And so we come to the end

Our last few weeks in Peru went really quickly. We finished our artisan stories and photos, sent them to the appropriate clients, and saved them in a place we hoped Yannina and Christina would remember to access when looking for stories. We finalized our last few “how to do this specific computer task” documents and sent them a massive email about where to find all of the items we’d worked on, all now in one folder on Christina’s computer. 

The staff of Manos Amigas took us out for a goodbye lunch at everyone’s favorite place - La Pollera, where else?! - which was really kind and unexpected. 

From left: us, Mamita (Yannina & Roberto's mom), Yannina, Maria Esther (one of the quality control/packers), Mario, Giuseppe, Roberto, Christina, and Sheila (the other quality control/packer). The only person missing is Dieuwe.

On the whole, as positive of an experience as we had, as helpful and non-difficult as we tried to be, and as much as Yannina appreciated our work and Manos Amigas liked us as a family, I don’t think we changed their minds about volunteers and how difficult they can be to work with. Not all organizations are equipped to handle volunteers, of course, nor do they have to be, but I wish we had been so fabulous and essential to them to have changed their outlook on volunteers.

We tried to be pretty deliberate about fitting in some of our favorite things before we left, but of course, you never end up doing everything you mean to do. Time just runs out. And so, after 18 flights, 2 overnight bus trips, approximately one million city bus rides within Lima, 40 artisan visits, one earthquake actually felt (among the dozens that happened), countless cheap, delicious and intensely strong El Pan de la Chola cappucinos, and 25 different places where we ranked pisco sours on our extremely scientific rating system, our time in South America came to an end.

In some ways, it’s nice to be home. For as busy and frantic a street as we lived on in Lima, we practically live in the country by comparison here. A car drives by and all of us neighbors look out our respective windows to see who it could possibly be. I like hearing the owls hoot overnight. As I type this, I can see a gorgeous pileated woodpecker peck away at the redbud tree just outside our window. I really like being able to go to the library and check out books! We are so fortunate to have wonderful friends here. I’m glad that we all now can wear functioning seatbelts when we are in a car, I don’t have to dig toilet paper out of my backpack when we are using a bathroom not at our apartment, and that we don’t have to pay to use public bathrooms. Drinking water straight from the tap is pretty fabulous, and so are water fountains, one of Simon’s new fascinations.

But otherwise... coming home has been hard. Starting with the bluster and belligerence and swagger of the US airport employees didn’t help. It was harder than I expected to leave behind the things I loved about Lima (like living in Spanish, walking one block to our local mercado every day for fresh fruits and vegetables, riding the bus anywhere and everywhere, having some time every day that I could work) and adjust to needing to get in the car for absolutely everything and becoming Simon’s primary caregiver again. While our time in Peru wasn’t all fun and relaxation, we have both commented on how hard it is here to not to get really tense and rushed while driving, always late for something. I much preferred just being on a bus or in Gustavo’s taxi.

I suppose part of my adjustment in returning stems from my uncertainty about what my future looks like. For about ten years, we’d discussed our dream of living abroad. And so much of the last few years was filled with our plans for the sabbatical, making it happen, living the experience. Now it’s over. Sam knew exactly what he was returning to - running Global Gifts - and is really excited about that. I knew that I would spend several weeks or months starting to find my way around an Indianapolis I don’t know well, the Latino Indianapolis, trying to figure out what the organizations are that serve the Latino population here and, at the same time, trying to figure out what sort of role I could carve out for myself within that community. I want to keep improving my Spanish, and I want Simon to keep his. But what does that look like? Hopefully I’ll have some answers in several months.

I feel like I’m in a speeding car, staring in the rearview mirror, panicking as I watch Lima quickly recede into the distance. I’m not ready to be done with it, I’m not ready to move on from it. I know my thoughts about our year there will morph as time passes. But this is where I am, now.

