Hi everyone. I’ll be honest, my first week in Cuzco has been a vivid blur. I need to get better at keeping track of it in my journal. For now, hopefully this will suffice.
I feel like what my Spanish professor and I are doing in class, both day to day and more long-term, are helping me to quickly get over the remaining language barrier. It’s not that I don’t know Spanish, it’s just that I’m getting used to hearing and speaking it almost exclusively. Everyone with whom I’ve had more than a passing interaction has told me, “Poco a poco” (little by little). My biggest concern with the “poco a poco” approach is that I’ll end up stagnating or plateauing.
As far as my internship, I am finally laying proper claim to it. Antony really does want to help and to do the best he can, so I can’t be too frustrated with him–to be honest, I’m more frustrated that I didn’t specify his role when we met online. As I mentioned earlier, at first he was taking over my job. Last Thursday, I tried a fourth time to explain what I needed from him, and he seemed to get it a bit more, because for the first time I was much more involved with the kids who came to our table. The following Monday, however, I think we finally nailed it. As we were leaving the one-room school, I told Antony as specifically as I could what I thought–namely, that it just wan’t going to work with him in the room with me, no matter what we tried; the kids would still come to him, and he has a tendency to get sucked into things. He’s an excellent teacher, and he’s cool overall, but it just wasn’t going to work. He didn’t completely agree with me: He thought that what we were doing was working just fine, and he told me that the supervisor had in fact asked him to help me (again, not very specific). We agreed to talk to the supervisor the next day and work something out. With the exception of talking to the supervisor, we worked out a system where he would go into his own area and I would remain at our table, and he would help me if needed, but otherwise I was on my own, as I always should have been. It worked beautifully, as did the method Audrey, another intern, and I used to maintain the class’s attention–a certain rhythm we would clap out loudly and they would repeat until they were all silent. Audrey saved my game of Simon Says–I played it as a kid, so I thought that at least most of the kids would know what it was. She stepped in when we were a few rounds in and caught everyone else up. I am now much more excited for the afternoons when we go to the after-school program. Antony and I have finally arrived at a system that I believe is best, and Antony and I agreed to walk to and from school together until Friday and then assess, our goal being that I go there independently. I believe I’m there, but I want to be sure and take it easy. This makes me kind of sad because, apart from sometimes being micromanaged, I really enjoy Antony. He is a part of the young single adult group of my church, so hopefully we can develop an actual friendship that way, wherein the specifics of how to help me aren’t always so important. Despite said frustrations, I love and enjoy the students and the people with whom I work, and I am starting to feel truly fulfilled–poco a poco, of course. While I still want to earn a degree in teaching English literature and grammar, I’ve decided that I want to make teaching English as a second or other language part of my professional life as well.
As far as sightseeing and traveling, last week was full of outings, some of which overlapped with going to and from school. Last Monday, we all went to this local pizza place either in or near the Plaza de Armas and ordered a pizza with goat cheese on it. It was the best pizza I’ve had in a long time! Then some of us hung out with one of Astrid’s kids, Cadel, and watched The Exorcism of Emily Ross, which wasn’t even that scary and had one of my favorite endings–I’m beginning to not like Hallmark endings unless I can believe them. Another day we went to a play of “Rey Leon” in Spanish, and it was unforgettable! The next day Antony and I walked to and from school through a parade that ended up being a seven-hour one celebrating the virgin Mary. Antony told me that there were dancers in certain outfits that we could watch but not join, but later someone else told me that the same dancers were grabbing people off the streets and inviting them to join. I’ve always wanted to witness people dancing openly in the streets and to join them, so now I can say that half of that fantasy has been fulfilled. I might have been stupid and pulled out my phone as we were walking through crowds of people and dancers–apparently one risks losing their phone in such situations. Antony tried to tell me to let him take a video and that I was risking losing my phone, but it was hard to hear over the fanfare, and besides I was plain sick of being micromanaged. After we were clear of people and other clutter, I explained sighted guide and told him that that would be much more helpful if and when we walked through another parade together. He was cool with it, and he didn’t seem to be put off by me.
That same evening, we got together with everyone from Proyecto Peru and went downtown to play Laser Tag. I have never enjoyed a game of Laser Tag more–the music and the action were epic. Afterwards we went to a restaurant and got tacos. They were delicious. Then the group of us from SUU, along with a few others, went to a salsa night club, where someone tried to teach salsa moves in English. We all made it a point to go every week so we could be legit when we returned home. One of the students with Proyecto Peru, a kid from France named Samir, was happy to try and include me in the dances. It was great, and I appreciate him for it, but I really prefer dancing with a girl over a guy.
