gold, DVDs, and sushi

Even though my week was pretty routine, there were some highlights worth sharing. On Tuesday I went to a museum called the Museo de Oro (the gold museum). It´s a huge private collection in a residential area in Lima of lots and lots of gold! It used to be the most visited museum in all of South America until a scandal in the ´90s when someone discovered that over 90% of the artifacts were fake. I assumed that everything that is currently on display now is real, and I could not believe how much gold (and silver, bronze, and copper) there was! It was also really neat that I had just visited some of the ruins from the civilizations because I had some really cool background knowledge and got to see how their jewelry fit in with their structures. The upper part of the museum was an international arms museum with all sorts of guns and other weapons, replicas of famous Peruvian generals, and old knight´s armor. The admission fee was really expensive (33 soles or $10 supposedly for the upkeep of the museum), but it was really worth it to see the incredible collection. The only disappointing things were that there weren´t very many written pannels or explanations and that we could´t take pictures, but the artifacts alone were so impressive (and I still managed to take a few pictures).

In my class on state and politics of the US, I´ve been working on a group project. I found out that said project exists when a classmate sat next to me and whispered that he was in my group. I responded "What group?" He responded, "for the project." I asked, "What project?" And he so eloquently explained, "the group project." Apparently we got an e-mail (and by we I mean everyone in the class except me) with a list of group members and our themes. My group will be working on how US elections affect Latin America, which seems like a lot, so we´re working on narrowing that down a bit (I´m hoping to change Latin America to just Peru). Last week we met before class to share our themes and ideas, but I was pretty unprepared for this session as I didn´t find out about it until an hour before. My group keeps reminding me what an asset I will be, but given my lack of preparation I´m surprised they didn´t conclude I´m actually the deadweight. We´re supposed to be researching in certain sources this week, but they told me to do this Chilean diplomatic magazine (as opposed to US websites and magazines), so that should be interesting. Meanwhile, none of my other friends in that class have even met with their group.

Yesterday I went for the first time to a market called Polvos Azules, which is a staple in most people´s experiences in Peru. It´s a huge indoor market of clothes, shoes, electronics, food, and basically everything you can imagine, but a lot of it´s counterfeit. It´s known for it´s DVDs and CDs, which all cost 3 soles (or $1) because they don´t have many copyright laws here so pirating is huge. I thought I would just casually browse for some DVDs and see ones that interested me, but it was soooo--- overwhelming and the catalogs of DVDs were too big for me to pick up. I decided that I will have to make a list of DVDs and go back when I am more prepared. I also checked out the clothing section, and I found a great knock-off Lacoste polo shirt for only 20 soles. Lacoste is manufactured here, and I´m willing to bet they´re either former employees that stole the designs or just slightly defective products from the factories. I also noticed a lot of Play Stations and other game systems, so I will be on a mission to find games for my old Nintendo; I noticed games and products for Nintendo 64, the version after my Nintendo, but I will have to search harder to find games for my vintage system.

This weekend a lot of people from my program went to a volunteer program called Techo Para Mi País, which means Roof for my Country and is sort of like the Habitat for Humanity program in the US. I considered doing it until I spoke with other people who had previously gone and realized it would probably be my worst nightmare. Instead of casually nailing or painting while socializing, you and a group of 4 other people literally build an entire concrete house beginning at 5am and finishing when it gets dark and you sleep outside in sleeping bags. I felt a little lonely and bored for the first time since so many people were gone. It kind of made me wish I had something I could do by myself, but it´s hard because I often don´t know what is or isn´t safe to do alone. I shared my concerns with my friends from other programs who said it was ok because my hobby is going out, but I think I will need a real hobby sometime soon. Anyway, I hung out a lot with my friend Ashley. Thursday night we went to a club where I ran into a girl in two of my classes, which was a nice surprise. Saturday night we went to a girl´s birthday party (I met her for the first time at this birthday party), but we began the night at a Japanese restaurant where I tried sushi for the first time, and I didn´t really care for it. It was too big of a bite with too many things going on (even though I picked out the fish and all the other things on the inside I didn´t recognize as a part of my eating repetoire). I´m still proud of myself for trying though after 2 years of considering it. I have tried so many things here (I´m more successful when I don´t ask what the things are), but I´ve found so much stuff I surprisingly like and have been missing out on, like beans, that it´s worth it.

