walls
i spent very little time in Lima and don´t have much to say about it. it´s a big city, with nice parts and not so nice parts.
Cuzco and the Sacred Valley.
we flew from Lima to Cuzco. i have never seen such a beautiful sight outside my airplane window. it was sunrise and it illuminated mountain chain upon majestic mountain chain.
we went directly to Pisac, which is a little town in the Sacred Valley, and hiked the ruins. words fail me. i really don´t know how to describe Incan ruins. i´ve seen them in Ecuador, and i don´t know if it was that i just didn´t get it, or i wasn´t paying attention, but when we got to the ruins of Pisac, at every turn i was exclaiming "oh my gosh" "this is just incredible" "amazing" and i really wouldn´t shut up. i have never seen such beautiful walls in my entire life.
the Incas quarried these stones and dragged them up and down mountains, over rivers, some weighing many, many tons. and they fit them together without mortar. absolutely perfectly. i can´t wait to show you pictures, even if it won´t do it justice.
i think i was more amazed than at the awesome columns of ancient Greece (blasphemy!), such feats of engineering as i have never seen. i am fascinated by the Incas. just to touch those walls put me in a state of historic, scientific, and mystical shock.
i also can´t believe the use of the land. these are tall, tall mountains, from 10,000 to 14,000 feet. the Incas, and peasant and indigenous people of today, farm on these mountains. they cultivate them using the terrace system. i mean, i am just astounded. miles and miles of terraces, up and up and up. they USE the land as it is.
i´m sorry my words just do not say anything. it is a total wonder, the Andean way of life.
i´m off on a 5 day hiking adventure. wish me luck. as much as i am Andean in my heart, my body has not lived in mountains.
a bit of peru
in an effort to catch up, i´m writing another entry. but this doesn´t mean you can skip the one below, although it´s an admittedly scattered entry.
we spent many hours on a bus to arrive in Lima, Peru. as a bit of practical advice, always cross the border into Peru on the Andean side, instead of the coastal side. it´s much less of a hassle.
in the north of Peru, near the coast, people live in a poverty i have never seen. shacks. real shacks. it´s like seeing something you´ve only seen in movies, except that in movies (Hollywood) all you see are riches. "houses" constructed of sticks and grass. maybe a roof.
my first thought was what do these people do all day? where do they go to the bathroom? where do they get water? how do they work? where do they get food? how do they live?
in complete contrast, on one of the buses they showed the movie "If Only." while shot in London, it was a typical hollywood movie with pretty people who have cool jobs and cool clothes and beautiful apartments. a life so far removed from the shacks in the desert in the north of Peru. i was confronted with two screens- the television and the window, one representing fantasy and the other so clearly, reality.
my friend in Lima explained that many of these poor are people who have invaded government property. from there they get help from social workers to get the land signed over to them and from there they begin to construct a life, better housing, etc. if the land they invaded is private, there is nothing they can do. Alan Garcia, the president, apparently has a plan to decrease poverty by something like 20%. the current rate is around 45-50%.
if you read this before, i´ve edited it. i didn´t like how i ended it and my thoughts weren´t organized. perhaps i will return to it at a different time.
returning part infinite
i returned to Saraguro, one of the loves of my life, and my favorite place in all of Ecuador. this blog actually came out of an email i wrote to a good friend today. i realized something about my love for this town, and maybe about love in general, but it will be hard to tell.
when i stepped off the bus, i was in familiar territory, it was a place i knew well and one i dearly love. i was of course, a bit nervous about going back to the organization i had volunteered with because i had only contacted one person to tell him i was coming again. i need not have worried. i walked into the office, one year later, and asked for people that i knew and upon finding them, we entered conversation like it was two weeks ago that i left, which is what it felt like to me. what worries me about this phenomenon is that in one year i have learned, changed, and grown. but i walked into this town and to me it felt like no time had passed. does this invalidate the year i spent growing and learning? well of course not. but it frightens me, because among people then, the year becomes much shorter. "leah, what´s new?" "oh, not much, i graduated and i´m on vacation now until i start my master´s program in the fall." that whole year condensed into one sentence. but it´s not important that every person knows every detail about my life. with good friends much is shared and that is all that is necessary.
i lived with an indigenous family for a total of 2 weeks time last year, and i fell in love with them. i returned this year, and they did not know i was coming back. i walked to the house in the dark, and encountered the kids in the pathway to the house, who naturally were frightened at first. i said "i´m the gringa that was here last year, i´m leah!" it took the boy a while to believe it, "you´re her???" and there were hugs all around.
coming to Saraguro is like taking a deep breath. people here live what i believe in-connection to the land and to the spiritual. i have a theory that humans (but when i say that, i mean the majority of the united states citizens) have become disconnected from both the earth and from the divine. obviously i´ll save it for another blog. but regardless, the reason indigenous people fascinate me is because they live close the land and close to the divine. the land is Mother Earth, literally our mother because she gives us food. every living thing has a spirit and should be respected because it is living.
