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!

Brushes with the surreal

In Arequipa, as the garbage trucks move through the streets each night, they play instrumental music at high volume from a speaker mounted on the truck roof. It’s not exactly the type of music you would expect from a garbage truck, if you would expect music at all. We were serenaded late one night with classical music. The next night featured a jazzy Caribbean version of Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid, followed by El Condor Pasa (Simon & Garfunkel’s song that starts out “I’d rather be a hammer than a nail...” The melody that they sing to is El Condor Pasa, a traditional Quechuan song). The music is a good reminder to get your trash outside if you haven’t done it yet, I suppose.

During our tour of the gorgeous Santa Catalina Monastery in Arequipa, we learned that the nuns chopped off their often-very-long-hair upon taking their vows. Their hair was then used to adorn religious statues big and small. I think those statues are pretty creepy to begin with, but seeing them with various shades of brown and black hair, curly or wavy, braided or straight, gave it a whole new level of creepiness.

Even the public bathrooms in Arequipa were interesting, featuring art and old skylights.

Our time in Colca Canyon inadvertently coincided with the biggest local celebration of the year, that of their patron saint, the Virgen del Carmen. While my nerves were a little shot since firecrackers were omnipresent and Simon was pretty scared every time they went off, it was also really cool to stumble upon various scenes amidst this celebration. In Yanque, we saw a small group of people getting their statue ready to be paraded around the tiny square, after affixing flowers and offerings of food to her sides. Later we saw around 20 people singing and dancing as the Virgen was held aloft and carried through town. 

Carrying a giant handmade candle to the church in Yanque to put alongside the statue of the Virgen

Getting the statue ready inside the church

Parading the Virgen around the square

In Cabanaconde, the brass band started marching around the square at 6 a.m., this after only stopping the music several hours before! It was definitely wild to see all the festively dressed women, especially drinking beers.

As previously mentioned, Simon was scared during these celebrations because of the loud and constant fireworks. Luckily, while we were walking around a local museum, he found a friend, Miski, who was also a little scared. They took their own tour while staying very close to each other, which was sweet to witness.

As the sun set in the middle of nowhere in Colca Canyon, we left the hot springs where Simon and Sam had enjoyed the warm water while I shivered on the side in the 40 degree temperature. We walked the 30-40 minutes back to our hotel, quickly winded by the high altitude. I had thought we were making good time until we were passed by slowly moving cows, burros, dogs, and the cowboys bringing them in for the night.

That wasn’t the only place where we were left in the dust. While we walked up a long hill in Cochas Chico, outside of Huancayo, I struggled to maintain a conversation with Sam while holding Simon and walking at the same time. I was panting in between words, such was the altitude effect. Then an older woman, maybe 60 years old, wearing a large load on her back, ran by us, uphill, pausing briefly to say hi. I was so tired just thinking about her running uphill that I had to stop to rest.

Once Simon and I stopped by Wong to buy coffee and were surprised by a parade of three beautiful Chinese dragons, complete with a gong section, dancing through the deli area. Later they blocked the exit, so we continued watching. It was apparently a promotion for a Fiestas Patrias parade, sponsored by Wong, through Miraflores the next day.

We went and it was pretty interesting. Thousands of people lined the streets, enormous screens were set up to broadcast parts of the show, the crowd began to get belligerent, and several times I got crowd-phobia before we retreated off the main drag. 

Having a huge supermarket chain sponsor the biggest non-military Fiestas Patrias parade made for some interesting sightings. Such as: a dozen Chinese dragons kicked off the parade, honoring Wong’s Chinese roots, Miss Wong waved, beauty-pageant style, to the crowd. The prepared foods section sponsored a float of mostly naked women dancing on a giant Inca head, flanked by a pastel butterfly. But my favorite was a giant puffy sugar bowl, pulled by a horse drawn carriage. 

I have learned to expect the unexpected in Peru, but it still doesn’t take away my fascination or surprise.

Arequipa and Colca Canyon

Our last Peruvian trip was far to the south: Arequipa, near the borders of Chile and Bolivia, was a feast for the eyes. Blue skies, brightly colored walls, and buildings made out of white volcanic rock meant we were constantly reaching for the camera to try to capture the play of light, color, and shadow.

Nuns at Santa Catalina Monastery began their vow of silence after passing under this arch. 

This peek into the blue room in the back made me think of James Turrell. 

Simon's favorite parts of our trip included limonada whenever possible, watching tv (rare!) in one hotel room, trying to crack the code on the safe in another, and checking out the cows just outside our room window in Yanque.

