The Recent Adventures of Smelly-Butt, or, The Irony of a Post-Carnival Drought

Some images from the past six weeks...


Claudia (18 months) prepares to play carnevales


Sophia and I take a walk along the old train tracks


Haircuts!


The twins and their big sister / Mid-haircut

Karencita and Fra

Las chicas

Angel

And here are some more...

Every day, when I walk to the local store in Habitat, owned by my good friend Guillermo, our dogs follow me. I walk down the red, dusty streets with these big, panting, identical dogs, and they lick my hands and bark away trouble.

Twice a week, I sleep on the kitchen table in the kids' house; there are no extra beds anymore. The window stays open and the dogs bark and the kids cry and the bathroom light has to stay on, but I sleep like a baby.

Three nights ago, we had a lunar eclipse, and, for the first time in ages, the sky was clear. Mario and I sang U2 and Pino Daniele to the moon, until the disappearing act itself, at which point I joined the kids and the dogs in howling.

Rita had a pain in her back. Nothing would make it go away. Señora Eva the curandera gave me a plant and told me to touch it many times to Rita's back. Only minutes and screams later did I realize: I was beating my roommate with stinging nettles.

(p.s. It worked.)

Ronald (age 5) and I play a game before bed in which we improvise songs about each other.

Most of mine go like this:

"Ronaldcito se ha cepillado los dientes

va a ir a la cama

a dormir

y a soñar."

Ronaldcito brushed his teeth; he's gonna go to bed, to sleep and to dream.

Most of his go like this:

"Rebecca estaba caminando

con su monito

por eso

se ha caido

en un hueco.

Rebecca estaba llorando

por sus tiros

en la calle

habia un hueco

por eso

se ha caido allí."

Rebecca was walking with her little monkey, and so she fell in a hole. Rebecca was crying for her marbles; in the street there was a hole and so she fell in it.

Reporting back from English class: Ignacio told my mother to touch her butt on the telephone. Ernesto can say that "she is skinny but she has big breasts." I am oh so employable.

My new nickname (this one's for you, Gaby): Akasiqi, meaning "Smelly Butt" in Quechua. Fidel gave it to me. As yet, my comeback is nothing more than Siqisiqi (Butt butt), though I could say "Chakrasiqi" (Dried meat butt).

After weeks of carnevales, a full month of dodging water balloons and super soakers and small children with large buckets in the streets, we had a 4-day drought. Our personal supply helped us a little, but the main source of water in Pumawanka ran dry. All of a sudden, the same buckets we had previously used to douse each other became our only hope, our paranoia, our obession, as we regressed from the luxury of waste into fullblown conservation.

And that's the latest from the land of starving people with televisions. I am digesting far more than my lunch; an analysis is forthcoming.

Love to all.

volver

To return, remember, reinvent, re-do. To return is to rejoice in consistency, as well as to doubt your own memories, confronted with the innumerable details that have changed.
To return to a place that you spent two months explaining, dreaming of, and justifying to your nearest and dearest.
To return to a life that, this time around, has no endpoint...

Insomma... the pressure is great, and this blog-induced process of distilling, writing and sharing seems impossible.
And yet, here I am, a month into my second stint in Peru, and I think I'm ready.

I arrived back at Mosoq Runa a month ago, to a whole range of welcomes, some exactly like my dreams--children running towards me with open arms, shouting my name--and others... One girl declared that she didn't remember my face, but this punishment lasted only a day before she returned to hugs and "Rebequita"s.

How surreal to walk up our hill, laden down with bags filled with clothes for the kids and parmigiano for the volunteers; how strange to wake up the next morning in my dear old house, to the sounds of roosters and the song, "Eres un mentiroso."