Trujillo

This weekend I took a trip to a small city called Trujillo in the dessert of northern Peru. I left Lima at 10:30pm on Thursday night, and arrived in Trujillo at about 7am Friday morning after an 8+ hour bus ride, which actually wasn´t so bad because we watched A Cinderella Story and had intensely reclining seats that were pretty comfortabe. However, we did nap immediately upon checking into our hostal. When we woke up to begin the day a few hours later, we ate breakfast and made plans to go to Chan Chan, a big cluster of ruins from the Chimu civilization from 1200 - 1400 (when they were taken over by the Incas). The ruins were about 15 minutes outside of Trujillo and we hired a guide when we got there who taught us all about the culture and the ruins. Though they´re still excavating, we got to walk through a palace that was constructed like a maze, and it turns out there were 7 of them. They had a really cool irrigation system with an oasis-like area in the middle of the maze, 2 plazas with stages where they did human sacrifices, and a really interesting funerary complex with 24 graves because when the king died they killed all of his concubines. Then we drove to another section of the ruins called the Huaca Arco Iris Temple, which was a lot smaller, but a temple from which you can always see a rainbow after it rains. At the temple there were lots of the national Peruvian dogs running around- they have a really warm body temperature so they´re recommended to sleep with people with arthritis, but they are hairless and so ugly I would never get one.

When we returned to Trujillo and ate lunch, it was too late to do anything else but explore the city. We went to a toy museum that I was really looking forward to, but it turned out to be pretty creepy. We also went to the Lion´s Club to get a schedule of events because Trujillo has a month-long festival celebrating spring called Festival de la Primavera, which began on the 20th. We finally ended up in a clothing store called TopiTop trying on some of the tackiest clothing we could find. After dinner and another nap, we wanted to go out for the night, but all of the bars and clubs in our guidebooks turned out kind of lame. Finally we decided to check out a bar some people we met in TopiTop said they had recently opened called the Bohemia. When we arrived it was basically a small group of people with the two owners we met earlier and a band rehearsing. The band asked us if we knew any drum players because the drummers wife was having a baby, and my friend Stephanie said jokingly that she played the drums, but unfortunately they did not think it was a joke. Needless to say, the band quickly discovered she had no clue what she was doing, so she decided to make it worse and tell them I could sing (we all know how I sing). This turned into all of us and the band making some sort of mock band (after singing one song, the band´s singer handed me the tamborine), and we performed (if you can call it that) many Beattles songs, which led to Stephanie being nicknamed Gringo Star. Our concert was so good everyone encouraged us to return the next night but early, before the real band played.

The next morning we woke up early to see another set of ruins called the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna. These ruins were from another civilization called the Mochica, which dates from 100-900 but weren´t discovered until 1995! Right now there are basically two pyramids (one for the sun and one for the moon). They´re structured in layers (the sun is 11 levels and the moon is 5) because each time a ruler died they sealed the layer he ruled on and built a new one. As a joke, we told our guide that we were a Beattles cover band and in Trujillo because we played a concert last night. The guide took us in the moon pyramid, and there were amazingly decorated walls with the original brightly-colored paint. As we were leaving we saw a group of actors rehearsing a performance, which our guide informed us was for a really, really famous guy from the US named Robert Wilson who is so famous that none of us have ever heard of him nor could our guide tell us why he is famous. We just wanted to take a picture with the actors, but their director would not let them escape. Finally, we talked to the actor we took to be the King (he was especially serious about his performance), and we started telling him about our band and our concert when he cut us off to tell us he and his band were playing at the Bohemia later that night. His band was called Big Balls. We discovered Trujillo was a very small city.