However, I’m happy to say that I am the only one with transition issues. Sam is pumped to be back and really excited to return to Global Gifts, full of energy and new ideas. He officially goes back to work full-time tomorrow, although he’s been happily going to meetings, working part-time, and generally getting back into the swing of things for several weeks now. Simon has started preschool one morning a week at a co-op close to our house, and he loves it. He still talks about Dieuwe and Giuseppe often, and the kids even Skyped one afternoon, a funny five minutes of making faces to each other on the computer.

Simon has also spent a lot of time catching up with old loves (like his bike helmet. Not the bike, mind you, just the helmet.) and started up new affairs (like “driving”). He heard me say “Hallelujah!” in response to a friend saying she was coming over, and that has quickly become a favorite word of his. He likes to exclaim it in the funniest and most random of situations, like when I get him second helpings, when he’s allowed to help grind the coffee, when he realizes he gets to go to Sunday school or preschool. “Hallelujah!”

The bike helmet is always a great fashion accessory.

The helmet adds flair to a harmonica/giant ball bounce session. 

Just in case Simon falls off of Sam's lap, we know don't have to worry about his head!

Behind the wheel, obsessed with the hazard lights

Simon has easily solved the problem of not being able to see out the window while "driving".

A perfect example of the difference in our living situations - in Lima, in never rained and if it did, we wouldn't have anywhere to go puddle jumping. Plus, the ick factor of the black pollution in the puddles would have given us pause. Here, it poured one morning. Simon pulled on his new boots from Lucy and spent a ton of time getting thoroughly soaked!

Such concentration!

We hope to return again to Peru, this time just as visitors, of course. We’ve even tossed around the idea of leading a tour to Peru in a couple of years. It would probably be a mix of visiting different parts of Lima and artisan workshops, then probably going to Cuzco for a coffee tour through one of Equal Exchange’s suppliers and then on to Machu Picchu. Let me know via email if you are interested; we can decide if it’s a viable idea based on the response.

And so the year of magical traveling has come to its end. While I’m sure our year would have been amazing no matter where we had ended up, I feel so fortunate to have spent it in Peru. It has truly been a magical year! I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do it, from the Global Gifts board and staff giving Sam the time to do it, to Manos Amigas opening their doors and families to us.

Thank you for being part of this year, too! It has been such fun to write this blog and share random experiences with everyone. Thanks especially for sticking with me through the long and longer posts - I genuinely meant to keep them short but somehow I always found there was so much to say.

I ran out of time to tell various stories that stayed in my head, wanting to be recorded but other stories took precedence. So I’ll leave you with a medley of images instead.

In Piura, we were staying at a crappy and slightly sketchy hotel with a shared bathroom for the four rooms on our floor. In the middle of the night, someone stole the lone light bulb in the bathroom.

In Lima, our trash was picked up not once every night but TWICE! If you missed the 10 pm-ish pick up, you could put it out again for another pickup around 3 or 4 a.m. But if you put it out too early - before 7 pm or after the second pickup - you were subject to a fine.

Our Santa Cruz neighbors were pretty invisible and unknown to us until they - random people, I thought - started commenting on Simon as we would pass on the street or at the mercado. “I work in that building over there. I see him pass by every day. He’s getting so big!” Little kids I thought I had never seen before (and vice versa) would stop me on the malecón and say, “Is that Simon?” Surprised, I’d say yes, how did you know? “I see him all the time!”

The cobradores, the guys (occasionally a woman) who collected bus fares, helped direct traffic via hand signals out the window, and generally acted as the bus driver’s assistant, are on their feet for 12 hours a day. They hustle back and forth on packed buses, making change, remembering who has gotten on the bus through both the front and back doors in the last 10 minutes and who still needs to pay. And for all that, they make just 30 soles per day, the rough equivalent of $12 or $13. That is what a 30 minute taxi ride to the Lima airport costs!