As to the differences: Francesco and Manu moved into a house round the corner shortly after I left in November, and I have felt their absence, even though I still see them daily. There are two new volunteers, Rita and Omar, so the ratio of girls to guys in the house this month has been 3 : 2, quite a change!
Furthermore, my first week back, Mario moved the Italian cooking workshop, which had previously operated out of the volunteers' house, into our ceramics studio down the hill. (All this musical chairs nonsense comes from a profound lack of funds, which prevents us from continuing with the construction of the Italian workshop's own space.)
For about a week, we were all too busy to fix up the volunteers' house, and so lived in this empty, dirty space-- a real war zone, with no more bread or lasagna to munch on. We don't even have drinking water anymore, so we have to fill pitchers at the kids' house and bring them home!
Finally, though, we painted... and stole a few furniture pieces back from Mario, so now our house full of colors (albeit clashing ones) and some cheese and Nutella here and there.

The kids' house, too, has had its own dose of newness. The three siblings who live next door moved back home after Christmas, seeing as their mother is really well enough to take care of them, which has allowed us to accept three new, more needy children. First, there's Ronald, the 5-year-old half-brother of Rodrigo and Edgar. Their mother is a drunken, broken woman with yet another child strapped to her back. The father (step-father to Rodri and Edgar) spends most of his time working in Puerto Maldonado, and the mother is wont to disappear for weeks on end without notice, to be with him. She, like so many of our mothers here, has been formed by a cycle of abuse and alcoholism that is virtually impossible to escape from; with no teeth, a glass of chicha and a penchant for looking for a man, any man, who will be with her while her husband is away, this thirty-five-year-old woman looks fifty.

The other two new additions are cousins of Karen and Edith, an adorable pair of sisters from Calca named Nely (8) and Mariluz (5). While Ronald, coming from a home where he, at age 3, would walk into town by himself, presents innumerable problems with discipline, Mariluz and Nely are always eager to please, washing their socks and brushing their hair, led by a proud Karen, who has taken them entirely under her wing.
One reason for these differences is home life; the sisters come from a very poor family with many siblings and no father, and as yet I don't know whether they've suffered physical abuse. Ronald's family, on the other hand, has a very violent history; of course, though, we know far more about them.
The other reason is probably gender. We've had girls arrive in the past who follow the rules perfectly at the beginning, only to rebel later on. Furthermore, Ronald is one of four boys... imaginate.

The last new addition is Rosita, a sister of our biggest family who used to live in the hogar but had to return home for 3 years to pacify her crazy mother. Finally, though, the mother is calm enough to allow Rosita to live with us, and we are currently getting her papers in order, behind the mother's back. Rosita's joy at being once again a full-time member of the hogar is obvious, and she continually asks me if she can do her math homework. What a dream!

I suppose that the biggest change for me has been that I'm now teaching two workshops, English and Music. This amount to 10-12 hours a week, on top of my regular duties, so I'm a busy girl. The first day, a complete mess during which no one listened to me, was indicative of the relationships I've formed with these kids over the past few months. How could their buddy, their friend, be a teacher too? (Bear in mind that "teacher" here holds none of the positive associations that I, a Brearley girl, have always counted on.)
Unfortunately, the only way to fix the situation was to run to Ada, who yelled ("Those who do not learn English are ignorant!") and punished them all with dishwashing and no videos. Since then, they've been much better, although a castigo here and there is still necessary.

Within the class, my way of disciplining, predictably, is to play and joke as much as possible. I made a rule, at the beginning that if they wanted to talk about potos, pedos, and caca, they have to say "butt," "fart," and "poop." Or, for the older kids... actually, for the older kids, it's the same thing, although I've also taught them "breasts," "vagina," and "penis," along with the classic "Pen 15 club" joke. We also dance the Hokey Pokey with some regularity.

So I'm finding a way to push forward... But how to justify all this to myself? It's their summer vacation (though they all have to go to summer school in the mornings), it's only 6 weeks, and English isn't immediately important to most of them. And yet, at times, I feel I have the power to change something for them, to teach differently, to re-do some of their awful, school-induced habits. For example, if I ask a question to a kid who doesn't know the answer, another who does will always butt in. I've said time and time again--and I think they're beginning to understand--that I don't care if you answer badly, or incompletely, that it's important you try.

