Back to San Ignacio

After Puno I was tired of traveling and being a tourist, so I decided to go back to San Ignacio sooner than planned.  That journey involved 3.5 days, 3,000 kilometers, 5 buses, and 4 more stamps in my nearly-full passport. 

I left Puno on Friday night, but since I hadn't bought a bus ticket in advance I had to go to the terminal a bit early to make sure I would get a seat.  As I was waiting I saw a group of people playing "truco," an Argentinian card game that I learned in San Ignacio.  As I love games and all things Argentinian I got very excited and couldn't help but ask where they were from (Chile) and mention that I love truco.  They invited me to play with them, so that helped pass the time until my bus came. 

My return to San Ignacio started with a short (7-hour) overnight bus from Puno to Tacna, followed immediately by a quick (2-hour) ride across the border to Arica in Chile.  I didn't think there was a direct bus to Argentina for another two days, so I was prepared to either wait around or take various buses to make it across, but I was happily surprised to find out there was a direct bus leaving that evening.  I had all day to hang out in Arica (see awkward story below) before leaving at 10pm Saturday night (2 nights in a row on a bus), only to arrive in Salta (Argentina) 20 hours later.  Luckily I ended up sitting next to a fun Argentinian guy, and we amused ourselves by taking silly pictures to help the time pass.  I spent the night in Salta, and the next day went to an arts and crafts market to buy some souvenirs.  Then I had another 20-hour bus ride (and another night sleeping on a bus) leaving at 4pm Sunday before FINALLY arriving in San Ignacio (after switching buses two more times) just before noon on Monday.  Phew.

Awkward story from Arica: I had left some things with the family I had stayed with in Arica, so when I passed through I went to pick them up.  Apparently they were angry that I left early, because Magdalena, who was only there for 2 days of my stay, wouldn't even let me in the house.  I waited awkwardly in the doorway while they brought me my things, and then had to repack my bag in the corner of the store.  When I had left going to Peru I wanted to take a picture, but Eusebio suggested I wait to take it with Magdalena.  When I mentioned to Magdalena that I wanted to take a picture she informed me that they don't take pictures with volunteers because it violates their privacy.  Mind you, the day I arrived they took a picture of the three volunteers and Cesar, and didn't seem concerned about our privacy being violated.  I asked if I could at least say goodbye to Eusebio and the kids, but was informed that they were busy.  Even creepy Cesar gave me the cold shoulder to my face, which I was quite happy about, until I started receiving an abundance of messages on facebook from him, despite having unfriended and unliked everything related to this whole crazy family.  Locos.  Speaking of which, I need to write a review of them on the volunteering website...

Puno, Lake Titicaca, and the Floating Islands

A floating island

After Arequipa Rachael and I parted ways, and I went to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, to see the disappointingly overrated floating islands.  I went down to the port in the morning and got a seat on one of the boats that shuttles tourists to and from this world renowned attraction.  On the boat ride to the islands I met some Argentinians and another American who spoke Spanish really well, and hanging out with them made the excursion worthwhile. 

Demo of how the islands are made

When we got to the islands they gave us an explanation of how the islands are made.  They use chucks of earth that are held in blocks by roots, tie the blocks together, and put reeds criss crossed over them.  They are then anchored in place in the lake.  Originally there were only about three islands, primarily used for fishing, but as they became a famous tourist attraction, more and more islands appeared.  Now there are about 80, and none of them are for the purpose of fishing.  Since the blocks of earth are just tied together, they can divide the island if the families start fighting (there are about 5-6 families that live on each island), or join their island with new friends. 

Look!  I live 100% on the floating islands too now!

After the explanation, we got to go in the houses and even try on their clothes.  They say that they live 100% on the island and don't own houses on the main land, but most people who have done the tour seem pretty skeptical of that.  They didn't have kitchens, stoves, fireplaces, ashes, food, wrappers, or trash in any visible places, and nothing about their houses felt like people actually lived there.  Then we had the opportunity to buy the obligatory arts and crafts item to thank them for letting us into their homes.  And if it had stopped there the tour would have been ok.  But there are 5-6 families on the island, and they each wanted us to buy something from each family, and were very, very, pushy about it.  (We had also paid an entrance fee to go on the island.)  The women (no men or children were on the island - also odd considering they all supposedly live there, and women have 4-6 kids on average, but none of the women had children with them, and there were no toys or anything visible) and our guide kept saying things like, "If you don't buy our crafts we won't have money to go to the main land to get food for our children," and they kept repeating that we should "help them out."  Then there was an optional boat ride, and the 5 of us that opted not to go on it (for an extra fee, of course) were basically given the cold shoulder by the women, which was actually preferable to listening to their pushy, guilt-laden sales techniques. 


Completely unrelated, Rachael and I thought the crosswalk indicators in Arequipa were hilarious!

Walk, faster, faster, run!

Tacna and Arequipa

I met up with Rachael in Arica, and after showing her my interesting living situation, we set out for Tacna, Peru.  I had forgotten how crazy the markets here are, with people constantly calling out what products they are selling, and carts, children, trash, sacks, cars, people, and everything else crowding the streets.  After finding a decent place to stay for the night, we set out to the market for some lunch and shopping.  Later that afternoon we went to the movies, which is the first time I've done that in about a year.  We saw Divergent, dubbed in Spanish, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well I understood everything!  I rarely have trouble understanding people, but often the radio and tv can be diffucult.  I guess seeing it in a theater with proper sound techonology as opposed to on a bus or in a noisy restaurant makes a big difference!  The next morning we did a little more shopping, and then headed off to Arequipa.

I had forgotten what it's like to be in a big city in a poor country, with having to ask police to help you flag a safe taxi, and being restricted to a small area that is deemed safe for tourists.  If you need to ask for directions it's best to go in a pharmacy, or other store where people are well-paid, and never let someone show you where someplace is, because the possibility of ending up in an alley or basement, missing a few articles of clothing or some valuable items, is relatively high.  The first day there we went to the plaza to see what tours or excursions we could do.  After scouting out a few agencies to see which one seemed the least sketchy, we booked a rafting trip for Sunday, and an overnight trekking trip to the Colca Canyon for Monday to Tuesday.

The rafting was fun, and it was my first time doing it, but we had been told the rapids were class 2, 3, and up to 4.  Turns out they were mainly class 1 and 2, with one little class 3.  Oh well.  After that we did a very good walking tour of the safe, tourist part of Arequipa.  Many places here have free walking tours that students studying tourism lead so they can practice speaking English and dealing with foreigners.  They are often quite informative and intersting, and well-worth a small tip at the end.  On the way back from the Colca Canyon we stopped at some hotsprings, which felt really nice after the trek.  I'm still pretty sore from the trek, although it's getting better.  Yesterday I came to Puno, at Lake Titicaca, but I'll write a post about that after seeing the floating islands and doing other interesting things here.

I think tomorrow night I'll start the trip back to San Ignacio.  I had been planning on spending a little more time in Peru, but I'm just tired of traveling around constantly and being worried about my things getting stolen and seeing and doing such touristy things, even though many of them are really fun and interesting.  I much prefer spending longer periods of time in one place and getting to know the people and town and feeling at home.  Too bad it didn't work out for me to stay in Arica a little longer, but I'm really excited to see everyone in San Ignacio again, and I'm also really looking forward to coming back to the US!

