Fiestas Patrias, Cieneguilla

On Friday evening, we went to the fancy mall here (called Jockey Plaza) because I need to set up cel service and to have dinner. The shops are all the big name, schmancy places...ritzier than American malls by a long shot. Jen pointed out that, though it was packed, no one was carrying bags so not a lot of people buying things at those prices. Before dinner, we came upon a troupe of performers came out with lighted costumes much like Cirque du Soleil.

Saturday was Peruvian independence day and we headed out to the outskirts of Lima, to an area called Cieneguilla that is technically part of Lima but lies over a mountain and in a comparatively picturesque valley. It was nice just to get someplace that could show us a bit of Peru that is more than just Lima. Clearly many Peruvians go out there for the day, and the little river is lined with outdoor restaurants where families have lunch and the kids run around. It was touristy, but Peruvian touristy, a kind of big picnic type of outing...except you don't have to bring the picnic.

We went to a place called Mesas Piedra where all the tables are big slabs of stone. I had pachamanca for the first time, in Quechua: "earth ceramic pot". A ceramic casserole pot is loaded with meat and sundry and spices and backed under hot stones. Mine had chicken, pork and beef in a savory sauce. Also included was an Andean sweet potato, a sweet tamale, a plantain and some giant beans that were not my favorite. Families sit around their lunch, with pitchers of chicha morada (a sweet drink made from purple corn, clove and cinnamon) or frozen lemonade. A Peruvian band was playing and, at one point, traditional dancers. Carter horsed around on a super playground with a multi-tier wooden play structure and we took our soccer ball out to bop around with some of the other families. We did not do a horse ride, but did take a couple of turns on the ATV loop. There was a good, mellow vibe and it's a great way to spend a nice day.



The trip out there and back was less idyllic, but in some ways also good just to see a little bit of reality. The road went through a dusty strip of mechanics and hardware shops, with poorer housing up and down the slopes. The traffic was bad, which meant some of the more aggressive types would zoom down the dirt side roads in front of the businesses.

Peruvian driving philosophy (beta version): No mercy, no hesitation, no resentment.

The dump is along this route, and what appeared to be a slum rising from it called Las Estrellas (The Stars), with many shacks and shipping containers apparently being used as homes. Many of the homes had a big star painted on them. From the main road, people not walking catch mototaxis to get up and down the hills: basically, 3-wheeled moped rickshaws.

Sunday we had a mellow day, sleeping in, exercising, etc. In the late afternoon, we went for tea at Sanjay & Garima's house (Sanjay is the Peru country director). It was Indian tea, so Jen and I said, "Oh, chai!" ...which to an Indian is kind of a gringo thing to say. It turns out that chai just means "tea", and Garima served a couple varieties, one a very nice ginger tea. In addition to other things, there was a small fruit that looked like yellow cherry tomatoes, but tasted like a zingy lemon-raspberry hybrid. I think it was called agua-something...further investigation needed! Carter and their older kids played soccer until they were sweaty and Carter held his own...he may pick up some Peruvian soccer skills when all is said and done.

Gold. GOLD, I tell you!

This week with Carter not yet in school, and with myself having to work a fair amount, has us cooped up and a little stir crazy. Carter has been allowed to watch a lot more tv than he is used to and now is seeming loathe to leave the room. So it was good today to have an expedition to the nearby Museo Oro del Perú.

The place seems a jumble, one man's collection of pre-Pizarro artifacts and (strangely) a collection of world weaponry. Apparently there was a scandal in which much of the collection was deemed fraudulent but what remains is said to be real. And there is a LOT.

Carter, being 6 and male, wanted to talk and talk about the weaponry. Suits of armor, crossbows, daggers. But the collection also included items from more modern eras...SS daggers, dictator's rifles, etc. Having so much crammed together, and the continuum from blunderbuss to machine gun all laid out together, it removed some of the naive romance of medieval weaponry.