Two weeks ago, we had our first conversation about "Imagine," the song I'm teaching them in English class. I spoke about 'Nam, about peace and love, even about the 'Nam of today. They got it, or at least they know that a nice man named John wanted a united world and got killed. I was satisfied. After class, I spoke with the 22-year-old mentally retarded girl, who was painstakingly copying down the lyrics of the chorus. "Did you understand?" I asked. "Yes," she replied, "but... where is Iraq?"

So, as you can see, they all continue to blow my mind. My current worry is how to accomodate everyone in one class, as numerous personal problems have cropped up. Rosita, forever terrified that she will be made to leave the hogar again, is impossible to discipline. Distracted and full of those bad Peruvian school habits, I find myself grasping at straws to get her to listen and focus. The other day, I sent her outside to calm down for two minutes--far from a punishment--and she lost it. As she sobbed, then stared silently at the mountains, I stroked her hair and tried to explain to her that she is safe. Incredibly bright, she needs to learn to concentrate, to calm the innumerable questions that are forever popping into her head and out of her mouth. After our talk, she went to do her math homework to calm herself down. A girl after my own heart.

This past Thursday, Ada organized a multiplication contest for the kids, and decided to add English as well. How nervous I was, hoping my kiddos would do well! They did, for the most part, even though contests hardly demonstrate the reality of the situation. One of the girls who came in second place has been a disaster in class: not concentrating, continually farting and giggling... So I said to her, "You see how well you do when you concentrate?" And she hugged me and said, "You know, just as the contest started, I think a lightbulb went on in my head!" Sure, darling. The lightbulb that wants to impress Ada.
Unfortunately, a negative result of the contest has been that one of the boys, who's my buddy, did badly in the contest and has been giving me the silent treatment ever since. This week, I'll see what I can do to boost his English self-esteem.

As for music, there isn't much to say, as I'm co-teaching with a girl who is totally incompetent and mostly crazy, if endearingly so. And so, I continue to give private guitar lessons and sing the kids to sleep.


Happy Carnival! I know Fat Tuesday has passed, but it really doesn't matter here. For the last 3 weeks and, as far as I can tell, for the foreseeable future, Urubamba is doomed to constant water attacks and drunken women stumbling around in their heavy faldas. I've been enjoying myself thoroughly. My first attempt to play carnevales (the water-chucking game) gave me a cold and a high fever, but never mind; since then, I've been far more successful, dumping tubs of water on the heads of tiny children and behaving myself just like a good teacher should.

Yesterday, I went to Ccotohuincho's big carnival celebration, where we danced in circles round the Carnival tree, which was subsequently cut down so as to shower the kids with presents from its branches. Sophia and I went with the two Marias and Bertha, girls who work at the hogar and have siblings there and children on their backs. Our merry group cooked rocoto relleno (delicious hot pepper stuffed with vegetables) and choclo (corn) and brought it down to the field, where we were doused in colored flour. We washed down our meal with chicha, the alcoholic drink made from flour, poured from a 5-liter container into a single glass, which each of us had to finish every time, shot style.
Needless to say, I had some stomach problems last night.

Habitat, our corner of Ccotohuincho, is unchanged and charming as always. The teenage boys who hang out at the cancha found out my name and started calling to me, with so many "Rebequita te quiero"s that the little ones started to ask me if I had 10 novios down at the cancha, and even Ada mentioned something. Ronald, of course, was my valiant knight, and started shouting "Te voy a pegar!" ("I'm gonna beat you up!") every time there was a disturbance. Finally, I talked to them, and explained that I was 3 times their size and could they please shut up, thank you.
They did, but, the following weekend, four of them robbed a house in the neighborhood. Four of the 13 year olds.

On Friday night, there was a blackout. It was dark, so dark, and we all sat outside with candles and I got out my guitar. Mario, Rita and I sang our new cross-cultural musical piece- "Wagon Wheel" at the same time as "Piero e Cinzia," by Venditti. Shortly thereafter, all the kids broke into "Imagine," with a whopping YouHOO! I positively swelled with pride.

Love to all.

Vamos la!

