ser extranjera

A Peruvian friend recently read my blog and told me that all I write about is food and traffic, so I will take a stab at candor only with the disclaimer that it is not my strong suit and I only attempt this within the secure confines of relative anonymity that the internet has to offer.

The experience of being a foreigner resembles, to use a ratty old cliche, a roller coaster ride. First you must pay the absurd sum to enter the amusement park, with no reassurance of the goods offered other than the fanatic insistence of your friends that it will be a mind blowing experience. After finally locating the premiere amusement park attraction, you wait in line for what seems like eternity, absolutely sure that it will never be your turn to ride. When you finally arrive, which contrary to all sentiments you inevitably do, anticipation floods your veins as your body tenses up, poised for the first taste of whatever the crazy unknown has to offer you. You ascend that first hill slowly, slowly, slowly, absolutely sure that the car is slowing down, so you impatiently peer around you to see what else is going on while you are waiting, and suddenly you realize how high up you are, and the bottom falls out of your stomach. Every last nucleotide of your DNA screams no, no, no, take me back now, I still don't know whats going to happen next but I REALLY don't like the look of it, and while somewhere down in your esophagus a bubble of panicked air attempts to struggle its way out of your vocal chords, you have reached the apex, the point of no return, and you reach this funny moment where you encounter the absolute value of gravity, that moment when you realize you didn't get the modicum of flavor you asked for but rather a full shot of pisco to the face and it was way, way too much, and any second your throat will go up in flames and your stomach will decide to take a stab at acrobatics. And you just hang there, suspended, stupefied, speechless; and, really, this is the moment that you will remember afterward, this moment of not being able to go back, not being able to go forward, and not being able to stay where you are. Because that vertical, ninety degree culture shock plunge is such a traumatic overload that your self-preservation reflexes tuck it away in a mental lock box somewhere where you couldn't remember it even if you wanted to, and even if you did, you could never accurately articulate it.

I live in a constant juxtaposition of weird eternal moments such as this, when the present seems overwhelming and interminable and yet simultaneously the semester goes by faster than a combi race. Suddenly it's been two weeks since my last blog post, and I sit down to write it and realize that I have no idea what I've done in that time. But mostly I just feel that frustrated fatigue from trying to run through water. Daily life has transformed into such a colossal effort that I look at my assignments and requirements with bemusement: how can anyone realistically expect such things out of me at a time like this? It's not a hopeless sadness or anything like that, it's more like being inside a movie where the viewer has turned up the color contrast and volume on the TV set, or like living all the insecurities and general amazement of childhood all over again. The other day I was watching a South Park marathon with a bilingual friend of mine, and we had already watched two or three episodes dubbed in Spanish (which Parker and Stone actually accomplish surprisingly well). Ten minutes into the subsequent episode, we abruptly turned to each other and said, "Did you realize it was in English?!" For ten minutes we had been reading the Spanish subtitles and not realized that they had switched the language. It was extremely disconcerting.

On the one hand, I have times such as this when I've become so comfortable with the language that I don't even register the switch, yet as soon as I need to formulate a coherent sentence all ease fails me, and I revert to these elementary verb structures that I've latched onto in order to avoid conjugating anything ever. The language barrier generates a dual frustration, firstly with my incapacity to correctly communicate what I want to say, and secondly with the raised eyebrows and rolling eyes my maimed phrases tend to elicit. Perhaps it is my youthful impatience at work, but I can't stand awkwardly sitting in the corner at a party, unable to supplement the verbal ambiance. On the bright side, occasionally, when I finally say something after spending half an hour in new company, the people who don't know me delightedly exclaim, "Wait, you speak Spanish? You understand us?" It always feels good to at least be able to put forth an effort, even a pitiful one: it lends substance to my staunch insistence that I am a student, not a tourist.

I suppose that is really the crux of this situation. Not that being a student is better than being a tourist, although that is most certainly true, but rather even when panic and frustration overwhelm every aspect of my being,  and all I can seem to do is hysterically sob "I can't do this, I can't do this," the fact of the matter is that I am doing this. Even if I fail all of my classes, and my host family hates me, and I never pick up the slang, and I never cultivate an appreciation for ceviche, I had the audacity to relinquish familiarity for no immediate benefits. In fact, in almost every conceivable way, this trip has only made my life harder. Yet I am now certain that somewhere in the depths of my person there is a scrap of bravery and perseverance being forged in the fires of experience. I don't really know why I am here, only that for some reason, being here is necessary for who I am meant to be.

And I'll leave you to ponder my new motto: always be down to try something new. And if you don't like it the first time, try it again just to make sure.