Colca Canyon

In early March a Canadian woman, Rachael, was staying at the hostel in San Ignacio, and we realized that we were planning on being in Northern Chile and Southern Peru around the same time, so we found each other on facebook to keep in touch about our plans.  It turned out that since I left Arica earlier than planned, we were able to go to Tacna and Arequipa together.  One of the things we just finished in Arequipa was a trekking excursion in the Colca Canyon.

Colca Canyon, near Arequipa, Peru, is the deepest canyon in the world.  With about 2100 meters at its lowest point, it stretches all the way up to 6400 meters or so at its highest point.  We obviously didn't hike that high, but we had a good trek starting at about 3400 meters, all the way down a 7k rocky, winding, switchback path to the river.  It was quite steep at parts, with rock steps in some places, and sandy, dusty, slippery slopes in other parts.  Then we trekked another 5k along a "Peruvian flat" path (which I would not have classified as flat) to the oasis at 2100 meters.  We slept there for the night, and the next morning woke up at 5am to climb back up to about 3300.  It took us just over 3 hours to complete the 5k path up, but keep in mind we started at a relatively high altitude, so we had to take frequent breaks.

When we first got there we looked down on some tiny villages, that looked like little more than shiny dots because of all the tin roofs.  Climbing back up the next day we walked, and walked, and walked, and finally were even with the villages.  It felt like we had come so far, but we still had a long way to go to make the villages look like tiny dots again.  And the top of the mountain was so deceptive.  We kept thinking we were getting close, but then we would realize there was yet another part to go up.  So we walked, and walked, and walked, and it didn't seem to get much closer for a long, long time.  It was really tiring, but also an awesome experience.  I left my computer in Arica so I can't post any pictures now, but I will for sure in a few weeks.

It turned out that our guide was from one of the tiny villages we could look down on from the top, and we ate lunch at his family's restuarant.  Hearing his stories about how everything had changed since he was a little boy was a really interesting bonus to the trek.  We even got to see the house he grew up in!  When he was growing up, the village was full of kids -many families had 7-10 children.  In the 80's or so there was a push by the Peruvian government for families to have no more than 3 children, and if they reached 5 they were often forced to have visectomies or tubes tied.  After that the divorce rate went up, and their traditional way of life fell apart. 

Most excursions are interesting in and of themselves, but the guide and other people in your group can make a huge difference on the overall experience.  In addition to Rachael and I, we had guy from Wales, Phillip, and a Swiss couple, Esther and Michel, in our group.  We had a fun time comparing Welsch, American, and Canadian English after Phillip mentioned that his roommates used torches when they had come in late the night before.  I've heard enough British English by now to know that a torch is a flashlight, but the first image that came to my mind was of some backpackers entering a hostel room with flaming branches.  That became a running joke for the rest of the trek.

Final awkward/angry stories from Arica

Luckily my last few days in Arica passed quickly.  On Tuesday I went to a museum of mummies that were recently discovered (about 10 years ago) in Arica, and then I met up with a girl I found on CouchSurfing.  We went for a walk to a lighthouse near the port, got ice cream, and had a nice time just hanging out.  Too bad I only met her right before leaving! 

Wednesday work got really awkward - Eusebio wanted me to spend two hours of my work time dancing salsa with him despite the fact that there was actually a lot of work typing up a paper for someone that I would have been able to do much faster than Cesar.  We only danced for a little and I told him I was tired, so then we just sat in the kitchen and talked and he counted that as my work.  But he talked about weird things, like his 12-year-old son going through puberty, and sex drives and things.  It was really weird.  And then he told me to spend as much money as I wanted on lunch.  Again, weird.  And then at night Cesar kept whispering my name when I was going to bed, and then he would walk by and poke me or move the blanket as I was trying to fall asleep, and in the morning he woke me up early doing that stuff and I got really mad and loudly yelled at him to stop being so creepy. 

Monday night I also got kind of mad, and it was also awkward.  I was tired of the fact that Przemek and I always had to do the shopping, prepare the meals, and contribute such a high percentage of the cost of purchasing food, so I told Eusebio that if I was paying that much I didnt want to cook all the time anymore, and since the volunteers had made lunch, I thought that he or Cesar should cook dinner.  I even offered to do the shopping, and we talked about what he was going to make and what I needed to buy.  At 9:00 no one showed any signs of getting ready to cook, so I asked Eusebio what the plan was.  He and the boys had already eaten, but Cesar was going to cook, Eusebio told me.  Cesar said Eusebio hadnt told him that, and that he didnt know how to cook anything.  (We we having spaghetti!!)  Long story short, I got a bit angry and told them that if I ended up cooking, I was ONLY making food for me and Przemek and that I was sick of them being lazy and taking advantage of our time and money.  Needless to say, Cesar cooked dinner that night.  And the next few days Eusebio offered many times to help with the food, so I didnt have to do much cutting and slicing after that.

Earthquake!

I finally felt my first earthquake today!  Przemek was here for an 8.2 earthquake a few weeks ago, and the strong tremors after that, and he found it all to be quite exciting.  I've been jealous listening to everyone's stories from that day.  But today I got to feel one myself!  It was a very weak one, but I happened to be sitting on the beach watching the sunset at the time, so I felt it.  There are many small earthquakes every day here, but if you're someplace with a lot of noise/traffic/movement you don't usually feel them.  There have been many since I've been here that I haven't noticed.  I was sitting in the sand when it happened, and it just felt like someone had dropped something really heavy in the sand next to me, and I could feel the vibrations from that.  I actually thought it was something along those lines for a second, and turned about to see who or what was behind me, and then realized it was an earthquake.  Since earthquakes are so common here there is an official website that records them all, which is updated almost instantly. (http://www.sismologia.cl/seismo.html)  Here is the recording of the one I felt:


My Earthquake

The sunset I was watching during the earthquake.

 I also took a video of my sleeping area, which my parents were lucky enough to see via Skype, but I'm not sure if it uploading correctly, so I've included a picture too.  In the video first you see the bed, then the door that goes to the business, then the divider wall (top half see-through) of the kitchen, and then the hallway that goes to the bathroom.  And it is just about as uncomfortable and it looks in the picture.  The mess isn't all my fault (despite my reputation for messes), because Przemek switched spots with me last night so I could have his slightly more private couch in the business, so our things all over the place due to that.

 

 

Frustrations

I've decided to leave here Thursday. 

Another aspect of volunteering here that has frustrated me recently is everything related to meals and eating.  First of all, the volunteers contribute 1000 pesos per person per meal, which isn't technically a contribution in my opinion because it's mandatory, and it makes me a bit angry that they don't tell you that online before you come.  2 volunteers x 3 meals per day = 6000 pesos of contributions.  Yesterday for lunch and dinner the total spent was less than 7000.  I know that because without Magdalena here it has fallen on the volunteers to do ALL of the shopping and cooking, which is all in addition to our 4 hours of work per day.  I don't mind the actual acts of shopping and cooking because now we have control of what we eat (and the food has been really tasty!!), but I don't like that it has become basically an expectation.  But back to the money.  Volunteers contribute 6000, food costs about 7000.  Which means that the other FOUR PEOPLE who live here and eat what we prepare pay for only about 15% of it.  So basically we are paying for and preparing food for everyone who lives here AND working four hours per day for free, all in exchange for a makeshift sleeping surface.