We traveled through Colca Canyon, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, in an attempt to see condors. The scenery en route was as spectacular as waiting for the condors to rise, majestically, from the canyon floor, riding the morning thermals.

It was also beautiful to see the canyon’s residents dressed up in their traditional clothing for a local celebration. 

The constant juxtaposition of gringos like us with the native residents was jarring but beautiful in its own way. I wonder what the canyon’s residents think of us weird travelers, all of us dressed alike in our similar traveling clothes. I wonder if they get tired of having their picture taken. At least in the Sacred Valley, people expect tips in exchange for these constant pictures.

Invisible on the bus while I held a sleeping Simon, I watched as a Colca Canyon family, dressed in their celebration finery, tried to flag down a passing combi, only to be ignored. They wearily sat down, resigned to wait for the next one. Their combi stop was smack in the middle of a tiny town, which happened to be a rest stop for all the tour buses too. This meant that there were perhaps 100 tourists wandering around, getting their pictures taken with llamas, trained falcons, peeking inside a church partially destroyed by an earthquake. 

Note the falcon perched on the man's head.

A woman walked up to the family, stopped perhaps four feet away and started focusing her enormous camera lens on them. She fiddled with it for what seemed like an eternity as she tried to get a good shot. The mother and father looked away. The toddler stared at the camera. I felt uncomfortable and embarrassed for everyone. Perhaps they are accustomed to it. Perhaps they are annoyed by it. Perhaps they are both.

Once, I felt perhaps a fraction of what they might be feeling, when Simon was crying and upset over something while I was trying to manage luggage and Spanish and hurt feelings at the same time. A mom ran up, posed her young child with Simon, and took a picture. I was annoyed, thinking, “my son is obviously upset, give it a rest with the pictures already!” But I didn’t want to be rude and give a negative impression of the United States, so we stood there for the picture. However, I wasn’t going to ask Simon to stand there by himself or smile.

Sam decided to take the picture too.

Who knows when we have been the ones to inadvertently make someone uncomfortable. Our aim is true but it might not always be correct.

It’s been amazing to see these different parts of Peru. And there is so much that we didn’t have time to see! Peru feels like several different countries crammed into one. As lucky as we are to be able to take these trips, the constant travel and adjustment is helping us to become ready to come home and just be for awhile.

Jungle lite

Ever since Simon and I read a library book called Home for a Tiger, Home for a Bear last summer, I had been dreading seeing spiders in Peru. Wouldn’t you, after reading this description: Goliath bird-eating spiders are the largest spiders in the world - about the size of a small pizza! A type of tarantula, they live in the rainforests of South America.

I quietly decided I would avoid any trip to the rainforests in Peru. Any spider whose size is compared to a meal that would feed an entire family is about a thousand times too big, in my book.

Sam, unfortunately, had no similar reservations. So when he said he really, really wanted to go to the jungle, I resigned myself to scary sightings and sleepless nights. We planned to go to La Merced, the closest jungle to Lima.

I am happy to report that I had zero goliath bird-eating spider sightings. In fact, I had no fear-inducing spider sightings at all. We only really saw one live giant spider during our Peruvian adventures: at our hotel in Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu, I found this in our bathroom... 

Check out those pincers!

… and requested that Sam deal with it. He carefully maneuvered it into the trash can, walked it over to the open window, and threw it out onto the sidewalk below. While I was grateful to have the spider out of our room, it made me cringe to walk down streets after that, wondering if I’d have a giant spider with pincers flung onto me as I walked beneath open windows. “I made sure there weren’t any pedestrians before I threw it out!” Sam said. Not everyone would be so careful!

The spider escapade left a big impression on Simon. He started requesting edits when we’d sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”: he wanted us to sing “The Very Giant Spider” and recount the story of Sam flinging it out the window.

And the other "spider" we encountered was on a creatively designed playground - I heartily approve of these spiders!

So, no spiders in our jungle, thankfully. What we did find was beautiful green jungle that didn’t appear to be much different from other green, wooded areas we’ve been in before. There was wonderfully warm, occasionally hot sun, in contrast to chilly Lima, and gorgeous night skies. And there were strange conversations.

We hadn’t seen stars since staying at a beach near the Ecuatorian border in October. One night we were stargazing when Gloria, on an extended vacation from the US, walked by. “This is a great place to see UFOs!” she said. “You mean shooting stars?” asked Sam. “No, UFOs,” she corrected him. “They go like this,” she drew a zigzag pattern across the sky. “It’s really easy to see them. We see them all the time. It’s a little too overcast to see them tonight, but look tomorrow.” “Okay,” Sam said. I am sorry to report that we saw no UFOs, but we did see lots of activity nearby at the air force base. Connection, anyone?

