This week started out kind of rough. I woke up Monday and realized that my volunteer work, which I had thought would start the next week, actually began in half an hour. I showed up disoriented and nervous to the school and after a very short tour of the facilities, I was left alone in charge of a 6th grade class that liked to fight with rolls of paper. Just me and them for an hour. I didn’t know the school’s schedule so one of the kids had to point out to me that it was recess and everyone else was outside playing in the sun and why can’t we go?
But everything is all right. I talked with my program directors and I am going to take another week of only Spanish classes in order to be able to communicate clearly with the students. I will restart teaching on the 5th of October.
Almost every night is a beautiful dark adventure. The other night, the four of us (Ines, Kelsi, Simone, and myself) found ourselves in a tiny little shop with incredibly beautiful handmade jewelry. Peruvian turquoise is a swirl of deep greens and blues, and every stone looks like a miniature earth on a cloudless day. They had rings, handmade clothing, and didgeridoos.
We asked a guy there if he knew how to play and he grabbed a tall and curvy one made from the roots of some old tree and he rocked that thing like I couldn’t imagine was possible. Just then, two men on stilts with satin pants walked in and started dancing to the strange ancient beats. After that, we went out and danced hard until the morning and until our bones were sore and it hurt to laugh.
This past weekend I cooked a huge lunch for my family because lunch is the biggest meal of the day. I went to the market and got two giant bags full of the freshest fruits and vegetables for $10. I rushed back home, taking care not to break the figs, and played CAKE on my computer because the food always tastes better when you listen to CAKE while you’re cooking. I made a mint and garlic soup with violets, Brianna’s fresh corn and green bean salad, Grace’s amazing avocado tower, my figs baked with cream cheese, rosemary, and maple syrup, and to drink, Brianna’s fresh grape and ginger soda. It was pretty good but I had about a cup’s worth of salt more than I needed in the soup and my host family doesn’t really like ginger.
The next morning Kelsi, Simone, and I took a collective taxi to the pueblo of Chinchero. We walked around the market looking at textiles and virgin paintings. There are many virgin saints that protect the various neighborhoods and pueblos. My favorite is the Virgen de Fatima because, like the rain, for some reason it reminds me of home. Kelsi works with women in Chinchero who make textiles, and so we went to their house and visited them for a while. One of the women was eating soup with a jaw bone in it.
A new student arrived recently from Germany and Centro Tinku now has three German girls and two estadounidenses (Kelsy y yo). Her name is Stephanie and this Thursday she is going to go with Simone and me to Machu Picchu. I have learned that there are two c’s in Picchu for a reason. It is pronounced (ma-choo pik-choo) with the k coming from the back of the throat. I have had some conversations with random people in the street about the Quechua language and they all say that it is extremely expressive and onomatopoetic. For instance, wawa is the word for baby because that is the sound they make. Machu means old and Picchu means either mountain or penis.
I don’t know if I’ve already written about the Fallen Angel but I love it. Their tables are glass-topped bath tubs with illuminated fish swimming around. Really great art fills the entire building which is a work of art in itself, and their food is incredible.
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