After the ruins we went to a beach called Huanchaco, about 10 minutes from Trujillo. The weather was beautiful for a change from Lima, and the sand was so soft. The water was too cold for me, but there were a lot of people surfing because the waves were awesome (the biggest wave in the world was about an hour away). We enjoyed a nice lunch on the beach and got ice cream twice. There were also these boats called Cabellitos, which means little horse because you ride them like horses. They´re made out of straw and people fish on them, but I was too scared to take a ride (they looked really unstable). After watching the sunset on the beach, we returned to Trujillo via a packed micro (but everything had been costing a lot of money between expensive food, guides, taxis that had to wait at these rural sites, admission fees, etc.). We rinsed off the sand, got some dinner, and naturally returned to see the King perform at Bohemia and his singing was just as over the top as his acting. We were so exhausted from our busy weekend that we barely made it to the bus at 11:45. We had a really awesome view on the way home because we sat on the second level in the front row with panoramic windows, so we saw sugar cane fields and endless mountains and desserts, but it was also kind of scary because the highway was only two lanes (one in each direction) yet the bus passed people by using the lane going the opposite way. The ride back felt a lot longer and less plesant (probably because they showed dismal movies and served nasty food), but I passed the time thinking about how awesome the trip was and how lucky I am to spend my weekends like this.

Parque de la Reserva

The highlight of my week was going to a so-called water park in the center of Lima called Parque de la Reserva. It was incredible! We finally decided to go because we pass it on our way home from volunteering at the clinic on Wednesdays and since we work so hard there (this week we began to outline the 4 different presentations we´re going to offer to the high schools and made a giant chart about all the choices people have in their sex lives), so we always feels like we deserve a treat afterwards. There were about 20 fountains, each with a unique name and different story. My favorite was called El tunnel de sorpresas (The Tunnel of Surprises) and it was literally a tunnel of water that arched so high you could walk underneath without getting wet. There was another fountain that was like a maze that you could run though if you timed it correctly, but if you didn´t time it correctly the water popped up and soaked you. The fountain in the first picture below was the center of the whole park, and it was actually more like a show. It played music (one classical montage, the Star Wars song, etc.) and the water and lights were actually choreographed to the music! The whole park was incredible, and I would go every week if I could (and had people willing to go back with me).

I spent a lot of time this week with my host brother because he had to stay home from school sick because he had stomach problems. We played endless games of Memory (I´m getting closer to winning), watched the new animated Disney movie Wall-E (it´s already out on bootleg DVD, but unfortunately, it was dubbed in Spanish), and invented all sorts of other games to play. One time when I insisted I had to do my homework, he reverted to playing with my host-mom, but he played hide-and-seek during which he hid under my bed for at least a half hour. He also wanted me to read to him, but I had to forge ahead with my homework (speaking of which I have a 1000 word paper due on Monday that I´m really nervous about), so I read to him from this reading about the evolution of andian culture and neither of us understood much. Speaking of schoolwork, everything is getting a little easier for me, perhaps with the exception of that particular article. One of my classes was canceled this week, I turned in a paper for another class (which I hope turned out well), I submitted my journal with 3 entires for my Spanish class, and I read a really interesting article about the history of Peruvian music.
Today I took a trip with some people in my program to a pueblo joven, which means young town. We went to a district called Villa El Salvador, which is actually not that young as it´s about 30 year old, but it´s one of the most successful and developed pueblos. Basically it was founded when a bunch of immigrants (about 200) from the mountains and the jungle who were living with their relatives in Lima got together and decided to branch out on their own. The issue of land is sort of controversial (and it was somewhat difficult to understand the explanation in Spanish), but all the land in Peru is state-owned so the immigrants sort of stole the land when they began to build on it. Still, they established their own government and schools, and now they have 43 schools in the whole district! They´re also really famous for women´s rights because a leader in their development encouraged women to take active roles in the communtity, but her story has a tragic end because when she was serving as the community´s mayor she was assassinated by the Shining Path in their aim to eliminate leaders, but because she was so popular her murder represented a big turning point as people began to staunchly oppose the Shining Path. We visited her monument as well as an NGO that works with kids in afterschool programs and a photography exhibit.