On our coffee tour day, Simon fell asleep as we were en route to lunch. When we arrived, our tour guide/driver told me to just let Simon sleep in the backseat of the taxi while we all left and ate in the restaurant. Hmmm.... no. When he later saw Sam holding Simon, still sleeping, at the table, he asked me why I didn’t leave him in the car. I said, “He’d wake up in a strange place and not know where we were. It would scare him.” He nodded. “You need to get him cured of that. Kids shouldn’t be scared of things like that. You could just take him to the curandera, the healer, and she would get rid of it.” 

While I had zero intention of taking Simon to the curandera, I was intrigued. He told me that the woman who ran our guesthouse had taken her 6-year-old daughter to the curandera for her fear of large dogs. “The curandera passes metal all over your body, then puts it into water, where it assumes the shape of your fear. Then based on what the fear is, different things like eggs and leaves are applied to your body.” He said his fear of snakes was cured that way when he was a little boy. Somehow I think Simon would be more fearful of the cure than the original issue.

We’ve been calling this trip “jungle lite” since, given that it was the entrance to the jungle region, we didn’t see the type of animals or arachnids we’d see deeper in. This means that Sam’s desire to see the jungle was not quenched by this trip, unfortunately. He says, “Next time, we are going deep, deep into the jungle.” I will figure out how to avoid that trip when it becomes a reality. For me, though, this trip was one time when I was thoroughly satisfied with the lite version.

Adventures in Huancayo

Although we are now back in the States, I haven’t finished posting all of my drafts yet! I’ll wrap up the blog before Sam returns to work full-time in September.

As we mapped out our final months in Peru and figured out what travel destinations would make the cut, Sam came across an old email from a fair trade colleague. “It’s really cool to see the artisans in Huancayo creating the carved gourds, the mates burilados. If you get a chance, go.”

Huancayo was an 8 hour overnight bus trip from Lima, and about four hours from the jungle we planned to visit. Deciding to combine the trips was easy.

Huancayo was pretty interesting to visit, period, and not just for their funny crosswalk signs. As usual, any place we visit outside of Lima is shocking in its contrast to the dusty, polluted, giant city (written with great affection for Lima). Here we were, high in the Andes, enjoying the cold and sunshine but wishing our hotel room had heat. There was a far more indigenous presence than anywhere we had traveled to at that point. Homeless people were more visible, especially in the streets in and around the main plaza, than we have seen anywhere in Lima. And did I mention it was cold? They were huddled under cardboard and plastic in an attempt to keep warm. 

We had met various members of the Hurtado family at the capacitación training in December, and they urged us to visit their workshops. Sam has described the fascinating process of carving and burning the gourds, so I won’t go into those details here.

At Alejandro and Victoria’s workshop, we first heard of their family’s difficult start. Alejandro’s father died when he was just 3 years old. His mother remarried and left shortly thereafter, leaving Alejandro and his three siblings to raise themselves. His oldest brother Emilio quit school and started working in a mate burilado workshop full time when he was just 12 years old, to support himself and his siblings. As Emilio learned to excel with mates, he taught his brothers. Each has been able to support himself and his family on this artistry since.

Victoria, on the other hand, learned from her neighbors. One in particular saw that she had talent and provided encouragement. “He would give me a mate and tell me to do whatever I wanted with it, to see if I could make something marketable. I played around with it. After I’d made a few, he told me to try to sell them in the Sunday fair. I sold five in a week. I was able to buy myself a few things that I needed. I was 8 or 9 years old.”

Victoria had to leave school after 1st grade to help her family earn money by weaving sweaters and scarves. She has never been able to go back to school. “My parents were very poor. Some of their kids didn’t live because there wasn’t enough food to go around. Our neighbors would help us out with little purchases, some food here, a pair of shoes there. That is how I survived.”

Victoria

Victoria starts to carve owls on a gourd...

Once the carving is completed, Alejandro begins to burn the gourds with a tiny, precise flame. The three owls visible in this picture are all different shades of brown, based on the distance of the flame. He's started to burn the lines as well. 

Farther along in the burning process on the same gourd.

Later we visited Emilio’s workshop and were surprised to see the workshop empty, even though it was a business day. We learned that his workshop keeps a slightly unusual schedule: it is open Wednesday through Saturday. On the other three days, many of his seven workers volunteer in a community church program for children living in extreme poverty. Participating in this church project is not a requirement to work in his workshop, but rather is a project that many in his community are committed to.