I also think the use of volunteers in for-profit businesses is odd.  For example, they charge 2500 pesos for a one-hour English class, and all that money goes directly to them, not to a community project or something beneficial.  I usually associate the use of volunteers for the purpose of providing FREE English classes, or if you are going to charge for something a volunteer does, then I would think the money raised might go toward a community cause.  They are planning a family trip to Australia in August.

Should I stay or should I go now?

So my past few days have gone something like this:

I wake up on my bench in the hall after an uncomfortable night sleep and I think, "Ugggh this is ridiculous, I need leave NOW."  And then I spend all day with everyone here, go for a run on the beach, speak a lot of Spanish, try to pronounce a few Polish words, play with the kids, eat some good food and think, "Life is pretty nice here."  And then I go to bed and the cycle repeats.  So I'm not planning my departure yet, but I might bump it up a few days partly because of the living situation here and partly just to give me more time to travel.  We shall see.

Today was my day to cook, and as I could have guessed the oven doesn't work, so baked ziti wasn't an option.  Instead I made rice with ground beef and vegetables for lunch, and lentil salad with mashed potatoes for dinner.  Magdalena isn't back yet, so I think we will get to cook again tomorrow!  It's nice actually cooking for a lot of people because I'm willing to spend more time to make better things.  In San Ignacio when I was just cooking for myself I was pretty lazy and uncreative with what I made.

My daily work routine is pretty nice now.  I open the shop at 9am and work until 11am, and then after the kids come home and we eat lunch I play with them for 2 hours.  The weather here is amazing - short sleeves with either shorts or long pants is usually fine all day, low humidity, beautiful sunsets.  I looked on couchsurfing for locals to meet, and one girl responded to my message and we might meet up this weekend.  I looked in the Lonely Planet guide and there are two museums that seem interesting, so I'll try to get to them sometime next week maybe.  One has a lot of Incan mummies.

Not much else to report on, so I will finish with a quick list of the people here so I can reference them in future posts and not have to explain who they are:
Me!!
Magdalena - the mom and owner of the printing/internet business
Eusebio - the dad
Jeremias - the older son (12)
Jordan - the younger son (8)
Cesar - a Peruvian guy who works/lives here
Przemek - a Polish guy who is volunteering here
NO PETS :)

Second impression

Magdalena had to travel today which meant...the volunteers got to do the shopping and cooking!!  Lunch was a delicious curry/chicken/banana/rice dish that the Polish guy made, and he whipped together a pretty good dinner of random leftovers and food that was laying around.  Tomorrow it will be my turn to cook.  If the oven works (which we will have to verify that tomorrow...) I'll make baked ziti.  Otherwise some rice/vegetables/meat dish. 

Another perk of Magdalena being gone is that I didn't have to walk around in the silly lab coat carrying the ridiculous box doing door to door marketing.  I spent 2 hours working the in business and 2 hours with their kids playing tic tac toe, coloring, and doing various other fun things.  Unfortunately Magdalena had to travel because her mother is sick, so I shouldn't be this happy about it, but several pleasant changes have resulted from it.  I really like her, but the work and food improved greatly today with her being gone.

I have now moved to my "sleeping area" (can't call it a bedroom) and have finally been able to unpack my backpack and organize my things on the floor under my "sleeping furniture" (can't call it a bed).  Despite all differences between the reality of this position and it's description online that I mentioned yesterday, I really like the people here and I had a really good time today.  After working in the business I went with Eusebio (the dad) and Jeremias and Jordan (the two kids) for a run along the beach and then up a hill that has some significant monuments from a war against Peru.  From the hill there is a really nice view of the city and the port.  After that I went to the park with the exercise equipment and had a nice little workout, even though I was already a bit sore from working out yesterday.  Tomorrow I will see if I can go to some free aerobics classes at the community center and maybe meet some people here.

Ninja Giga

I got to Arica yesterday and my first impression of the volunteer exchange I'm doing is that it's not exactly what I thought it would be.  They are listed under the category of "backpacker hostel" online, but there is absolutely no hostel here whatsoever - a little misleading to say the least.  What they do have is a small internet/printing business called Ninja Giga, so my main job here is to walk around door to door with the owner to offer our services and give out little flyers - basically door to door marketing.  While we do this I am to be wearing a large, white lab coat with their logo on it, in addition to carrying a large box with information about their sales taped to it.  I don't particularly mind doing this per se, but I think that my presence is pretty pointless, because I don't even say anything.  I just hold the box and turn it as Magdalena, the owner, talks.  (The online description mentions the job duties as working in the business, helping take care of the kids, welcoming guests, maybe some cleaning, and possibly learning some common computer repair tasks.)

Unfortunately the entire living situation also doesn't really match up with the online description.  Online it mentions a shared bedroom with bunk beds, but in reality we don't even have a bed room.  There are three volunteers here now, but one is leaving tomorrow.  One bed is a rather narrow wooden bench with a lumpy mattress on it in a small room that connects the kitchen, business, and bathroom - not even a little bit private.  The other bed is a couch behind a cardboard "wall' in the business, so yeah, no too private either.  When the other girl leaves tomorrow the very unprivate bed will be mine. 

The eating situation: we each contribute (a mandatory contribution that wasn't mentioned online) for meals and Magdalena cooks.  Sounds good, but last night dinner was instant mashed potatoes, a few green peas, and meat that may have come from a can.  Today it was a bit better, but a lot of rice and very little salad to accompany it.  The portions are a little small too, so when I asked for seconds at lunch I just got some plain white rice all by itself.  The stove doesn't work well, and only one burner really works at all, so we aren't supposed to use it.  Today I bought some eggs for myself to accompany the tea and toast we get for breakfast, and I wasn't to boil them myself.  Magdalena's husband boiled them for me and thinks they were done because one had a crack, but I have no idea how long they were actually boiled.  I guess I'll find out at breakfast tomorrow when I crack some open. 

All that being said, they are really nice, and I like the other volunteers that are here.  But I wish they had been a bit more honest about everything online.  I initially told them I would stay for two weeks, but we'll see how the next few days go...

I'll try to take some pictures of my ridiculous work outfit and bed to post tomorrow...if nothing else, hopefully I can at least get a good story out of this.

Tatio Geysers

Steam rising from the hot springs

Yesterday I went to see a geyser field.  Since the mist and steam are best seen and photographed at dawn, we had to leave at 4:00am to get there before sunrise.  Even though this was in the middle of a desert, it was at 4300 meters, so it was in the low 30's when we got there, and that was warmer than most days there!  I didn't come prepared for cold weather, so I wore every piece of long clothing I had, except for my second pair of jeans.  Made me appreciate not being in the US for this past winter!!

Water boiling in a natural hot spring

When we got there our guide set out a nice breakfast for us, but it was hard to eat as we stood there shivering.  The desert is very mountainous here, so it got light long before we could actually see and feel the sun.  Everything looked so surreal, with snow-covered mountains in the background, steam rising from the pools, seeing the water in the hot springs actually boiling in the ground, and feeling the steamy water vapor warm our slightly numb bodies when we walked through it.  After that we got to see a small geyser that shoots water quite frequently - every minute or so. 

