I have learned multiple things in the past few days. The first is that the internet cafes are wholly unreliable as far as service goes. yesterday it took me half an hour to just check my yahoo account. The second is that hiking as we know it is more of a way of life than a recreational activity. there are hundreds of scattered random footpaths all over the place that lead absolutely nowhere, at leat as far as you can tell, and thens uddenly you find yourself in someone´s backyard and then in the middle of an incan terraced field. there are hundreds and thousands of people who live several days´walk from anything.
the third thing i´ve learned is just how awful the inca trail tourism is. it´s comparable to sweatshop workers, only instead of being huddled over a tshirt, these guys are schlepping five and ten gallon jugs of water, all the tourists´luggage, tents, gas, etc. they have to do all the cooking, they don´t get to sleep, and the weather is wholly questionable. the father in my host family said that he has seen several porters die of hypothermia, because they can´t afford the tents and sleeping bags they carry for the tourists. they do all of this for about $10 for a five day trip. That doesn´t feed a family, but that´s also the only work around unless you can afford a car and become a taxi driver. Tourists pay $300 to go on the hikes, too, which makes it all that much worse.
Anyway, i feel better now about not being able to go. The dad from my family (he was an inca trail porter for 18 years) said he would take me and some other volunteers on an alternative trek and that we would hire some horses to help us carry things. it´hard to imagine hiking and asking someone else to carry your things, but i guess whatever way we can pay someone in a healthier way, i guess that´s better.
I´ve seen some amazing ruins so far. I´ll post all of teh photos when i get back and have higher speed connections. did i mention in my last blog that the incas were geniuses when it came to irrigation? THey definitely rival the romans.
After an hour, I´ve managed to get very little done here, but I can´t stand to spend any more time in front of the computer.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
First day of school
At the moment there is a massive teacher´s strike in peru. I went to school yesterday but not today or tomorrow. I guess the problem is that the government is trying to institute an exam for teachers and the teachers are refusing to take it. education here is pretty old fashioned. Yesterday they were tryig to teach the 3-5 year olds bar graphs with all of them sitting still and listening. most of them didn´t quite have the grasp of their numbers yet, so it was pretty pintless exercise. in the high school the kids have names rather than numbers.
This keyboard, byt hte way, is terrible, hence the multiple spellng errors.
Anyway, I am n a class of 18, 8 girls and 10 boys between the ages of 3 and 5. The twn is so poor it has no store, no telephone. I don´t know about electricity. The only reason it has a school is because it´s along the man road i guess there are zens of towns like this in the mountains that have nothing. I have a whole new set of vocabulary to learn, things like ¨stop hitting him¨and üse your inside voices¨ and and all kinds of other things that we just didn´t learn in spanish cass. i also need to learn "I think he just wet his pants" but I don´t think theteachers seem to care about that one.
The town is a ten minute bus ride--an insane bus ride-- from here, so it´s completely different. My town, Ollantaytambo, is beautiful. It´s the only functioning inca town in the andes--the streets have incan cobblestones, teh houses inca stone walls... it´s pretty incredible to think about the history.
Today the host family is takling me to get some sort of pass so i can get into places for free, including teh incan ceremony on friday that´s happening in the ruins. it´s the reenactment of ollanta, an incan warrior who fell in love with a princess. it has the usual ending. But it´s supposed to be a pretty spectacular event. I´m pretty excited.
This keyboard, byt hte way, is terrible, hence the multiple spellng errors.
Anyway, I am n a class of 18, 8 girls and 10 boys between the ages of 3 and 5. The twn is so poor it has no store, no telephone. I don´t know about electricity. The only reason it has a school is because it´s along the man road i guess there are zens of towns like this in the mountains that have nothing. I have a whole new set of vocabulary to learn, things like ¨stop hitting him¨and üse your inside voices¨ and and all kinds of other things that we just didn´t learn in spanish cass. i also need to learn "I think he just wet his pants" but I don´t think theteachers seem to care about that one.
The town is a ten minute bus ride--an insane bus ride-- from here, so it´s completely different. My town, Ollantaytambo, is beautiful. It´s the only functioning inca town in the andes--the streets have incan cobblestones, teh houses inca stone walls... it´s pretty incredible to think about the history.
