In the land where the fanny packs reign

Yes, it’s true. I’ve seen way too many fanny packs in the past few months than my poor eyes and fashion sense would care to handle. I demand the CLG throw me a fanny-pack themed welcome back party. Has anyone actually thought about the name fanny-pack? I mean, logically, shouldn’t they be worn on the rear end rather than the front?

I write to you from the magic alcove of my room, where I sit scrunched in between three walls, in the birthing position (gingerbread man? delivery room?), my feet pushed up against one wall and my laptop awkwardly in between my legs, as if I were giving birth to it. Why am I in this position, you may ask? And more importantly, why did I just describe it in such unnecessary details? As for the second question, I cannot answer. Maybe because I have acquired a taste for coffee, and I drank some this morning, and caffeine tends to have unusual effects on my brain activity. As for the first question, I am here because the internet connection of our house doesn’t reach my room, and furthermore, in order to even turn it on I have to walk up a set of stairs, which I am too lazy to do. As a result, I often wait for the neighbors to turn on their connection, and the fastest connection I can find is when I’m giving birth to a computer in a corner. If you’re wondering what music I’m listening to, that would be the beautiful sounds of Lima – rushing cars, piercing sirens, and barking/howling dogs. They bark in Spanish, of course. Instead of saying Ruff Ruff or Woof Woof, they say Wa Wa Wa.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been for the past two weeks, the answer is Lima. And more specifically, I am generally found in the three-walled alcove. However, if you’re wondering what I’ve been up to, well that’s an entirely different story! Mostly birthing my computer. But I’ve managed to squeeze a few other things in (no pun intended) (ouch, that pun gave me a gross image. I hope it didn’t do the same to anyone else) (I fear that I might need to put a PG-13 rating on this blog).

Well, to pick up where I left off last entry, my birthday was lovely. I completed my twenty years with a smattering of family and friends, and a delicious chocolate cake (I didn’t get smattered in it though). My favorite part was when they all sang to me, because in Peru the tradition is to sing the song in English, even though it sounds more like “Heppy bethay” than happy birthday. Afterwards, I went out dancing, but accidentally didn’t comply with my promise to stay out until 7 in the morning, and only made it until 3:30. Maybe someday. Over the rainbow. Oh wait, that’s someWHERE over the rainbow.

Last week when I asked a woman to cut my hair for me because the ends were super dry, she insisted that I needed not a trim but a “capillary treatment.” She mixed some eggs, oil, flour, baking soda, sugar, and chocolate chips, and then stuck my head in a 350 degree oven and cooked it for about 10 minutes. When I re-emerged, my hair was as fresh as new and nice and soft. In addition, it smelled really good. Actually, I think I may be mixing that up with the batch of cookies I mixed up for my Peruvian family. Much to my lament, my mother decided they weren’t cooked enough and stuck them back in the oven (without my permission, I might add) until they were crispy as bacon, because she thought they were tastier that way (and they even tasted like bacon! She must have a magic touch). Good thing I had eaten a few gooey ones while they were still the way I liked them. Indeed I did receive a treatment on my hair: 2 eggs, a splotch of vinegar, some drops of oil, conditioner, two plastic bags, and one half hour of waiting and awkward conversation. I felt like one of those old ladies drying her hair underneath those big metal colanders, except with a warm eggy mixture dribbling down my face, neck, and chest. The things people do for beauty. Needless to say, I felt as if I were in a very natural state, and I will be receiving the treatment daily for the next two months.

And if you’re wondering how they celebrate Halloween here, I shall tell you. And then given the fact that I stayed at home and baked cookies with my friend, you can decide where I belong. According to my mother, the poor kids go out trick-or-treating in badly-made costumes, the middle class goes to Halloween parties, and the old people celebrate the traditional holiday, El Día de la Canción Criolla. I wasn’t previously aware that these were the only three groups of Peruvian society, but I’m glad that now I know! Ah, the things I’ve learned in Peru!

Trust me, I am one busy lady!