Vicunas - in the same family as llamas

Finally, around 8:45 the sun rose above the mountains, and it immediately felt about 20 degrees warmer.  We peeled off layers, and got some enthusiasm for exploring and taking funny pictures.  Then we got to soak in a natural hot spring, but it was very natural and not temperature regulated, and most of it was either scalding or a bit cold; it was hard to find a happy medium.  On the way back to San Pedro we stopped at a beautiful lake to take pictures of the scenery and a special bird there called a coot.  We also saw vicunas, and made a few more photo pit stops.

 
 
 
 

Video of a geyser

Sandboarding

Something very cool I tried here was sandboarding.  I've never been snowboarding, but I imagine it's pretty similar, except in sand.  Which is good for learning because sand is slower than snow.  For sandboarding you can just wear shorts and a t-shirt, which means you get sand everywhere!!  You also get a helmet and goggles.

One major difference between sandboarding and snowboarding is that sandboarding doesn't have chairlifts (at least not here).  That means that each time before you go down, you have to walk up the giant sand dune - wearing your boots, up a steep slope of sand, carrying your board, and all at 2400 meters, which makes it significantly more tiring than it already would be.  For each run you probably spend about 2 minutes resting and drinking water at the bottom, 7 minutes walking up, 5 minutes resting, waxing, and strapping on your board at the top, and then 1 minutes actually going down.

At first it takes a little while to figure out how to position your board -  if you don't keep it at the right angle and tilt it gets covered with sand and you stop and fall.  But once you get the hang of it you can get going pretty fast.  I've been a bit sore the passed two days from it!

I don't have any pictures, but the guides/instructors took a video of us doing it.  I haven't been able to watch it yet since internet in the middle of the desert isn't exactly high speed, but here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd6mGGnuu0s.  (I'm wearing purple shorts and a white t-shirt.)  Hopefully it looks as cool and exciting in the video as it was in real life, but I'm kind of worried it might not look as fast at it felt.

San Pedro de Atacama

Yesterday I sent a short message to my parents telling them that I didn't have time to write a long message because I was too busy doing awesome stuff in San Pedro.  San Pedro is a tiny town (2,000 people) in the middle of the Atacama Desert.  In the past 10 years or so it has really developed into a popular tourist destination because there are many activities and sights that you can't do or see in many other places.  The actual town is quite touristy, filled with restaurants, hostels, tour agencies, and tourist shops with unauthentic, brightly colored souvenirs, but the appeal of San Pedro are the plentiful, reasonably-priced desert excursions you can go on.

Moon Valley - named for its apparent similarity to the surface of the moon

The day after I got here I went to see Death Valley and the Moon Valley - both of which have spectacular scenery.  The dunes and cliffs and rock formations are really impressive.  Here are some pictures which can show you better than I could describe:

Me overlooking a magnificent valley

Death Valley - sand dunes and mountains



The next day I went on another excursion to a saltwater lagoon.  I had never been in a body of water that with such a high salt concentration that you could float effortlessly.  It was a really weird sensation!  You could lay on the water and relax as if you were on a raft!  Or you could put yourself in a vertical position in the water and hang out and talk without treading water as if you were just standing in a pool, but your feet weren't touching the bottom.  The water was really cold - in the low 60's - and even though I hate the cold it was definitely worth it for this experience.  But you had to be careful, because the salt concentration was so high that it really burned if you got it in your eyes.  Or people who had really dry skin or small cuts also felt a burning sensation from the salt.

 

Me on the salt flat

After the lagoon we went to a salt flat.  It might not sound very impressive or interesting, but it was actually quite neat to see and walk on a giant bed of hard salt.  Afterward someone told me that salt flats are really cool for doing photography tricks because depth perception is mostly lost on them.  Apparently people bring special props, such as toy dinosaurs, which they place on the salt, and then stand really far behind them and pose as if they were fighting a dinosaur, and it looks like the person and dinosaur are the same size.  Too bad I didn't know about that at the time!

And these are the two least interesting excursions I did, the two most interesting will each get their own posts later today.  In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of the sunset!

 







 

What's next for me?

Now that my parents are (almost) on their way back to the US, and I've left San Ignacio, you might be wondering what's next for me.  Well, today I have just been taking it easy - a much needed break after a busy past two weeks.  I went through my pictures, posted some on facebook, and am writing my third blog post of the day!  Also on my to-do list: go to be at 9:30!!!!!!  Tomorrow I have a bus ticket to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, where I will be spending 3 days, before going to Iquique on the Chilean coast for 2 days, and then going to Arica near the northern border of Chile.  In Arica I'll be doing a volunteer exchange with a women who has a hostel, internet/printing center, and community English classes.  I don't really know exactly what I'll be doing, but it should be fun.  I'll stay there for 2-3 weeks, maybe go across to southern Peru, and then make my way back to San Ignacio around May 7th to have some time to say goodbye to everyone there, and then head on down to Montevideo, Uruguay, where my flight back to the US leaves May 14th. 

I was talking on facebook chat today with a fellow 2009 NCSU Spanish/ESL Education graduate.  We commented on the fact that we can't believe it's already been five years since we graduated, and then realized that each of us has only worked 1.5 years at a "real job" in the US since graduation.  We think we're doing life right, or as Rebecca put it, "We're never going to wish we had spent more time in an office or classroom."  That being said though, I am really excited to have a classroom again!  I keep taking pictures of things that relate to the elementary ESL curriculum so that I can show them to my future students.

Two days ago there was an 8.3 earthquake off the coast of Iquique, but luckily no tsunami followed.  Some roads appear to be closed at the moment, but hopefully everything will be up and running by the time I'm supposed to be there.  Fun fact I learned today: the doorway is the safest place to be after an earthquake in case the building collapses.

Breakfast here is primarily comprised of bread in various forms - pastries, rolls, large slices, small slices - bread in one form or another, basically.  Since breakfast was included with our rooms the past week and a half, I feel like I've had the same thing for the past 10 days, and I just can't take it anymore!  Since I'm staying at a hostel now with a kitchen I can use, I went out and bought some eggs today because I just can't stand one more day of bread for breakfast.  Ironically, I've been having eggs for breakfast almost every day for the past 4 years...

Restaurants and Bathrooms

Even though I've been in Argentina for about 6 months by now, I spent almost all of my time in San Ignacio, and have now discovered that there are many common things I knew nothing about in other parts of the country.  It's kind of like if a foreigner spent 6 months in Smithfield, NC, and thought they knew what life was like in the US, and then went to Philadelphia, and realized that things can be quite different.  I never, not even once, went out to eat in San Ignacio, except for at the restaurant in the hostel.  I realized I had no idea what the norm for tipping might be in cities - in the hostel people didn't normally tip.  Mom and Dad kept asking me questions about family size, high school graduation rates, income and spending, and other things that I could only answer about San Ignacio, but that can be quite different elsewhere.

