Serious reflection: Warning, this bit is serious.

I've noticed poverty in two different ways here in Peru. The first is the big, horrible, slap to the face type of poverty that I see in rural communities. I see kitchens with Guinea pigs living and breeding and eating and doing who-knows-what-else on the floors as people cook and eat. I see dirty plastic jugs being used to hold water or corn beer. One time, I saw a child eating an old piece of meat of the floor. The rooms are dark, the dishes are everywhere, and the entire house feels like its just barely in control of the owners-- like a few days and it would revert back to the dusty brown landscape that surrounds it. When we ask these people what sort of activities they'd like to have in their community for recreation, they tell us that they don't have free time.

When I first started writing this post, I thought Id put down some meaningful reflection on all that. I thought I might whip up some insight-- a skill that's gotten a lot of practice over the years of essays and college applications. When I opened the document today, I realized that my writing didn't have an ounce of substance. I don't actually know what to make of these people's lives. I feel horror, and sadness, and helplessness. That's all the honest reflection I have to offer.

The second way that I notice poverty is in all my interactions with Peruvians. Its much more subtle. At dinner, everyone always finishes all their food. When shopping, people compare prices. This is the sort of shopping I'm used to seeing when people are buying TVs or washing machines, but here, we'll get a couple of quotes for sunscreen or laundry detergent. Money invokes a very careful, controlled attitude in people. Exact change is carefully counted out to send someone off to buy something for diner. Debts are re-payed quickly and exactly, and I've yet to see any “I'll cover this one, you get the next one” attitude. Every price, every purchase, every debt and every credit is a precise and important affair. When I chipped in 1.2 soles for a shopping trip in Cusco, my family repayed me in exact change three days later. I think this attitude is telling. I get the feeling that everyone is only a generation or two away from hard times. The attitude isn't one of stinginess-- I've found Peruvians to be exceptionally warm and generous-- its just that everyone is very aware of money and waste. In some ways, it feels infinitely more sensible than the conspicuous consumption that pops up back in the states.

Anyhow, on to lighter topics:

Yesterday we went on what 90% of my body agrees is the greatest tour I've had in Peru (the other 10% had to contend with a very, very hard bike seat on a very, very bumpy trail) We were driven up, out of the sacred valley into a high elevation somewhere. There, we fitted our helmets-- mine rested over my baseball cap creating a very stylish effect-- and applied sunscreen.

 The first part of the trail was dusty, flat, and sunny. The terrain looked a bit like the Alaskan tundra in that there were no trees and most of the ground was covered with mosses and unhappy looking grasses. After an hour or so, we arrived at Moray. Moray is an Incan ruin, a set of four pits lined with concentric agricultural terraces. Pits is probably a bit of a deceptive word. These terraces were probably the most impressive thing I've seen in Peru so far. The scale is overwhelming, it is impossible to imagine the construction of something like this, and the geometry was elegant and pleasing. Our tour guide told us that scientists believe that the terraces were used as a kind of ancient lab to experiment with crops. The terraces create a series of micro-climates, and Incans could tinker with adapting plants for use in different regions. Unfortunately, the notion of adaptation in plants upset many conservative Incans who demanded that science not be taught in Incan schools. The resulting ignorance was responsible for the downfall of the great civilization. Just kidding! The downfall was actually more of a result of the Spanish. The Incans had no problem with science, and their engineering continues to impress scientists to this day.

Fooled you! This is actually from the Incan festival in Cusco a weekend or two ago-- the one put on by High Schools that I attended with my family.

After finishing up in Moray, we biked down to the Salineras. These salt mines have been in operation for centuries, and continue to support a small town today. The ride itself was hair-raising (or would have been if my hair hadn't been secured under both hat and helmet). The path was very steep, very rocky, and, toward the end, very wet. The view was once-in-a-lifetime, and the cliff on the side of the trail made that more of a threat than an idiom.

 The mines themselves were pretty spectacular as well. They looked like a giant haphazard grip of snow, but the dry, salty air and prominent “Salt Mines” sign gave away their true nature. Workers come every morning at 4 to begin harvesting, and they usually finish up for the day before noon when the sun reflects off of the salt to create an unbearably intensity.

The remainder of the ride down the mountain read like the back of a bad novel, a high-octane tour de force. Unfortunately, like those same novels, it is also a bit dull in print. So have some more pretty pictures instead!

A long overdue catch-up

9/18:

This week saw the end of the beginning: we finished orientation. The newly oriented me has been having a wonderful time here, but before I go on I offer this aside: an alliterative apology to my photo-famished friends. Sadly, the slow speed of connection complicates comprehensive posting of pictures. I do what I can!