As Emilio is committed to hiring people who otherwise would not have a job, he hires workers who do not have a trade. He hires them expressly to be able to teach them a skill with which they can support themselves. Generally his workers haven’t held a job before, and keeping a rigid, regular schedule is something new for them.

At the beginning, his workers agree that they will initially work for a month. If, after that month, they want to continue in his workshop, they sign a contract for one to three years. Not all of the people he hires are interested in continuing in his workshop after the initial trial period. During their period of employment, they gradually learn all the various skills that go into creating mates burilados. If and when they are ready to set out on their own, they give notice up to two weeks prior to their contract ending.

After they open up their own workshop, Emilio continues to give them work, passing on parts of his orders and giving them projects to complete for several years while they build their own client base. When they no longer need work from him, he gradually stops sharing it with them.

I never thought of myself as super tall in Peru until I saw photos like these. Here, Emilio and I are holding some of his enormous gourds, intricately carved with scenes which tell a story as you slowly rotate the gourd.

After he went to work full-time at age 12, he worked for an additional twelve years with just clothing and food for himself and his siblings as payment. Once he married, though, he had two families to support. Eventually he opened up his own workshop with his wife, Ana.

Ana died in 2010 after a long, expensive battle with cancer, fighting through 33 radiation treatments and three operations. It put him deeply into debt - one of her operations cost $25,000 - but he was ready to sacrifice everything so Ana could be cured. During a four year period they lived in Lima, not working, so she could be close to the hospital for chemo treatments. Their youngest, Joel, quit college to run their workshop for them.

He shared how much he has grieved and still grieves Ana’s death. His sadness was palpable. Yet he knows he has to move on. In May of this year, Emilio paid off his last loan. Joel has started studying again, and has a particularly grueling schedule as he juggles responsibilities in the workshop, church program, and college. He attends classes from 6:30-10:30 in the morning and again from 5-10:30 at night. From 12-4 he is either at the church program or at the workshop.

We stopped by Pablo’s workshop but weren’t able to see him, since he was at a now-annual event for him, giving daily demonstrations at the San Diego Zoo for a couple of months each summer.

In an earlier interview, Pablo shared that his work has opened many doors for him: “My art has made it possible for me to see many places within my country and around the world. I have been able to meet many people who appreciate and value the art that we practice as a tradition that our parents left for us. I have been able to achieve my dreams. Now I try to help unemployed and poor young people and women, by giving them work and teaching them the art of mate burilado.” 

Two of Pablo's workers, carving gourds

These four all work in quemado, or burning, of the gourds. They use a foot pedal to control the amount of gas in their flame. Note the giant bags of mates behind them, ready for a future order.

The exterior of Pablo's workshop and home.

Our last visit was to Eulogio Medina and his wife Geralmina Salomé.

Each of the Hurtado brothers worked for Eulogio at some point as they grew up. In contrast to the tiny gas flame “paintbrush” we’d seen at each of the other workshops, Eulogio showed us how he used the traditional thick, pencil-like piece of wood to burn the gourds. Such artistry each person displayed.

In addition to the mates burilados workshops, I have two memories that I associate most with Huancayo. The first is about casual conversation and tourists. Simon and I were playing in the main plaza one morning when he noticed a little kid with a battery-operated car driving around. It was love at first sight, although I’m not sure which Simon was more taken by, the little boy, Adrian, or his car! Adrian and Simon played happily together for an hour while I chatted with his parents, Gladys and Angel. 

In between giving taped interviews to several different groups of students working on some sort of interview-the-gringa project, Gladys and Angel gave me food tips for our trip. When I expressed surprise at how many interviews I was giving and the far-more-than-normal pictures being taken of Simon with random kids and their parents, Angel said, “We get tourists here but they are always very heavily guarded. Everyone wants to talk to them but no one knows how. They always are in a big group or stay close together.” That made me wonder how “guarded” I would be if I wasn’t super approachable on account of having a playful child. Simon has certainly opened up a lot of doors for us this year.

The second one relates to music. On the four-hour drive from Huancayo to the jungle, our bus driver loudly played a single cd on repeat. Every single song featured a screeching phrase which the singer would shriek out four times: OSS! OSS! OSS! OSS! Sometimes she would add a dying-away shriek at the end of the song: OSSSSSSSSS. Our napping little boy didn’t stay that way for long. “I think they play this music just to make the trip more miserable,” Sam said. As we have joked about OSS approximately a million times by now, Simon now thinks of Huancayo too. If he hears us say “Huancayo”, he starts chanting “OSS”. Somehow I find that extremely endearing instead of extremely annoying. Maybe I should send a cd of Simon chanting OSS to the bus driver for his next trips!

Next stop: the jungle.