Al Principio…

Thanks for being patient with my comparative lack of communication. (Apparently making my blog public is a pain in the butt, which is dumb since it defeats the purpose of a blog. But hey, I didn’t choose the site and they’re paying me to do it, so whatever. I’ll just post here too.) Although Cusco is far from primitive, it took me some time to get settled and figure out how/where/how often I can have internet, to make sure I didn’t need a converter for power, and to just work out the technicalities of living in a new place.

I guess I should start at the beginning and review basic events of my first few days.

For those of you who don’t know, I left the US on Jan. 13, 2010 for Cusco, Peru. I am studying here until April 22, and will be returning to the US on May 1 (yeah… don’t really know what I’m doing for the last 8 days… but if you have suggestions, I’m open! I’m going to try to get to Chile or to Tupe, where the language of my box is spoken) I’m enrolled in 16 credit hours (officially) with a program at Centro Bartolomè de las Casas, a research center and library here in Cusco. It’s not technically a university, but we still have classes tailored to our interests and requirements, and taught by professors. 

Anyway, more on that later. The flights here were fairly uneventful. I met Lauren Hack, my roommate, in the Miami airport. The meeting was entertaining, and involved us both awkwardly staring at each other for a few minutes before talking and confirming that we were with the same program and were not, in fact, just being creepy. Going through customs was no big deal, and we weren’t forcefully interrogated or anything, though it was kind of awkward, as it always is, especially since I am brown and was therefore expected to know better Spanish than I do. Go figure.

Once we got to Cusco someone on our program’s staff, came to pick us up from the airport in Cusco. My first impressions of Cusco were actually quite similar to my first impression of the Andaman Islands in India, as weird as that sounds. It’s a fairly small town with an airport about the size of the one on the islands. The cars are smaller than they are in the US, and the place smells like Delhi, like that mixture of car exhaust, spices, and what should be fresh air (though obviously mountain air rather than the sea breeze of the islands… it’s still fresh after a rain). The mountains are gorgeous though, I’ll upload pictures whenever I have fast connection and patience at the same time.

We first went to a hotel via taxi. It was weird being out of breath after the short walk from the taxi to the room, but because of the altitude, it wasn’t surprising. We’re at around 10,900 feet above sea level, and obviously Tampa is pretty close to 0ft. After getting settled in, Lauren and I went out to explore the city. We discovered the main plaza, called La Plaza de Armas, a couple of markets, our school (the CBC), and a place to get notebooks and school supplies. After lunch in a market (noodle soup for 2.5 soles which is about 80 cents, and it was AMAZING!! Plus the woman who served us was really nice and put up with our terrible Spanish… I realized later that there was raw cilantro in the soup and I probably could have died… but I didn’t, so it’s all good.) Then, we walked back to the hotel and slept for a few hours. Because of the altitude, we were both exhausted. Less oxygen = less energy. In the evening, we walked around some more, had dinner out, and then came back and slept early. It’s becoming a habit of mine to go to bed around 10pm and be up by around 6:30. Strange, yes, but oddly satisfying.

I also learned the benefits of being able to ask locals and other travelers questions. The restaurant we ate at that night was quite literally a 2.5-foot wide hole in a wall, which led into a small courtyard. At one end of the courtyard was a brightly lit room where you were supposed to order, and it had some long wooden tables to eat at.

The second day, the other girls started arriving after breakfast. There are 9 of us in this specific program. We got to talk quite a bit, and got to know each other. We had both lunch and dinner as a group, but during the afternoon just walked around the city. The altitude was enough to tire us for the first few days, but now most of us are completely fine. It was weird to get winded walking up a flight of stairs, but it’s good to rationalize being a lazy butt also. 