One thing that I think I normalized was the wide array in quality of public bathrooms, or bathrooms in public places (bus stations, buses, restaurants, museums, etc.)  One of the first days we set out to wander about I suggested to Mom and Dad and they might want to keep a wad of toilet paper on them at all times, because you never know if that's something you'll find in a bathroom here.  Dad was appalled.  (He was even more appalled when I told him that TP here goes in the trash instead of the toilet, as you may have read on his blog entry.)  You can never expect more than a toilet bowl that hopefully flushes and a sink.  If you have a toilet seat to go with that and some soap I'd call that a decent bathroom.  And throw in some TP, hand towels, and a recently emptied trash can and you have yourself a top quality bathroom, but don't get used to that because the next one will probably be much worse.  Whenever one of us went to the bathroom we'd always give a little summary to the others about the experience: "It was pretty good, no TP but there was soap, and it was clean.  You really have to pull the string hard to get it to flush though."

Restaurants here don't pre-prepare as much as in the US, so when you order food it generally takes much longer here.  Dad coined the phrase "I'm starting to feel like I'm in a restaurant" for whenever we had a wait a long time for something.  Last night we wandered around for a long, long time before finding someplace decent yet affordable to eat, and they brought out my food and mom's food way before dad's, and dad's ended up a little burned.  Today, my first meal without them, I stumbled upon a nice little restaurant in less than 5 minutes of looking, and my food was also ready in less than 5 minutes, and it was really tasty and cheaper than most of our other meals.  Mom and Dad might be back luck...

In Raleigh Anna always reminds me not to go out in the sun with a part in my hair because I always burn my scalp.  Unfortunately she wasn't in Tilcara with me, and now my scalp is burned, and it's going to peel and look like dandruff.  This is all your fault for not visiting me, Anna!!!

Tilcara and Jujuy

Scenery between Salta and Cafayate

Leaving Cafayate was an adventure.  We thought there was a bus at 5:00am, but since it was Sunday the schedule was different.  Luckily a taxi came by the bus station and offered to take us to Salta for the same price as the bus, so we hopped in.  In Salta we thought we could get a direct bus to Tilcara, but again, since it was Sunday the schedule was different.  Instead we had to get a bus to Jujuy, wait 3 hours and get another one to Tilcara.  During our layover we wandered around looking for a place to eat lunch, and looked at the drab, run-down city.  Less than 2 hours away from Salta, Jujuy felt like a different world - much more similar to Mexico, Peru or Ecuador than the rest of Argentina.  There were tons of people selling things in the street, it was dirtier and had more litter, and everything just looked uncared for.  In all the other parts of Argentina that I'd been in most people had quite light skin and hair (lighter than mine many times) and were of European decent.  But here in the Northwest, closer to Bolivia, almost everyone had very dark skin and hair and appeared to be of indigenous of mixed heritage.

Landscape between Jujuy and Tilcara

We finally made it to Tilcara, and enjoyed the beautiful landscape along the way again - multicolored mountains.  We wandered around a little bit, but we had gone up a bit in altitude and were now approaching 2500 meters, so we didn't exert ourselves too much and went back to the room and chewed coca leaves.  The next day we had wanted to take a day trip to Humahuaca, a market town not too far away, but there was a strike blocking road so we had to stay around Tilcara.  Instead, we went on an amazing hike up a mountain to a waterfall, and saw some more of the spectacular striped mountains.  By the next day (yesterday) the strike had ended, and we were able to go to Humahuaca.  The taxi that was going to take us to the bus station gave us a decent price to take us the whole way to Humahuaca, so we went with him instead.  This way we got to make pit stops at the Tropic of Capricorn, and another town with a nice church.  The driver explained various aspects of daily life and culture to us.  Mom and I had a nice time looking at arts and crafts, and Dad walked in circles for a while and then sat in the plaza and waited for us. 

Jujuy to Tilcara

One thing that I really love about shopping in markets with handmade crafts is that you can ask for custom-made things.  I remember one of the first times I had this experience was in Morocco.  Browsing through the market we noticed that everyone had the exact same things, and we thought they were lying when they told us that everything was handmade...until one guy let us go behind his stand and there we saw a man making the shish-ka-bob skewers that we were so sure were an industrial product.  He had a blade set up that he could spin with his feet, and then maneuver the wood with his hands, to make the perfectly shaped ends that he had made so many times in his life that they turned out exactly the same every time.  In Mozambique you could find something you liked in the craft market, ask the artist to make it in a different size or color, and come back later to get it.  Yesterday I did that with some cactus spine earrings.  The artist had a whole bunch with different colored stones at the top, but I just wanted a plain pair to match more easily.  He grabbed his pliers and wire and immediately started crafting earrings exactly as I had described, and within 5 minutes they were ready!

Jujuy to Tilcara

Colorful mountain near Tilcara

Yesterday afternoon we came back to Jujuy and it didn't seem quite as unpleasant as our first impression.  We walked around for a while, but even I reached my limit of looking at arts and crafts for the week.  This morning Mom and Dad went to the airport to catch their flight to Buenos Aires, where they will have 2 days to enjoy the sights and put their Spanish skills to the test before heading back to the US on Friday.  It was a lot fun having them here, and we all had a great time!  I bought a bus ticket to Chile for tomorrow, so I have one day to hang around Jujuy and rest, blog, put pictures on facebook, etc.

Papa con un cactus

 

 

Salta and Cafayate

The past few days have been great, and we've lucked out with the weather too.  Our flight from Iguazu to Salta was only delayed about 25 minutes, which I would consider a win when flying with Aerolineas Argentinas.  Salta is a large city of about 600,000 people with well-preserved Spanish architecture, and it's known for its "penas."  A pena is a restaurant with traditional music, singing and dancing, that also serves traditional food.  We all tried locro, which is a thick stew of beans, corn, squash, beef, pork, and a new type of meat - vicuna, which is similar to a llama.  It had a delicious flavor, but it also had the innards/intestines of some animal, which weren't my favorite part, although overall it was a really tasty dish.  Some other new foods we've tried are various types of empanadas, and humitas - a thick cornmeal concoction with onions, spices and cheese that is cooked on the stove, then wrapped in corn husks and boiled.  I might try a quinoa burger for dinner tonight.

Yesterday we went to a museum of ethnic history that had various artifacts from different tribes native to South America.  One interesting aspect about this museum was that it displayed the ancient artifacts many times along with the modern version, so you could see the changes over time.  There were all sorts of clay jugs, jewelry, textiles, etc.  Some of the religious paintings and figures had the faces of indigenous people, which I hadn't seen much before.  But the most memorable part of the museum was our tour guide, Diego.  He was very enthusiastic about the museum's displays, (overly) frequently called us by name, constantly instructed us to look at things we were already looking at, and called us "my friends" at every possible opportunity.  I think Mom appreciated his mannerisms a little more than I did.  But he will definitely be remembered and quoted for many years, just like our favorite flight attendant ever, Anton, from 2009.

The day before yesterday we went to an anthropological museum that had actual Incan mummies that were discovered in nearby mountains.  The Inca didn't intentionally mummify the deceased like the Egyptians did, but human sacrifices were a common practice.  Young children (6-7 years old) were offered to the gods by being buried alive, and in the arid climate their bodies were preserved for centuries until they were recently discovered.  You might not typically think of the Inca as having lived in Argentina, but they did inhabit the northwestern part where the Andes are.