Downstairs, through a vault door, is the gold (and other antiquities). It really is quite amazing to see the amount of gold, all hand-worked. Glittering jewelry and accessories, ceremonial tools and trinkets, even a whole wall covered in decorative, pounded gold leaf. There were some ancient textiles, carved fetishes, and even a few mummies and trophy heads. Carter decided to close his eyes in that room (not because he was particularly freaked out, he just said "Omigosh, that is GROSS!") A couple of items we recognized as very similar to items shown in our reading of Tintin in Temple of the Sun, clearly Hergé did some reasearch. On the way out, we got Carter a pan flute at the gift shop and walked back to the hotel.

My verdict? It wasn't cheap, it seemed an unscholarly jumble, but still...I can't remember the last time I've seen so many new things all at once.

 

Captain Beefheart

The Peace Corps director, Sanjay, and his wife Garima had a company party in their backyard. It was my chance to meet many of Jen's coworkers, with some dancing thrown in. BBQ was served, kebobs of beef heart, served with corn and potatoes. I think this might have been my first heart, but it was not so different from other parts of the cow...I suppose it is just a muscle like much of the beef we eat otherwise. Fresh donuts with maple syrup for desert.

There are many different personalities at the Peace Corps, and the party showed it: the MBA educated in London, the driver not long out of the pueblo, the committed regional director, the 2 extended volunteers who are reupping and swear they are not leaving. The common denominator seems to be that they are unerringly friendly. 

Luckily, my visits to the Dominican Republic have taught me to loosen up my hips so I could keep up on the dance floor. (Peru, at least at first glance, is much more forgiving towards for a dancing gringo...the DR takes its dancing seriously!) I did not quite get the "Borracho" dance, a kind of stomping, informal flamenco Riverdance.

Jen's First Lunch (from a week ago)

From an email Jen sent some friends:
Ok.  To all you foodies out there, peru's reputation for their fantastic food does not disappoint.  I was taken out to lunch for a typical Peruvian meal for my first day and behold...center is ceviche.  Seriously the best I have ever had.  The red and yellow dishes are another type of ceviche in different sauces, the red one slightly spicy.  That's octopus on the left, and it was marinated in garlic and served with tomato and avocado...delish!  You can't really see how big the corn kernels are but they are large.  I was informed that no one eats fish for dinner because it is all caught in the morning and would not be fresh enough to eat after 2pm.  This restaurant isn't even open for dinner.  I got to go by the office today to get a lay of the land while no ones around.  It is nice, peace corps budgets considering.  My office, and actually my department, is in a separate bldg from everyone else but it's all right there, just technically not attached.  My office is somewhat utilitarian but has a nice corner window with good light.  I think the phone is from 1985 and there is seriously a typewriter in one of the cubicles.  Living a non-corporate life without resources is going to be interesting.  The city from what I've seen is indeed just a never ending strip of 3rd worldly cement buildings surrounded by mountainous hills of dirt and assorted rubble, but if you look closer at the buildings you see they are occupied by some chic boutiques and restaurants.  I'm looking forward to discovering gems like this lunch place.  Chau for now!  (p.s.  for the record I know that chau is actually pelted ciao in its native Italy but Peruvians have cooped it as their own sign off and spell it phonetically for them!  My first conformity to social norms...next up, driving like Peruvian!)

Miraflores

By gum, Saturday was blue skies!

I drove over to Roosevelt looking for the Saturday morning softball that supposedly happens there, but it apparently does not happen during vacation. The real outing of the day was driving the 30min to the coastal neighborhood of Miraflores set on the palisades above the Pacific. We were immediately treated to nice views of the parasailers taking tourists on 10min rides along the cliffs.

Jen had brought us to this spot because Sanjay, the Peace Corps country director, had brought her here for her first meal in Peru. And it was here, with ocean views, that I had my first Peruvian ceviche...fresh, firm and spicy. Really amazing. Plus it was accompanied by my first Pisco Sour ever. I turned to Jen and said "Well, this is going to work for me."

In the park afterwards, some guys had strung tethers between the palms for tightrope walking and Carter had a good time testing his balance. We wandered down the steps to the shoreline (at the base of the pier in this picture) and sat for a while, watching the surfers and the surfer scene.