In northern Peru, the Conga mine protests have forced delays in an extremely controversial mining project since December. The project has finally been put on indefinite hold. I resented reading in the Wall Street Journal that the protesters were characterized as radical and extremist but I suppose that is to be expected in a newspaper focused on business interests. I don’t think any Peruvian wants or expects the mining industry to completely cease in Peru, but this specific project has so much local and indigenous opposition that I am glad for them that it is on hold.

We were always so out of place that we were therefore not able to use that as a reason to not go to an event or do an activity. For example, we trekked to Lima centro to attend an event billed as an urban street arts festival. There was lots of skateboarding, hip hop, beatboxing, breakdancing, spray paint/graffitti art, etc. It was a lot of fun and we were glad we went. While I would like to think I would go to the same event in Indy, I know my uneasiness at being too obviously out of place would tend to keep me away.

As we walked on a busy street near the square in Arequipa, we passed a group of three young men standing on a corner. I glanced at them briefly as we walked by, saw that the man in the middle was wearing a hospital mask and was being supported by his friends, and then read the sign hanging from his neck. “I have leukemia. Please help me pay for my treatments.” My heart leapt into my throat. That could have been my brother. How could he have stood outside, even held up by friends, in this cold? I shuddered, remembering how much pain Jared was in and couldn't fathom how truly awful it would have been for him had he needed to stand and beg on a corner. The three were a portrait of misery. Was the beggar really a cancer patient or was he simply playing to our sympathy to earn money? I decided I didn’t care and that I’d prefer to err on the side of giving money to someone who didn’t need it than to ignore someone who so desperately did. We turned around and walked back to the corner. They were gone. We walked around for a bit, trying to see if we could spot them on a new corner, but we never saw them again. I assume they were chased off for begging in a popular tourist area.

There were so many stories there, there was so much to learn about and describe. We’ve just scratched the surface during our year there. Now we start the next adventure, this one formed by our life here, finding stories and enjoying exploring Indianapolis with new eyes.

¡Vaya con Dios!

Cooking "school"

My love of food is well-documented, full of exclamations of just how delicious a given meal was or recommendations to other people about where to go get scrumptious something-or-other.

And as you might have noticed on this blog, I love the food in Peru. It’s delicious. And while I have had some success trying to replicate certain dishes or meals in our apartment (even while I miss certain comforts from our kitchen at home, such as having more than one knife, a mixing bowl instead of using a pot, and only a toaster oven), it has been more fun to create my own custom cooking school, with classes taught by experts.

My lessons began in February with an unexpected and not-very-Peruvian course on Indian food, when my friend Vandna’s parents were in Lima for a couple of months. Chanda taught me how to make chicken curry, an incredible mango salad, and my favorite: eggplant, baingain bartha. Simon wasn’t so excited about the cooking lesson and kept bringing me my shoes as a hint to leave. Finally, he dragged in my backpack too, in case I hadn’t fully understood him yet. But he ate more chicken at that meal than I have ever seen him eat, before or since.

Can we go yet?

Simon was more enthusiastic about my next cooking adventure, since it involved his favorite drink, chicha morada. It is made from purple corn and is the same delightful, rich color. Dieuwe’s grandmother, known to everyone as Mamita, is extremely proud of how much Simon likes it and apparently brags about his love for chicha morada to her friends, so I asked her to show me how to make it. 

First we went to the market to buy ingredients. It was fun to watch Mamita handle and reject a load of ingredients before telling me to hand over the money.

Looking over the purple corn

Choosing spices

Quiz: which one of the following four ingredients is not used in chicha morada?
A. quince
B. pineapple peel
C. orange zest
D. cloves

Answer: orange zest. Chicha morada is such a weird concoction of ingredients. It seems to me that someone was playing MadLibs while they came up with the recipe, but it certainly tastes good at the end. You take a kilo of purple corn cobs, remove the kernels from the cob, put the naked cobs and all the kernels into a giant pot, and fill with water. Add half of a very ripe quince, the peel of half a pineapple (but not the fruit!), six cloves, three pieces of cinnamon bark, bring to a boil and wait. After about an hour or so, the purple corn kernels will have burst slightly. Remove all the liquid and save it as chicha morada concentrate. Fill the pot again and boil for another hour or so to get an undiluted batch of chicha morada. Chill. Add lime juice and sugar to taste just before serving. 