I bought a small coin purse in a market since Peruvian sols are coins for: 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 centimos (100 centimos = 1 sol) AND 1, 2, and 5 sols. Only 10 and up are bills, and most daily transactions (transportation, basic food, etc) are in coins. Paying for a bus which costs 60 centimos with a 10 or 20 sol bill is just begging to be pickpocketed. Plus, it’s a pain for all persons involved. I think the only time I’ve paid in bills was for food and drinks (not that I’m taking advantage of the lack of a drinking age or anything…)

The third day, on Saturday, our host families picked us up. I’m glad they gave us a couple days to get used to the country, language, altitude, etc. before introducing us. I had a pretty epic headache on Friday morning because of oxygen deprivation because of the altitude, so I slept most of the morning.

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Anyway, the family is extremely nice. Lauren and I really could not have asked for anything more. We live in the smallest apartment out of all the girls (some of their families even gave them a choice of rooms!), and ours is 3 small-ish bedrooms (the largest is about the size of my room at home, and the smallest is only slightly larger than my dorm room), 1 bathroom, a living area, and a small kitchen, but it’s cozy. It’s also part of my personality though; I tend to be happier with less junk. They have a son who is my age (turns 20 in October) and who is studying at the University in Cusco, and a daughter who is in a boarding high school in Lima, the capital of Peru. Saturday we basically got to know the family better, and drank enormous amounts of tea. We almost drink more tea here than we did in India. The most popular and best known is called ‘mate de coca’ (pronounced ‘mah-teh') and is made from the leaves of the same plant used to manufacture cocaine.

Before you get excited, it’s not addictive or harmful, I asked. It takes 20 kilos of leaves plus 18 different chemicals and weeks of processing to get cocaine. It’s been helping me altitude sickness though (symptoms include headache, exhaustion, mild wheezing) and some stomach issues from getting used to the food. I guess it’s just enough to relax you. Also, since buildings here don’t have internal heating or AC, a hot drink quickly warms you up. Even though we’re just south of the Equator, the altitude makes this place colder than most winter days in Florida… highs have been in the low 60s, and lows in the mid-40s. I’ve been drinking 4-5 cups of tea a day, but ‘mate’ is different from ‘te’ and means an infusion: only leaves and water, no milk or sugar.

Last Sunday, we went to church with the family. I’ve always been a bit weirded out by Catholicism, but they had a hymn to the tune of ‘The Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel, so we got a kick out of that. Also, the father in our host family, Willy (short for William of course) is a native speaker of Quechua, an indigenous language of Peru, and he’s been teaching me words and phrases, so after church we went to the market and I recorded what I could from him. It’s fun to be able to greet him in Quechua, Spanish, and English in the morning, and to know that I can also hold a basic conversation in two more languages! I know on an international scale 5 languages is nothing, especially since I’m not fluent in anything but English, but it’s still cool for me.

In the afternoon, we went to the house of the mother of our host mother (Marilyn). We had lunch there, and spent several hours talking. Some members of the extended family were there also, and had fun making fun of our terrible Spanish. Lauren and I have accepted that between us we can almost carry a decent conversation. It’s amazing how fast my Spanish is improving though. It’s only been a week and I’m already having coherent, if not fluent, conversations.

It’s getting late now, so I’m going to sum up the last couple days, and progress in basic language, culture, etc.

Classes are going pretty well. I’m in 6 hours of Spanish, 3 of Political Science, 3 of culture/art/history, and 4 of ‘development’. I was originally placed in the basic Spanish class, but they moved me up to Intermediate because I was bored witless in the easier one. The advanced is definitely beyond me though. It only has 2 students both of whom are both Spanish majors. Development was a little annoying because it’s being taught from a Euro-centric perspective, but maybe that’ll change with time. I’m trying to be patient since it’s only the first week. The culture class is probably going to be my favorite, but I think it’ll be interesting to get a grounding in political science, since right now I don’t know anything.

