Aventura

Heading into Ishinca w Manuel (lt) and Cesar (rt)

Llanganuco Valley

Into Ishinca

Exploring Ishinca

Llanganuco

Llanganuco

Heading to climb in Los Olivos near Huaraz w Alan

Heading back from Los Olivos

A Dirt Road

The scent of smokey pine wafts up the undulating dirt road that traces one of the hills rising above Huaraz where I’m running. The sound of the city permeates the wide valley. Cars honk, construction machines churn and grind, and dogs throughout the city bark an incessant chorus.

The stones beneath my feet stir and clink as I descend, trotting back and forth down the switchbacks. I like it here. Life is simple, and people live more by necessity than pleasure. I pass two young children, no older than 7, waiving sticks at a small flock of sheep to coax them up the dusty road. They stare at my bare arms, pale, unlike theirs, a beautiful golden brown. My cheeks are rosy from the sun peaking out beneath the swelling clouds that portend afternoon rain.

I gaze down upon Huaraz, its dense, cement and brick buildings – its kinked streets. I love the countryside, but I also love learning the city – the shortcuts that lead from the center up to the house in the south-east part of town. I can barely spot my current dwelling in the sea of related rooftops, its reflective silver-panels beside a clothesline that sports tiny dots of pink, green, blue and white, like hundreds of others nearby. A colorful cemetery dwarfs the city from the south, a stone boarder encroaching like the inevitable rain. A handful of small black bodies run across the concrete schoolyard beside the house.

I love the nuances of the culture. I love riding the bumpy school bus through the city, and getting lost in the “Mercado” amidst the dangling cow ribs, sweaters, trinkets, and dried goat heads. I haven’t quite adapted to some of the local customs surrounding meals, but certain aspects suit me well, like eating the large fruit salad breakfast that Luis prepares. I want to rebel against traditions like never preparing raw fish in the evenings, but other things I want more of, like having soup with every dinner. I hop over what looks like a sheep skin.

When people ask me the inevitable questions like how long I’m staying, I respond with vague answers.

“I don’t know, I’d like to bring my dog to Huaraz; she would love it here!”

Maybe one day I will end up building something more permanent here. But in the meantime, I cherish the smell of smoking pine, the barking chorus, and the clinking stones beneath my feet.

No Words

"I need a recommendation but the director of the school doesn't speak English, can you help me? I need someone to write it so he can sign it. I need it today. Can you do it today? I can teach you Spanish. My daughter loves you. Can you help me with my resume? My daughter thinks you look like her Barbie. Can you teach her English? You must be hungry, you should go eat lunch! I can read your tarot for you. Do you want to come over to my house? Today? No? Monday? You can send the recommendation to my email. That’s today, right? Oh you're taking the 1:30 bus? You better go eat lunch then! You should come live with us! You can teach me all kinds of things about English and grammar! What time can you send that? 4:00 or 5:00? I just got a divorce. My daughter loves your hair. Sweetie Libby is going to come live with us!" 

- Anonymous female teacher 

Riding the School Bus

Luis stepped out into the street, gazing down the hill expectantly, and pressed his cell phone to his ear.

“Where is our driver?” Luis demanded in Spanish to the head of the bus company on the other end of the line. “It was supposed to be here 20 minutes ago!”

“He says it’s coming,” he informed me after hanging up. “The normal guy is in Ecuador today.”

I should have used the bathroom before I left the house.

Ten minutes passed as Luis paced from the sidewalk to the middle of the road to gaze down the hill before he finally gestured.

“There it is!” he yelled. “Let’s go!”

The purple-ish blue bus looked like a cross between a van and a bus. The outsourced company primarily runs tourist operations, Luis informed me. The Robert Smith School negotiated a special contract, but the company often prioritizes other business. The bus passed us and screeched to a halt just before blocking the nearby intersection. We ran over and jumped on. Luis almost fell over, still making his way to his seat when the bus suddenly jerked backwards down the hill as the driver attempted to put it into gear. We slid backwards 10 feet. Jolt. 20 feet backwards. Jolt. 10 feet backwards. Jolt.

This is interesting, I thought. The driver wrestled the shifter, finally forcing the bus into a forward gear. We sped off, bouncing over the bumpy roads and falling sideways with the inertia of the turns.

At one of the stops, a female teacher wearing dark lip liner, a tight pants-suit, and heels boarded the bus, a large purse slung over her shoulder. She sat across from me, just behind the door.

Several children boarded at the next stop, and the teacher snatched a rolling backpack from a girl with down syndrome who looked about eight, tossing the backpack to the front of the bus as the girl high-stepped her way onto the bus. The girl scanned the bus and stopped when she saw me. She grinned and planted a sloppy kiss on my cheek before proceeding to her seat.

“Delante! Delante! Delante!” the teacher shouted at the subsequent students boarding the bus. “Muy rapido, estamos con retraso!” – We’re late!

 One hour and twenty-five minutes since Luis and I embarked from the house, the bus finally skirted haphazardly to a halt in front of the school gate. I scribbled my signature for the security guard and bolted for the bathroom.