Well, well, well….I have not posted on this blog in too long. I fear my many readers are losing interest. I was originally going to wait until our next Christmas letter to send out an update, but I figured the chances of it coming out before 2075 were less than 0.002%. And by then I probably won’t even remember how to speak Spanish, or that I even came to Peru in the first place. In fact, I may not even remember my own name.

Before I continue, I’d just like to point out that it’s el día de mi santo (the day of my saint). Aka the 20^th time the Earth has been aligned in more or less the same spot that it was on the day I was conceived (I mean the day I was born…I don’t really think anyone wants to get into the conceiving part. Why am I talking about this? Well, you bwought it up. My plan is to close this subject as soon as I close these parentheses). I’m not even really sure who my saint is. I wasn’t even aware that I had my own personal saint, but I think that’s pretty cool. It’s kind of like when I had my own fairy when I was little. Who actually turned out to be my mother. However, for the purpose of this entry, I think I need to move past my childhood traumas.

As for my day so far, it has been pretty normal. I woke up with some allergies, sneezed a few times, and then blew my nose. Then I got back into bed and began writing this. Actually, before that I drank a gulp of water. Which came from the faucet. Which is part of the good news - I started drinking water from the faucet in my house and haven’t yet suffered any mysterious illnesses! Well, I do hear barking dogs pretty much 24/7. But I attributed that to the high number of dogs in my house. Hmmm, I wonder if I’ve been imagining the dogs the whole time and I’m actually going crazy from drinking the water. Life is full of possibilities!

Pause.

SHOUTOUT:

To my cousin and lovely godmother Jessica, you’re probably not reading this today (today meaning October 16^th, not today meaning whatever day you read it. Obviously that makes no sense because if it weren’t today there would be something wrong with the space-time continuum. Which I don’t really understand in the first place) – I would just like to wish you a VERY happy birthday! I am honored to be born on the same day as you, and I will always remember the time that we had our cake with the trick candles and I was afraid of them so you had to blow them out for me. I miss you!

Unpause.

Let’s get on with it, shall we? I don’t know who that crazy lady was that thought she could just bust in and interrupt my blog entry. Aha, I thought of some other good news! STUDENT VISA GRANTED! It was the best birthday present ever. Actually that’s a lie, nothing could have topped the Skip-It I received when I was in second grade. But that one will be lost forever. Luckily my family gave me another one a few years ago, but it’s just not the same as Pet. Nothing goes right. Everything goes wrong. For Pet and me, it’s a big problem to solve. But I know we never will.

Oops didn’t mean to get all sentimental there. I have a pretty rough life sometimes. Why don’t I focus on writing about my current life, rather than the one I suffered in elementary school?

For starters, I’ve been shamelessly stalking birds lately. I have to take pictures of them for my ecology class. I got bored and started taking pictures of the deer that wander around campus. They generally feast off of students’ lunch leftovers when kids leave their trays scattered around. Once I was calmly reading and a deer approached me and started drinking my coffee. It was rather rude. I told him to go away, but I don’t think he spoke English. (Disclaimer: this entire paragraph is actually true).

I have also begun stalking people in the library, conducting experiments on concentration levels for my psychology class. We discovered a shocking fact – most Peruvian students are distracted while they work in the library!

In an attempt to learn to move my body before it’s too late (though I think I may have already passed that point), I enrolled in an Afro-Peruvian dance class. We are currently learning a dance called Alcatraz, in which everyone is supposed to wear a little tail of fabric on their rear end, and each person holds a candle in their right hand. Then you chase people around and light their butts on fire, and they have to shake their waists enough that the fire goes out. Luckily for everybody in my class, we do not use real candles, or else at this point, misfortunatate parts of our bodies would be rather charred. Due to my lack of both dancing skills and African/Peruvian heritage, I have been laughed at by many-a-student in my class. Well, I can’t really blame them. But I bet I could beat them any day at the Cotton-Eye-Joe. So there.

