq is a town in the Sacred Valley, about an hour from here. We took the bus which was horribly interesting. Audrey was vomiting on by a small motion sick peruvian child. On, Sundays in Pisaq, there is a huge market set up for the tourists that sells all the same touristy stuff that is sold in Cusco plus maybe a little more for about the same price as stuff in Cusco, or maybe a little more. We perused the market for a while and then had lunch at a cute little restaurant. After lunch we went to climb up to the ruins. It was absolutely gorgeous. Check out my pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/elliemae27 ! We were climbing in the heat of the day and Holly and Katie are in better shape than me and soon left me behind. The climb was really hard and I thought I was going to die. Actually, funny story, the patrol guy thought so too! I was really really tired and so when I found a match of shade, I sat down for a minute. Well, a minute turned into several and I fell asleep. I was woken up by a near frantic Peruvian patrol man, who was sure something horrible had happened to me. Possibly his worse nightmare - finding a dead american teenager. Poor guy. Anyway, I survived the hike, but decided I have seen enough mountain top ruins for this trip.

There are a lot of parties here. Birthday Parties, Graduation Parties, Last Night in Cusco Parties, First Night in Cusco Parties, Haven't Been to a Party in a While Parties... the list goes on... anyway... parties can be fun, in moderation. There is always a party you can go to on the weekends. Or during the week, actually.

I've gone to several museums in town. They're interesting. There's an unfortunate amount of broken pottery on display, but a sizable collection of mummies and skulls makes up for it, in my opinion.

I've also been to Ollantaytambo. Its very similar to Pisaq. Forgot my camera though, so no pictures. Sorry.

My Average Week

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't been blogging. I have a very long list of excuses... but I'll spare you those. Please just accept my sincerest apology and keep reading! Ok, I've been in Peru for six weeks now. Crazy, huh? Half of my time here is gone. Well, anyway, I've settled into a pretty sweet routine here and its gonna be pretty boring for me to blog about and for you to read, but the masses are curious, so here we go... During the week I get up at eight and take a shower, get dressed, put on sunscreen, grab a quick breakfast if I have time, and leave the house by nine. I get to my project and attempt to have English Class with the girls. Unfortunately they have become more and more comfortable with me to the point that they fine with telling me they're not interested in what I'm trying to teach them and that they'd rather go knit. I tried bribing them with the hard candy from my lunch but that ultimately failed. Class deteriorated little by little over the weeks until this last week we didn't even try since it was Katie's last week and we didn't feel like fighting them. After class we would usually play a game or talk while the girls knitted or help out in the kitchen, so yeah, that's all we did last week. Honestly, I feel completely useless here and its horribly depressing. For the first time in a long time I am not needed at all. No one here needs me for anything or will be in the least bit affected by my departure. I've never realized how much I need to feel needed to be happy. It's such a horrible conclusion to come to; I'm crying as I type this. How can I be so shallow as to find such little meaning in my day to day? I hate that I can't just be happy being me, just living. Why do I feel I must have someone or something depending on me to be fulfilled? I've been looking back on all the people I've ever help. All the good things I've ever done. Was I only motivated by some messed up scheme to feel needed? How can my self worth be so wrapped up in how many people need me? How has my self image depreciated so much in the last six weeks, just from not being needed? I've been questioning why I even decided to come here. Was my motivation to find a place where I'd be intensely needed? Is that my goal in wanting to work with a relief and development organization after college? Being the shiny glowing answer to everyone's prayers? Am I going into this field because I feel called to service in third world countries and God has laid many development based issues on my heart or because it's a way to make sure I'll always feel needed? I've been so ridiculously excited the last few months about going to college and following God's will and everything felt so right, so perfect, so meant to be. I was so happy that I had finally got it all right. But now I'm so horribly discouraged. I've been reading my bible until it's soaked with tears. I get back to the house after class and say I'm going to take a nap, but I really just lay down and sob into my pillow until I fall asleep. Last Friday was horrible. I said I had a headache and went home early and skipped class so I could curl up in a little ball and cry myself to sleep again. I've been really anti-social and standoffish the last week or so and I've been trying to force myself to keep smiling and not turn down every activity offer, but its hard.

Yesturday I went out for coffee with a lady who is a missionary here with her husband. She was very nice and invited me to have dinner with her and her family at her house next Friday. I'm looking forward to it.

Wow, this blog post did not go in the direction I was expecting. Hmmm. I'm going to go ahead and post it. I'll blog some cute funny happy stories soon. Promise.