Another day, we took a roundabout route to Mercado San Pedro, which is right across the street from where we live. The market was my favorite part of the whole walk. It’s an outdoor market with tables, stalls, and a canopy–I’m not sure if everything is under one canopy or not. For some reason I ended up accidentally feeling the canopy, and for this reason this market will be forever etched in my memory. In the West we have markets that consist of brick and mortar, stone, windows, concrete and/or carpet floors, and other more sterile things; here, you had wares laid out on tables and in stalls, vendors calling them out, and a simple canopy, probably sewn by hand. And of course the ever-present music. And then the randomness of some kids running around dribbling a basketball. All more up close, more real. I swear I’m telling from the senses, not the imagination.
And there were also dogs–always the dogs. The only issue I’ve had with them so far was stepping right into fresh dog poop and then having to walk into the house barefoot so we could wash my shoes. I’m hoping I can avoid it in the future by constantly sweeping, not tapping, the ground with my cane.
Another fantasy realized–that is, in visiting Mercado San Pedro.
On Saturday while my friends did further sightseeing, I visited a blindness organization headquartered in a building that served as school and a central meeting place for the Unión de Ciegos de la Región Inca to conduct business. Taking a taxi there was a relatively simple yet magical endeavor. I had always envisioned as part of being in Latin America traveling by bus or by taxi and imagined what I had been told–that music is an integral part of those things. Riding in the back with the windows down so that we were privy to both the radio and the outside world, I felt like a child in a candy store. Another fantasy realized.
In the morning there was a meeting for all the young adults who showed up, after which we hung out and had a jam session courtesy of one kid who had brought his guitar. We swapped songs from out cultures, some familiar and some not. For lunch, I walked around the corner to a restaurant whose name I never learned with the president of the organization, Fredy, and a friend of mine I had met online who had invited me there, Litzi. We had minestrone soup and Milanesa con pollo–the pollo was chicken nuggets, and the meat in the soup was alpaca meat with lots of bones. We talked over lunch about what I was doing, and Fredy took interest nd said, “I think I could be of help to you. Why don’t we have some orientation and mobility every Sunday afternoon, and I can help you solidify your route to school and work?” Since this had been what I had been looking for to begin with–a teacher more than a guide–I took him up on it. I had my initial judgments–from my observations, it seemed that I had more confidence in negotiating uneven sidewalks, street furniture, and other obstacles than they did, but I also knew I had more to learn, so I decided to suspend judgment for now.
I was invited to attend the afternoon meeting, which was for everyone who did business in the streets, at various kiosks. As in the morning meeting, in this meeting I was introduced as the visitor from the United States, and then I was aware how much I stood out–I was the tallest person in the room, and my skin was most likely the fairest. I really appreciated it when, in his introduction of me, Fredy noted that while I was a foreigner, I had the same unique things in common with everyone else–namely, a lack of vision. Both times after I was introduced, everyone took great interest in me; they wanted to know who I was and what I was about. They asked if I belonged to any blindness organization. I said I was part of the National Federation of the Blind, and they seemed a bit surprised when I told them that it encompasses all of the United States.
After the meeting ended, I hung out with Litzi and some of her friends and was surprised when I struggled and failed to get an Uber. Even my experiences with Uber in Cedar City were more reliable than here. I ended up taking a taxi, courtesy of Fredy. We talked about the blind soccer the other young adults had invited me to play with them at some fields on Sundays and about our walking around on Sunday afternoons. I thanked him, and we parted ways.
On Sunday, my friends told me about where they had been, and we decided that they would take me to retrace their steps some time this week. In the meantime, we took a walk through the Plaza de Armas and saw the Twelve-angle Stone, a stone the Incas had sculpted to fit in with the rest of the stones that constituted the wall with no mortar whatsoever. I wonder if we’ve learned how to replicate such architecture yet.
As far as traveling around this week, it has been more relaxed, as we now have homework and I am tired a lot. We do intend to go on more adventures soon, and I will have pictures of those to post next time. In addition, the pictures for this one will come later, because I’ve still got to figure out how to post them in a way that makes sense. Hasta luego.
Traveling in Peru 