And finally, everyone will be comforted to know that I have been making weekly trips to the local mental hospital with my Peruvian mother (as a volunteer, not a patient). At first I was a little overwhelmed but don’t worry, I made lots of friends right away! I invited a bunch of them out with me tonight to the discoteca to celebrate my birthday. Yesterday I found myself participating in a march for mental health, with all the volunteers and patients. Definitely a situation I never thought I would find myself in. But this is Peru, and finding myself in strange situations has turned into a normality. In fact, just last week I found myself studying. Odd.

One time, I went to the library.

End of story.

Great Rice Balls of Fire!

LIST # ONE - THINGS I STARTED GETTING A LITTLE TIRED OF (don't worry, the next list is optimistic!):

1. Rice

2. Bread with butter (I miss eating cereal for breakfast)

3. My entire wardrobe being one giant WOC (translation = Wear-Out-Clo = wearing the same clothes basically every day)

4. Really gross humidity mixed with cold weather that makes me all sweaty and completely shivery and freezing at the same time. Its like a 24/7/5 (5 = five months out of the year) fever

5. Putting toilet paper in the trash (I'm telling you, its just weird. (reference: “and the one with the walking stick is just plain weird”))

6. People asking me what I think of the food in Peru (Peruvians are a little obsessed with food. For anyone who is interested, I do like it. I like it all. Except Jell-O. That I cannot handle).

7. Lack of my mother’s Caesar salad =(

LIST # TWO - THINGS I'M NOT YET TIRED OF:

1. Really cheap stuff

2. “Dancing” (well, that’s what I call it, but I can’t really do it very well, hence the quotation marks)

3. Looking at Peruvians (not in a creepy way. I just like the color of their skin. And the way they dress.)

4. Peruvian public transportation (it will always be somewhat of a mystery to me)

5. Smaller amounts of homework (even though it takes me forever because I haven’t exactly mastered the language)

6. Spanish (sometimes it makes more sense than English)

7. The fact that if I show up ten minutes late for class, no one is there yet. Including the teacher.

8. The fact that people here aren’t obsessed with their phones

9. Manjar blanco (extremely delicious thing that tastes sort of like caramel but much more delicious)

10. Writing pointless blog entries

LIST # THREE - CRAZY THINGS THE PSYCHO DOG PICCINA HAS DONE

1. Chewed the carpet up (more than once)

2. Ate dead pigeons that she found outside

3. Found a packet of pills, chewed it up, ingested ten of them, and then threw up all over the place

4. Got into the liquor cabinet and was uncorking a bottle of rum with her teeth when someone discovered her. (I tried to get the family to send her to AA but they didn't take the idea very well)

LIST # FOUR - TRIPS TO THE MIGRATIONS OFFICE

1. First experience with Peruvian bureaucracy. Went in with high hopes. Denied opportunity for student visa because we had no proof we were enrolled in classes. Days running out on tourist visa. Feeling a little bit stressed out.

2. A couple weeks later. Return to office with enrollment form and present all documents. Our acceptance letter to the university in Peru (which is not even required in the first place, I don't know why we needed to show it to them), is in English, and that bothers the lady. She refuses to do anything for us until we have a copy of it in Spanish. Run back to the university to acquire a copy of the letter. Feeling a little pissed off.

3. Approximately one hour later. Back at migrations. Another document needs to be translated to Spanish, so we handwrite it (apparently that's more valid). Go to bank of the nation to pay for change in visa status. Luckily, man accepts our concoction of some necessary, some superfluous, and some handwritten documents (all in Spanish of course). Fingerprint some forms. Transaction can't be processed yet, so man demands we return in 30 days. Beginning to think I'm not wanted in Peru.

4. 30 days later. Denied visa again because apparently it hasn’t actually been thirty days yet. We weren’t supposed to count weekends or holidays (by the way, Mr. Migrations Man, thanks for warning us). Thinking of pitching a tent outside Migrations office.

