You Turkey You

Well I must say Christmas eve with the family was a blast.  Cuzco is crazy about fireworks.  After our group lit some off ourselves, we went up to the roof around midnight when things really went nuts.  In a municipal display the explosions and lights are all localized.  With this, they were coming from all sides, sustained for an hour.  I believe that having incendiaries zip by your head at close range better simulates the homage to war that our founding fathers intended with such festivities.  I haven’t really had that kind of child like adrenalin rush for that long in a while.  There were some parts of the Monarch trail on the downhill but they were brief and a focused solo experience. 

Of course my heart goes out to the handful of kids that lost fingers this year.  And to the kids that lost fingers last year and prompted the new law outlawing fireworks which seems to be unenforced.  There was a Dutch-Belgian student, girl at the dinner as well.  The chaos caused her to reflect on just how many regulations on life existed in Belgium vs. Peru.  I don’t think she concluded that one extreme was significantly better than the other which I mark as progress for a young liberal.

We talked a bunch of politics in English, which probably wasn’t so polite to the majority non-English speaking Peruanas at the table.  Her ideal was for solidarity in the world between the haves and have not’s.  It frustrates her that small differences in Belgium cause such large problems.  I tried to explain the difference in ease of making a decision and executing it yourself, making a decision for say a room full of Navidad revelers as to which fireworks to light when and executing, getting a consensus or even majority in a city to decide on something like how much tax increase can we afford to get the freaking trash off our streets, vs. entire countries pulling together. 

This brings us up to where she started which was why can’t Europe and Asia get it together to help Africa as though they were three people in a bar where the rich and middle class guy should buy a drink for the poor guy.  Not to say there aren’t huge benefits possible from a more integrated international policy.  But there are also grave dangers in the creation of such a large brother to look after things.  But my arguments were long winded and she seemed to always jump back to “but there are people really suffering out there” before I could make too much headway.

I cooked the turkey, and decided to make my signature garlic mashed potatoes with one of the thousands of unnamable local pata varieties.  And if you are going to do that, you have to make gravy (salsa carne) as well.  What I didn’t know was that all of this food was to be transported to grandma’s house for all the aunts and uncles and cousins.  Fortunately I have a huge ego so when there were some grumblings that I used an apple to moisten the turkey instead of making stuffing I took refuge in that multiple people said the turkey was very moist compared to previous dry years. 

I guess turkey for Christmas is a new phenomenon in Peru and this time they had an actual American to lead the way.  Time for the “USA, USA, USA” chant.  Of course, they could just be polite people that can’t believe Valery would abdicate cooking the thanksgiving dinner to a gringo but couldn’t bring themselves to complain too much.  It is always hard to tell.  The carving process was entertaining.  They offered the big knife to me, but where I come from the stranger in the house doesn’t cut the turkey, even if he cooked it.  So I passed it back and the eldest uncle set in.  He went horizontal to the spine whereas I usually go parallel.  He used another knife as a sort of hammer to get through the bone.  It was quiet entertaining.  And I must admit more efficient than the process I use.  Normally I am left with a carcass with lots of bits of meat around.  He essentially took the whole top off like the ragtop on a mustang.  We could have sat little Barbie dolls inside around my apple and drove the bottom half of the turkey around the living room like a toy when he was done.

I would say I am a well trained gringo at this point.  I made my signature apple pie, a semi-successful chocolate cake from a recipe in Spanish with a 6 year old for help.  (We weren’t really able to whip enough air into the egg to make the sort of chocolate angel food cake I believe the Spanish language recipe was looking for).  I am also on the hook to make a peach cobbler tomorrow.  After each meal, they say “Buen Probacho”.  You might expect it is similar to the Bon Appetite the French use before the meal.  But I get the impression Buen Probacho is closer to “I hope you don’t get diarrhea”.  So far I haven’t heard the ominous chorus of flushes after anything I have prepared so I think I am doing well.  “Gringito” they call me.  I think that means they have me well trained. 

New years eve, before I head out for the big fireworks chaos in the main plaza sin the rug rats.  Should be fun if I can keep the vomitar off me zapatas and the fuegos artificial, that they throw, out of the back of my jacket. 

Pics

This is my most deluxe room yet, how do I know?  It has a painting ot 2Pac on the wall.

What do you give the man with everything for Xmas?  An Andean pimp hat of course!

Plaza de Armas is the place to be for tourists in Cusco.  I have a family to go home to so I don't spend much time there.  It is better that way.

If Americans are so smart why didn't we think of vast amounts of fireworks Christmas Eve?  I had that "I am in a war zone" sensation with the encendiaries zipping past my head.  I haven't had that feeling of excitement in a long time.  I try not to think about the dozen kids losing fingers around the city....

