chivay

I have to commute to take a shower. When I want to bathe I ride my bike the three kilometers up the road, past the dogs that occasionally give chase, across a small stream and stop at the hot springs. While I certainly don't do it every day, I love the ride and the hot springs too. The ride follows the road up the Rio Colca which is quite full from recent rains. The countryside is green and my favorite pool at the hot springs is outdoors with a small lawn that looks down to the Rio Colca. It is well developed and clean, though a little expensive (1.75 entrance for the nice pool). Being there early in the morning makes my day, and often I have the place to myself. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to return to go to class.

After returning to Chivay all nice and clean I start school at 8am. During the course of the week I teach every grade from kindergarten to the 5th year of secondaria (15-16 year olds). The little kids and the 14 year olds are the hardest. The little ones because they don't even know how to spell in Spanish, and the 14 year olds because they are middle schoolers (and the class, with 12 students is my largest). When they don't know something in English it seems that they try to prove themselves in other ways - mostly being obnoxious. Happily I only have two hours with them on Friday.

I love my class of 13 year olds. There are only five of them and they get super into everything in the most honest and genuine way. Today there were a few tense moments over our hangman game and the word bedroom. They are such a contrast to the class one year older. I always have to put one of the boys into a group with the girls and I love how at first it is awkward and embarrassing, but then they get over it and work on the activity.

I also love Wednesdays. I don't have class until 12:30 and I can go for a good ride in the morning before the rains come. I then teach fourth graders for about two hours, most of whom enjoy learning English. I feel like they look at English as some sort of amusing puzzle. I taught the Lord's Prayer (it is a religious private school), though there was some concern about whether we should use words like "art" and "thy" and whether we should use the trespass version or the sin version. I figured it better to use more modern English and to use the sin version - it is a Catholic school.

My evening classes with adults are fun and challenging, mostly because I can have anywhere from six to twenty people show up with an equal range of skills.

adventures (in food)

China has the reputation for strange foods, but I think that Peru could give it a run for the money.

Yesterday I went with the other Spanish students and our teachers to the market and then out to lunch. The market was typical - you can buy almost anything you can imagine there. What stood out in my mind was the upper floor where you can buy live animals that you will later eat and the aisle that was the "every part of a cow or pig but the meat" section. Perhaps because I am generally afraid of bird flu I found the live animal section to be more disgusting - with the exception of Jefferson's noble turkey. A gross but really cool bird.

Back down on the main floor I enjoyed guessing what the cow parts might be. Regina, my Spanish teacher, pointed out an item with which you can make "sarza de criadilla," which she assured me was an "enslada rica." With a few awkward hand motions and questions I confirmed that these were in fact bull testicles, and that Regina had said "sarza de criadilla" and not "salsa de criadilla" - very different things, I can assure you.

At lunch I had the pleasure of eating Cuy Chactado, which is a flattened, deep fried guinea pig. I can't say that it left me very full, but it also wasn't half bad, and was a continuation of the market lesson on animal body parts. Happily someone ordered a mixed plate and I got to try the (at this point) infamous sarza de criadilla. On a ten point scale I would score it a generous 3, mostly because the texture is odd. To say the least. And to say nothing of the aftertaste. Like a champion Regina wolfed down the remainder after everyone had tried it. While watching her enthusiastically finish I found it hard not to cringe just a little, while I vowed not to goof around in class anymore.

new travel companion

I also like this quote from Wallace Stegner:

We have made a culture out of the open road, out of movement without place. Freedom, especially free land, has been largely responsible. Nothing in our history has bound us to a plot of ground as feudalism once bound Europeans. In older, smaller, more homogeneous and traditional countries, life was always more centripetal, held tight upon its center. Indifferent to, or contemptuous of, or afraid to commit ourselves to, our physical and social surroundings, always hopeful of something better, hooked on change, a lot of us have never stayed in one place long enough to learn it, or have learned it only to leave it.

It's probably time we settled down, It is probably time we looked around instead of looking ahead. We have no business, any longer, in being impatient with history. History was a part of the baggage we threw overboard when we launched ourselves into the New World. We threw it away because it recalled old tyrannies, old limitations, galling obligations, bloody memories. Plunging into the future through a landscape that had no history, we did both the country and ourselves some harm along with some good. Neither the country nor the society we built out of it can be healthy until we stop raiding and running, and learn to be quiet part of the time, and acquire the sense not of owning, but belonging.

Happiness

In order to forget the pain of KU's loss, I decided that it was a good idea to spend a day doing something that makes me happy. I asked around and found someone who cycles a lot, and who could rent me a bike for the day and take me around. I found José who rides for his university here in Arequipa. We went on a great four hour ride, though I wish we had been riding road bikes. Like most of my adventures in cycling, the last few kilometers were a blur of pain with my legs still spinning, but my head in a fog, and my stomach on the verge of revolt. The end of the ride was similar in almost every way to my first long ride in Bend in the summertime and the first time I rode with the UPS team.