5. October 12th: next test of fate. Wish me luck. Mother, father, if I randomly show up at your door, don’t be shocked, it's probably just because I've been deported.

Tales of Woe

Tragically, the other day my deodorant stopped working halfway through its life span. Luckily, when I went to the store there was a lady standing in the aisle whose job it was to open whichever deodorant I wanted, take out the plastic block, roll it up, and stick it next to my nose so I could make sure it smelled good before I bought it.

Last night I had a dream that Steph was going into labor and that I was in a wheelchair. I’m not really sure what I’ve been eating or drinking, but I’ve been having weird dreams lately.

The following is a selection of bits of random conversations I have had with people in the past couple months. Taken out of context some of them sound a little odd, but I can assure you they sounded just as odd to me within the context. I would also like to note that I do not want to insult any Peruvians who may happen to be reading this blog; I just thought these comments were worth noting.
Forewarning: all the following conversations and responses take place in Spanish, except for Any Random Peruvian on the Street and Sample Peruvian 2.

Any Random Peruvian on the Street: Hello!

Me: Blah Blah Blah…
Sample Peruvian 1: So, you’re not from here are you.
Sample Peruvian 2: Do yoo espeek eengleesh?
Sample Peruvian 3: So, do you like going to the movies?
Sample Peruvian 4: Would you like to come play poker?

Me: Can you teach me how to read palms too?
Peruvian: You have pretty hands.

(Reference: for those who don’t know, “guapa chica” means “attractive girl”)
Me: Good afternoon, how are you?
Taxi Driver: You’re my first passenger of the night, how lucky I am to have such a guapa chica in my car!
Me: That comment wasn’t necessary. I don’t believe you.
Taxi Driver: Why don’t you believe that you’re guapa?
Me: I’m not answering that question.
Taxi Driver: You’re the only girl I’ve ever met who doesn’t think she’s guapa!

Peruvian of the male species: So, do you have a boyfriend?
Me: No.
Peruvian o.t.m.s.: And why does a girl as pretty as you not have a boyfriend?
WARNING: If anyone else uses that line on me, there will be bad consequences. Probably consisting of me rolling my eyes and walking away.

My Peruvian parents trying to teach me some dance moves: Wow, you actually move pretty well for a gringa!
Me: ….Thank you?

Anyway I realize this entry is a little bit pointless, but I felt like stalling my homework a leetle bit longer, and this was the product of my procrastination. Eventually I'll post the last of the pictures from my trip, so if you're not too bored of reading about my life, feel free to sit at your computer and obsessively refresh the page until I update this blog again! Sank you.

Way down north, way up south

Time for another update of things I did a month ago but didn’t write about until now!

Many-a-Llama and Alpaca I did find

Cusco was the next stop on our journey. I like to make fwends everywhere I go (and Leila, again I am wearing your shirt. Also your fleece).

More New Styles

We became such good friends that he offered to make me a hat out of his very own fur. We got yelled at for taking this picture though. Apparently it was illegal. I was not previously aware that there were any rules in Peru, but this experience proved me wrong. I guess you learn something new every day!

Natural Remedies

Interested in some lipstick? It stays on for 24 hours, and it’s all-natural! I think it’s made out of a leaf of some sort. I almost bought some Inca Shampoo, which is also made from a mysterious indigenous plant, but ultimately decided against it. In the demonstration, however, it worked surprisingly well – it transformed a completely brown and dirty (and wet) clump of llama/alpaca (I don’t really understand the difference) fur into a dazzlingly white cotton cloud. I don’t think it actually became cotton though. And I would hesitate using it on my own hair, because I really don’t think the puffy cloud look would do me any justice.

The Mysterious Machu Picchu

I swear over all the centipedes that I’ve killed’s dead bodies that I actually jumped off the mountain and I actually flied (I mean flew), but unfortunately my personal photographer got lazy and didn’t feel like taking pictures of it, so no one will ever be able to prove it. Hmph.

Macho Machu Picchu

I wish this were the view outside my bedroom window too!

I have no good title for this picture.

