Sunday afternoons on the malecón

One of our standard Sunday afternoon activities is to walk along the malecón, the walk along the cliffside parks overlooking the ocean. It takes us about an hour to leisurely make our way south to where the parapentes take off and land.

We aren’t the only ones with this idea. I learned from a very cool photo exhibit called Lima Más Arriba that, on a typical Sunday afternoon in summer, there are half a million people along the six-mile-long malecón. While it’s never felt too crowded, it’s definitely been hopping.

The park on the malecón closest to our apartment, late afternoon on New Year's Day

People are always in the parks along the malecón, but it explodes on Sundays. Families bring picnics. Parents and kids ride their bicycles in the bike lane. The canchas are always in use with a fútbol game, with multigenerational teams playing all day long. The D’Onofrio ice cream bicycle vendors are stationed every 100 meters or so, just in case you changed your mind in the last few steps.

I’ve been taken with how participatory families are. Parents don’t just lounge around and watch their kids play (as I might want to do); they are active! Moms and aunts hit volleyballs with kids, dads and uncles chase and tackle the kids too. It’s so fun to see everyone so active and engaged.

Adults and kids alike roll down hills. There is apparently an art to it. Giuseppe tried to teach it to Simon one day when we “borrowed” Giuseppe for the afternoon. 

Rolling down hills, a favorite pastime

Giuseppe gives Simon a lesson in how to roll down a hill. You start at the top...

Simon tries to put Giuseppe's instructions into practice.

After all that effort, Giuseppe is exhausted. Simon's ready to try it again.

There is a dirtbike course right next to the skateboard park, so if there are little kids practicing or, super exciting, an actual race going on, we have to stop and watch that too. Once, when we watched a race, we laughed at the loudspeaker material. It had hundreds of nonexistent people cheering the bikers on, and later when the announcer read out the names of the winners, Queen’s “We are the champions” played over and over.

The skateboarders don’t just use the skate park; some of them take over the long sloping sidewalks to test out dramatic finishes, calling out “¡permiso!” to anyone that might be in their way before they start. Avid athletes, as well as women in skirts and heels, use the exercise equipment scattered everywhere. Dogs have birthday parties. Once we saw a flash mob of 100 people having a pillow fight.

If the wind is good, there is a long line for the parapentes. 

Kids run races through the bushes planted as mazes. Tightropes are strung between trees, at varying heights, for anyone to try inching across. Bubble vendors stop off at the more populated playgrounds and blow rounds of bubbles, to the delight of the kids playing. 

Bubbles never lose their appeal... and they have usually been good ways to start playing with other kids.

Couples make out pretty much anywhere and everywhere, but one particular park along the malecón, the aptly named Parque del Amor, is a good place to avoid if you don’t want to get in the middle of teenagers kissing. It’s anchored by a giant statue of - what else? - two people making out, hovering above the ocean. It also has a very long, very cool mosaic tiled bench with love quotes from literature spelled out with the broken tiles. I was wandering along it once, stopping every so often to read the quotes, when I realized I was inadvertently staring at a couple going at it. Moving on, then!

Capoeira groups stand in a circle, chanting as they practice their unique martial art/dance to their unique music. Hare Krishnas gather on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and more than once we’ve stopped on our way back to watch the sunset there, with their singing and drumming our auditory backdrop to the dramatic orange sun dropping into the haze just above the ocean.

Simon decided to try out some of the moves he saw the capoeira guys practicing.

This was one of the weirdest sunsets we saw: the sun first set into a cloud haze above the ocean, disappearing completely. Then we saw it slowly drop out of the cloud, reappearing before finally disappearing into the next cloud haze.

Not far from the malecón is Parque Kennedy, and the sunken circle there is usually filled with something fascinating to watch, if we can elbow in on the crowd and see in: older couples dancing slowly, cheek to cheek, younger couples salsa dancing, and my favorite so far, an afternoon of tango, with ever-changing partners and really amazing dancing from regular-looking people in the audience.

Last Tango in Peru

One of my goals upon our return to Indy is to start venturing out on Sunday afternoons to different parks in Latino neighborhoods. Perhaps that will be a good way to begin figuring out where and how we might get involved with Spanish-speaking communities. While we’ll have to swap the exciting parapentes for a kite, we’ll be well-equipped for the adventure with our bubbles, fútbol, picnic, and Spanish. Too bad there will be zero hills for Simon to practice his newly acquired skills on.

My fabulous cultural guide

Silvia, my Spanish teacher, is my favorite person here (outside of Sam and Simon, of course!). She is my tutor, cultural guide, and quasi-friend at the same time. My weekly Spanish class is usually pretty awesome as a result.