the father showed us their system of plowing. they use 2 bulls with a wooden yoke attached to them and a long, wooden trunk with a very large and sharp point coming off the end that sticks into the ground. the person leans on this point while another guides the bulls and it is this point that digs into the earth and tills it. the father said that they don´t use machines because that puts a distance between them and the earth.
air, he said, is necessary to breathe. why am i going to pollute the very same air that i need to breath?
this entry is all over the place. what i wanted to say at the beginning was that love can sometimes be separated. i love Saraguro. but i spent a year in a very different life, living in a way that these people can´t imagine. yet i always kept that love in my heart and when i returned, that love resurfaced as if i had been gone a week.
i go to Saraguro often to visit. i want to live there because it is one thing to be a tourist, to always be able to return somewhere where life may be more "convenient" and "comfortable." but it is another to live among the people. Saraguro has captured my attention. while i realize that the greater picture is that i love indengenous cultures and philosophy, i hope one day to settle there for a time and live a life that i only know in passing.
last sunday, in cuenca, i sat down at the dinner table at 1230 in the afternoon and for the most part, did not move until 8 pm, when the guests began leaving. they were all family of some sort, relations of the friends i was staying with. this in itself is not so amazing. what is amazing is that the conversation never stopped between when they first got together and when they left. nonstop conversation. we ate lunch, waited for dessert, ate dessert, had a second round of dessert, played cards for a time and then ate dinner. after about 4 hours, i finally felt comfortable enough to pipe in the conversation. this was all in spanish, of course, which is why i was quiet for quite a time. i get nervous when there are more than 2 people that i have to talk to at the same time. but by the end, we were all old friends, or family i should say. this is a regular custom of some ecuadorean families. i don´t want to say all, because i can only judge by my particular experience.
everyone is family. in the states, family lives more or less separated from each other because everyone goes off to their selective colleges and from there, other jobs, etc. but actually, this ecuadorean custom is not much different from my culture, the difference is in the states, gatherings consist of friends whereas in ecuador, gatherings are of family. so, what is family.
the interesting observation i made was the following-ecuadoreans can all talk at the same time. this is not the interesting part. what fascinates me is that they can all hear each other at the same time. last saturday night i was with 10 or so adults and i watched a woman talk to 3 other people while someone else was commenting or asking her a question, and then she responded to the person who was talking to her while she was talking. i was amazed.
perspectives
i will not be using any contractions so sorry if my writing seems a bit awkward. i am using a different keyboard and i just do not want to take the time to search for the apostrophe.
i have a lot to say that is all backlogging, but little by little it will come out. in response to my last entry, i had the pleasure of speaking with a young Cuencano about machismo. he first defined it as when the man says to the woman, you have to do this and this and this because that is what pleases me. i agreed that this is part of machismo. his primary argument was that it is the women who are at fault for machismo because they are the ones who raise their kids to act this way. in the nature versus nurture category, he obviously fell under nurture. he seemed to believe that people behave as they were taught to.
how one grows up plays a part in his-her behavior as an adult. however, i also believe that humans are capable of searching out what they themselves believe is the right way to live. this of course, might be a question of education, then again it might not, depending on your belief in the power of the human mind.
secondly, is this not machista in itself, to say that women are to blame for machismo? instead of blaming other people for how you behave, think for yourself about what is right. this comment also suggests that fathers play no part in raising kids. while throughout all history and most cultures, women have been the ones responsible for raising kids, fathers should and do play an important part in shaping kids, whether the father is absent or present.
to say that someone else is to blame is so obviously irresponsible and lazy. people are responsible for their actions and for their behavior and how they treat other people.
we spoke in good fun, but i hope this guy realizes that men themselves should take the matter into their own hands, instead of displacing the blame onto women. but i guess people do what is easy rather than what is right.
i have much more to say, in particular about what a different culture Cuenca is and about how much i am in love with the Andean indigenous culture and my little pueblo of Saraguro. but my time has run out. until next time.
again
every aspect of life has good and bad, including places. so, for as much as i love Cuenca, i do not like all the cars or buses that leave a cloud of dirty pollution in your face when they pass. may this not deter you from visiting. it is a wonderful place. there are 4 rivers that run through it, and it is surrounded by beautiful mountains. the rivers usually sparkle from the sun, contain dozens of rocks strewn about at random, and there are various bridges, so that it often appears like a Thomas Kinkade painting.
returning to a place means returning to it´s bad aspects as well, namely machismo. as the poet Cavafy says, we carry our cities inside us, meaning that wherever you go, you are there and you can not leave problems behind. i say this because i have not changed my physical appearance since i was here last and this gives me problems. last year, i tried to deal with the men in the streets who whistled or spoke to me by trying to understand why they did this. i failed at understanding it.
