The Convi Vans

My two main activities these days (taking Spanish in the nearby town of Urubamba and teaching computer classes to kids in a nearby village, Pachar) both involve taking Combi vans from Ollanta to my destinations. Each ride is an adventure. It costs about $2.50 to get to Urubamba (20-30 minutes from here) and back. A nice deal, but you have to deal with the conditions.
Vignette #1: First day of Spanish classes
I think the driver was thirteen, and he loved the challenge of fitting as many people as possible into the van. These are rickety fifteen-passenger vans and usually there are at least twenty-three people in them. That day there were probably twenty-five or six. I sat with my knees on the outside of Renee's in the van, plus pressed against the knees of the dudes next to me. Knee bruises times four.
Vignette #2: The Chicken.
On the way home from Urubamba Renee and I were in the back seat with one other person. By the time the van took off, there were four of us in the backseat. The seating order went like this: Quechua man with campfire-smelling poncho on my left, behind my left shoulder; Quechua man with sheep-smelling poncho on my right, pinning my right shoulder down; Renee to the right of that man; chicken in a bag below our seat, periodically pecking Renee's ankle.
Vignette # 3: Future Women's Penitentiary Rugby Coach at age 12
This was the first time I LOL'ed since being in "Carefree Cusco" (just made that name up). Here's the scene: 8 year-old boy and hot 23-year old futbol coach/model talking in the backseat. Renee and me on the side-facing seat. Mom, dad, baby in seat in front of Renee, all eating popsicles and baby moaning/crying periodically. Eight schoolchildren somehow standing in the space next to the door, eating popsicles and using Renee as a chair/trashcan for slobber and melted snacks. The best part: The girl in the seat across from me was about twelve and was wearing a way too thick for the weather, red tracksuit. She had the build of a girl bully. She kept yelling at her little brother, who was probably eight and was super disgruntled, to come sit with her. He didn't want to because she wouldn't let him have the window seat. After she yelled at him for five excruciating minutes, he came to sit with her with a sourpuss look on his face. She was taking up 5/6 of the seat, so his feet were basically on mine. He tried to take a nap, but was probably having hateful dreams about his sister and had the worst look on his face I have ever seen for a sleeping person. That didn't last long though, because Giant Of a Sister lost something on the floor and proceeded to bend over and search on the floor for it, all the while edging her brother farther out of the seat, until she finally woke him up and made him look for the thing, while shouting orders at him. He found it, was then completely awake, and then the mammoth girl fell sound asleep with her pumpkin-sized head resting atop his delicate head/neck. He totally hated her. She probably tortures him by never letting him sleep at night, by telling him terrible stories about what happens to little boys who sleep/roaring like a lion whenever she notices him dozing off. She probably steals all of his food, too. He was so small. Renee and I decided that a)she's destined to be the rugby coach at a women's prison; and b) we are going to make a movie about this pair of siblings. When we pulled into Ollanta the little boy yelled "BAJABAJABAJABAJA!" at the top of his lungs until the driver stopped and let them off so they could go home and he could do all of his sister's chores.

Mi Casa

My house in Ollanta is less than a year old. ¨Nice!¨ you say. You are wrong. In Peru, people move into buildings before they´re finished, and then continue adding to them for years after. So right now the top floor of the house is nonfunctioning. There´s no floor except for what looks like bamboo (I can see it through the cracks at the edges of my room´s ceiling, which is actually a tarp). To get to the bottom floor, aka basement, you have to go down a steep, ladder-like staircase into some muddy muck next to the corn field, then go through the wooden door in the cement block wall. Here, you enter a courtyard, which functions as the center of the house. There are seven chickens living in the courtyard and they do all of their things there, unless you forget to close a door and then they do their things in your room, the bathroom, or the kitchen. There´s also a dog named Tarzan, who I´m a fan of. If I ever have chickens, they will live at least fifty feet away from my house. There are lots of laundry lines in the courtyard and a rusty metal tub with a spigot that serves as a washbasin for dishes and whatever else needs washing. The bathroom is small with a real (though seatless) toilet, a sink, and a hot shower. Not so bad. There´s a window that looks out from the shower into the courtyard. Privacy is not so important here. My room was my sisters´room before I got here, and the first day there were two beds because the five-year-old wanted to share a room with me. I had to say no. Now my entire family besides me sleeps in the kitchen/bedroom/living room. Yikes. But really...come on.
My room has a twin bed with very pink bedding, a bookcase with stuffed animals (some are very creepy. murderous baby doll, one-eyed giant Minnie Mouse), a dresser that I have two drawers in, a sewing machine, some educational posters and books, and pictures of Jesus being flogged and that kind of thing. The window is a plastic sheet, and that plus wind and rain is a recipe for the loudest night of your life. The room is really damp right now. That will probably change once the dry season kicks in, but for now my Spanish dictionary has been wet for a week. This sounds really bad, no? But somehow I´m getting used to it. I can do anything for six weeks! Five more to go before traveling...