"Un homme toujours se marie avec une fille plus blanche de lui, mais toujours fait l'amour avec une fille plus noire de lui. Fais attention!"
("A man always marries a girl who is whiter than him, but always makes love to a girl who is darker than him. Be careful!")
- an old French lady in Ouro Preto

Despite racially problematic comments like these, I was so excited to be in Brazil, a country with ethnic diversity! Sure, Peruvians come from a mix of backgrounds (variations on the Spanish vs. Incan vs. gringo theme) and have their fair share of racism, but I hadn't seen a black or Asian person in two months.

My two weeks in Brazil were crazy, just a taster of the vast country's rich culture and history. I need to try to get some of this stuff down.
[Photo: from the bus from São Paulo to Ouro Preto.]



I ended up making friends with a big group of guys who hang out in the Praça Tiradentes in Ouro Preto. My main buddy, Sergio, came from a mining family of 7 brothers and 5 sisters who moved down to Minas Gerais from Bahia. With a glass eye and a water bottle full of cachaça always at his side, he fed me caipirinhas and introduced me to his brothers, who, between the blood ones and the friends, made up half the town. One of his brothers owned five precious gems stores, and Sergio worked at most of them, although that usually meant showing up at about 1 p.m. with a hangover and a 5 a.m. story.

Every night was a variation on the same theme; I'd have a caipirinha with Sergio while he'd promise to take me to the nearby waterfalls the next morning. Then, his friend Renauldo would take me to an all-you-can-eat meat buffet, or another would show me the live music scene, or Sergio's youngest brother would screen a ripped copy of the hot film of the moment, Tropa de Elite. Then, the next morning, I'd come to the store, wait 15 minutes for Sergio, to be polite, and then happily go do my own thing.

Doing my own thing became all about the opposing forces of above and below ground. Minas Gerais is full of gilded Baroque churches, the kind that, instead of inspiring spiritual musings, make me think immediately of the Church, the institution, the money. Nothing new for me--Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome has the same effect--but, in Minas Gerais, you can go into the mines afterwards.


This is the Mariana gold mine, where we descended 300 meters in a rickety wooden cart that ran on metal tracks. My guide, Anton, was the son of a miner who used to work in that very mine, which closed in 1985. When I asked Anton about the dangers of working down there, I got the same response I’d gotten from Sergio, Renauldo and countless others: “Yes, it is dangerous.” They don’t deny, but they don’t explain, either.


Anton told me all about the mine, about its quartz, graphite and false gold, about how it closed because extracting only 4 grams of real gold required a lot of work and could only be sold for 200 reais (about $114). Now, the mine is used by tourists and adventurers; you can go scuba diving through the narrow, enclosed lagoons at 400 meters.


A brief, underground glimpse into Brazil’s religious mix. Representing the practices of the slaves who lived in the mines, and of the paid miners who eventually replaced them, these are two shrines, one Catholic and one Candomblé. This distinction, however, is not particularly useful, as Candomblé itself is African religion in Catholic clothing, started by slaves who needed to conceal their spiritual practices, and the Catholic saint in the photo is an example of that. She is Santa Barbara, Mariana’s saint and the patron of underground labor and general catastrophe. Apparently, when Barbara converted to Christianity, her father was the one to condemn her to death, and, at the moment of her execution, he was struck dead by a bolt of lightning. And so, Anton told me, when shocked by a loud noise, many exclaim, “Santa Barbara!”

On the left, Praça Tiradentes of Ouro Preto. Tiradentes, pronounced "Chiradenchis," was a revolutionary during the Inconfidência, which, like many revolutions, took place in the late 1700s. Of his group of bourgeois intellectuals fighting for independence, he was the only one to be made an example of… and what an example! He was decapitated and quartered and that’s why every city in Brazil has a Praça Tiradentes. If you squint, you can see his statue here, in the middle of the square. The building behind it is the Museu da Inconfidência.


Below, some views of Ouro Preto. The second photo was taken on a mound where lots of decapitated thieves are buried!