Bottom line: I spent the afternoon recovering, but loved every minute on the bike and even relished my post-exercise headache.

It was also great to meet someone in the cycling community here. Furthermore, there are races here next weekend that I am going to watch, and I have been contemplating finding a road bike for more good times.

As for canyons? I head to a town at the beginning of the Colca Canyon to teach English to local guides in a week. I am very nervous about it, and figure that I will learn more than any of my students in my month of teaching. I am also happy that my time will be broken up by Semana Santa (Holy Week), which should be interesting in a small village.

Why do I like KU?

I am in a second state of shock, disbelief, and depression after another Kansas disaster in the NCAA tournament. Why do I even care?

I was, however, watching SportsCenter the other day, for the first time since I left home, and I saw a short piece on the Division III tournament and even saw some clips of UPS. It was crazy to be here in Peru, watching highlights from UPS basketball.

I have included below some photos of the poorer areas of Arequipa, including one of a woman making blocks of stone which are later used in the houses. They sell blocks in bunches of 200 for 300 soles, which is less than 100 USD. The reflection off the rocks makes everything amazingly bright and the work is incredibly difficult. It reminded me of the lime mine Robbin Island where Mandela was forced to work, only here in Peru it is a job and a life. When I was asked what the difference is between the poor of Arequipa and poor in the US I responded language, thinking that hunger is hunger everywhere, and lack of health care is lack of health care, but was told to come up with a smarter answer. While this frustrated me, the man taking me around told me that here even the poor at least have some land and can build a small house or shack, while in the US many poor are unable to have a home. It made me realize that I have been away long enough to have forgotten largely about social conditions in the US. Perhaps even when I was at home I didn't think all that much about how poor live in the US. I can't help but feel a little embarrassed at the chunk of change the Watson has given me to explore canyons, especially when I consider what I see here and think about the shortcomings of the US. All of this makes another Kansas loss depressing, but not all that important.

Books +

John Muir recalling his journey at age 8 (I think) from Scotland to the US with his brother and father:

We joyfully sailed away from beloved Scotland, flying to our fortunes on the wings of the winds, care-free as thistle seeds. We could not then know what we were leaving, what we were to encounter in the New World, nor what our gains were likely to be. We were too young and full of hope for fear or regret, but not too young to look forward with eager enthusiasm to the wonderful schoolless bookless American wilderness.

- - - - - - -

The following is from The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. Somehow it connects to John Muir (or perhaps both only connect to me). I haven't seen the movie and I don't intend to.

Yes, Clarissa thinks, its time for the day to be over. We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills, more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything that we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.

Heaven only knows why we love it so.

peru

Apologies for so little blogging - I have been at various times too tired to blog, too frustrated with internet quality, and having too much fun.

On March 2 I left China very sick, spent a night in Hong Kong (though I didn´t get out of the hotel) then went to Japan to see Alexa and Amelia for a few days. I was worried that with a fever I might get put into quarantine at the airport, but I got through. Japan was great, and a wonderful contrast to China. I don´t think I saw one person spit the entire time that I was there!

It was also great to see friends, and see Alexa´s life in Japan. She teaches English in a variety of schools, and we got to spend a day teaching at a middle school. I am not sure how much we were actually teaching and how much we were entertaining ourselves. During the lesson teaching ¨can you....?¨ I got asked if I could dance the robot (yes) Amelia got asked whether she could do a cartwheel (yes - impressive in a class room) and Alexa got asked whether she could draw a giraffe (no, though she tried hard).

Then, on the 8th I left for Tokyo again to fly to Peru. At the airport I discovered that I had no passport, which makes travel a little hard. United thought that I might be able to get out of Japan to the US (my flight connected in LA and Miami) but that I might be stuck there for days or weeks. I had visions of a few weeks with John Moore on the beach in Miami. After talking with the US embassy, I spent the night at the airport and went paid them a visit on the 9th, getting a temporary passport (good only one year). This has happily gotten me to Peru. I am still pretty bummed about losing the passport with all those cool stamps in it though.

Peru has been nice - speaking Spanish feels pretty natural, though I have almost said hello and thanks in both Japanese and Chinese to people. I am still feeling pretty dazed from jet lag, and have yet to really explore Arequipa, which is cloudy and cool.



The Mingyong Glacier, China.



Tiger Leaping Gorge, China.



Plum Blossoms outside Osaka Castle, Japan, with Amelia.



Golden Temple, Kyoto Japan.



Alexa´s middle school class.



A great barber and haircut.