Isaac prepares a gringo Xmas dinner for not just the family but extended family.  Thank goodness for my trusty outsized ego as Grandma downs my personal potatoes and gravy recipie and asks where the stuffing is.... (I don't do stuffing)

Another Country, Another Family

So far I have continued to have excellent luck with host families.  I also haven’t made any friends with native English speaking students.  The school I attend is small and I appear to be the only afternoon student.  I also live somewhat away from the trendy gringo area around plaza de armas.  It is amazing how people just open up their home and their lives for strangers in this homestay language school paradigm.  It is a voyeuristic journey.  I just hang out in the living room a lot and talk to the kids, try to follow the adults talking and they make frequent attempt to engage me with my limited Spanish.  I go shopping with them and to office Christmas parties and play soccer with the father and his neighborhood buddies. 

I must say that while I snowboard at 11,000 feet, playing soccer at 11,000 feet is another story.  I had to slow down after 15 minutes and only lasted around 50 minutes.  Of course I play soccer (futbal) a few times a decade so I was limited in cardiovascular and footwork ability.  Team sports are great though, you try harder not to be “that guy” that lags everyone else in the game.  The same applies in bike riding, which is why I tend to ride with people at least 20 years older than myself.

But it is amazing how quickly you fell a part of the household.  I even felt a little guilty I didn’t make the 6 year old daughters Christmas paegent.  The afternoon class goes from 3-7PM.  Households are different here as well.  The kids just have a longer leash than American kids do.  It may have been my limited Spanish, but I found myself alone at the house one day when the 2 year old started crying.  I knew that mom had gone out, but so I had I for a couple quick errands.  But, with aunts and uncles in the same complex within shouting distance I suppose it isn’t as big a deal to leave a kid napping at the house for a while.  You also see moms rushing into the street after kids in the states, but there just seems to be more of it here in Peru.  Perhaps these kids will grow up with a better sense of self reliance than their American peers.  I could just imagine workers at an American Christmas party suing emotional damage because the company invited the kids to party, gave them presents, but didn’t provide child care to keep them out of the street.

I suppose since I have earned some street cred as a responsible adult as they have mentioned since that they will be out and could I listen for the kids upstairs, which turned out to require a small excursion when the power went out and the DVD she was watching, along with lights went off all around.  But this family is highly functional.  They laugh a lot and in general just seem to enjoy themselves most of the time.  I also saw dad checking out mom’s ass as she bent over to pick something up.  Good signs for this family abound.

English and Spanish Happily Coexist in Peru

A couple more oddities in print from the land of Peru- the first one might interpret as equipment for a gym for the homeless.  But looking at the logo, I expect they are using the British version of the word.  This is a bad omen for those in the homeland working toward the wider acceptance of the ‘Merckan language. At the house of the family I am staying with, they have a curious tea.  I looked and salt peter was not in the ingredients. 

Happily they do have apples- manzanas, sugar-azucar, flour-harina, butter- mantequilla, cinnamon-canela.  So I was able to make my personal apple pie recipe.  Somehow it came out with a latin feel.  The ingredients were each a bit different than you find in the states.

My brother

My girlfriend Murray suggested I remove this posting from my blog.  So I moved it.  Hopefully I will score some points for taking her advice.  I thought it was amusing and interesting all at the same time.  So below is a link.  I suspect my other 3 readers don't share her delicate sensibility.  Actually I have heard of sensibilities but am not sure exactly how they work.  At any rate, if you have some, do not click below.


http://thepartialsabbatical.blogspot.com/p/recognize-my-brother.html

The people you meet on the plane

Murray told me "You don't have to talk about my insecurities on your blog." But she also didn't say I couldn't. So let's begin with the women I have met on the plane rides starting this leg of the trip.

I often meet interesting people on planes. So, as we ambled around the tarmac getting ready to leave Denver, I considered an opening statement for the guy to my left with the unruly red hair and librarian style glasses as he read his graphic novel. The young woman on my right beat me to it. "I can't believe it is 31 degrees in Atlanta!" She complained, moving her hands over the bare olive arms that stuck out the bottom of her t shirt to illustrate her wardrobe insufficiency.  Later I would find that Gloria was quite proud of the pull ups she could do with those arms.  To be honest, in the hundreds of trips I have made to dozens of gyms, I have never seen a woman perform more than 2 unassisted pull ups.

She fidgeted with some overpriced air port lip balm.  Compulsive?  I asked.  She looked at me quizzically.  I noticed after you put the lid back on the lip balm you lined up the markings on the seal.  No, I’m cool she said and twisted the cap to a random angle.  She fidgeted for a while longer with the lip balm before shifting the lid back into alignment and admitting “I may be a little OCD.”  I suppose it takes one to know one.  I explained I was only compulsive but not obsessive.  “However my girlfriend is obsessive but not compulsive so we are an OCD couple.”  “Cute” she replied as she pulled some papers from the seatback; reading over her shoulder I could see she was being deployed in the marines.