RIO DE JANEIRO

I met up with Jackson and two of his friends who are also living in São Paulo, and we stayed in a Swedish hostel in Ipanema. A couple of shots of Ipanema beach at night; on the left, everyone is napping.















This is Jesus. Or, the Corcovado. Probably the most touristy thing you can do in Rio, but the views were worth it. And the clouds were sweet. Jesus is huge and, creepily enough, you can see him from most parts of the city. And he can see you.


Despite being in the shadow of the creepy Jesus, the Jews are still happy.































The center of Rio can be best described by the word decadente, which essentially means beautiful old buildings falling apart. We walked through the area on a Sunday and thus couldn't tell which shops were closed for the day and which were closed for life. We didn't see a soul, apart from a drunk peeing on his shoe in Praça Tiradentes.






































Later, we wandered down to the bay, bought a contraband version of Tropa de Elite off the street for 4 reais, then hiked up to a neighborhood called Santa Teresa, which is essentially the Venice, CA of Rio. We followed the small, winding streets to pricey boutiques with cafés attached.
Uncomfortably enough for its ritzy inhabitants, Santa Teresa is right next door to a group of favelas, which are Rio's hillside slums; City of God, for example, took place in a favela. Favelas, however, exist all over Latin America and what distinguishes them is their tax-exempt status and their government by drug gangs. Rio favelas are not necessarily the poorest or the most dangerous neighborhoods; doctors live there, and violence usually only erupts when the police move in for a raid. Nevertheless, most favela residents live at minimum wage, which, in Brazil, is really not sustainable. Many have moved in from the nordeste, building houses on top of flat-roofed houses, making room for cousins and siblings.

You cannot just walk into a favela, however, as the drug cartels keep guards at the entrances and, even in a favela as large as Rocinha (two photos above), everyone seems to know who everyone else is. With some 200,000 inhabitants, Rocinha is the largest favela in Latin America, although some say it comes in second to a favela in Caracas.

You can go in with a tour, however, so we went to Rocinha with a group called Be-a-local. Having spent two months being on the other side of tourism of the poor, I was very skeptical. And, when we got into a van with three Norwegian blonds in booty shorts, my confidence didn't skyrocket. At the end of the day, though, we were pretty impressed. Our tour guide, who was a carioca (from Rio), didn't try to shelter us--he told us that, just last week, there had been a raid, and that people often die in the crossfire--nor did he exoticize the favela life, reminding us that most Rocinha inhabitants live quietly into their 70s.

The day we were there, there were torrential rains, turning the steep, dirty streets into gushing sewers. We happily walked right through the muck, giggling at the Norwegians in flip-flops who were trying to avoid the river of garbage by tip-toeing along the practically non-existent sidewalks. We had arrived at the top of the hill on motorbikes, and I clung to the soaked jacket of my taxista as we forged rivers and squeezed in between trucks, revving our way up and up.


On the walk down, we stopped in an artists' studio, a bakery and a daycare center, which Be-a-local supports. They also get funding from an Italian organization that gives us money, too, and I was so excited to hear that, I fell down the stairs in the daycare. I still have the remnants of the gigantic bruise, which I prefer to call my favela knife wound.

Some of the kids we met on the street, like this one on the left, spoke English, which just goes to show how popular this tourism of the poor has become. I couldn't help but laugh as we trudged by open doorways, which gave us glimpses of crowded kitchens, men sitting around drinking beers, in hammocks, smoking joints, watching us. They laughed back, and our ridiculousness didn't particularly embarrass me. The tour may have been inherently problematic, but it was the only way to see Rocinha, given that we didn't have time to make friends with one of its residents, and I am so glad to have been there.
(This whole experience has made me more sympathetic to the tourists who come to Mosoq Runa for lunch. I usually laugh at their superficial introduction to the Poor Children of Peru, but now I think I get it-- better something than nothing. Within certain limits.)



A last note on the favelas: Tropa de Elite (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861739/) is a fantastic film about this topic; it's about the BOPE, an "elite" police force that is theoretically more immune to corruption by the drug gangs than the municipal police. They are the ones who conduct the raids, and they're scary as shit. I highly recommend getting your hands on the film, if you can.