Spanish is awesome. It’s coming along really well, and it’s fun to learn the differences between Andean Spanish and ‘Castillian’ (Spain/standard) Spanish. Some words and pronunciations are slightly different, but if I was not a linguistics major and had not been trained to hear the differences, then I would not even notice them. Willy and a few others have also been teaching me a bit of Quechua. It’s interesting how similar it is to Jaqaru and Aymara, other indigenous Peruvian languges, even though it’s not even in the same language family. It’s like the similarities between Hindi and Spanish, even though they’re completely different grammatically. I’m enjoying it, and it’s fun to impress people in the market by being able to tell them I’m from the US in their own language, especially since so many Peruvians don’t even speak it. Nerdy, perhaps, but you know we’re all like that in our own fields.

Peruvian food is awesome. Our host family makes sure we have plenty of fruit, toast, and tea (or coffee) every morning for breakfast, and sometimes we have cheese or cereal with it. We generally don’t have milk products other than cheese though… not sure why, but I don’t really miss it. After morning classes (9am-12pm) we take the combi (a miniature bus, but with the same idea) home for lunch. We have 3 hours of siesta (12-3pm). Lunch is easily the largest meal of the day. On weekends, we started with a soup, had a starch, some vegetables, sometimes chicken, and dessert (flan, jello-ish stuff, or just fruit and honey). During the week, it’s a bit simpler. For instance, rice or potatoes with vegetables steamed, sautéed, or roasted with different spices, and fruit for dessert.

They have also been introducing us to traditional drinks. I had chica morada in the US, and the family here made it for us as well. One night, all of us went out also, and I had a ‘pisco sour’ which is similar to a whiskey sour but with a local liquor called pisco. I had to be a bit careful though, since the altitude augments the effect of alcohol. On the plus side, the combination of the exchange rate and the altitude makes it much cheaper drink here… the family is also trying to convince me to drink a 1.1 L Pilsen by myself tomorrow for my birthday… that could end badly.

So far as money goes, the exchange rate is definitely favorable. I have mixed feelings about bartering with the craftspeople selling their handmade alpaca hats, scarves, etc. for the equivalent of $2-$15 on average. On one side it’s great to be able to get awesome clothing for amazing prices, but on the other hand, a hat takes at least 3-4 hours most likely… and that’s a lot of work for a small pay off.

So far as the general ‘aura’ or ‘feel’ of the place goes, everyone should visit some time. It’s a comparatively small town up in the mountains, and it’s so relaxing. Somehow it really is impossible to be stressed out here. Classes start at 9am, but I’ve been waking up at 6:45 almost on the dot every morning, showering leisurely, eating breakfast and talking with the host family, before leaving around 8:30 to catch the combi to class. It takes about 25 minutes to get to the CBC, but it’s a good time to review vocabulary, talk to the people on the combi, and ponder the morning events. Willy normally gives me a Quechua lesson in the morning, since later we have homework, go out with the other girls, or do other stuff too.

            The CBC isn’t technically a university, but it’s an internationally known research center in the humanities and social sciences of the Andes. For instance, the history, linguistics, politics, and culture of the mountains primarily of Peru of course, but also of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Its library has over 50,000 volumes in addition to articles, maps, censuses, and other records. I’m hoping to be able to look into their volumes more while I’m here, though I haven’t had much of a chance so far. I’ve already seen grammars of Quechua, Huascan, Aymara, and a couple other indigenous languages, though I have yet to find any of Kawki. I kind of wish that we were studying at an actual university, but at the same time there’s no better place to learn about Andean culture. Plus, I’ve gotten to know a couple other travelers, and the extended family of my host family. We’ll see how it goes. I’m pretty confident right now though so we’ll see where the semester will take me.

            It’s hard to believe that already I’ve been here a week (more or less). For some reason, it’s taken me a lot less time to adjust to life here than it did in India…. I really don’t know why.

We do have wireless internet in the CBC, but taking the computer is a little difficult and dangerous, especially if we mess around the city after classes. I’ll probably average about one note per week.

Hasta luego!

-Geeta