Goodbye Cusco

This morning for breakfast I drank the bittersweetness of Cusco goodbyes.  Despite all the sickness, the gnawing cold, the incessant rain, the difficult food and despite the fact that we are still without running water (8 weeks and counting!) I’m going to miss this place.  Cusco has a particular majestic beauty, which cannot be adequately captured through pictures or words.  It is a quaint city marked by hard work and a hard life, clinging to its ethnic identity despite the influences of Western modernization.  Cusco holds a piece of my heart and therefore will always be one of my homes away from home.

.

.

with my host mom Emma

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

This scene of the sun rolling off the mountains was absolutely stunning and breathtaking. This picture hardly does the actual moment justice.

.

.

.

.

"Cusco--the navel of the world"

.

.

I love the wire stakes jutting up from the unfinished buildings. In many ways it resembles a symbol of hope, as if someone will one day come along and finish the work that was started years ago.

.

.

I'm famous

.

.

.

.

Mmmmm.....raw meat in the street

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Weaving Classes

For the past two days I’ve been taking weaving classes at the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco.   The Center seeks to preserve traditional weaving techniques.  Learning weaving is hard enough, but throw in the fact that my teacher has been speaking entirely in Spanish and things are a bit complicated.  At times my teacher has to more or less grab my hand and fingers and force them into their appropriate movements.  It has been good (Spanish and weaving) practice though and after a while I did get the hang of things.  I’ve had a lot of fun with the classes.  When I return to the States I want to keep learning how to weave.

First Attempt.  The straight lines:

This narrow band is called a jakima (pronounced hakima). It is the first thing Peruvian children (and American gringos) learn how to weave.

.

.

Second Attempt.  Perfecting the cross pattern

.

.

Third Attempt.  Trying out the “S” pattern

.

.

Fourth Attempt.  Combining two patterns.  This one was obviously the hardest, but the most fun to do.  I’m pretty proud of this one!

.

.

Progress after 2 days, twelve hours total of private instruction (not too shabby if I may say so myself):

.

.

Tonight, by an awesome stroke of good timing I ran into Marshall the American whom I met in Arequipa and traveled with through the Colca Canyon.  He has acquired a few more travel buddies and was kind enough to take us all out for dinner.  My stomach pain has continued to get worse and I’ve developed quite an aversion to the Peruvian staples of rice and potatoes.  I also decided I certainly didn’t want to order this (note the second menu item from the bottom):

Sweaty trout??? No thank you.

.

.

Thus for dinner I settled on this:

Happiness in a dish! 🙂

Cusco–>Arequipa and “Being a Mom”

Five days after I was originally scheduled to depart Cusco I finally get to leave!  The roads are free of rock and mudslides and while I still don’t feel great, I’ve at least gone a few days without vomiting.

As my departure time arrived, my host mom became super protective of me.  She has so many foreign students staying with her all the time they usually just kind of come and go.  Maybe it’s my small size, maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had a rough time on the illness front here and she not only worries about me, but feels partly responsible.  Maybe it’s the fact that I seem to have connected more with my host mom than her other students do.  For whatever reason, instead of the normal quick goodbye at dinner she stayed up late into the night until it was time for me to leave, walked me to the street, waited until I had a taxi, and recorded the taxi driver’s name and number.  She also gave me a laundry list of “do nots” and “be careful of”, hugged me numerous times, then sent me off.

Traveling can be a scary thing, not so much for me, but for my family back home.  Yet no matter the culture, “being a mom” is a rather universal concept.  Amidst thousands of miles, I’m sure my real mom in Kansas will be happy to know that my Peruvian host mom is temporarily filling those shoes and taking good care of me.

Cusco Carnaval

Today was Carnaval on the Plaza de Armas.  The tradition here is for everyone to dress up in traditional clothing of various Peruvian tribes and to showcase the different dances and music of each culture.  In addition, people douse each other with water, shaving cream, and confetti.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

At the Orphanage

Every afternoon I volunteer at an orphanage.  Most of these babies were found on the streets, in dumpsters and what not.  Many of them have a host of medical, mental, and developmental disabilities.  Working at the orphanage is quite a challenge for me.  I’m in the baby room.  Babies, with their crying, inability to communicate, their spit up, slobber, poopy diapers, and other odd smells just aren’t my thing.  On top of that, the minute I arrive for work, the staff person leaves and I’m usually all by myself with 8 screaming babies for the next 5 hours.  To feed them I line them all up on a pillow, wrap a blanket around each one, use the blanket to prop their bottles up, then scramble from one to the other making sure everyone is okay while simultaneously trying to feed the babies in my arms who need a bit of extra help.  The babies are so starved for human interaction they are constantly crying.  Yet the minute I pick them up and hold them, they stop.  When I’m not busy feeding, I’m rotating between all the babies trying to get them to calm down.  At times I’ll have two babies in my arms, two on my lap, and rocking one in a rocking chair.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.