Then we went to Ilha Grande, a tropical paradise.

SÃO PAULO: Cuidado Veículos
When I saw that written on small placards by parking garages, I had to laugh; I couldn't think of a bigger understatement.

São Paulo is big. It is so big, it has shocked even this New Yorker. With 12 million people, it has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, the largest Italian population outside of Italy, a ton of Jews. This is according to Jackson's Paulistano flatmate. Whether he's exaggerating or not, there's no denying São Paulo's diversity.
Traffic is so heavy that watches get snatched off the wrists of waiting drivers. Intersections are terrifying, making huge bridges, like the one above, absolutely necessary.


It's Venice; blown up, modernized and coated with grime. A new skyscraper next to a nineteenth-century Portuguese-style building-- and either could be the dirtier one.

Above, the Mercado municipal, jammed into an old, cream-colored building that looks like a train station. The outdoor market is far more overwhelming, however. I passed shops with hundreds of shoes crammed into the window, a fitting backdrop to the stands out front, selling wooden cutting boards.
Street vendors throw small balls back and forth onto Velcro pads to tune of Jingle Bells, Grease and El Condor Pasa (a nightmarish surprise).



There are crowds, then there's space. There are beautiful museums and well-kept parks, cute cafés and smelly fast food joints. We went to a posh bar with all-you-can-eat fejoiada (a heavy mix of black beans, meat and rice). A contradiction? Perhaps. It's a city you have to live in.

[Above: View from Jackson's swanky law office; his flatmate on their roof; watering the plants]







Out of South America until January 10th.

Love to all.

Royale with cheese

"Ouro Preto. Always wide smiles and open."
- a pamphlet I have
(Original text: "Ouro Preto. Portas e sorrisos sempre abertos.")

See? Translating is a viable career choice!


A moment more for Peru, however...
The last week at Mosoq Runa was a party. Literally. Ccotohuincho had its anniversary, which meant everyone was drinking chicha (made with flour) at all hours, dancing in the streets and neglecting their children-- so business as usual. We also went to Ollantaytambo's birthday party and sampled their chicha... after an incredible hike around some high(er) altitude villages (photos to come).

Last Thursday, Yeni took me to the house of a musician friend of hers for dinner. The house, about a half hour walk through the back roads of Urubamba, was gorgeous-- all wood floors, high ceilings and amazing acoustics... a far cry from adobe. Carlos and his wife, Ysabel, were so welcoming, and I ended up jamming with Carlos for hours. I'd brought my flute with me, but I also tried out some of his instruments. It's incredible how you can hear the material; a simple, heavy wooden flute makes a low, rough whistle, while a tiny piece of bone hums and whines its way into the hollow of your tooth. My own Yamaha's tones are pure and beautiful, but lack the echo of the Andes.
Carlos also has a keyboard, and I was ecstatic to play it; I hadn't touched a piano since I left New York. So we sang and played, and he showed me the instruments he makes himself, guitars and the like. I also listened to a recording of his group, who does experimental Andean music. He invited me to play with them in January, as they need a girl who can play keyboards and sing...
Afterwards, mate and sweet mais. Then, the walk back home, under the starry skies.

My last two days in Ccotohuincho were sunny and gorgeous. I spent as much time as I could with the kids, having water fights and promising them that, yes, I'll be back in January, which comes before February, so, yes, I'll be here for your birthday.