Other than going to the Fountain Park, spending time with my little host brother, and taking a trip to the pueblo joven, my week was pretty uneventful. Monday we had a meeting with the director of Flora Tristán to tell her how our first week went. We had prepared a list of things we sort of needed that we thought we may possibly get before we leave (like paint, posters, pillows, etc.), and when we shared it with Pilar, she made moves instantly! She got us a huge stack of posters (and tape, markers, and giant paper), found old painting supplies, and made plans to take us shopping on Friday. Unfortunately, when we went to the office Friday, she told us the check hadn´t yet come, but we rescheduled for Tuesday and went to a nearby artisan market instead. We also visited with our program assistant director in the afternoon, and though we intended to go only to get the money she owed us for our cabs, her 1-year-old daughter fell asleep in Stephanie´s lap and her adorable dog fells asleep in my lap, and we couldn´t leave! Thursday I spent time with my favorite professor Rocío who it feels like I haven´t seen in ages even though it was only about 2 weeks. Afterwards I went to my friend Ashley´s house to celebrate her 21st birthday. All this activity has made me pretty tired and a little behind on my schoolwork, so I´m making it an early Saturday night and hoping to catch up tomorrow.

Cusco & Machu Pichu

I just got back from a 4-day trip with my program to Cusco, a city of about 200,000 in the mountains of northern Perú. I left my house at about 5:15am to make my flight, and when we arrived at our hotel, the first thing I did was sleep. We went to lunch at a pizza restaurant (actually, the same one we went to in Iquitos), but after I ordered my food I started to feel really, really sick. I felt dizzy, short-of-breath, really hot, and incredibly nauseous, so I sat outside on the curb with my head down and the waitress brought me coco tea (it´s tea made with leaves from the cocaine plant that helps with altitude sickness). After sleeping for the rest of the afternoon, I thought I would go to our only scheduled event of the day, an andian concert at 7pm, but as I was waiting to go, I felt incredibly sick again. A hotel employee brought me oxygen and alcohol to rub on my forehead (this is also supposed to help with altitude sickness) every hour, and I passed the time watching Flavor of Love III (which just premiered 3 weeks ago) until everyone returned at 10pm. I felt a lot better after the extensive treatments, so I tried to eat breakfast the next morning, but I threw up the tiny piece of bread I ate. A few hours later, I felt so much better and knew I could enjoy the rest of the trip.

On the afternoon of the second day, we took a bus for about 45 minutes to a rural community in the mountains to visit a bilingual school (Spanish and an indigenous language, not English). The director of the school explained that he and his wife just took over the school as a project because the Peruvian government wants to send the students from the rural communities into the city schools where they will not be able to practice their native language. We got to play with the kids, which was so much fun! They just wanted us to hold them and swing them around, but we also taught them Double Dutch beacuse they were jumping rope with only one rope. Afterwards, we went to a café the director set up so the proceeds can benefit the school. Once we returned to Cusco, I ate my first meal of the entire trip- tomato soup and pasta with pesto. Some of my friends tried more exotic dishes like alpaca and cuy (guinea pig). In the evening, we took a tour with an author from Cusco who showed us how Cusco is beautiful due to the simple Incan architecture. The tour was pretty boring, but we got to see Garcilaso de la Vega (a famous Spanish author)´s house. Afterwards, we saw the most famous church in Cusco called Santo Domingo (the Spaniard built a church on top of Incan ruins during the Colonial period), did some shopping (there are tons of craft markets in Cusco), and attended the hotel´s happy hour where I discovered my new favorite drink called Sex on Machu Pichu (it´s pineapple, mango, and banana juice with the Peruvian liquor Pisco), but I could only have one because of the altitude.

On the third day, we went to Machu Pichu! We had to wake up around 5:30 because it takes so long to travel there. We took a bus for about 2 hours, a train for another 2 hours, and a bus up a the mountain for about 20 minutes. We had a guide named Guido who didn´t tell us that much information, but you can´t enter without a guide. We took a 45 minute hike up to an area they say is like a view from a postcard. They joke that Machu Pichu becomes Many Photos and it definitely does, and I´m still concerned that I didn´t take enough photos! After the incredible view, we walked down in the ruins. Then we had some free time to just relax among the giant rocks and free-roaming llamas. It was surprisingly hot and walking in the altitude was kind of difficult, but it was such an amazing experience. My pictures don´t really do it justice, but I still did get to see one of the seven wonders of the world! That night we fell asleep pretty quickly and unfortunately had to leave Cusco early the next morning. I´d love to go back, maybe with my parents, but I´m not sure if I´m willing to suffer through altitude sickness again.