By this time is was just about evening, so we found our way to our plans for the evening: a children's theater. The theater was in the basement of a building and does a brisk business in the lucrative birthday party trade. The show presented the story of Hansel & Gretel, but with Phineas & Ferb as participatory narrators. If you are familiar with Phineas & Ferb, you can imagine what an original mash-up this was (if you are not familiar with them, ask any 6yr-old).

The audience was packed with a chaos of kids and though it would be easy to take a jaded view of the low-budget production, it was good-natured and a crowd-pleaser. Of course, it was a copyright lawyer's nightmare.

So that was Saturday.

Sunday, our community-host family from the embassy came by to show us the hidden places where they get their produce and meat. They were very nice, but Carter and I had already discovered the area they spoke of. Still, they had some good advice and they're helpfulness was much appreciated.

Other than that, Jen took Carter to the office so she could catch up on some stuff while I got going on some of my work. I did laundry, Jen having found a washer and dryer in the hotel basement. Of course, I was half way through the second load when it became I was notified that the area was not meant for guests. Oops. They spared me the indignity of dragging sopping clothes back to the room and let me use it for today.

One Week

 After picking up Carter from his last day of "camp" on Friday, we went took a walk from the hotel and found the local market stalls. Jen had asked about this because the supermercados (supermarkets)  tend to be more expensive, but we had not found it yet. I was able to get some great fruit at a produce stall from a very friendly lady.

I was also able to learn something about being careful at these kinds of places...the stall selling cheap Chinese toys sold me a plastic golf set (Carter has no toys at the hotel) but back at the hotel when it was opened, it became clear that they had packaged up a pre-used broken set. On the same outing we went to the supermercado and found, by chance, a Taekwondo dojo...one of the 3 certified internationally. Perhaps we will be able to enroll Carter there.

Here's a photo from that intersection:

In the late afternoon, Carter and I walked over to a hotel closer to the Peace Corps HQ for a little going-away party for the woman who covered Jen's position until Jen got there. This woman is a floater for Peace Corps, going for a month here, a month there...she returns to South America in 2 weeks for Paraguay. It was the chance for Carter and I to meet the Peace Corps crew, who were all very nice. More on them as I get to know them better.

Then we stopped at Pardos Chicken for dinner and I had a salad that was blanched beets, carrots, beans and avacado...simple, fresh and very tasty. Cuisine here is going to be great.

Champing at the bit

Yesterday (Wednesday), I went and got my credentials at the embassy. I can't say much about it because clearly some shadow ops guys would be after me. Jen will be going there in her work capacity, but also our mail comes weekly and the health center and community center will be available to us. In fact, today I took Carter simply to play frisbee on the soccer field since it's the closest to the hotel.

I was not up to much more. The culprit, ingested at this morning's breakfast, was most likely the pineapple juice or the acidic papaya. The result was nothing too horrible, nothing too scatalogical...mostly achy and tired after a stomach ache, but a brief bout of the chills was also not pleasant. It isn't Montezuma, but instead Pacha Kamaq's revenge...although a little reading tells me that he is supposedly banished to the sea now, so perhaps only bad fish can be blamed on him.

We are kind of champing at the bit right now...we haven't gotten local phones yet, I'm not allowed to drive the company car, AND I have work coming in. All in all, it means that there hasn't been a ton of cross-cultural experiences so far. I don't doubt that they are on the horizon, but for now I'm spending a lot of time in a hotel room. Colegio Roosevelt is very english oriented, which has helped Carter not feel threatened. But even that, we're eager to have him connect to spanish and Peru before he gets too habitualized to the bubble he is in.

Jen was given a nice book of essays, though, that were selected to give a broad picture of Peru. Last night I read a cool one by Hiram Bingham, who "discovered" Machu Picchu when locals led him there. Here's a link to an online version.

Coriolis Effect

Carter went to the zoo today with his "camp", though by his count there were only 7 things to see, but not the llamas he wanted to see. I guess they're not considered exotic here. While he was doing that, I mustered the courage to mime my way through a haircut. That's not totally accurate, my spanish is not good and I don't know verbs, but I can string together some basic ideas. For instance, when the barber told me his name was Ismael, I said "Ah, 'Ismael' como el maninero famoso" while making harpoon gestures.