Washing the corn

Simon enjoyed helping rinse the cobs and trying to take the kernels off

Add lots of water...

The MadLibs ingredients

After about an hour of boiling, this is what the concoction looked like. Mamita frequently took out ladles of corn kernels to see if they had burst yet.

After we made our two batches, we put the concentrate into the freezer to enjoy later. There must have been a slight leak in the bag, however, because the next morning frozen chicha morada covered the freezer, which was not the most fun to clean up. Assuming we can find purple corn at Saraga, I will be excited to surprise Simon with chicha morada on special occasions and serve it at our ice cream socials.

Of course we needed to toast before trying our batch of chicha morada!

Chicha mustaches = a satisfied Simon

My next cooking adventure was sushi, of all things. Sizable populations of Chinese and Japanese people in Peru means that markets selling Asian food are plentiful and so having a sushi class at Spanish school isn’t too far out of Peruvian bounds.

Our instructor gave us a brief introduction to sushi and explained how the end result was beautifully shaped: a perfect circle, the symmetry of ingredients, a clean look.

Symmetry is important...

There were five of us in the class, four women (one was Japanese, and she was clearly an expert already... I’m not sure why she was taking the class!), and an Australian named Ralph. As the “h” is silent in Spanish, everyone called him Ralp, which I found hilarious.

Our instructor carefully demonstrated each step and I was proud of my beautiful roll of sushi, until I cut it and realized how warped it was. This explained why my Japanese neighbor had been slightly horrified at my roll the whole time. As I assembled my roll, she would giggle and point, which eventually made me start to laugh too at the weirdness of the situation. “Too much rice! Too much ingredient!” I tried to hide it but, no luck. We all were to show each other our plates before moving on to the next dish. Ralp decided to examine everyone’s sushi, complemented everyone one by one, tasted a couple, and then got to mine. He winced. “What happened over there, Alison?” The good news was that he didn’t even try to taste mine; more for me!

Gee, can you guess which plate has my sushi on it?

Our class, with Ralp hiding in plain sight

I brought my sushi home, Simon tasted a tiny bit, but had a better time repeating his new word, tushi. Now, when I pull out paper and a pen to jot down what we need to get at the market, Simon tells me to add, “agua, tushi,” until he sees me write them down.

My final cooking experience was amazing. I took a lesson from a Peruvian-born, German-trained chef named Yurac who operates cooking classes from his rooftop kitchen. I signed up for the meal featuring special Andean ingredients and ensured it would all be gluten-free. Every course of our four-course meal was incredible. And the emphasis on presentation was huge; every time I thought our dish was done, ready to be served, Yurac had us add one or two or three more things to make it even more beautiful. 

This is an example of the emphasis on presentation. For ocopa, a spicy sauce made of peanuts, yellow peppers called ají amarillo, an oft-used Peruvian herb called huacatay, and queso fresco, we start with beautiful peeled potatoes. Peruvian cuisine boasts a wide variety of potatoes. At one point there were over 3,000 varieties in use.

I chose a representative sampling for my plate. 

We've blended the sauce and Yurak tells us to carefully spoon enough on our plates to completely cover the papas. I assume we are done and ready to eat.

Not so fast! We add the ubiquitous condiments of hard-boiled eggs and black olives. Ok, now we're done.

Except we need to add a little fan of carefully sliced ají amarillo to the dish. Now we are really finished.

Chupe de camarones y pescado. So delicious! 