Today the host family is takling me to get some sort of pass so i can get into places for free, including teh incan ceremony on friday that´s happening in the ruins. it´s the reenactment of ollanta, an incan warrior who fell in love with a princess. it has the usual ending. But it´s supposed to be a pretty spectacular event. I´m pretty excited.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Arrival in Ollantaytambo
My journey here was a bit harrowing, although not so bad when you consider some of my other experiences. I have come to the conclusion that I am not a huge fan of JetBlue, JFK, or Taca airlines... although the TACA line at JFK was the easiest thing I have navigated so far. My Spanish immersion began the moment I stepped into line 4 at Terminal 4 in JFK. Not only was I the only white person, I was the only one who approached the desk without expecting to speak spanish.
San salvador was nothing to worry about. I think I´v eheard too much about drug trafficking and human trafficking and how awful and corrupt the coutnry is. It was fine--very tiny but very nice. It´s kind of, from the outside, like a long row of shacks with tin roofs.
I had a great night in Lima. The taxi driver was so excited I spoke Spanish that he chattered away the whole ride into town. He gave me relationship advice (that I didn´t ask for) and pointed out every casino along the way, saying, ´como las vegas, no?´ He picked me up again the morning at 4:15 (I had two 6am flights in a row)and because the streets were so empty he gave me a complimentary tour of the city. We explored the Plaza de San Martin, the Plaza Mayor, the Presidential Palace (puts teh white house to shame) and had a nice talk about politics and wars over oil. I´m not sure whether I really made myself clear, but I know he at least understood that I didn´t like BUsh. He´s not a tremendous fan of their president Garcia either.
I arrived this afternoon after a turbulent flight and NASCAR style drive over a couple mountain passes in Ollantaytambo. THis town is amazing. It really is built on the old Inca architecture. The streets are all cobblestone and the walls all stone. It´s small but filled with people and dogs. Dogs everywhere. Kids everywhere too. It´s funny to see kids wandering aroudn on their own, you never see that back home. They´re not street kids, either, but healthy home kids who just like to play outside. That seems like kind of a novel concept.
The family I´m staying with are really nice. THey ahve one daughter but have taken in a little boy from a two day´s walk away. There is no road for cars, etc, you have to walk there. Crazy, no? He wanted to go to school but couldn´t go from where he lived so he´s staying with the family too. He keeps staring at me. He was telling the little girl in the house that "La chica tiene libros" because he saw me reading a book and he couldn´t get over it. ´He seems to have a permanent big smile on his face too. The little girl is shy but very polite. She´s nine.
The hosue is Inca style and still has most of its ornçiginal stonework. The floors are a few boards nailed together--I can see downstairs to the kitchen from my room) and there´s a large patio with no roof and a huge garden in the middle. I guess it´s a pretty conventional thing, the outside kitchen, the rooms all on the outside of a courtyard. It seems chilly here for that sort of construction, but everyone seems to be permanently wearing hats and sweaters.
I found an intriguing alternative to the Inca trail--I´ve had some poople say that it´s amazing but I´ve had other people tell me not to do it because it´s basically a highway of tourists who hike about as well as most of the tourists who set out up mansfield. There´s another trail about a fivé hour´s drive from here that´s virtually unknown--the Choquequirao trail. It sounds a lot like what the Inca trail would have been like thirty or forty years ago. You can even camp right in the middle of the ruins. It´s two days out and two days back. I have to find someone to go with me and help me hire a porter. It seems completely wrong to do that, but then you have to remember that for most of these guys, that´s the best they can do for employment. Plus, I guess it´s nice not to have to carry your heavy backpack and le tthe guy with the donkey do it instead. I don´t know. We´ll see how that goes.
San salvador was nothing to worry about. I think I´v eheard too much about drug trafficking and human trafficking and how awful and corrupt the coutnry is. It was fine--very tiny but very nice. It´s kind of, from the outside, like a long row of shacks with tin roofs.