Sidewalk Culture Shock: an eclectic compilation of quotidian observations

Peruvians don't have much regard for breakfast. My host parents buy fresh rolls from the bakery every morning and we have them cold with butter and jam. This isn't quite substantial enough for me so lately I have been cooking myself some hard boiled eggs and having one or two cold with a little bit of salt to gain a little protein boost until lunch. The first time my host mom saw me do this she was horrified and absolutely disgusted--cold, slimy eggs for breakfast?! To this day whenever she sees me eating one she just shakes her head. For breakfast, however, my host mother pours herself a cup of coffee or tea, adds copious amounts of milk and sugar, and tops it all off with a generous portion of cornflakes which she proceeds to eat with a spoon.

Oftentimes Peruvians will illustrate an idea or concept they are trying to explain with various objects in the immediate area--a pen, a coffee cup, a napkin. I realize people do this in the States too but it is noticeably commonplace here.

You can't flush the paper; there are trash cans instead.

It never ever rains in Lima. This translates into a steady, quotidian accumulation of fine dust over every conceivable surface. As a result, Limeñans take meticulous care of their cars: my host dad wipes down every inch of the car first thing in the morning. Additionally at night there are droves of workers all over the city who haul truckloads of ocean water in at night to care for the parks all over the city, and thus occasionally the morning air is laden with a salty maritime odor.

We boil all of the water we drink.

The Spanish equivalent to the expression "sleep on it" (with regards to a situation or problem that you should think over before any concrete decisions or actions) is "let me consult my pillow."

The corn here is different; it tastes more starchy and the kernels are the size of your thumbnail. It is also sold fried as a prepackaged snack called Inka Corn which is pretty much the best nosh ever invented.

Each grocery chain has its own nylon uniform, sporting its own particular color scheme of, for example, bright yellow and green, that all of the cashiers and workers wear. This isn't just a t-shirt or smock, it's an all-inclusive suit, scrunchy and hairnet included, that nods to the early nineties and would surely provoke a terrible rebellion amongst the American youth who tend to keep the lines moving at Stop and Shop.

The typical Peruvian beverage is an electric yellow soda called Inca Kola that tastes of bubble gum to the untrained tongue. Apparently it is made from a plant called hierba luisa, known for its stomach-soothing properties, and I have indeed found it to be a trusty companion in my endless fight against stomach problems.

I can buy minutes for my prepaid cellphone at the grocery store: I tell the cashier my number and how much money I would like to put towards minutes, and five minutes later I have more airtime. I have no idea how it works but it's awesome.

The Peruvian educational system does not include textbooks. My understanding is that this is a relic of a bygone era when textbooks were too expensive, since most of them had to be imported and college students really don't have much money. Instead they make photocopies: there are probably a dozen photocopy centers all over campus, where professors leave required readings in a class folder and you have to go find the readings and get a copy for yourself. You must believe me, however, when I warn you that this system sounds deceivingly straightforward. First, you need to figure out which center it is exactly that houses your particular homework. Then you need to find it. Then you need to elbow your way to the front of a heaving throng of students, all chaotically competing for the attention of the photocopy personnel as forming lines is not a popular pastime. Once somebody finally decides to speak to you, you need to ask--in Spanish--for the list of classes, on which you must find the folder number that corresponds for your particular class. Then you need to fight to the front of the pack again and ask for the folder number, in which you must find the required readings and ask for them to be copied. Depending on the exact size of the multitude this could take anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes. And then of course when you finally have your photocopies, you are so exhausted from obtaining them that you can't bear to wade your way through the Spanish to actually complete the assignment. Post script: this past Friday I arrived at the photocopying center for my Spanish grammar class only to stand in front of the site dumbfounded at the apparent complete and utter disappearance of the building. Quite convinced of my own insanity, I wandered around the general area in a daze for a quarter of an hour before giving up and deciding to go home. To my joy I was vindicated from suspect early-onset Alzheimer's by a companion's concurrence that it indeed had vanished overnight and been repositioned elsewhere. THIS is the kind of disorganized mayhem that forms the principal center of my personal experience of culture shock.

Peruvians really aren't in to texting, and their predilection for phone conversations places me at a severe disadvantage as I can't seem to understand anything that anyone says to me in Spanish over the airwaves.

The university is an enclosed campus with beautiful gardens that are accompanied by a plethora of half-sized deer with absolutely no fear of humans and no common sense. Sometimes when I am attempting to each lunch on the lawn, one of them will come right up to me and try to nibble things off of the tray on my lap, with an attitude of "Maybe if I am extremely quiet she won't notice anything is missing until I have successfully absconded." Except, my deer friend, you have forgotten a crucial factor in this equation, being that I am more accustomed to eating you rather than you eating off my plate.

I have discovered the secret of Peruvian time. I know why Peruvians are always late, and why they cannot be expected to be on time. It is the sidewalks. The incredibly smooth, slippery, glossy, traction-less sidewalks completely thwart any attempt to accelerate beyond a moderate stroll, and anyone who attempts to do so only gains a countenance of flushed frustration and a pair of flailing appendages.