this time, i still ignore it, but instead of getting pissed off, excuse the slang, i usually end up smiling to myself, because, yes i´ll come right out and say it, i think this habit of theirs is tremendously stupid. i do not mean to be insensitive. if you know me, you know that i love other cultures and i love all people. i am not saying that these men are stupid, nor even that the culture is stupid. but this particular aspect of the masculine culture in ecuador i think is ridiculous. by whistling at me or saying "hola reina" "preciousa" "hola gringita" "hello, how are you" etc etc, what do these men hope to gain? i just do not understand, nor do i feel respected and that is the most important part. i am molested (not physically) simply because i have blond hair. i am from the united states and apparently this makes me more attractive. more often than not, the whistles and comments come after i pass, instead of before, thus i see it as even more pointless. part of what i understand is that i am not the actual focal point, i am only a catalyst so that men can prove to each other how macho they are. again, ridiculous.
don´t be offended if this is your culture. i freely criticize my own culture as well. nobody nowhere no culture is perfect. good and bad is found absolutely everywhere. these are my honest opinions about an aspect of ecuadorian culture that some men choose to participate in. others do not. i have met sincere and respectful men here. but the whistling and the comments contine to bother me, and i think it´s just stupid.
returning
i forgot that people in ecuador were so friendly. how can one forget something like this? it is possible that i forgot a lot of things, in fact now that i am here for a second time i am remembering much that i did not know i had forgotten.
yes, people here are extremely friendly. a woman i met on the plane was returning to ecuador after 11 years of living in the U.S. she gave me her contact info in case i needed anything. a man was kind enough to walk me to the bus stop from the airline office. a woman on the bus held one of my bags and pointed out a seat to me. a woman on another bus gave me two mandarines. everywhere i find goodness.
except for certain taxi drivers. they pretend to know somewhere but really they do not and then it is an annoying mess because of course, i do not know the place, nor do i have a cell phone.
i had also forgotten that ecuador is another world. as soon as i entered this world for the second time, i remembered all my feelings from when i left it before and re-entered the world of the U.S. it is hard to explain. riding on the bus from Quito to Ecuador, i remembered everything-the convenience stores, the way the plants grow on the side of the road, the Andes, the landscape checkered from agriculture, the blue sky against the green mountains, the houses in the midst of construction, the bread, the colors, the smells, the language...it is all different.
i love everything and everywhere i go a flood of memories come back to me. it is strange to be in a place where i lived before after a year of growth and learning. some things change, some things stay the same.
a response to Jaclyn's critique of my "critique"
please see the post "rote-ness" below and "a response to leah's critique" on "togo or not togo" on the sidebar links.
i agree with everything Jaclyn says, and some of our ideas even coincide on my original post. i said that i agree that learning a foreign language is impossible without memorization (although i do believe that a 2nd language can be learned in the same way as our 1st) and that it is important to know dates and figures in historical contexts (done through memorization) in order to understand them.
i also agree that in fields such as biology, memorization is crucial (i certainly hope that doctors memorize anatomy so that when they are operating, they operate on the correct body part, etc). i also concede that memorization can be a basis or foundation for knowledge. if, for example, we memorize the key players in the Spanish civil war and when it happened, we can then discuss its impact on Spanish peasants and other European countries for the rest of the 20th century; a discussion which would be impossible without the memorized foundation of certain factors.
first, my post was an emotional reaction to having spent 3 hours memorizing events and dates for an exam, all information that i have since forgotten.
my aversion to memorization comes when it is used as the sole learning method in a particular class. in this particular spanish history class, there was no discussion or analysis of any of the events we had to memorize. i hope Ms. Janis would concede that essays are a
better assessment than matching of what a student has learned. my final cumulative exam, however, was fill-in and matching. essays allow students free range to take all that they have learned and
process it, instead of just regurgitating information. memorization can be used quite effectively, but when learning stops at memorization, this is what i call an insult to knowledge.
i freely admit its "potential in education." but when this potential is left unearthed in the classroom, when education does not challenge students to think analytically and critically about what they have memorized, students are cheated of the opportunity to expand their knowledge and understanding of the world at a deeper level. in order to create solutions to today's social problems, we must be able to think critically.
as Ms. Janis knows, i normally do not draw stark lines; as a favorite mutual friend, Mr. Darko, points out: "life is not that simple." actions cannot be divided into two categories: good or bad. i apologize for seemingly to draw such line between memorization and immersion. it's what happens when i write from emotion. as an educator, i fully realize that learning comprises myriad forms, as no two people learn in the exact same way.
my hope is that in all disciplines, creativity is encouraged so that young people may effectively work towards a better, more socially responsible society. education is key, but it must be good education.