I had a great night in Lima. The taxi driver was so excited I spoke Spanish that he chattered away the whole ride into town. He gave me relationship advice (that I didn´t ask for) and pointed out every casino along the way, saying, ´como las vegas, no?´ He picked me up again the morning at 4:15 (I had two 6am flights in a row)and because the streets were so empty he gave me a complimentary tour of the city. We explored the Plaza de San Martin, the Plaza Mayor, the Presidential Palace (puts teh white house to shame) and had a nice talk about politics and wars over oil. I´m not sure whether I really made myself clear, but I know he at least understood that I didn´t like BUsh. He´s not a tremendous fan of their president Garcia either.
I arrived this afternoon after a turbulent flight and NASCAR style drive over a couple mountain passes in Ollantaytambo. THis town is amazing. It really is built on the old Inca architecture. The streets are all cobblestone and the walls all stone. It´s small but filled with people and dogs. Dogs everywhere. Kids everywhere too. It´s funny to see kids wandering aroudn on their own, you never see that back home. They´re not street kids, either, but healthy home kids who just like to play outside. That seems like kind of a novel concept.
The family I´m staying with are really nice. THey ahve one daughter but have taken in a little boy from a two day´s walk away. There is no road for cars, etc, you have to walk there. Crazy, no? He wanted to go to school but couldn´t go from where he lived so he´s staying with the family too. He keeps staring at me. He was telling the little girl in the house that "La chica tiene libros" because he saw me reading a book and he couldn´t get over it. ´He seems to have a permanent big smile on his face too. The little girl is shy but very polite. She´s nine.
The hosue is Inca style and still has most of its ornçiginal stonework. The floors are a few boards nailed together--I can see downstairs to the kitchen from my room) and there´s a large patio with no roof and a huge garden in the middle. I guess it´s a pretty conventional thing, the outside kitchen, the rooms all on the outside of a courtyard. It seems chilly here for that sort of construction, but everyone seems to be permanently wearing hats and sweaters.
I found an intriguing alternative to the Inca trail--I´ve had some poople say that it´s amazing but I´ve had other people tell me not to do it because it´s basically a highway of tourists who hike about as well as most of the tourists who set out up mansfield. There´s another trail about a fivé hour´s drive from here that´s virtually unknown--the Choquequirao trail. It sounds a lot like what the Inca trail would have been like thirty or forty years ago. You can even camp right in the middle of the ruins. It´s two days out and two days back. I have to find someone to go with me and help me hire a porter. It seems completely wrong to do that, but then you have to remember that for most of these guys, that´s the best they can do for employment. Plus, I guess it´s nice not to have to carry your heavy backpack and le tthe guy with the donkey do it instead. I don´t know. We´ll see how that goes.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Packing...
The purpose of this post is just to give everyone something to follow the link to. I've never blogged before. This is kind of an interesting experience for me, but good practice since all of my students are going to have to start blogging in September and I have to at least have some experience before I drag them all into it.
The days are ticking down very quickly and I'm definitely starting to get a little nervous. I leave on Sunday, very early. Dan has to drive me up to Burlington for a 6am flight. I would feel bad if I hadn't had to drive into Burlington to pick him up at 1:20 on a school night when he returned from Kolkata.
I am almost packed...well, maybe less than almost packed. I have everything laid out on the table in the spare room but it has yet to make it into my pack. Six weeks is a strange period of time, not enough to really stay there, but too long for all of the annoying little travel sized versions of things. I have lots of little piles at the moment.
I have been reading up on as many Peruvian things as I can. These are the things I have learned so far:
1. The Shining Path guerillas are in the way opposite end of the country, as are most of the drug traffickers.
2. Malaria is a danger only in the rainforests. I will be too high up to worry about that.
3. The Incas were horrible imperialists and their empire only lasted a little over a century. They were also not the first major civilization to develop urban centers and take over territories run by the smaller tribes. That honor went to the Wari, who lasted until around 1100. Pizarro destroyed the Incas--I remember that from 8th grade history with Mr. Reisch. He never mentioned the Wari, though.
4. Peru gained independence through the Libertador, Simon Bolivar (again, thank you Mr. Reisch--the only other thing I remember from 8th grade Social Studies is that if you wrote "Simon Bolivar" as the founding father of a country in South America, you were usually right) and Jose de San Martin. They declared independence in 1821 but actually won it militarily in 1824.