Va'os a Carmen

It is one thing to be told that Lima is in the middle of the desert: it is another thing entirely to experience it. This past weekend marked my first venture outside of Lima, and it took us over an hour just to leave the city itself, but once we did it was unmistakable. I casually glanced out the window and suddenly we were surrounded by looming mountains of sand that made our highway, a monument of human achievement, looked like a joke. What if the winds over the Pacific sneezed and disturbed these austere monstrosities, prompting them to suddenly engulf the Pan-American highway? Our humble gringo-bus didn't stand a chance. But this preliminary shock soon distilled into sheer and inescapable boredom, broken occasionally by clusterings of shanty towns. Whole communities were mere collections of colorfully painted sheet metal somehow assembled into single room shelters from the ceaseless sun and sand-laiden breeze. Here there is nothing, nothing at all apart from these meticulously organized boxes, streamers of barbed wire, and a Peruvian flag fluttering above it all, in the midst of interminable desert. Sobering.

One of the much larger shanty towns, which are called Pueblos nuevos. I couldn't get a good picture of one, since we were on a bus that was constantly moving, so this photo is courtesy of findtarget. The ones I saw probably had about 20-50 houses in all.

Our destination, Carmen, a small town in the province of Chincha, is one of the only living representations of Afro-Peruvian culture. Per the advice of Bartolomé de las Casas, the Spanish colonists had imported Africans during the colonial period for plantation work in order to spare the poor Indians from certain death. Renown as a veritable machine of human power, the African body evoked no such pity. After emancipation, the majority of the ex-slaves were genetically integrated into the rest of the population, but this community held on to their roots and traditions, surviving on farmland and plantations. Gigantic fields of cotton surround the town itself, and the house-hotel that we stayed in was tucked in the middle of a massive garden, primarily of avocados and lúcuma.

Lúcuma

Part of the farm

The resort itself was absolutely beautiful. Our program director, Laura (whom we call Lali and who is really more of a big sister to all of us than an administrative personnel) rented out the whole hotel for the fifteen of us. It was a lovely weekend of relaxation and respite from the bustle and smog of Lima.

As part of our cultural experience, we received a percussion lesson the cajón, a drum that the slaves created in defiance of the plantation owners' bans on musical instruments, singing and dancing.

It is simply a rectangular box, with a circular hole cut in the back, that you sit on and strike in a variety of ways to yield different timbres--a surprisingly difficult instrument to manage. A group of three school boys--about seven or eight years old--treated us to a couple songs they had prepared for us to showcase their cajón talents, and one even performed a gutsy solo on the recorder.

We also had an Afro-Peruvian dance lesson from a woman in her fifties with a bigger presence than all fifteen of us gringos combined. We all thought we were performing pretty well, all things considered, until towards the end she threw up her hands chuckled, "I give up, you guys are horrible at this, you're twenty year old hips are stiffer than my mothers'." After this we had an African tap dance lesson from two middle aged brothers and their younger cousin. This tap is distinct from what we know it as in the states: it is much heavier, there is a lot of stomping and the rest of the body is more involved. It is traditionally a men's dance--although the women have become more involved in recent years--that is practiced after Christmas with an extensive four day tap dance festival. After the lesson, the men invited us all to see their house in town, which had less in it than any house I have ever seen in the US, but the walls were completely plastered with framed pictures of their family.

The brothers were two of fifteen, most of whom are grown with families of their own, so there was a great deal of family to represent, and they proudly recounted stories of their father--a man who was famous on the national level for his fiddle talents. They ended the visit with an astounding cajón performance, the star of which was a tiny four year old girl, dressed in a hot pink two piece costume, who fearlessly danced in front of fifteen gringo strangers. Afterwords the brothers' wives came out and danced for us as well, and it was such a fun and beautiful performance that none of us could stop smiling for the entire night.
We also got to try a local liquor called tutumba (not sure if I'm spelling that right) which is made out of a fruit of the same name that only grows in the southern coastal region of Peru, and thus the drink can only be made there. Additionally, it only has a shelf life of three months, so it can't be exported or sold commercially. It was quite a treat: it tasted like honey and hardly burned the throat.

The next day we visited some nearby huacas, which are pyramid-like ruins from past Peruvian civilizations. They are scattered all over Peru, including several in the middle of Lima, one of which is right near my house.
When the Spanish encountered such ruins, they immediately put their own religious symbol, the cross, on the peak of the "heathen" religious monuments, to symbolize their conquest of the land and the superiority of their Catholic God.


 These particular huacas were surrounded by contemporary farmland, and we ended our trip with a visit to a local vineyard that made a delicious drink somewhere between a white wine and a liquor. The humble buildings were completely surrounded by beautiful flower gardens and cultivations of mangoes, avocados, lúcuma, and bananas. A variety of poultry wandered around the yard, looking at us curiously.

part of the colorful dooryard garden

The vineyard owner's house