In the afternoon, Carter and I went out to a local park. The big, bustling, noisy boulevards are misleading...after we cut off the main drag, we quickly entered a quiet neighborhood situated around a manicured park. I suppose it's similar to visitors who judge Los Angeles from what they see from the main arteries, missing the fact that the urban sprawl is a collection of places that can't be judged as a whole. Carter taught me Uno (he laughed and laughed when I pointed out that we were playing a game in spanish). Then we played frisbee.

I think the frisbee was spinning the wrong way. What a weird hemisphere.

The first 36 hours

Carter and I arrived in Lima yesterday morning. The drive in from the airport did not give a broad picture of the city, it was enough to see that the neighborhood we are staying in (Surco) is on the upscale side of the spectrum.

View Our Lima Places in a map

The less gentrified residential neighborhoods we drove through seemed to be made largely of brown blocky bricks  much like cinderblocks. Many appear as if the builder intended to build 4 stories but stopped somewhere at floor 2-1/2, with rebar rising skyward and the half finished floor turned into an outdoor patio and laundry line area. The area we are in now is home to the Peace Corps offices, our hotel (situated directly across from the US embassy) and not far from Colegio Roosevelt (Carter's school). 

Colegio Roosevelt

View of embassy from our room.

The climate is new to me...humid, yet overcast and cooled by a marine layer of fog/drizzle. It is winter here and everybody seems to be wearing their winter fashions, but Carter is comfortable in a hoodie. My personal thermostat has always been happier in colder places but what with the humidity, this winter does not seem like one (walking 1 mile today had me sweating as if I'd worked out). It's strange, this fogginess does not seem to sync with the burnt-moonscape of the hills that jut up out of the metropolis. How can a desert be so damp?

After our arrival and happy reunion with Jennifer, we got in the Peace Corps loaner car and drove to a chicken place (surco.png) with tasty rotisserie chicken served with papas fritas. Really tasty and Carter attacked the play area ("I spoke to that kid. Then he spoke to me. We totally didn't understand each other." --- didn't seem to hamper the camaraderie in the playhouse). Afterwards, we drove up the half-mile around one of the big, brown, moonscape hills to the neighborhood where we will be living. If Surco is one of the upscale business & shopping areas, then La Molina is clearly the upscale residential area. We are not scheduled to move in to the house rented for us until Aug26, and driving by it reveals nothing because it, as with most homes in these neighborhoods, is surrounded by a 9' wall with electrified wire on top. Gives new meaning to "A man's home is his castle." 

We did, however, go down a couple blocks to a local communal park where families come Sunday afternoons. There's bouncy houses, simple mini-golf, super slides, and activities...some cost a dollar or so, but the whole shebang is obviously funded by the neighborhood and overall experience is mostly free. It's probably mostly locals, but it's public and I saw several poorer families taking part as well. My ability to read where people are in the social ladder is not very finely tuned, but some things are obvious. Jennifer heard today that this little park has a farmer's market weekly. 

ANYWAY, after the park we went to shop at the local grocery store...I always have enjoyed foreign markets, so that was fun, but I also feel silly about some of the thought we put into bringing things like peanut butter. Sure, it's not common, but there it is on the shelf if you are willing to pay the premium. At the register, the cashier wouldn't let Jen purchase a large bottle of beer because she did not have an empty to trade in for it...Jen confounded the cashier by asking how one STARTS when one is new to the country and does not have an empty bottle, how does one get into the loop? The problem was not, and has not, been resolved. Jen made do with a rather sweet Peruvian bottle of wine. 

Today, Monday, was Carter's chance to get to know his new school a little bit by partaking in the last week of "camp" there. In the "Fun Games" portion, he pretty much immediately wiped out and planted his chin on the mat. So he now has two nickel-sized "asterisk" bruises on his chin that mirror the imprint of the sports mat holes. Then in "Ninjas" portion he bonked heads with a kid and got a bloody nose. Still, he pulled it together enough to get halfway up the climbing wall in the third portion.

After a dinner in our little studio-type kitchen, we went downstairs for ice cream and cappuccinos.