Work:

Our work is divided in two. Half of the week we spend on "internal projects," projects that Pro Peru has already established. My internal project (first choice too, woot woot!) is water filters. As the thriving electrolyte and Cipro markets suggest, the water in Peru is not safe to drink. This has lead to what may be viewed as comic paranoia on my part-- showers with my jaw tightly clenched, refusal to floss until my hands have been washed, dried AND hand-sanitizer'd, etc. The implications are less funny for rural communities. Much less funny. Diarrhea is a major cause of infant mortality, and parasites and infections are far to common. Take a second to consider how many times a day you relay on clean water-- brush your teeth in the morning? Don't want to pick up giardea from that. The dishes you ate breakfast off of, were they completely dry after washing? How about lunch, did you wash the lettuce on that sandwich?

I've been drinking (and brushing, and gargling) out of water bottles for the last few weeks . Its been tricky, and that’s WITH the unlimited supply of clean water that’s available at the office. Clean water in rural communities is a big issue. My organization has been running a project to provide cheap water filters. The technology is simple: the filters look like flower pots siting in a bucket (in fact, the office has several flower pots that started as filters but failed testing). As water is poured into the ceramic filter, it trickles into the bucket, leaving bacteria stuck in the ceramic. We add a bit of colloidal silver to make their stay uncomfortable. The workshop churns out filters like mad, and I get to help by mixing, pressing, firing, and painting the clay. Unfortunately, supply has outpaced demand by a bit, so most of my work in the next couple of months will involve public education efforts to help distribute the filters.

I also have this dream:One of the project's long term goals is to find a more sustainable supply of colloidal silver. I poked around online a bit and it looks like I may have an opportunity to play mad scientist. A bit of electricity, some distilled water, and two silver wires may be all that stands between me and home-brewing the colloidal silver. A thick pair of work gloves may also be all that stands between me and a powerful electric shock.

Play (wouldn't want to be a dull boy):

Adventures! We had 'em! We visited the Incan ruins of Ollantetambo, where an impressive set of terraces winded me after a couple of minutes of climbing. The ruins were the largest and most complicated I've seen so far, and the stonework was as impressive (and baffling) as ever. At one point, Helena, Cian and I got lost. We fell victim to an ancient Incan trap-- they built their ruins so as to provide countless wonderful photo opportunities, thereby slowing visitors and separating them from their fast-walking tour guides. Fortunately, we employed an ancient countermeasure: yelling. After a bit of shouting, we rejoined the group proper. This last weekend, I visited Cusco with my family. We were celebrating an Uncle's birthday, attending a little festival, and in my case, hunting for that most elusive of foods: Peanut Butter.

The Birthday was a small, family affair (watch that comma, the family was huge). We ate cake, drank tea, and sang “Happy Birthday” in English. I expect that the language choice was for my benefit, because everyone seemed a lot more certain the second time through in Spanish. The next day, we went up to the ruins of Sacsaywaman-- pronounced like Sexy Woman-- to watch a ceremony put on by local schools. From what I could understand, the ceremony honors an Incan tradition where four regions would meet to have a sort of Inca Olympics. Nowadays, four schools (or maybe more, I just saw four different colors) meet to dance, sing, and try to knock each other off of tall wooden structures. Onto fires. That's right, one of the main attractions was a series of challenges where teams would erect 20 foot wooden frames using ropes, and then climb them to knock eachother off. Demonstrating the rarity of civil suits in Peru, kids would then run out from the corners of the field with dried grass and gasoline to light fires beneath the frames. Oddly enough, I never saw anyone get seriously hurt, although I did notice two ambulances lurking on the sidelines.

My final highlight of Cusco was the peanut butter. I should explain: There are three great culinary challenges in peru (outside the challenges of resisting temptation). The first is salad, as it is almost never trustworthy-- washed in unhygienic water, made with unpeeled tomatoes, the list of threats is endless. The second challenge is dark chocolate. For some reason, chocolate is available as super-sweet or completely unsweetened, but there is no middle ground. The third challenge is peanut butter. It just is not available in peru. Besides the simple human need to consume ground peanuts, I was driven by compassion to find this heavenly paste. One of the girls here can't swallow pills, and needed to grind anti-malarials into something tasty. Anyhow, the upshot is that I spent a couple of hours in Cusco poking around markets and stores. After several fruitless attempts to explain peanut butter to peruvians (I believe I was literally asking “you have peanuts having been crushed?”) I spotted, tucked in the “throw gringos a bone” corner of a megamart, a tiny jar of goopy brown goodness. The same corner also housed Nutella, which will probably lure me back before too long.