My class with her feels like a cultural primer on Peru. One of my standing homework assignments is to read an article in the paper and then explain it to her. This is completely up my alley; I like to follow the local politics and attempt to understand whatever the bigger issues are. So I’ve often read articles on an issue I’m following but don’t understand, and then ask her for clarification. Her explanations always are thorough and fascinating, lending complexity that I wouldn’t have necessarily gotten from a dictionary or Googling.

Such as: there is a wildly popular Peruvian soap opera called Al Fondo Hay Sitio. My literal Spanish translates it as “At the Deep End There Is a Place.” What the heck was that supposed to mean? She explained that it was a nod to the experience most limeños have had here with packed, packed, packed buses and combis. It was a reference to what the cobrador (the guy who takes your fare once you tell him where you are going; he also helps the bus cut around in traffic via gestures from the bus windows, and leaps out at stops to yell out the various places the bus is headed, to drum up business) would say to someone who wanted to get on the bus but was doubtful there was room, seeing people crammed up and down the aisles, spilling out the doors, etc: “al fondo hay sitio” - “in the back [of the bus], there’s some room.” No one believed the cobradores but when every bus is like that, you finally get on the bus.

One week I brought in an article about the Conga project, a very controversial mining project in northern Peru. I’d been following the issue since November or December, when it initially erupted and a state of emergency was declared, but I didn’t exactly get what was going on. Essentially, a US-owned company is planning to transform a beautiful area by draining several popular lakes (also used for drinking water) and permanently changing (some say ruining) the lifestyle of many native communities in and around the area. The current president had been very outspoken against such mines before he won the presidential election last year, but now is attempting to proceed with plans for the mine while trying to ensure the mining company funds some social projects to soften the local blow.

We spent an entire hour (of my two-hour class!) discussing it. I appreciated that Silvia provided a perspective of the people affected by the mining. Every other person I had asked about it shared an opinion along the lines of, “the people who live there are stupid/uneducated/selfish/extremists, mining doesn’t cause contamination or pollution, they aren’t using the natural resources anyway but aren’t letting anyone else use them either.” My guess is that because Silvia grew up in a mining town, she can appreciate the protesters’ perspective. “But of course, the people who are complaining about the protests and the project not moving forward are not the ones who live there and will be affected by their decisions.” This is why Spanish class is fun!

She, along with most Peruvians, agrees that mining is essential for Peru’s economic growth. But this particular project is extremely controversial on a number of levels, too far beyond the scope of this blog or my comprehension of all the issues, and the situation has become so fragile that two priests have been called in to mediate. I’m not sure if the second state of emergency has been lifted there yet. Feelings are extremely hot on both sides. When I was reading a recent article about it, the supposedly neutral journalist asked one of the priests, “The anti-mining protesters are really violent, aren’t they?” This, after several protesters had died in clashes with the police. To his credit, the priest answered, “There are many forms of violence, with actions as well as words. Both sides are guilty of much violence.”

I ask Silvia questions about what I don’t understand about Lima, popular culture, anything. Sometimes I find out things with my supposedly innocent questions that I’m not sure I want to know. The Saturday paper always has an interview with some celebrity and the title of the article is called “a quemarropa con (name)”, which means something like “all the way to burnt clothing with (name)”. So I asked Silvia why it was called that. This was her response.

“When someone wants someone else killed, they shoot them. And when they want to be really, really, sure that the person is dead, they shoot them many, many times. Sometimes they shoot them so many times that the victim’s clothing catches on fire.”

At this point, I wondered if Silvia had misunderstood what I was asking, since this was gruesome and not where I expected her answer to go. She continued. “So when you read in the paper that they found a body, it might say something like, ‘Le mataron a quemarropa.’ Roughly translated, “they killed him to the point of burning his clothes.” Similarly, you can use it for an uncomfortable situation where someone is asking you lots of questions, firing them at you as if they were bullets, questions that you want to avoid, questions that aren’t innocent, questions that are meant to harm. So when they call this interview a quemarropa con alguien, they are promising that they are going to ask lots of personal, perhaps embarrassing, questions.”

I was riveted. Her answer was interesting on so many levels, from the completeness of her response to the fact that a method of killing is so much a part of the lexicon that it is an offhand, even lighthearted, title of an article. Perhaps that is yet another legacy of the internal conflict.

A less morbid but still disturbing example: I brought in an article one week about a prominent Peruvian author, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, in which he was interviewed (not a quemarropa!) and asked about an incident in his adolescence which had made headlines at the time for reasons I couldn’t understand. At school, as punishment, his teacher had forced him to pass through a callejón oscuro, a dark alleyway, of 120 students. He passed out, was hospitalized, and there was a minor scandal. I was confused. Why is a “dark alleyway” a punishment? And why does it matter how many people were in it?