My First Weekend in Cusco

Saturday morning I slept in until 11, had an hour before lunch to shower and get dressed and stuff.  After lunch, my roommates (Audrey and Katie) and another volunteer in the house named Holly and I hiked up to Saqsaywaman, also spelled “Sacsayhuaman”. Saqsaywaman is an old Inca fort north of Cusco, constructed from huge stones. Only 20% is still there today because it was used as a quarry by the Spanish to build houses in Cusco. There seems to be some debate over what “Saqsaywaman” means. Some sources say “satisfied falcon” others say “city of stone”.  Regardless of the translation, it is pronounced “sexy woman”. There are endless jokes about this, but the funniest part is probably how, while Audrey, Katie, Holly and I were hiking up, taxi drivers would slowly drive by us yelling “Sexy woman?! Yes?”.  We giggled while we waved them on.

 

The hike up was exhausting, but it was worth it. The view of the city is breathtaking. The stones are huge. The whole area is just beautiful. We had a lot of fun exploring the ruins and getting our picture taken with random people. And crashing tour groups (Holly!). 

 

After Saqsaywaman, we hiked over to the giant white Jesus that is visible from the house. He’s quite huge.

 

On the hike back down to the city, there were two random stray llamas (possibly alpacas, I can’t quite grasp the difference) going up. They had ropes on, so we guessed that they had escaped from the people in traditional garb that pose for pictures with llamas or alpacas for money. We caught them and took pictures with them until their owners came running up the hill. Twas quite fun.

 

After returning the creatures we hiked down to the city and went out for cake. For S/8 I had a huge piece of chocolate cake and a tall glass of strawberry juice that was SO good. Definitely going back there. S/8 is only like $2.50. I love Peru.

 

Sunday I slept in again, getting up in time to eat lunch. Most of the others went down to the main plaza, La Plaza de Armas to have a huge water fight against the locals. They came back soaked, but happy for the most part.  I’m not that sad that I missed out. One epic battle is enough for me.

 

We had a pretty lazy afternoon just hanging out in the living room/dining room area reading, mending pants, blogging, meeting the new people, etc.

 

After supper we watched the Oscars – with Spanish translation. And blogged and shared pictures and stuff.

 

You can see my pictures from this weekend at  http://picasaweb.google.com/elliemae27.

 

My First Week in Cusco

I already told you about Monday, my first full day here.

Tuesday Katie and I walked to Maximo to find out more about our project. Did I tell you Katie and I are working together? Well we are. Anyway, we went to find out more about our project.  The very nice coordinator lady, whose name I have forgotten, explained to us how most of the girls live at the shelter, and some just come during the day or when they need to. The girls range in age from twelve to eighteen. She wasn’t quite sure how many girls there were. The name of the shelter is Casa Acogida. “Casa” means house in English, and my handy-dandy dictionary say “Acogida” means reception or welcome.  The shelter is in Plazoleta Almudena.  The very nice coordinator lady, whose name I have forgotten, showed us how to take a “bus” to our project.  By “bus”, she meant one of those terrifying little van things that zoom around the city faster than the taxis and are always jammed full of people. A taxi ride from our house to our project is S/3 (three soles), or about $1 (USD). The bus is S/.60, or about 20 cents. I doubt I ever get in one of those terrifying things again. If Katie and I share a taxi it costs us 50 cents each. I can handle that.

 

But I digress… the v.n.c.l,w.n.i.h.f., took us up to our project and introduced us to the ladies in charge and to the girls. There is a courtyard with a volleyball net and several chickens. Rooms line one side of the courtyard. The kitchen is a separate building on the far end of the courtyard. A small enclosed garden is along the wall across from the rooms.  The girls were sitting in a circle in the courtyard knitting. When they saw us they all got up and greeted Katie and I by kissing our cheek and saying “Hola Miss!”. They do this every day.  The v.n.c.l,w.n.i.h.f., left but Katie and I stayed and talked to the girls until lunch time. They are nice. Some are quiet, but others will talk your ear off. They are teaching Katie to knit. I play volleyball with them, and they fight over whose team I’m on. And not in a bad way either. They want me on their team! New experiences! lol They also have a variety of card games they like to try to teach us. They ask us if we could teach them anything. Turns out I have no marketable skills. Past volunteers have taught them to knit, paint, draw, sing, sign, dance, cook… the list is long. But, yeah, I got nothin. But they want to learn English, so that’s what Katie and I have been trying to do this week between card games, volleyball games, and knitting lessons. I really really wish I was taking the TEFOL class at Maximo. I mean, teaching them English isn’t that hard, but I wish I knew how you were supposed to do it. Does that make sense?

