songs of solitude;

dia uno....y media

surreal. pretty much the only word that comes to my mind right now.

flying is exciting. exhilerating even. but i found myself so caught up in the act of going to visit my Peruvian family that it wasn´t until mid-travel that reality hit. what did i think i was doing? i barely know all the spanish vocabulary i need to know for my 100-level class. how was i expecting to be able to communicate with a family that speaks only a few phrases in English?!? call it arrogence or call it stupidity...the closer we got to Lima, the stinkier the pile of poop i had put myself in became.

after escaping the baggage claim mosh pit with both bags as well as my digity, i proceeded, quite nervioso, towards the sea of clamouring Peruvian faces, all waiting for their safely landed friends and family. i was only left dreading the thousands of ¨what if´s for a split second before i heard my name and saw Angela running towards me. Í´ll never really know, i suppose, how long we actually stood there hugging, because it felt as though it could have been infinity. how long had we known eachother? 4 months? and over the internet! but that hug was too beautiful for words. it was like expeiencing a new kind of love surging thoroughout my body, like electricity.

but, as is life, such moments of sheer wonder must be followed by doubt. lots and lots of doubt. in about 5 minutes, Angela and her husband ushered me to a taxi, which her brother was driving. and in five minutes they both realized how poor my spanish actually was. the internet is a cheat. you can take your time and use aids (a dictionary, translation sites) to comprehend. but you can´t bs anything in person.

well...it really hasn´t been as bad as all that. sure...i say ¨no entiendo¨ a lot...but i´m getting better. i think.

language aside, this experience has been more visual than anything. I knew before i came that Lima is really poor. but yet i still didn´t quite grasp the reality. their house is very modest. which means, cement floor, an incomplete roof, few possessions, and little food. the neighbourhood too is quite hard on the eyes. imagine looking at hiroshema the day after it was bombed. desolate. baran. wasteland. yet home to thousands.

but no one is sad. in fact quite opposite; particulaly this family. they have so little and yet i have yet to see them sad or upset about anything. i have only been here one day and they treat me like a member of the family. its beautiful.

today felt like three days in one. i spent the morning being given an extensive tour of the neighbourhood, the marketplace, and the parks. i woke up this morning to a rooste, whom i saw grazing during my tour. wild sheep; wild dogs; wild cats; wild children; the whole area was teaming with life. the kids had fun posing for pictures. they love getting their photo taken!

part two: they take me to the zoo. now that was a good time. i never thought i would end up travelling to Peru to see penguins in a zoo in Lima! our frequetly used method of transportation is ¨lös taxichollos¨. try imagining, if you can, a golf cart, with a hood, on three wheels. yep. un taxichollo.

another thing interesting about Peruvian transportation is that it doesn´t matter how full a bus, van, or taxichollo is, you can always fit more people on it. there must have been 20 of us in a 10 seat van. and later, 7 in a taxichollo...which comforably sits two adults....and sat three adults and 4 children. you greedy north americans and your ¨have to sit two seats away on the bus because i don´t know you¨ attitude! get a grip!

part three: la fiesta. it must be said that in Peru, they know how to party. i went to the craziest party of my life; a 7 year old Peruvian boy´s birthday party. i have never really been in the racial minority position before, but man, it was like i was an alpaca in the company of a beautiful herd of mustangs. i tried to blend in, speaking the best spanish i could, but i could not have possibly looked and felt any whiter.

however, it seemed as though it was purely parnoia. the wamth of the company of these people was luminous. we sang (ok i prenteded to sing) these crazy spanish songs, play silly games that i had to figure out as they went since the instructions no en ingles....which was easy for hot potato, but not so much for this crazy slapping game i still don´t understand :P

the funniest moment was when all the childen started yelling ¨PINYATA!¨ and were all simultaneously throwing punches and high kicks at this enormous balloon hanging from the centre of the room. yes. misguided kicks. punches awry. a battlefield of screams of excitement and ultimate pain. finally, we heard a loud BANG! and the bodies all hit the ground in one wave, as the children forgot their previous pains and were now frantically scooping candy off the ground.

i love the people here. it seems just when i am having my doubts about humanity, i am thrown into perhaps one of few remaining places not yet ruined by capitalism, where people freely and simply love each other. they enjoy expressing it. they enjoy talking about it. and they enjoy feeling it.

as do i.

ñp

posted by crooked girl @ 11:33 PM