“Ah,” Silvia said. “This is all too common in Peruvian schools, even now. I’ll explain it to you but I am not defending it.” She walked over to the whiteboard and started drawing. “A callejón oscuro is when you and your classmates line up side by side, facing a wall, with your hands on the wall and your feet several feet away. The alleyway is formed by you and your classmates, and the space between you and the wall.” She finished drawing it on the whiteboard. “Someone, the person being punished, has to crawl through. It can be a game, with you and a couple of friends, say, and you ruffle the person’s hair or tickle them as they crawl through. But it’s not always that innocent, and people kick and punch the person crawling through. What that teacher did was inexcusable. He gave the students permission to beat up their classmate. That in itself is horrible. But a callejón oscuro of 120 students? Imagine how many kicks and punches they could give!”

Now I understood the scandal. Learning that it’s still a frequent practice today makes me shudder. Middle school and high school can be hard enough by themselves, period, without the specter of getting beaten up in a callejón oscuro.

I appreciate that Silvia helps me navigate the complexities of Peruvian life at the same time as I navigate the complexities of Spanish grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and levels of formality in conversation. We’re in the process of figuring out how I can continue my class with her once we return, via Skype. She is just too awesome to give up simply because we will be on another continent. Hopefully she’ll decide al fondo de su horario hay sitio para mi - at the end of her schedule, there’s a place for me!

Signs

For whatever reason, I am slightly obsessed with signs here.

I have a fixation with the various versions of the “reserved seat” signs on buses/combis etc. They are all different. Of the four images (pregnant woman, mother holding child, elderly person, handicapped/injured person), the pregnant woman and the injured person tend to have their heads bowed. Are they ashamed? Are they tired? Whatever they are, they need a seat… but they’ll have to speak up to get one, since it’s not very frequently that people move voluntarily out of reserved seats on full buses. 

Portly person crosswalk!

In the mountains of Huancayo, about 8 hours from Lima, their crosswalk signs seem to be a little out of proportion, or then again, perhaps they have extraterrestrials. 

Children in Argentina apparently like to go to school; instead of sprinting across the street like Peruvian children are supposed to do, they skip.

Their moms wait with them at the bus stop. 

Their dads walk them to school. (This is the first time I’ve seen a sign like this that is clearly a man, not a woman or person-of-indeterminate-sex, walking the child to school.) 

Barranco’s signs announcing parks seem so happy and joyful (even if covered with black soot). 

Miraflores’ sign for playgrounds makes me snicker: while this essentially says, “kids’ playground”, my brain immediately translates this as, “place for infantile activities”. I can think of some other places that need that sign. 

I just like the sign that announces an official mototaxi stop. I don't know this for sure, but my guess is that Miraflores and San Isidro, two of the most affluent districts in Lima, have banned mototaxis. They are almost everywhere else in the city, and a super cheap ride when you need one. Miraflores & San Isidro's loss!

I love the signs for “pick up after your dog and put the poop in this receptacle”. I am not sure that anyone else has ever noticed them, though; we are on the constant lookout for dog poop on the sidewalks and on the grass. Simon is pretty good about finding it and pointing it out to us… and then getting really close to it to show us that he is not, indeed, touching it.

This is obviously a cattle crossing sign, which we’ve seen while traversing the Peruvian countryside… and here it is, in the heart of Miraflores, where there is zero chance of seeing a cow cross the street. It was put up one day out of the blue, which I noticed on my walk to Spanish class last September, and it’s been there for months now. I suppose it’s a joke, since it’s in front of a grilled steak restaurant. 

This one is a little annoying – it’s for a new ice cream treat from D’Onofrio, the Nestle division here. It shows two flavors for this cone: the strawberry one, “for her”; the chocolate one, “for him”. Give me a break; sexist ice cream flavors? Yet another knock against Nestle! 

Painted across the crosswalk at this busy intersection is a sign that says,  “4 out of 5 deaths that occur in traffic are pedestrians.” I actually stopped to read it while crossing the street, which was stupid move #1. But as horrifying as that statistic is, it’s not surprising, given how crazily limeños drive and how little regard is given to pedestrians.

I think this is supposed to be a woman pushing a stroller… but doesn’t it look like a vacuum cleaner? Who knew that vacuum cleaners got reserved parking spaces at McDonald’s? They should market that: “Take a break from cleaning and get a free Inca Kola!”

Follow that fish!

One of my favorite things about living in Lima is that I have no clue what I’ll see when we are out and about.


Perhaps we’ll see parrots flying around the park. Or at the running track in Barranco. Or in apartment windows. Or at artisans’ workshops.


I know we will see dressed-up dogs. To what extent they are dressed up - and for what purpose (a doggie birthday party? doggie expo? out for a walk?) - are the surprise elements. Once I saw a woman on the bus reading the paper, and the important news about how to “protect him from the cold” caught my eye.