We discussed at length the novelty of being a female marine.  She was the youngest girl in a family with five brothers.  She explained her attitude towards motherhood with “I don’t think motherhood is for me, when I hear a baby crying my first thoughts at a solution are a punch to the face.”  She wanted to be in the infantry but discovered she was a girl.  So the closest she could get was driving troop transport.  When I asked what drew her to the marines she said her deeper desire was to blow stuff up.

Despite the machismo she admitted to being a girl.  She said after her stint in the marines she thought she might like to be a cop as that was another way she could help people, while carrying a gun and bashing some heads.  We talked about gays in the military and the marines different attitude in recent polls.  She started with not wanting to be looked at by lesbians in the locker room.  Then she said she could understand the combat guys having more of a qualm than she really did.  She hit her point home with a splayed finger hand gesticulation saying she couldn’t really articulate her views on the matter.  This for me was one of her deeper expressions of femininity.  She was rather articulate and wasn’t short on pointed words at any other time during the conversation.

We also discussed our different experiences being in marching band.  She plans to take part in civilian band but didn’t want to play sax in the marine band as there was an insufficient amount of blowing things up on musical duty.  I explained my band experience which started off the wrong way.  I was a runt with a chip on my shoulder so I picked the biggest instrument I could carry, the baritone.  Eventually I got weirded out by how tightly knit the school band social fabric was.  She had dated in the band pool and lost her virginity much earlier than I had.  Perhaps I should have stuck with it.

I have my doubts about whether she will go the 10-15 years in the marines she anticipates.  She is well spoken and rather prejudiced against the under-educated which she freely admits is a problem she has with most of the marines she has been worked with.  She also has some growing to do, as we all do.  I can only hope her growth spurt doesn’t come during a horrific 90 seconds on the Pakistan border involving explosions.

On the next leg of my trip from Atlanta to Lima I sat next to Elna, another single woman.  I would have guessed her age to be around mine, but later I found she was 48.  Elna is the other side of the female coin from Gloria, but also quite interesting.  At first I wasn’t sure if she was a nurse or a doctor.  She works for a doctors without borders type of organization with a heavy presence in Haiti.  Although born in Peru, she has lived in the states for some time and is now dismayed when cab drivers in Peru complement her on her Spanish. 

Her story is almost the twin of my friend Jim.  She always thought she would meet Mr. Right and have kids, but it just never materialized.  Mr. Right didn’t want to have kids and subsequent partners just weren’t quite right.  For a moment I thought “wouldn’t it be great if Elna and Jim could meet”.  And then I thought, “Murray is rubbing off on me.”  Elna apparently has regular opportunities to adopt in Haiti as mothers she treat find out she has no kids and assume she couldn’t have them offering up their 3^rd or 4^th borns to a better life in the states.  I think I am relatively good at engendering trust, but that is a significant statement about how people assess this woman.  And I can see it. 

Elna strikes me as having an idealism that has been worn through the wringer of reality but come out largely in place but tired.  She has mentioned more than twice on disparate topics including men and relationships that she has “high standards” and following the story of her life she obviously has high standards elsewhere.  The world needs more single, experienced, people that can and are willing to head out to the third world again and again to try to contain the suffering.  It is a heck of a lot more than I am doing with my couple hours a week tutoring at the jail.

So I sit on planes, quietly judging people.  For the women I talk to, I also review how much fun it might be to rendezvous in the Lou at thirty thousand feet, were I not happily committed.  Elna claimed to be cynical, but I doubt it is more than the world wariness one ought to expect from her vocation.  The communications professor I met last week, specializing in social media, seemed like he ought to be jaded with all his time in Washington and academia. 

However, the professor seemed genuine when he said I had given him much to think about.  Gloria actually is jaded at her tender age.   I fear she and I have something in common that I am not so fond of.  I think we are both well rehearsed.  I sit next to these people, and we talk for an hour or three, and if I decide they are interesting and I like them, I expect that at subconscious level I would like for them to find me interesting and likeable.  So the well rehearsed stories, quips, and factoids jump out.  These are probably tailored, spun, and presented in a way that I feel will most disarm and allow me to engage with the person.  I shudder to think that I probably do have, in the back of my mind; a list of what I think makes me interesting to others: the Isaac-Murray story, running for office, playing in a rock band, running a business, being raised Mormon etc. etc. 

I went to a talk given by the author Jim Collins.  He had taken on a board of advisors for his personal life.  An advisor gave a bit of insight that resonates.  “Try less to be interesting, and more on being interested.”

Back to the grind

I am back at work now.  I really do like my job.  More than most people I am sure.  But, it is hard to compare to traipsing around Latin America and learning espanol.  I got my tickets for Peru last night.  I will be a full month in Cuzco near Machu Pichu up at 11000 ft.  My new criterion for picking places is that the temperature for my visit be below 75 deg.  This is possible in many places if you stick to the high altitudes.