It's been a lot of fun having Mom and Dad here.  Despite being in Argentina it feels like just a normal family vacation - Mom identifies all the plants and flowers, analyzes all the rocks, looks at arts and crafts, and enthusiastically visits museums; Dad worries about bugs, enjoys the food, patiently tolerates craft markets and museums, and tries not to get carsick.  And I get to be the interpreter/Spanish teacher.  Mom's Spanish is coming along rather well, at least for reading or asking a question, but understanding the answers to questions is more difficult.  Dad's Spanish...is better than it was when he got here...

The scenery here is absolutely stunning.  I've been trying to get Mom to do a guest post because I think she would describe it with more specifics than I could. 

Greetings from Jess's Dad

We are in Salta now.  Jess and Margie are busy finding a hostel or hotel for us for the last two nights of our trip, in Buenos Aires.  They are working on it together, since two heads are better than one.  Apparently, a third one does not help, so they encouraged me to come out here and use one of the hostel computers to write a "Guest Blog." 

One of the strange things about the southern hemisphere is that North and South have changed places:  When you are traveling toward the sun, you are heading North.  But East and West are still where they always were.  It isn't that hard to get used to it.  But the toilet paper is a different story.

If you have read Jess's post about the bingo card, you will understand that I am proud to say I have crossed off my half of the toilet paper box (Margie is still working on hers).  By the way, don't believe what Jess said about me being paranoid.  Margie (if she ever gets finished doing important things and gets around to posting something on this blog) will probably support Jess's claim that I am paranoid -- which pretty well proves that the two of them are conspiring behind my back to make me look bad.

But about the toilet paper bingo box:  Another strange thing about the southern hemisphere, or at least Argentina, is that toilet paper goes into the trash can, not the toilet bowl.  After using it, I mean.  Sound interesting?  If you'd like to try it at home, choose a time when nobody is watching.  For the toilet paper box on the bingo card, we have to remember to not throw any tp into the bowl for a full day.  And I have succeeded!  For a full day, every piece went right into the can.   Trash can, that is.

Another bingo box is to see 5 stray dogs within eyesight at one time.  We have completed that one.  There are dogs all over the place here -- they lay in the street or on the sidewalk or in the park, looking dead, or they just hang around, minding their own business.  This morning, while hiking in the national park rain forest near here, two dogs joined us part of the way, now and then, sometimes together, sometimes separately.  Also along the path, we saw two horses, unattended, apparently just chilling out on the hiking trail.  Margie reminded us that when we walk past them, we should make noise if we approach them from behind or else they might get spooked and kick us.  I'm not sure why Margie knows how to approach a horse from behind, but where I come from, if you see two stray horses in the road, you turn around and walk back where you came from.

Well, they've finished booking the room in B.A.  And I've been told that if I go walk through a few museums with them for a while (probably a few hours or more), we can go eat dinner.  So, I'll have to stop here for now.

The first 48 hours

Well, my parents made it fine to Buenos Aires, got from the international airport to downtown, wandered around for a few hours, took a bus to the domestic airport, and arrived in Posadas as planned.  Not bad for two folks in their 60's who speak hardly any Spanish and have never been to South America before!!!  Well done!!

I was waiting for them at the airport.  I had done a long translation work for a friend, so in exchange for that I suggested that instead of paying me, he could just take me to pick them up at the airport.  Dad rode shotgun on the way to San Ignacio (a little over an hour away), and he got a nice introduction to cultural differences in driving habits.  They tend to drive rather quickly here, change lanes without signaling, pull out in front of cars, and brake at the last minute.  But we made it back just fine, and my coworkers had put a nice vase of flowers in Mom and Dad's room - and of course Mom was able to identify which flower it was. 

The next day we went for a walk on a nice rural road with a beautiful view of the river and Paraguay.  Mom and Dad found the 85-degree heat to be sweltering after the chilly PA winter; I found it quite a pleasant improvement from the frequent 100-degree summer days.  In the afternoon Mom went on a nice nature walk in the park, and they both went to the Sound and Light show at the ruins in the evening.  The next morning (yesterday) they went back to the ruins for a guided tour, and then we took the bus here to Iguazu.  They are at the waterfalls now, and I successfully crossed the border and came back.

My trip across the border was simple and uneventful.  Nevertheless, I went prepared with bribe money in pesos and dollars, my Argentina cell phone and my Brazil SIM card, contact info for the hostel and a few other people in case I needed to make any calls, and a few possible stories cooking in my mind in case a little theatrics might help my case if it came down to begging to get back across.  But when I got to the immigration official I just gave him my passport and proof of having paid the reciprocity fee and he didn't even comment on the fact that I had exceeded my time here or give me a warning.

Now in case you have never traveled with my dad, or even met him, let me tell you that he can occasionally be inclined to have certain paranoid or mistrusting tendencies.  For example, one time he got a receipt from dinner, and when walking around after dinner he tore it up and threw it in different trash cans around town because it had the last 4 digits of his card number, so it would be too risky to throw it away in one piece.  So you can imagine how that habit might manifest itself here.  And in case you can't imagine it, let me tell you about it.  Last night when we were going to bed in our locked, private room at a hostel where you have to buzz to be let inside he was concerned that he might forget to lock his suitcase (that was in our private, locked room) before going to bed.  In the hostel where I worked in San Ignacio (you know, the one where my coworkers thoughtfully decorated their room and where I know everyone) they seemed concerned about leaving money and passports in their locked suitcases in their locked room, and expressed interest in carrying said items in hidden money belts.  (I think I locked my room at the hostel about 2 times in the past 2 months.)

Luckily, due to 101 unnecessary precautions, nothing has been stolen so far, and everything has gone perfectly.  The owner of the hostel where I worked graciously let them stay there at no cost, and we've booked places to stay for most of the rest of the trip.  The hostel I booked here in Iguazu may be a bit too hostel-y for them, but the other places seem to be a step or two up.  I'm excited for the rest of the trip because everyone we've done so far has been things I've already done, so I'm excited for something new!

The BINGO card

The long-awaited moment in which I reveal the activities on my parents' BINGO card has finally arrived!  There is a 99.98% chance that they are in Argentina at this very moment, but since we are the old-fashioned type who don't have smart phones that can not be confirmed at this time.  Check back later for a guest post from them, which is one of their boxes on the BINGO card!

Some other boxes include:
-see 5 stray dogs at once
-remember to throw all your toilet paper in the trash without forgetting all day
-see 3 unsafe motorcycle practices in 1 day
-go to high altitude (2500+ meters)
-see a new animal
-see a protest/sign related to the Malvinas Islands (Falkland Islands)
-dance
-write on my blog
-post facebook updates

Then there are the food/drink related ones:
-empanadas
-cookout (asado)
-mate
-wine
-steak
-dulce de leche

And, finally, there are the speaking tasks, which involves them attempting to speak some Spanish:
-ask a price
-say hello and goodbye
-order food
-ask for directions
-say a rehearsed phrase

Hopefully THEY can keep you all updated on their progress in BINGO - which, by the way, is blackout bingo, not just 5-in-a-row.

Beginning of the Month lines

I never really knew how evolved bill-paying was in the US until I saw a less-evolved model to compare it to.  In the US I, like many middle-class Americans, had many monthly bills to pay: electricity, gym, cable/internet, dental insurance, visa, discover, etc.  And I spent about 1 minute per month paying all of them thanks to a little something we call automatic scheduled transfers. 