Flora Tristán

I recently started volunteering at Peruvian´s women´s organization, Flora Tristán. When I first decided to work there, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into other than spreading feminism across the country. Flora Tristán´s central office is in Lima, and Stephanie and I went to interview there, accompanied by Marion the assistant program director, two mondays ago. We met with Pilar, the director of Flora Tristán, who was so welcoming and expressed high hopes for our work. She gave us an overwhelming 30 page paper that a grad student wrote about a year ago when they asked her to evaluate their clinic SISMU (Integrated Heath for Women), which is a lot like a Planned Parenthood. Even though the document was kind of intense, we had tons of ideas when we arrived for our first day at the clinic last Wednesday. Pilar took us and introduced us to the 2 doctors, 2 lawyers, 4 promoters, specimen analysist, and director that make up the clinic. Our main job is to be advisers for basically anyone that wants to talk, but they want us to put together some more formal programs (especially for high school students) and create things that other volunteers can use in the future. The room we´ll be working in is really dingy (I think this is evident in the picture below), but they told us we could paint and re-decorate to make it more inviting and comfortable (comfort is key because I sat on the couch, and thought `Ouch, I must have sat on the divider,´so I moved over and realized that you can feel bars in your butt no matter where you sit). We went back today for our first real day on the job, unsure if there woud actually be anyone to advise. Luckily, one of the doctors did some training with us (it was kind of repeat stuff, like `here is your vaginia´and `this is why you get your period,´but it was good to learn the terminology in Spanish). We spent the rest of our time learning about family planning and the various methods we can recommend until the specimen analysist (the only male in the clinic) came in to report he had someone that needed advising, and with a horrified look on my face I asked `now?´ He explained the problem that her family is Catholic and she joined an evangelical sect, and Stephanie responded `wait, what is the problem?´We think she may be pregnant or something (or else, why would she come to a women´s clinic and how are we supposed to advise her on Catholicism), but we have a few weeks to prepare. All in all the day was pretty successful, except getting pretty seriously lost on the way there. The neighborhood is pretty dangerous so much so I don´t even tell my host family where the actual location is. Marion misunderstood our arrangements, so we had to find a taxi on the street, which we got for a reasonable price, and was comfortable until he told us we were there (we asked 3 times and showed him our map), and since we were still unsure which way to walk we asked a police man who reported we were at least 20 blocks away. We took another taxi the police man contracted for us, but he got really, really lost, and got out to ask for directions 4 times; on the 5th attempt to get directions, we realized we were right outside the clinic and it probably needs a better sign. We consoled ourselves by going to a delicious crepe restaurant once our work was done. Hopefully next week we won´t feel compelled to treat ourselves afterwards.

Parque de las Leyendas

Yesterday I went to the Zoo in Lima, which is called Parque de las Leyendas (Park of the Legends). It´s located right behind our university, so Stephanie and I went after class. It was really, really big, so we spent about 3 hours walking around, and I´m pretty sure we didn´t even see everything. The coolest thing about the Zoo is that it´s built around a bunch of ruins, so you can look 30+ different sites or ruins while looking at the animals. The least cool thing about the Zoo is that the animals seemed to have really small cages and everything seemed kind of dirty (examples: leftover food and icky water), so I felt a little bad for the animals. Also, all the signs read `do not cross the security fence because I don´t want to hurt you,´but that didn´t mean a lot to people because they got really close and even fed animals vending machine food like Doritos. My favorite section of the Zoo was the sierra section because it had all the llamas, alpacas, and other weird animals I´ve never seen before from Peru´s mountains. We also really liked the selva section because it reminded us of our trip, though we saw at least 200 more monkeys at the Zoo than we did in the actual jungle. Other than that, the Zoo lived up to all of it´s hype, and I´m looking forward to taking my Mom when she comes in a month or so.