I tried to look Peruvian and blend in, but I don’t think it worked. Why is everyone here so short.

Heifetz!

Fetz, thees one ees for tugio. I’m sorry I’m not in the classic pose, nor in the nude. It was a bit too chilly for that. But I couldn’t resist a fountain picture.

Ok, that about concludes the second leg (can you give us a foot?) of my recent embarkment! Soon I will be back to report on the final days (dun dun dun) (suspenseful background music)…

Ovaltine....Puh-haps?

My new father knows how to there there pat. I didn’t even teach him how to do it. It is wry exciting.
Note: if the above sentence didn’t make sense to you, don’t worry. Only my immediate family members will be able to understand it.

Okay, as promised to my millions of fans and followers of this blog, I shall talk about my travels. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I will cut this entry short by posting pictures. Now, where should I start? Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start! (Previous sentence sung in voice of the lady from Sound of Music).

The Amazon

This was our bungalow. It was complete with a hammock, which I accidentally took a nap on every day we were there (all two days). It lives a place called Puerto Maldonado, part of the jungle of Peru. Our guide guided us through the jungle and showed us all the medicinal plants he could find. My favorite was one which looked innocent but when chewed turned my mouth numb and tingly. He gave us some extra so we could play jokes on our friends back in Lima, but I don’t think he knew that 99% of the people I knew in Peru were currently standing next to me at the time. Anyway, it dried out so we couldn’t do anything with it anyway. Actually that’s a lie, I used it when I needed to chop of my arm because I had a suspicious bug bite.

Tribeswomen

Other highlight of the medicinal walk: he crushed up a green leaf which turned into a purple mush, which he painted on my face and made me look like a wanna-be indigenous person. According to him, I looked better like that, but I’m not sure how I feel about that statement. I might try bringing the look back to Holy Cross with me though. I think it could become a new fashion. (Note to a dear Leila Gerstein: I’m wearing one of the shirts that you gave me. Also, Right Round just came up on my iTunes shuffle. I thought you should know).

A Tree! (A Goose!)

Interestingly enough, there are a lot of trees in the jungle.

The Island of the Monkeys

We saw many-an-animal. I tried to throw this monkey a banana but unfortunately my muscles are weaker than I thought because I didn’t throw it high enough so he didn’t catch it, and it just splatted on the ground. Other animals we saw: lots of parrots, one toucan, other species of birds, alligators, many many ants, too many mosquitos to count, capybaras (world’s largest rodents, which reminded me of the ones in The Princess Bride), piranhas and tarantulas (though we didn’t actually see either of those things, they just promised us they existed) and, strangely enough, some humans too. I’m not sure what they were doing way out there.

Pretty Scenery

We had to wake up super early to watch some parrots eat dirt from the side of a hill in the middle of the woods, so I took a picture of the pretty sunrise. Now my life goal of watching the sunrise is fulfilled, though I’m not sure if it counts because I woke up early against my will.

Wow, I spent a lot of time talking just about Puerto Maldonado. I shall rest my brain now and post more about the rest of the trip later. There are still 6 days left of which to speak! I’ll try to be less wordy in the future. Ah, mother, maybe I am more like you than I thought!

So for now, I will say…Goodnight!

PS to my family - I just did the Val cough that you always make fun of me for.

You-you kiss-ed me!

Just a random note that I would like to point out - I am still getting used to this whole kissing people on the cheek as a greeting/parting thing. I am constantly faced with the dilemna of whether I should go for it or not go for it, and whether or not the other person will think I'm weird or rude if I do or don't, or whether they're going to make the plunge or not. I have also found myself in the strange situation where I aim for one side and the other person starts in towards the other, and then you end up bouncing your faces back and forth as if you're trying to perform some type of ritual dance. Lastly, there is the situation where I decide to go for it but the angle is wrong and I end up planting my lips in a strange place like someone's ears, eyes, neck, chin, elbow, shoulderblade, I think once even someone's toe - not really sure how that one happened.