Automatic scheduled transfers are not really a thing here.  Instead, people wait in line for exorbitant amounts of time at various locations in the beginning of each month to pay all their bills.  The fun starts at the bank, where lines can be half a block long for a few days, as everyone needs to first withdraw cash to be able to then wait in line everywhere else.  After that everyone rushes to pay their electricity, water, and phone bills, and whatever other monthly payments they need to make.  And each of these payments comes with a nice line-wait as well - 45 minutes might be standard, just to give you an idea.

Since exercising restraint in making smart spending decisions isn't a strength of many people here, they have wisely developed the necessary habit of withdrawing small amounts of money at various times throughout the month.  If they withdrew it all at once, they would likely spend it all at once.  This means several trips to the bank - of which there is only one in San Ignacio, and it has only one ATM for the 11,000 inhabitants.  Despite taking these precautions, many people often run out of money a bit before the end of the month anyway.

ANOTHER rainy day

I should have known that it would happen at some point.  And if it was going to happen, I should have know it would be on a rainy day.  And since it hadn't happened yet, and today was likely my last rainy day I should have known it would happen today...

I was showing some guests to their room - a young German couple who requested 2 beds in a shared dorm room.  The room already had a French couple staying in it, but I wasn't sure if they were in the room or not.  I knocked.  No answer.  I jiggled the doorknob.  Locked.  I guess they're not here.  I keyed in to show the Germans their room...and let's just say the French couple WAS there.

But if that hadn't happened I would have had absolutely nothing to blog about, since we are now in day 3 of an almost-constant torrential downpour.  I have stopped reading about the missing airplane and switched back to reading controversial articles and commentaries about white belly dancers and appropriation again. 

I have run out of productive things to do.  I only need one health insurance plan.  My parents only need one bingo card.  The WCPSS teaching jobs aren't updated on Wednesdays.  I played some spider solitaire and drank mate.  I HOPE IT STOPS RAINING TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!

Being Productive

It's been raining a lot the past several days, so I've been productively passing my time by doing the following things:

1.  I signed up for Obamacare!

2. I've been working on my parents' BINGO card.  I'll publish it once their on their way here, just to keep them in suspense.

3. I've been working on my resume and looking for summer and school year jobs.  If anyone in Raleigh knows anything random and temporary I can do for the summer let me know!!

4. I've been drinking a lot of mate and eating various pastries the cook has been making this week.

5. I've been skyping and catching up with various friends.  There used to be a 2-hour time difference with the east coast, which meant that when I finished work at midnight it was only 10pm, so my friends were still up.  But now midnight here is 11pm, and everyone is asleep, which means I have to get up early and Skype them on their way to work.

6. I just started looking at apartments/townhomes/houses for rent in Raleigh for when I get back.  Emily, Joe and I are looking for a 3-bedroom near 40 if anyone has any suggestions!

7. I've been reading about the missing plane. Some people here seem to think the US is behind it (as we are behind all that goes wrong in the world).  Possible motives - 1. We hijacked the plane, will blame the Taliban, and go back to war in the Middle East.  2. We hijacked the plane because we owe China a lot of money, will somehow use the plane to destroy China, therefore eliminating our debt.  3.  We hijacked the plane for some reason relating to the Crimea/Russia conflict since we hate Russia and want to destroy them.

A rainy day

Wow!  When the visitors from NC came two days I thought it was a small world, but today I found out that it's even smaller than I had imagined.  Today two guests from Pennsylvania came here, one from Philly, and the other from none other than good ol' Lancaster!!  It's kind of random that in my first two months here only 3 Americans came, but in the past week there have been 7. 

There was a giant storm here last night, and then it rained all day today.  I woke up several times during the night from the thunder, wind, and pounding rain.  Even though I desperately needed to go grocery shopping today, I had no desire to venture out in the torrential downpour, so I invented a rice, cucumber and pepper dish to eat.  I had a lazy day today - woke up at 11, played cards with Silvia, swept my room, ate criollitos (a pastry) that the cook made, took a hot shower, and read a little before work.  As soon as my shift started it stopped raining.

 Lili and Romina, the mom and little girl I used to babysit, came by the hostel to visit when I was working.  Romina is just so cute, and loves trying to help.  When people came to get their room keys or ask for a menu for the restaurant I would give it to Romina first and she would eagerly take it to the guest.  She was snacking on some bread here and left a mountain of crumbs around her.  When she finished she looked at the mess and said "uh-oh!"  I got a broom and she attempted to help me clean up.  Another hobby she has recently developed is happily laying on the floor and kicking her feet and making loud noises, but in a very content way.  And when it's time to go she has mastered the art of waving and blowing adorable little kisses.

Rainy/dreary days are always the best for the restaurant at the hostel because no one wants to leave.  Right now there five tables of such a variety of people.  One table has four young women - 2 Canadian and 2 French - drinking a few bottles of wine with their dinner, talking loudly in French and at one point they laughed until they cried.  Another table has an Argentinean family - mom, dad, 5-year-old boy, and grandma - eating quietly, and the boy keeps watching the French-speaking table and looking intrigued.  The next table has an older Argentinean couple who have stayed at the hostel before, and who are having a nice conversation.  After that is the table with the two girls from PA, along with a Danish girl.  The final table has the solo travelers - a guy from Cordoba (Arg), a woman from Buenos Aires, and a German woman who speaks decent Spanish.  The dining room/reception is abuzz with a happy chatter!

Dancing

Dancing is an activity that requires both certain physical abilities as well as a certain musical awareness.  Despite being quite capable in the first requirement, I am significantly lacking in the second.  While I consider myself to have adequate skills in your typical American-style dancing of swaying and minimally moving your feet, my aptitude for learning any real dance that involves specific steps and moves while following the beat of the music is quite low.  I enjoy attempting to learn new dances, but my efforts are usually rather unsuccessful, as I was reminded of again last night when we went to the club.  Yesterday was my last Saturday here in San Ignacio before my parents come, and since I'll be traveling around for a while after their visit, I decided to take advantage of my last opportunity to go to Troya, the only club in San Ignacio, which is only open on Saturdays. 

I always seem to have good luck that during Carnaval or on Saturdays really cool people who plan to go out are staying at the hostel.  Last night I went out with an Israeli couple, one of the guys from North Carolina, and two of my friends from here.  So my friends from here were trying to teach the rest of us how to dance, and luckily for me the other foreigners found the hip rolling and rapid foot movements to be just as challenging as I did.  After a few shots of tequila though we all magically made significant improvements in our dance skills.

It was another late night for me.  As I got back to the hostel at 6am the girl that was in charge of breakfast was just arriving.

In other news, I have also become quite proficient at lighting the wood-burning water heater that heats the water for the hostel.  I think that has been the event of the week here.

Passing

Well here I was just having a normal Argentinian afternoon, drinking mate and watching soccer, when all of a sudden here come three visitors from North Carolina!  This was significant for two reasons.  1 - North Carolina, what are the odds???  And 2 - This means I can no longer count the number of Americans that have stayed here this year on one hand (total now = 8). 