Welcome to Huaraz, Peru

View out the front door of Luis' house. Turns out these dogs were devouring one of the baby's diapers (how it got on the road remains a mystery) and smearing her lovely gift all over the road.

Discovered a gorgeous hike right behind the house! "Take nothing but water 

to be safe, and a trekking pole to fight off the dogs." Thanks Chris and Ysa!

Heading back down to Huaraz on the road.

 Amazing.

Mmm… meat!

More meat… Clearly I was captivated.

 The staircase at the Casa de Zarella, beautifully remodeled by Ms. Zare herself.

 My first siamese banana! Or as John called it, the camel toe banana!

…An experience that left me fascinated and satisfied.

Substitute Teacher

“Sientate!” and “Silencio!” were the most common words spoken during my first two days teaching at the Robert Smith School in the town of Talica, 30 minutes north of Huaraz.

Luis, my host, coordinator, and a fellow English instructor at the school, informed me that my first two days would entail substituting for a sick English teacher.

“Can you teach tomorrow?” he asked shortly after my arrival in Huaraz at 8pm.

“No problema,” I assured him.

By day two, the students in my 6^th grade class completely ignored my presence, still talking and prodding one another over completely blank pages twenty minutes after the bell rang. I paced from table to table.

“No habla, solo escribe. Entientes?” -- No talking, only writing. Understand?

“Si. Si. Entiendo.” Yet every page in the room remained blank, and the students giggled and recommenced their chatter shortly after I turned my back. 

I threw my hands up and left the room. I scurried down the hall to the office of the head of discipline, hoping nothing major would go awry in the unattended classroom. Stepping into the office, I inadvertently interrupted a conversation going on with two other teachers. In sloppy Spanish, I requested help with the 6^th graders and returned to the classroom. Minutes later, the PE teacher who resembled a female sumo wrestler came to my rescue. Her low booming voice conveyed several choice phrases, none of which I understood but all of which intimidated me, as well as the rowdy students. Hands clasped firmly behind her back, she prowled the classroom for the remainder of the period. I gave her a smile and an encouraging thumbs-up. She nodded.

During lunch I graded the papers. The majority of the students received the lowest grade possible -- a C -- on the assignment. Some of them only recopied the assignment from the chalkboard onto their papers, and even managed to misspell some of the words.

After enjoying my two-course lunch, Luis found me in the computer room searching Google for folk tales or short stories to use during the next class period with the 6^th graders. 

“That won't work. We can’t print out enough copies for all the students,” he informed me. “But, I’ll give you something that will help you with this class.”

He pulled a stack of cards out of the closet, adorned with the names and photos of various famous soccer players.

“Use these as a reward for correct answers,” he suggested. I shrugged and stuffed the cards into my bag, heading back to the classroom.

My skepticism that the 6^th graders were too old to be entranced by trading cards was alleviated the moment I removed them from my bag.

“Me, me, me!” they shouted, “I want!”

“You have to stop talking and open your workbooks. Whoever can tell me the correct answer to the first question on page 24, with raising your hand, will get a card,” I explained, gesturing while I emphasized "raising your hand."

“Shh! Shhh!” they said, shaking scolding fingers at each other.

Bingo.

To my great relief, the 9^th grade class was considerably more well behaved, though no class displayed more perseverance than the 7^th graders. As a group, their English was significantly more developed than any other class, and they boasted of their aspirations to become cardiologists, actors, video game designers, and systematic engineers.

“I’m playful, sociable, and unique,” one of them wrote.
          “I'm funny like my mother," wrote another. "And my dream is to go to L.A. and meet Notch, the creator of Mindcraft."

Lima to Huaraz

November 5, 2014

Lima 

Lima

 Peru or Israel?

Almost there!

See ya Denver!

November 4, 2014

       Frost coated the windshield of my beat-up Subaru at 5am this morning when I left to take Dellie on one last run. It looks like I’m leaving just in time to avoid the start of another Colorado winter. The sun blinded us as it rose over our favorite Matthew Winters trails, newly coated with patches of ice. I love Colorado, but my passion for skiing and ice climbing wanes as my feet grow increasingly ill-suited for the cold. A 10,000ft Peruvian town situated at the foot of the massive Cordillera Blanca sounds like the perfect solution! I'm teaching English, learning Spanish, preparing for the advanced degree that I've convinced myself will one day land me a good job, and explore, of course!

     My passport arrived just in time after both the old and new one were stolen from the third-party passport agency’s locked cabinet on the 11^th story of a DTC high-rise. Luckily I had a day to spend gathering information to prove my citizenship for the replacement. I’ll always remain skeptical of the story the agency relayed to me about the break-in.

       TSA didn’t give me any grief about the 14 syringes of arthritis medication that I had on ice in my carryon, and the pilot of my connecting flight to Houston informed me that we departed “lickety split!” I also managed to check both my bags for free, so I’m sitting pretty enjoying my aerial view of the snow-capped Rockies.

       See ya later Denver!