5. The political situation is not especially pretty. The current President, Alan Garcia, had a somewhat dubious reign of power in the late 80s but was defeated by Alberto Fujimori in 1990 due to excessive corruption, economic disaster, and some human rights violations. Fujimori was not much of an improvement, and ended up fleeing the country with even more corruption charges. Garcia ran again and lost to a guy named Toledo, then ran again and won in a run-off election. Fortunately, I'll be well away in the mountains, far removed from politics. In fact, I am very much looking forward to seeing no newspapers, magazines, etc. for a while. I've kind of had enough of Paris Hilton's jail experience and W's incompetence.
So...as far as my trip. I will be arriving in Cuzco (elevation 11,000 ft) on Monday morning. I plan on hydrating excessively before then, which is the main preventative thing I remember from talking to kids about altitude sickness out in California. I was fine out there, but we hiked up to 11,000 ft. That's where I'm starting. Yikes. I'll probably be winded for a good month. I will be staying in Ollantaytambo, which is the site of one of Pizarro's few defeats, and working at a preschool called Media Luna. Ollantaytambo is supposed to be built around most of its original architecture and has massive ruins all around. I'm pretty excited.
My biggest fears at the moment...altitude sickness and coral snakes. Apparently they do live up that high. Ugh. Thanks to a story mom told me once about a coral snake in someone's swimming pool, I have a life-long fear of them. Yuck.
I'm bringing big hiking boots.
The days are ticking down very quickly and I'm definitely starting to get a little nervous. I leave on Sunday, very early. Dan has to drive me up to Burlington for a 6am flight. I would feel bad if I hadn't had to drive into Burlington to pick him up at 1:20 on a school night when he returned from Kolkata.
I am almost packed...well, maybe less than almost packed. I have everything laid out on the table in the spare room but it has yet to make it into my pack. Six weeks is a strange period of time, not enough to really stay there, but too long for all of the annoying little travel sized versions of things. I have lots of little piles at the moment.
I have been reading up on as many Peruvian things as I can. These are the things I have learned so far:
1. The Shining Path guerillas are in the way opposite end of the country, as are most of the drug traffickers.
2. Malaria is a danger only in the rainforests. I will be too high up to worry about that.
3. The Incas were horrible imperialists and their empire only lasted a little over a century. They were also not the first major civilization to develop urban centers and take over territories run by the smaller tribes. That honor went to the Wari, who lasted until around 1100. Pizarro destroyed the Incas--I remember that from 8th grade history with Mr. Reisch. He never mentioned the Wari, though.
4. Peru gained independence through the Libertador, Simon Bolivar (again, thank you Mr. Reisch--the only other thing I remember from 8th grade Social Studies is that if you wrote "Simon Bolivar" as the founding father of a country in South America, you were usually right) and Jose de San Martin. They declared independence in 1821 but actually won it militarily in 1824.
5. The political situation is not especially pretty. The current President, Alan Garcia, had a somewhat dubious reign of power in the late 80s but was defeated by Alberto Fujimori in 1990 due to excessive corruption, economic disaster, and some human rights violations. Fujimori was not much of an improvement, and ended up fleeing the country with even more corruption charges. Garcia ran again and lost to a guy named Toledo, then ran again and won in a run-off election. Fortunately, I'll be well away in the mountains, far removed from politics. In fact, I am very much looking forward to seeing no newspapers, magazines, etc. for a while. I've kind of had enough of Paris Hilton's jail experience and W's incompetence.
So...as far as my trip. I will be arriving in Cuzco (elevation 11,000 ft) on Monday morning. I plan on hydrating excessively before then, which is the main preventative thing I remember from talking to kids about altitude sickness out in California. I was fine out there, but we hiked up to 11,000 ft. That's where I'm starting. Yikes. I'll probably be winded for a good month. I will be staying in Ollantaytambo, which is the site of one of Pizarro's few defeats, and working at a preschool called Media Luna. Ollantaytambo is supposed to be built around most of its original architecture and has massive ruins all around. I'm pretty excited.
My biggest fears at the moment...altitude sickness and coral snakes. Apparently they do live up that high. Ugh. Thanks to a story mom told me once about a coral snake in someone's swimming pool, I have a life-long fear of them. Yuck.
I'm bringing big hiking boots.
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