 

So, Tuesday we met the girls, Wednesday we taught English and played, Thursday we taught English and had an epic water balloon fight against the boys in the plaza. It was very… intense. The plaza was full of costumed dancers and people selling trinkets and flowers and food and beer and water balloons and colored chalk dust and sprayible foam.  Almudena isn’t in the tourist part of town, so Katie and I were the only gringas around. Needless to say, we were very popular targets. We were both completely soaked and covered in foam and chalk dust. The chalk was the worst part. We were each grabbed from behind by a surprisingly strong Peruvian man who had a handful of chalk dust that he dubbed in our eyes and around our faces. The girls from the shelter screamed and hit our attackers but the chalk dust guys got us both twice. It seemed like age groups had their favorite weapon. Really little boys ages 3-7 or so all had cans of foam. Boys 8-14 or so liked to run up with water balloons and buckets of water. Guys 15-20something liked to throw water balloons from a distance or get us with chalk dust.  Talking to other gringos, we’ve learned that we’re lucky there isn’t a big fountain in Almudena for them to throw us in. Friday was pretty uneventful in comparison, just English and volleyball.

 

I had Spanish Class everyday this week for two hours. It’s actually really fast paced. We went over ser and estar, numbers, months, regular verb conjugation, phrases, adjectives and more. I really like it and I am looking forward to next week.

 

Life at The Family House is very… interesting.  We watch movies and play games and talk and go exploring and help each other with homework. Its lots of fun. Never a dull moment. I’m really loving all the different accents. Our conversations are hilarious.

 

Hmmm… that’s my week… any questions?

 

Internet is down again, but I’ll post this asap.

Love and miss you all.

My First Full Day in Cusco

I slept rather well considering there is a busy street right outside full of taxi drivers honking their horns for no apparent reason. And a rooster somewhere. Not close. But close enough that I could hear him and be slightly annoyed once I woke up. Breakfast was eggs however you like them, pancakes, cereal, yogurt, fresh fruit and freshly squeezed juice of some sort.

Audrey and I took a taxi to Maximo Nivel for our orientation. Maximo is a very busy place. They have something like 1400 Peruvian students coming in for English classes every day. During orientation we just went over rules and were told where exactly we’d be working. I was signed up for the childcare program and I knew I wouldn’t know if I was working at an orphanage or center or school until today. But I figured kids would be pretty much the same any of those places and wasn’t too worried about it. Well, I found out today that I’ll be working in a shelter for girls who have been physically and/or sexually abused. Bit more intense than I bargained for. I was kinda looking forward to kids. They’re easy to talk to and they laugh at you but its not a big deal. Anyway. I’ll live.

Then I had a Spanish placement test. There was a written part and an oral part. I thought I did fairly well with the written part but I was a bit apprehensive about the oral part. The man said “Tell me about yourself in Spanish.” I don’t know what I was expecting, but “Tell me about yourself” was not it. So anyway I stumbled through some sentences while he very briskly graded the written part of the test. He said my grammar was not bad, but he was still going to put me in basic level 1 class. I have class from 4-6 Monday-Friday. I went today. We learned how to say “Hola” and “Como te llamas?” and “De donde eres?” as well as the proper responses. And the alphabet. Fun fun fun.

Lunch was vile. Really no other way to put it. I typed “interesting” first, but no, really, it was awful. I can’t even describe it.

They made up for it though. We had pizza tonight. It was very good. I don’t usually do pizza with everything on it, but I ate it tonight and it was good. Probably helped that I was very hungry.

Oh, and I found out today that February is some sort of holiday/festival thing where kids throw water balloons at each other … and the tourists. Yes, I found out the hard way.

I Made It To Cusco!

The flight from Miami to Lima was very long. Not longer than my layover in Miami, but it seemed like it. Perhaps it was my nerves that made it seem so long… hmmm, yes I think so. The airplane was very nice. The seats were comfy and there was a lot of room between them. Everyone had their very own screen set in the back of the seat in front of them. You could watch a movie or a tv show or play a game or listen to music or track the plane’s position. Lots of options! There were so many movies to choose from that I didn’t even scroll through them all. They had Traitor, Burn After Reading, The Duchess, High School Musical 3, The Women, Garden State, Never Been Kissed, and easily 20 others. Tv shows had lots of options too. They had episodes from The Office, Scrubs, M*A*S*H, and several others. Game options were like Tetris, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, various card games and more. Lots of music, but I didn’t mess with that; I had my ipod. You could also watch a little airplane icon move slowly along a dotted line between Miami and Lima. It also showed our altitude and speed, as well as the external temperature. Oh, and they fed us on the flight. I had pasta with carbonara sauce, which was very good. And a Milky Way, which wasn’t too bad either. :)

I was seated next to a woman who spoke only Spanish, was very afraid of flying, and Catholic. This is all I found out about her. Seated all across the aisle from me was a team of young doctors on their way to do a 10 day medical mission trip in remote villages around Cusco. They were very nice.