We will most likely see women or groups of girls posing for what we call "glamour shots" against any type of background: the ocean, gym equipment, the wall in the pool's changing room.


Perhaps we will see a giant blood drop, dancing and doing tai chi with a group of women in the park, to promote a blood drive. Or wheelchairs converted into motorized tricycles to ride along the bike lane on the malecón. Toddlers "driving" their own giant battery-operated cars through the park with the car radio going full blast. 


Maybe the guy who makes keys in his tiny kiosk on the sidewalk will pause to play chess with the car repair guy next door. Or surfers will ride by on bikes with special racks above their heads for their boards. Maybe we’ll be squeezed in, on the bus, next to a surfer with his board.


Stopping at the skate park on the malecón is a normal part of a walk. Once we got to see an adorable little kid getting a lesson while wearing a Batman cape. A cape for Simon was in the back of my mind beforehand and seeing that little kid fly around moved it front and center.


Another bonus of the skate park is when there are little kids who can’t climb out of the skate bowl on their own and need help to get out. These three boys were posted at the side of the bowl to pull everyone out during a lesson.

Skateboards in traffic isn’t necessarily strange anymore, it’s now just another mode of transport. And then I saw a 30-ish dad pushing his daughter’s stroller while on his skateboard (on the sidewalk, thankfully). Nice!


That was later topped by a 20-ish guy riding down the sidewalk in his adult-sized, custom-made Big Wheel. At least he didn't have his 6-month-old child balanced on a little "seat" on the handlebars as many other adults do.

Maybe we’ll see marathon runners sprinting through the middle of an all-night open air art exhibition.

Or ceramic body parts coming out of walls as we walk down a side street.

Doors that don’t lead anywhere.

Mannequins dressed, or undressed, in interesting garb.

People using the bicycle carts to transport incredibly large loads down busy streets...

… and small trucks with incredibly large loads driving off of the sidewalk.

Sunday mornings seem to be the day for competitive runs down our street or down the malecón just behind us. So seeing large groups of people dressed in running attire, accompanied by chanting and drumming, isn’t exactly strange anymore. But one Saturday afternoon as we walked back from the malecón, we saw a large group of people, a seemingly endless flow, walking slowly down our street. As we got closer we realized they were zombies. We stopped and watched and eventually figured out that they were walking to the stadium several blocks past our apartment. A guy walked by, taking pictures. “Why is everyone dressed like zombies?” I asked him. “Why not?” he smiled. Good answer.


When we travel to the eastern edge of town, we see a fake soldier “guarding” a sand dune. Apparently this is a holdover from the Sendero Luminoso terrorist violence in the 80s-90s; once they poisoned Lima’s water supply and so now there is a very fake guard posted near the water station to deter any subsequent actions.

When we visited Huancayo, we noticed that the traditional dress for the indigenous mountain people we see sporadically in Lima (and saw more frequently in and around Cuzco) was still in full force there. Women wear their hair in two long braids and covered with a top hat, a full skirt, and warm leggings when cold. The bus stops in Huancayo celebrate this in their design: the roof is a top hat, the sides are two giant braids connected to the ground.

We went to the zoo and saw tigers, lions, zebras, giraffes, owls, monkeys, and many parrots. We saw people FEEDING AND PETTING (!!!!) animals. And we saw a ferocious kitty hanging out in someone else’s habitat.

At Parque Kennedy, it is a given that we will see dozens of cats. Sometimes they are in trees. Once we saw a kitty rescue operation, complete with a tall ladder, security guards, dozens of people gathered, calling out to the cat, and one brave soul who stood on his tiptoes on the top of the ladder and finally grabbed the cat around its neck. He brought the cat down, onlookers cheered, some people petted the cat. They finally let the cat go. It darted away from the crowd.... and promptly ran up another tree.


Mototaxis can fit three people, squeezed into the backseat.  I’ve also seen two mototaxis completely laden with mattresses on the top and on the back, with the backseat filled to the brim with pillows. Or they can transport gigantic loads of lumber, complete with protruding nails.

Vendors sell unsurprising things while walking in between cars and buses at stoplights: soda pops, snacks, newspapers. But they also sell car decals and Q-tips. Who knows when you’ll need an emergency ear cleaning?


And finally, my favorite so far... We were taking a taxi to the airport verrrrry early one morning. Ahead of us was something large that appeared to be falling out of the back of a taxi. We craned our heads to look. It was a fish. A fish!

I thought I must be too sleepy yet, since this seemed a little improbable – a fish being dragged along the highway – but our taxi driver knew what we were exclaiming at and quickly darted through traffic, positioning ourselves right behind the car so we could see it up close. Someone's ceviche special for the day? Yum... I think.