A little bit about culture...

I know February is a short month, but as I’m starting to understand, it seems inevitable that my time here will continually fly by. It’s hard to believe that I will soon have been in Peru for a full six months. Nothing too exciting has been happening—every day is a little bit of an adventure, but for the most part, with my summer school classes and my new family I was able to form a bit of a routine, in which I taught in the morning, napped/relaxed, ran, played soccer and talked to the people of Yanamito in the afternoon.
But there has been some time to start processing the culture and the people around me. One of the things that I have found really interesting is the stage of development that my town, and those surrounding it, has reached. Fifteen years ago there was no electricity here. Today, not only is there light, but there are cell phones, [sporadic] internet access, television and DVDs. They have completely passed over VHS, landlines, dial up modems etc. So basically there’s this weird mix of poverty and modernity that is really interesting to confront on a daily basis.
The culture here is also in a bit of a flux. I saw a perfect example of this two weeks ago, at the 4 day long Carnival festival (pre-lent, I think their equivalent of Mardi Gras) in Tumpa, the town 25 minutes down my hill. People from all the towns in walking distance came to celebrate with multiple bands playing the previously mentioned whino music and lots of drinking and dancing. And water balloons. Lots of stupid water balloons. I haven’t been able to ride in a taxi with an open window or walk down the street without looking over my shoulder for fear of being doused by a water balloon, or a bucket of water or a water gun. I wish I had a giant super soaker. Anyway, what I saw was that most of the women of about 35+ years of age were wearing the traditional pollera and manta (http://k43.pbase.com/u27/gchong2426/upload/16693845.per91.JPG) and the men of that age were wearing khakis and plain wool sweaters. Meanwhile, most of the women aged 12-35 were wearing tight jeans and tank tops and the younger men were sporting euro-style jeans and shirts and jackets emblazoned with English writing and/or symbols and logos. It’s interesting to see the culture shifting in front of my eyes and also what parts of our culture have been adopted over here. Somehow, the youth of my town have managed to discover emo and Eminem and they flock to the internet to chatear (you should be able to figure that one out even with no Spanish), but are still shocked to discover that, yes, it does also rain in the US, we also grow potatoes and no, New York is nowhere near Spain or Italy.
The language here is also in flux. I started learning Quechua. By started I mean I sat through 12 hours of class, I have 12 more this week, I can count to two and I can name various animals and body parts. The truth is I’m probably not trying as hard as I should be. Partially this is because I don’t particularly like learning languages and I’m still coming along in Spanish. But also it just doesn’t seem that urgent to me. In my town the adults prefer Quechua, and some of the oldest people really don’t speak very much Spanish, but for the most part I can converse with everyone. While my host parents grew up speaking mostly Quechua, my host brother, who is 15, says he understands it but can’t speak it. If I had to guess, it probably won’t be around THAT much longer in Yanamito. Which I guess is kind of a bummer if you see the value in indigenous culture. Anyway, there are times when I miss out on the conversation around me, and I will keep trying, but I’m not all that stressed about Quechua at the moment.
On to my new family. They’re great. My host parents are super sweet to me and refer to me as one of their children, and the house is nice and I’m really comfortable. And having a 15 year old host brother is great. He’s a bit doofy, but he’s fun to hang out with. Here are some highlights: we collected 5 pounds of wild blackberries last Sunday. We started playing marbles (on an uneven mud floor—very challenging). I watched him take down a small bird with his slingshot (he was very excited, I was slightly disgusted. But this was two days after we gathered the berries, so I did feel like kind of a hunter gatherer, which was cool). We burned through all three seasons of the Simpsons that I bought for cheap in Lima, and now he pulls some annoying Bart Simpson lines on his mom, which she chuckles at and I find hilarious—definitely a kid after my own heart. There are some slightly aggravating aspects as well, like listening to the Tupac California Love remix he made on repeat, but on the whole having him around (or maybe him having me around) is awesome.
And that’s life. There are a million more things that happen on a daily basis that are either perplexing or hilarious (For examples: A chicken wandered into, and died in, my friend Pete’s latrine. I asked a 3 year old in a class I was helping to facilitate what she had in her mouth. It was an entire pencil sharpener. When I walked back over 3 minutes later, she was chewing on the business end of a colored pencil—slightly confused. I watched the second half of the super bowl in Spanish—during the first half we experienced a blackout. I went on a beautiful 4 hour hike with a bunch of friends to a glacial lake and jumped in, which was cold enough to induce some profanity shouting, but worth it (I think)), but for the most part I am just choosing to accept them as the intricacies of the life I chose to lead for these two years, although I still get together with my friends and laugh about them. But if anyone wants to come see for themselves, I hear airfare can be cheap (says the recent college graduate not making any money…) and in a month I get to start taking vacations, so let me know…