A few miscellaneous hijinks:

1. We are on a mission to try every one of the plethora of peruvian candies and snackcakes. Never before have I seen so many combinations of chocolate, cracker, cookie, caramel, artificial flavor, wafer, and seductive packaging.
2. We are on a quest to find churro man, a mysterious figure rumored to appear in the market. His location and timing appear to be completely random-- or governed by a sufficiently complex pattern as to seem random. Every person I've talked to gives me a different set of instructions on how to find him, but they all agree that his churros are a life changing experience.
3. Guacamole. I am on a personal mission to find a food that is NOT improved by guac. I believe that Guac, like hummus or bacon, goes well with anything. I suppose I should justify this: the avocados here are cheap and succulent, or would be if succulent could describe an avocado. Darn Tasty
   Upon review I realize that this list could be more accurately described as “operation swell up and die happy.” Ah well, life will go on, if a little more roundly than before. 

On Mountains, New homes, and Arachnophobia 

september 9

Tomorrow, we move to Urubamba! In qechua, the native language of the incas, urubamba means "flat land of spiders." In english, flat land of spiders means I will be freaked out for the next nine months.

UPDATE: We are in Urubamaba-- WAY WORTH THE EIGHT LEGGED VENOM DRIPPING HORRORS! The natural beauty is overwhelming. It truly tanscends description, so have a photo. Or two. Or six.

 My new house

 My beautiful new room (now much messier)

  nice little hike (featured in this photo is chong)

 Urubamba. Where i get to live. For nine months. :-)

 At the top of the aforementioned hike

 The mountains surround us (like the spiders, I fear). I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska with mountains permanently guarding the east. The mountains of Urubamba are alien in appearence, but they comfort me like the mountains back home. The predominant color here is brown. There are the dark earthy browns of the mountains, the light dusty browns of the roads, and the newly deposited browns on all the clothing that i wore to explore a little rocky concavity on the side of a hill. I'm told that the browns fade into green during the rainy season, which is expected to start around november (frequent readers will recall my policy on fact checking)

The biggest news in Urubamba is my host family! Yesterday I moved in to the sweetest, most patient, most accommodating household imaginable. The house has an interior courtyard, surrounded by two stories of rooms. Most of the bottom rooms house a kindergarten that conveniently starts just as i wake up in the morning (no sarcasm here, the excited squeals of little kids are oddly well timed) My room has two beds, several windows, and a thoughtful welcome sign. My new family has an unbelievably patient mother who puts up with my ongoing desecration of the spanish language. It also has the world's second cutest little girl—and the first! I haven't decided which is which yet. Tonight we played a game that seemed to involve my being poked repeatedly with a bubble wand before turning into a dinasuar and chasing them around. At least I hope it was a game - the spanish was way over my head and i may have just terrified two little girls. Regardless, they seemed to forgive me before bedtime, when Claire Anna refused to sleep until showing me her homework, complete with many english words. I have a sneaking suspicion that her enlish surpasses my spanish.

In the next few weeks, I'll establish my routine and really settle into life in Urubamba. From everything I've seen so far, I have an incredible nine months in front of me.

Pics or it didn't happen

This is a typical street in cusco, right outside our hotel actually.

 This is my dinner from a couple of nights ago. That ain't chicken

  These are some horizon shots around cusco, the last two are taken from an Incan temple in the city. I have no idea how our tour guide remembered its name, cause that bad boy had more syllables than an Ivy league application essay

 This is a blurry shot from a concert that we stumbled into late two nights ago. We were wandering around cusco late at night, heard music coming from a church, and poked our heads in to find the Cusco symphony.

 This is Peruvian mountain terrain. Sidenote: the altitude here in Cusco is about 12000 ft. That is more than a third of the height of everest. I think. I don't really do fact checking in these posts. If someone wants to call me out, they'll have to leave a comment, thereby legitimizing my blog (confirming that it does, in fact, have readers)

 OH! OH! I know those people!!!! Thats me, Chong, and Helena. Woot woot!

 Coca tea: a cup made with one gram of leaves contains about 4.21 mg of cocaine. Tasty stuff, and it has about the same stimulant effect as coffee. As the nice doctor at princeton told us, coca tea is fine, just don't masticate.

 A very nice catholic cathedral built over what I imagine was a much nicer Inca temple. Imperialisim: The Horror, the horror.

 This one survived though, this is a window from an Incan ruin. The stones were carved so perfectly that they use no mortar, and these walls survived earthquakes that destroyed most Spanish structures.

 Super pretty fountain we found late at night in Cusco!

 Coca leaves! Peru produces quite a lot of cocaine, but these leaves would need a lot of refinement first. DON'T MASTICATE!

 The center of the courtyard at an Incan Temple.