Moving on, my topic for today is Passing.  I remember reading a book for a history course I took about a young woman in the 1930's or 40's.  She was half black, but had very light skin, and could pass for a tan white person, which had significant social advantages in this era.  I think passing is an interesting concept, and one that I have tried to participate in at various times.  Especially after coming back from Mozambique, sometimes I found being a white, English-speaking American to be rather boring and uninteresting and all too normal and average at times.  Even though I do appreciate all the privileges that I have because of that, for some inexplicable reason I have always been fascinated by other cultures and languages.  I remember when I was little - in elementary school - and we would go to the library my Mom used to make us get some non-fiction books.  My go-to topics were books about other countries or about football - two interests that have stayed with me throughout the years!

When I came back from Moz I joined a Portuguese language group, and ended up meeting a bunch of really cool Brazilians.  Whenever we would go out and speak Portuguese I liked that other people would assume I was foreign.  I dyed my hair darker to boost my Brazilian-ness.  I remember one time we went out in Raleigh and I ran into a Brazilian guy I knew.  He yelled something to me about a Brazilian get-together, and another guy in the bar overheard him and later came over and was like, "So you're Brazilian..."  I figured I'd never see him again so I didn't bother to correct him. 

Partially related, I recently read an article by a middle-eastern woman called, "Why I hate white belly dancers."  You can probably guess what it was about.  Despite the aggressive tone, it did make some interesting points about how white people can embrace and participate in aspects of other cultures that they find exotic or desirable, but can then go back to being white and not face the discrimination or challenges that people from these cultures face on a daily basis.  It made me think about how I like to pass for a Brazilian.  When it suits me I can speak other languages, learn capoeira, and be perceived as exotic and interesting.  But, when it's more convenient, I can be a native English speaker whose legality in the US isn't questioned, and whose motives for dating aren't presumed to be related to getting a green card.

So what's the appropriate balance between experiencing other cultures but not taking advantage of them?  And if you find yourself in a situation of privilege, is it wrong to take advantage of that?  I think it all comes down to respect.  As long as you are respectfully participating in another culture you can't be faulted for wanting new experiences, learning new skills, or making new friends.  It's unfortunate that not everyone has the same opportunities, and I think it's important to be aware of the privileges that we each have and why not everyone has them.  But ultimately as long as you use your privileges responsibly, and do no harm to others in the process, you should take advantage of the opportunities that come your way.

Cultural Diplomatic Immunity

Sometimes when traveling or living overseas it's difficult to know when to embrace the local culture and where to draw the line.  Sometimes these decisions are about relatively insignificant things - is it rude to show up late, or just plain crazy to show up on time?  But sometimes they are really difficult choices - if you have a student who is your best friend's sibling do you let them pass even if they didn't earn a good grade?  The obvious answer in the US would be "no," but that would easily be justified based on our code of ethics and a brief speech on integrity and preparing them for the future.  What if the culturally appropriate solution would be to let them pass, and you are a guest in another culture?  What if the culturally relevant interpretation of failing your friend's sibling would be that you don't care about them?  And sometimes these decisions have nothing to do with you, but rather how you interpret the culture that you are in - is it fair to judge someone who is cheating on their husband or wife if that is a culturally normal thing to do? 

The conclusion that I've come to is that rudeness and politeness and appropriateness, etc,, are all based on others' expectations.  If your friends don't expect you to actually show up on time, then it's not rude to show up late.  Time, aside from having a very scientific definition, also has a cultural one.  But what if your friend actually expects you to change their sibling's grade?  Maybe it's ok to sometimes let your cultural interpretation of "making the right choice" expand a little in another culture if you change a hard-earned D- to a C.  (And let's be real, that happens in the US too, not based as much on requests but more so on (subconscious?) biases.)  But if you're expected to change a slacker's F to an A, maybe it's ok to be culturally rude sometimes too.  And what if  couples in other cultures don't actually expect their partners to be faithful?  If monogamy is part of a foreign culture that was forced upon them it seems unfair to judge them for not following this custom.

And even within the US this happens.  A perfect example: the North and South and saying sir and ma'am.  Being from the North, sir and ma'am were not part of my everyday speech, but rather terms used when playing dress-up and pretending to be royalty.  These words had a connotation of extreme respect used only when addressing make-believe kings and queens, and people in the South just don't understand how out-of-place and socially awkward they are in the North.  But in the South, saying "Yes ma'am," is the equivalent of saying "yes, please," in the North.  It's simply an automatic, polite, affirmative response used whenever one might say "please" in the North, and has no association with extreme reverence or power. 

But for some reason, Northerners generally seem to regard the use of sir and ma'am as foolish Southern speak, and resent incorporating it into their vocabulary, and feel awkward if someone calls them those words.  Working in an elementary school in the South, I was constantly exposed to hearing people say ma'am and sir, and somehow this habit cracked its way into my everyday discourse.  When called out on this peculiarity by fellow non-Southerners, I decided this was a good opportunity for a sociolinguistic self-evaluation.  Why was I saying that and should I continue to let these pointlessly formal mini-words infiltrate my speech? 

The answer is YES, I should.  Because saying sir and ma'am is what you say in the South when you are a polite person.  And as an elementary teacher who is a role model for young children, I think it would be inappropriate NOT to model proper English language manners to my ESL students, and in the South that involves saying ma'am and sir.  In Mozambique politeness involved only giving and receiving objects with your right hand.  No matter how trivial or insignificant something might seem, if I can choose between being polite and being neutral (or even unwittingly rude) in the community, it only makes sense to choose to be polite.

Reading

The hostel has some great places to relax with a book.  First of all, there are four hammocks hanging from some nice shade trees in the large courtyard of the hostel.  When it rains we have to take the hammocks down so they don't get wet, which can be a challenge because some of the hooks are just at the height of my fingertips when I stand on tip-toes.  But the bigger challenge is hanging the hammocks again because the hooks are attached to strings, and the strings get twisted, and are all different lengths, so if you don't hang the right hammock from the right pair of hooks they end up too high or too low.  A few days ago I was helping Silvia hang the hammocks after a storm, and try as we might we just could not get all four of them to be at an appropriate height.  Another coworker saw us struggling and came to assist us, laughing at our failed efforts, but she too ultimately failed.  We ended up with 3 hammocks at a good level, and the other one - the blue one - ridiculously high.  As our other coworkers noticed they kept coming by the reception and asking, "Who hung those hammocks?"  "What? All three of you and you still couldn't get it right?"  There have been quite a lot of jokes in the past few days about climbing in the blue hammock.  So when I went to read today I decided to give it a shot.  I managed to get in it, ending up face down and shimmy-rolling over without flipping the hammock in the process.  Silvia came by and applauded me! 

The other great option for reading is on the deck of the pool.  I did that twice in the past week and got noticeably tanner quite quickly. 

In the US you might say I'm kind of a book snob because I read almost exclusively books in Spanish or Portuguese, and I don't like reading anything that has been translated.  Right before coming here I accidentally read "The Secret Life of Bees" in Spanish, and it was so awkward to visualize racial struggles and black southern women in South Carolina while reading in Spanish.  When I travel I really enjoy reading books that take place wherever I am.  I got really in to Mozambican literature when I was there, and then Brazilian, and now Argentinian authors.  I joined the library here, but then it ironically closed for the summer - so much for promoting literacy development when kids aren't in school.