Cusco and Beyond!

Cusco was really nice. We stayed in a house with internet, tv, and people who spoke some English. Spanish school was intensive and great: four hours per day for five days. Could have used a couple more weeks, but it was a good start. Our teacher, Sandra,  was adorable, and we ended up laughing uncontrollably for at least ten minutes a day. We got her digits (no biggie). I got tummy sick while we were there and had to shit in a bag in my room one day, but other than that things were fine.
The adventure had just begun. We took a van from Cusco to Ollantaytambo on Tuesday the 15th. The ride took about an hour and a half, and the route went through unbelievably green, wildflowered, and dotted with roaming livestock. When we got to Ollanta, we hopped out of the van into a street near the plaza. There are lots of restaurants and hotels/hostels on the main streets, alternately muddy or dusty streets, and impatient drivers trying to pass on the roads that are only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. People hang out on the sides of the streets asking ¨Machu Picchu? Cusco? Urubamba?.¨ This is a tourist spot mostly for people passing through and staying for a couple of nights. It´s the last tourist-ready town on the way to Macchu Picchu.
After getting to the plaza, I called the Awamaki volunteer coordinator, Kaitlyn. She showed up within five minutes. She, like all of the Awamakians I´ve met so far, is friendly and tries to make new volunteers feel included and supported. We walked to the office, which is just a couple of blocks from the main square. We looked around (concrete floors, back door opens to courtyard/kitchen/volunteer house, tiny rickety spiral staircase to upstairs) and in a couple of minutes my host mother walked in, super-excited to meet me and show me to the house. I´m her family´s first volunteer, though her sisters, aunts, and cousins (everyone here seems to be related) have hosted before. Her name is Marianne and her husband is Ebert. They´re in their thirties and have two daughters: Cusi, who´s five, and Valerie, who´s eleven.
Kaitlyn, Renee, Marianne and I walked to our neighborhood, San Isidro, which is about a ten minute walk from the center of town. At the entrance to the neighborhood there is a concrete soccer stadium and a bull ring. Hopefully there will be a bull fight while I´m here. There are definitely enough bulls. Some are in pasture, some are led around on leads through town, and in the smaller villages they kind of roam around free... There are actually a few bulls that live right next to my house in a bald patch in a cornfield.
Ok, hate to leave people hanging but my thirty minutes of internet are up! Stay tuned. I will finish this episode in the next couple of days!

Lima to Cuzco

It´s now my fourth day in Peru. So far, Renee and I have had great luck overall with our travels. We arrived at 10 on Saturday night, were picked up by a taxi sent by the hostel, and arrived at the hostel around 10:30. Despite our often heinous Spanish, we managed to buy bus tickets to Cuzco (a day later than we´d wanted, but that ended up being a good thing). We also made friends with people in our hostel, including a woman who lives in Ollanta, owns a hostel there, and is familiar with Awamaki. We had some very good conversations with her.
We also happened to be in Lima on a gorgeous, sunny, 70 degree day. We spent some time hanging out on the beach watching surfers, walked around Barranca, the section of Lima we were staying in, ate delicious ceviche, and ended up in the town square just as the Carnivale celebration began. There were probably a couple thousand people there with lots of energy and beer. Many of the young people had painted their bodies, and a fire truck came by at one point and sprayed the crowd while everyone cheered. There were also some really cool, giant puppets (skeleton pirate!) and a fireworks show. We couldn´t believe our luck in ending up in that part of Lima that day. It was fun.
Yesterday we mostly just rode a bus for 24 hours. It was the nicest bus I´ve ever been on, with giant, cushy seats, nonstop pretty good movies, and wonderful scenery out the window. Then again, it was 24 hours and all of it was uphill, so at about 10 pm we started feeling pretty queasy. Somehow we made it through, and now we´re at our host family´s house, who are a really nice 60 something couple named Ali and Dani. They´re very open and friendly, and are determined to help us learn Spanish. Hopefully my next post will also be so enthusiastic!

Travel-Time: Day 1

Justin and I headed out this morning at 8:40 after searching wildly for my wallet for twenty minutes (found on the floor of Greta's car) and losing my keys (they were in my left hand, underneath three sweaters and a bag of muffins. You know how sometimes you can't feel things in your hand when you've been holding them for a while?!) We drove the Yaris down to Myrtle Beach, stopping four times in five hours. We're now at the university apartments at Coastal Carolina, where his brother, Kevin, goes to school. Justin, Michael and Kevin are having a brother reunion this weekend. They're going to rub Justin's feet while he cries for two hours tomorrow after my departure. We plan to eat hush puppies and popcorn shrimp tonight until we fall asleep. I fly tomorrow morning at eight! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!