I did get a bit upset on the flight. I was thinking; which I have decided to stop doing. I was thinking about how long I was going to here and how far away I was if anything went wrong and well anyway I worked myself into a bit of a tizzy thinking about how I couldn’t do this and how stupid I was for even thinking I could and so I started crying. Just a few tears at first, but I really really hate it when I start crying and so then I cry more because I’m crying. Quite the vicious cycle really. Anyway.

In Lima, I went through Immigration, with no problem. I now have a super cool Peru stamp in my passport. The guy who stamped my passport first ask if I was travelling alone and then told me I was very brave and to be safe. This did very little for my already shaky confidence. Then I got my baggage and got in line to go through customs. Its quite the ingenious system they have. You hand your papers to the lady, she asks if you have anything to declare, you say no, she says press the button. Then the magic button decides if you have to be searched or not by turning on the red or the green light. The magic button was nice to me; it turned on the green light and I instructed to proceed to the exit. Once you get past customs there is a big lobby like area that anyone is allowed to enter, although the part just past customs is sectioned off. I stayed in the sectioned off part until I saw my taxi driver. He had a large white board with my name written on it in big blue block letters. He was very nice. We found his taxi and he loaded all my bags while we attempted to talk. He spoke some English, and I speak some Spanish, so, together, we were able to talk a bit. The drive from the airport to Carlos and Jessica’s house was very … interesting. It reminded me of a racing video game. Not that he was a bad driver. It was just very fast and there were cars switching lanes constantly and cutting people off and no traffic laws that I could see. Oh, and random people that decide to run across several lanes of heavy traffic. But we made it safely. Carlos and Jessica were very nice. Their daughter was very sweet. She likes English a lot and knows all the songs from High School Musical. She was maybe five? I gave her a stuffed parrot which she liked a lot and named all his colors in English. I slept in her bed, just a few hours. I had to be at the airport fairly early. The same taxi driver picked me up. Carlos and Jessica had arranged for him to pick me from the airport and take me back. I checked my bags, paid a tax of some sort, went through security and got to my gate in plenty of time.

The flight from Lima to Cusco was pretty short, although I did fall asleep so maybe it wasn’t as short as it seemed. We were flying through clouds every time I woke up. I was sad that I couldn’t see the landscape better, but I was so tired I’m not sure I could have stayed awake to admire it anyway. We landed in Cusco, no problem. I got my bags and just outside the doors was a smiling man with my name on a white board. He was the representative from Maximo Nivel there to pick me and another girl up from the airport and get us to our house. He got us a taxi and took me and the other girl, Katie- she’s from England, to Maximo Nivel and then to The Family House where I’ll be staying for the next 12 weeks.

The Family House is quite nice, although my room is on the third floor. Which wouldn’t bad, except the altitude leaves me rather breathless after the climb. I guess I should feel lucky that that’s my only problem with the altitude. We’re up over 11,ooo feet and some people get altitude sickness pretty bad. None of the others that just arrived and are in my house are sick either though. I haven’t been able to count yet, but there are several of us living here. Six of us just moved in. I’m sharing my room with two of the other new girls. Katie from England and Audrey from Seattle. They are both nice. Katie is here for 6 weeks and Audrey for 8. Katie hasn’t had any formal Spanish classes before, but she spent a month in Spain and so knows enough Spanish to get around without much difficulty. Audrey is quite good. She is reading Twilight in Spanish. She was just in Chile and Argentina working on her Spanish. Our room is fairly good sized. I’m really horrible with dimensions, but maybe 8x16. We have a bathroom connected to our room with a shower that has its own electric water heater. The staff here is very nice. The food is great. Seriously, I’m gonna gain weight here. Not even kidding. Lunch was my first meal here and it was so good. It was a soup and it had rice in it and chicken and spices that I can’t even describe but it was so so good. For dinner we had some sort of pepper stuffed with who knows what but it was wonderful. Very very spicy. But delicious. And served with some variety of potato that was seasoned perfectly. Mmmm!

That’s all tonight. I’m exhausted. Even though I took a couple really long naps. I’ll post this tomorrow night, hopefully.