Saturday, I took a colectivo to Cusco and hopped on the 18-hour bus to Lima. The views were insane, and I loved watching the cliffs rise and fall while listening to "Ripple" and Townes Van Zandt. Easing my way back into my other life...?
On the bus, I met a Limeño who also works in an hogar. We got to talking almost immediately about sex ed and the like, which suited me just fine. 18 hours and three high quality films (Shaolin Soccer, Kangaroo Jack and White Fang, all in Spanish of course) later, we arrived in Lima and went to breakfast. Over a jugo de papaya, he poured his heart out to me. It started when he mentioned casually that he was Christian (thanks, buddy, I didn't get that from the huge DIOS tattooed on your arm), and I asked him if he'd been raised that way. No, it happened a year ago, when he was in a bad car accident that left his spine in knots. He was practically paralyzed from the neck down, and his family, his girlfriend and his friends abandoned him, for he was worthless.
He ended up in a bed of some boarding house, where the señora would bring him food and water, which he mostly refused. He read the Bible which was next to his bed and cursed God for not helping him.
One day, the señora asked if she could pray for him at her church; he told her to go fuck herself. The next day, she brought her priest and four church friends to his room, and they started praying anyway. He cursed at them, but they wouldn't go away. Then, the priest said, "Give me your hand." "I can't, you idiot!" "Give me your hand. Have faith." And so on. Until, finally, he was able to move his hand to the priest's, who helped him up from the bed. He turned and saw that his spine was straight. He'd been cured. Since then, he's been a Christian.

I don't even know his name.

At the Lima airport, at the bar, a Goldie Hawn type: "So they're down there praying and I'm up here drinking."
Yes, lady, I thought, and went to get my Quarter Pounder with Cheese (which, sadly, is translated literally into the Spanish).

The flight to São Paulo was short and sweet; only 4 hours. Then a rush to catch the 8am bus to Ouro Preto... 11 sweet hours of dozing, hallucinating that I was on an alien planet where I could almost-but-not-quite understand the language, and drooling over the pretty scenery.
More on that scenery-- the Brazilian countryside was a shock after Peru; it's greener, fuzzier, more humid, stickier, mistier, than its Peruvian counterpart. The magic is different; it doesn't come from the cold, sharp Andean air, but from the mystery of that heat, the dark colors and the heavy odors.
We stopped to eat, twice, at typical (I'm quoting the bus driver here) Brazilian fast food joints; one was called "NYC Burger." Everything was fried pastry, mostly with cheese, and it was yummy. Although now I'd kill for a salad.

I had a mission in Ouro Preto. To find an old friend of Mario's, someone he spent some time with in Italy six years back, a miner of precious gems, with only seven fingers left, named Jesus. I arrived in the Praça Tiradentes last night, having skidded down the cobblestoned streets from the bus station, to meet a shady character who took me to a hostel off the square. He then proceeded to show me a stack of business cards, and I was about to turn to the owner of the hostel for help, when I spotted Jesus' name. Turns out, he's a good friend of Shady and the hostel owner, and his shop is right across the street! Unfortunately, he's in Italy now, but I went by the shop today, met his wife and co-worker, bought a ring, and made plans to drink capirinhas with them tonight.

Well, back to speaking my Italo-spagnolo and trying to understand these crazy, sliding vowels.

Love to all.

Il diluvio

The rains have started. The roads, split open for pipe work, turn to rivers, the temperature drops, the peak of Chicon slips out of sight. My dusty feet are finally clean.

The last three weeks have been so hectic, a whirlwind of events, that I'm only just now catching my breath. The main thing that happened was that Ada, the director of the hogar, got quite sick and had to go to the hospital. During the week she was there, they diagnosed her with everything from terminal cancer to kidney stones, so she decided to go to Milan, where she is being examined by Pietro's father and housed by Manu's parents. We're all so relieved she's being taken care of properly, but we're still awaiting the results, which adds quite a bit of tension to daily life here. Apart from these obvious worries, it's strange not having her here, for the children but also for me. I loved being able to talk to her about the kids, about her life, about what it means to be a gringa doing what she is doing in Peru. Our conversations always resonanted deeply for me. I miss having a strong, older female presence around.

Luckily, speaking of females, the new Italian girl that just arrived, Elisa, is fantastic. Good thing too, as she's staying for six months. Sophia is off traveling at the moment, and I hadn't realized, before, how much I counted on having her around. Should be fun when all three of us are here in January. We might even outnumber the boys for a few days!