 Me in a silly hat. The brother to this hat, named Jerry, went home with Helena. They seem very happy together.

This is the center courtyard at our hotel. The sun here is very intense, but the air is actually pretty chilly. SO MANY LAYERS

Anyhow, this is the first picture update. I'll probably have more in the future. In fact, I promise that if you come back, you will eventually see something cute, either
a) a goat
b) a baby alpaca
c) me sticking my tongue out
d) Babies

Playing Cuy

September 2

Crazy for cuy: Last night I confirmed as valid my choice of URL for this blog. Cuy, for those unfamiliar with the finer points of Peruvian cuisine, is a savory, festive dish with a unique, musky undertone. For those unfamiliar with Spanish zoology, Cuy is Guinea pig. My crispy little rodent arrived accompanied with a large kernel-ed corn, potato slices, and stuffed peppers. That meal, and the three subsequent meals I've had in Peru all qualify as some of the best cooking I've ever experienced (the cuy also qualifies as an act of dissection finer than anything I've ever preformed in biology classes). I suspect that gushing on about Peruvian food will be a reoccurring theme is this blog, so I'll go light here, but OH MY GOODNESS IT IS ALL SO TASTY! The ingredients in restaurants determine "La menu," or the daily multi-course special. Consequently, the food is fresh and varied. I can hardly pronounce most of the foods I've been eating, but the flavors are universal favorites: Spicy, savory meats, vibrant fruits, and thick, hearty soups. There is, of course, also the Giardia-laced lettuce and fresh tomatoes a la salmonella, but viscous bouts of diarrhea really do seem like a small price to pay for the food here.

Lima!

September 1:

Adventure strikes! Well, sorta. We arrived in Lima late last night. Forget Cocaine, Peru leads the world in the production of airport greeting signs. A big crowd lined the path to the baggage claim waving homemade signs greeting friends and family. As I walked through the corridor of marker-and-cardboard (And, for the creme de la creme, whiteboard and marker) welcomes, I wondered how it would feel to have sign with my name. Someone, anyone to love me. But no, I'm all alone is the freezing blackness of isolated despair. Haha, no, not really. I may some day be struck with airport sentimentalia, but it will probably be in a less foreign airport, because I was honestly more concerned with customs. I don't speak any Spanish, and I was terrified that I'd have to defend my bags from some cruel Hispanic man with a neat, orderly moustache and dual hatreds for Americans and undeclared animal products. As I passed through customs, I was instructed to press a button that would randomly illuminate a red or green light, thereby deciding whether my bags were subject to search. Fortunately, an elderly gentleman cut me in line and took the full brunt of the "red light of inquisition." I gleefully skated free with my "green light of disinterest."

Gettin' my Princeton on

August 31

Hola!

I thought I'd take that opportunity to show off about 50 percent of my Spanish vocabulary-- pretty impressive, huh? I'm certain it will grow rapidly once classes start. Until then, I'm limited to simple phrases like: "Where is the bathroom?" "My name is Kenneth," or even, "My name is bathroom." With time, I hope to invent a way to ask where the Kenneth is.

I just finished the 4 day orientation at Princeton, which was fun, exciting, nerve wracking, intimidating, and marked by large patches of free time to reflect on the intimidating excitement of nervous fun. I was introduced to the program's alumni, heard stories of their adventures, and had surprisingly rich discussions on service and culture. I also was introduced to a group of remarkable co-volunteers. The program as a whole had twenty kids, and each was polite, witty, and engaging. My group, team Peru, has three girls and two guys.

Ignoring the hurricane business --which I largely did-- campus was beautiful, sunny and green. The antique stonework absolutely oozed class (they never sealed the mortar as well as they should have). Nassau street, the main road of the little college town, is stuffed with quaint little shops and small town charm. I found myself walking down several times to enjoy ice cream, frozen yogurt, and an odd new discovery: Bubble tea. Bubble tea is an iced tea served with a wide straw and a pile of syrup filled "bubbles" on the bottom. Suck them up, and the bubbles pop to create what the marketing describes as an "explosion of flavor." Unlike most explosions, these were surprisingly pleasant, and I tried several different combinations of tea and bubble. I think my favorite was chai tea with tapioca bubbles.

This morning, I woke up from a measly four hours of sleep to leave for Peru. Groggy from fatigue and laden with bags, I stumbled to the shuttle. After a warm blur of farewell hugs, I was off! Not to adventure of course, that won't come for a bit. No, I was off to meet the cranky service woman of the international travel counter. Bags were checked and taken, boarding passes were issued, and we were off! Still not to adventure of course, I'm currently on a six hour flight and have no exciting stories to tell, but rest assured that they will be reported just as soon as possible.