Alpaca steak, asparagus, and quinoa salad. The quinoa salad has been pressed into a mold and then upended onto the plate. Peruvians are really big into molds, especially for rice. I've come around and purchased molds of my own by now - it is much more fun to eat foods in pyramids and domes. Peru grows a lot of asparagus but, Yurak told us, almost all of it is for export. Few Peruvians eat it. It was always at the mercado near our apartment, for pennies - a regular -sized bunch cost the equivalent of $1. Therefore, we ate a LOT of asparagus. The mercado vendors were shocked to hear that Simon could put away the entire bunch of asparagus by himself.

Ah, lúcuma. A more delicious fruit has not been found. We are starting to make lúcuma mousse here.

Here we go on presentation again. We each drizzled algarrobina syrup on our plates, then spooned lúcuma mousse on top. Done?

Of course not! By now I shouldn't have been surprised. Yurak showed us how to take aguaymanto, these cute little berries, each of them in their own little delicate paper-like package...

... and then flare them each into aguaymanto flowers.

While my spoonfuls of lúcuma mousse aren't exactly artful, check out the rest of the plate: the aguaymanto flowers, a twisted slice of orange, a fan of apple, and aguaymanto jam next to the mousse. What are we waiting for? Let's eat!

Yurak, me, and my classmate Michael, overlooking Miraflores from Yurak's rooftop kitchen

I wanted have one more “class” before we left for home: I wanted to learn how to make the salsas at La Pollera, our favorite pollería down the street. When I asked if I could hang out in the kitchen while they made their salsas, they told me that they would “check and get back with me.” I knew that meant “no”. However, our waiter (I say “our” waiter since he was ours nearly every time we went) knew that I wanted to learn how to make the chimichurri in particular. One night he quietly slipped me a list of the ingredients for the chimichurri that he’d sneakily scribbled in the kitchen. Yes! So I suppose I have one more cooking class, in my own kitchen in Indy, to figure out their ratios and replicate their stellar results. I even have the little wooden spoons to help create the overall effect, so it must taste the same, right?

Still, I have my eye on a very beautiful Peruvian cookbook for my Christmas present. Did you hear that, Sam? Now I'll just have to cross my fingers that I can find Peruvian ingredients stateside.

A music man in the making

Like any two year old, Simon likes to say "no". A LOT. At first, I joked with him that maybe his name was really No-mon instead of Sí-mon (As in “yes”-mon, except that in Spanish, his name gets an accent later: Simón). He thought that was funny and called himself that on occasions, with a big smile.

And then we graduated to "No, Mommy! No, Mommy!" That gets tiring after awhile, so I started singing “No Mommy” back to him as the refrain of El Debarge’s 80s hit “Who’s Johnny”, with some edits to make the song relevant to our circumstances. Simon liked it and would suggest variations for me to sing: No Daddy, No Dieuwe, No Bow-Wow, etc. Watch the video for Who's Johnny on YouTube for a blast from the past; it is hilarious. And then follow that up with Rhythm of the Night; it's even better! El Debarge's hair there reminds me of a certain track coach back in high school...

While I haven’t heard “Who’s Johnny” while in Peru, I should have: 80s music is super prevalent here! I’ve heard more UB40 in the last two months than I have in the last 20 years. 80s music is on the buses, the radio, the streets. I had been hoping to learn more about Peruvian musicians just by soaking up the ambient music, but instead I’m reliving parts of my adolescence as I sing along with Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Depeche Mode, Michael Jackson, Men at Work, The Police, a-ha, and Duran Duran, to name but a few. 

We eventually expanded our musical repertoire by singing “No Mommy” to the tune of Dona Nobis Pacem. We have since brought the tune of Frere Jacques into the fold as well. Simon’s even finally branched out to Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes and the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and really dances his heart out when Sam sings variations on "The Twist".

It’s fun seeing Simon sing his own music, dance with zero inhibitions, bang on the drum, pluck on Sam’s guitar strings, or just groove to music in his head, always with the words "No Mommy!" I can live with that.

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.