Another change is that Mario is back. He's a roman who started up the Italian cooking workshop and bakery last year; Pietro took over from him for a few months. Now, Mario is back in charge-- and how great to hear romanaccio barked from the kitchen! He also plays the sax, and we've jammed together a few times. When I get back in January, he's going to take me to the places he used to play at, a club in Cusco and my favorite restaurant here in Urubamba. We also have grand plans to start up a music workshop in January, during the kids' summer holidays, but there might not be enough time. They're already going to have workshops in English (run by me), computers, theatre, ceramics... So I don't know. I may try to set up private lessons, though, as quite a few of the kids have already asked me to teach them guitar, flute and singing.

There is another idea, though, that might be even more interesting. Elisa, who's studied psychology, is on board. We want to do more with sex ed, and we want to start at an earlier age. In the past few weeks, I've had to confront issues of genital hygiene, puberty, sex... It all started when Princesa, one of the dogs, got VD and spread it all around the neighborhood (dogs). Unfortunately, what she has is contagious for humans as well. Ew. So we told the kids not to touch the dogs and to wash their hands, but, the next day, the youngest girl came to me with itching and burning. Oh SHIT. That night, she had to go home, so I went with her and talked to her mother about vaginal cleanliness and the like. (My Spanish vocabulary skyrocketed in a matter of hours.) I said, "please don't put vinegar on it," because I know that's a common remedy. "Ok," she said, and put breast milk on it instead. But, you know what, that may have worked, as the next day all was well.
A few days later, though, another girl had the same problem, after spending the night at her house. I know that, when she's at home, she doesn't bathe or change clothes... nothing serious, but all this got me thinking...

And there's more: I've had to explain some pretty basic ground rules of menstruation to one of the older girls, even though she started a year ago. This turned into a long conversation about sex, as I wanted to know what her friends say (and do). She had lots of questions, about everything from the mechanics of it to AIDS. "How do you know when someone has AIDS?" she asked. For instance. It made me wonder when she would have gotten answers, if we hadn't happened to have that conversation. I also found out that the two older boys got a condom demonstration at the hogar, but the girls no. Well, obviously that set me off, talking this poor girl's ear off about sexual power balance and, yes, even microbicides.

In view of all this, Elisa and I want to work more with these issues, starting at an early age. Thanks to Bank Street, I knew all about wet dreams and periods at age 8! I know that Ada has already worked a bit with these issues, but, from what I've witnessed, there's more to be done. I can't imagine what it's like to hit puberty in an hogar of 13 kids, without any privacy. Furthermore, the clock is ticking, and, before long, they will be out in the world. It's imperative that, when that time comes, they have a healthy awareness of their bodies and a good understanding of the changes they're undergoing. Especially the girls. Dear God, especially the girls. (Although, actually, if these boys leave the hogar armed with condoms and a respect for women, that wouldn't be half bad.)

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I leave in a week. It is so strange, imagining waking up to anything but mountains and mate and runny nosed children. At the same time, I need a break; the last few weeks have exhausted me. Yesterday, I had to yell at Rodrigo, which made him cry, which made me cry, of course. "I'm losing my marbles," I thought, which made me laugh. Which made him confused. That crazy volunteer with the crazy hair, and where is she from anyway?
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to Brazil, but I am dreading going back to New York. The rush, the stress, the fast talk... I'm not sure I can take it. At least I have January to look forward to... I can't wait to come back here, refreshed (maybe- I've calculated 40 hours of plane travel in the next two months), and get back into it.

Love to all.

a glimpse!

mototaxi by the river


the garden and the view from Ada's office


el valle sagrado... with the taller de teatro on the left

from behind my house

same view, at night

yulissa and me at a park in cusco

same park, with yulissa's older brother, deiner

ignacio, always photogenic

some of the kids plus simone in cusco

javier, at home

edgar and simone

all the volunteers plus ada

one day, we stripped wood

pisco sours

what we do at night. to the right, the bathroom. to the left, the kitchen.

francesco and princesa

river view in pisac

sophia in the pisac toilet

simone and me at the market in chinchero