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Ok. We're here. Salta, Argentina. What a great place! We hiked to the top of a hill above the city and are otherwise having a good time. We are SO glad to be out of Chile. I promised Ally this would be brief because she really wants to write a longer post. So anyway, we're in Argentina, going to Resistencia tomorrow, and OUR PHONE DOES NOT WORK HERE. Sorry if you've tried to call, we'll post our new number when we get it.
love you all,
Sam
2.23.2009
2.18.2009
chile
i have like 5 minutes left at the internet cafe so i can't be bothered to use punctuationorevenspaces.we'reokandinIquique.loveyouall.
2.15.2009
Leaving Arequipa
Well, this is it. We leave for Tacna on the southern border of Peru in about an hour. Tonight we'll probably stay in Tacna simply because we don't want to cross the border into Chile in the middle of the night. From there we'll go to Arica, a smallish beach town for a night, and then to Iquique for a few days. We're basically using Chile to get into Argentina without paying the $135 reciprocity tax to get into Bolivia (its a little more direct to go through Bolivia), but I am still excited to see new places in a new country.
It is sad to be leaving Peru. We had a lot of great experiences here, and even though we'll be back in May, I wish we had more time to devote to this amazing country. But since there's no sense in bemoaning a very positive experience, I think we'll go enjoy one last meal in Arequipa before heading to the bus station.
Los amo,
Sam
It is sad to be leaving Peru. We had a lot of great experiences here, and even though we'll be back in May, I wish we had more time to devote to this amazing country. But since there's no sense in bemoaning a very positive experience, I think we'll go enjoy one last meal in Arequipa before heading to the bus station.
Los amo,
Sam
2.09.2009
A typical day:
7:00-wake up
7:15-actually wake up
7:45-meet other volunteers and get on the bus
9:00-School starts at Intiwawa
11:00-20 minute break
12:30-walk back to the bus
1:00-hungrily find lunch, generally falafel or salad or grilled chicken $4
2:00-rest
4:00-walk around the city, sit in the Plaza, visit shops or museums
6:00-dinner, usually cheap fixed-price menus or pizza $4
7:30-actually pay for hostel $7/person
9:00-get a couple beers, dessert, visit other Intiwawa people $5 max
Total: $20 per day
This is truly a great place to live.
7:15-actually wake up
7:45-meet other volunteers and get on the bus
9:00-School starts at Intiwawa
11:00-20 minute break
12:30-walk back to the bus
1:00-hungrily find lunch, generally falafel or salad or grilled chicken $4
2:00-rest
4:00-walk around the city, sit in the Plaza, visit shops or museums
6:00-dinner, usually cheap fixed-price menus or pizza $4
7:30-actually pay for hostel $7/person
9:00-get a couple beers, dessert, visit other Intiwawa people $5 max
Total: $20 per day
This is truly a great place to live.
2.08.2009
2.06.2009
Coolest. Encounter. Ever.
I've just returned from a delicious lunch at Cafe Fez, a Middle Eastern retaurant with $2 falafel sandwiches (the quality of which is on par with the falafel I used to eat in Tel Aviv... and that's high praise). We sat next to a fellow English-speaker who also frequents what's become our favorite place to grab a bite. As I generally do, I struck up conversation and discovered that he, Simon, is from the UK (Bristol). He mentioned that he's going to see Radiohead perform in Buenos Aires in March. My ears immediately perked up as Radiohead is one of my favorite bands of all time AND we're going to be in Argentina during that time. 15 or 20 minutes into a fascinating discussion about music festivals and American/British/Peruvian culture, Simon revealed that his brother is the BAND MANAGER FOR RADIOHEAD. This is one of many incredibly serendipitous encounters I feel as though I've experienced since I've begun traveling. But I mean, seriously, I ended up eating falafel in Peru next to the brother of the manager of my favorite band?? Thank you, Universe! Even better, Simon humored us by enumerating the various personality traits of each of the band members, with whom he's been friends for quite some time. Except for Thom, who's apparently a jerk (which I pretty much expected). Simon began one anecdote with, "Back when I was still speaking with Thom..." To top things off, he said that if we have trouble snagging tickets to the BA show in March, he'll try to help us out, which means that we might be sittin' pretty in the VIP section of a Radiohead show!
Life's been pretty sweet in general. This volunteer experience (INTIWAWA) has been incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable. The kids are so sweet. Every morning begins with the volunteers being swarmed by children, each of whom greet every volunteer with a kiss on the cheek. It takes a while, but it's adorable. Every class day ends the exact same way. Last night, Sam & I went out to a discoteque with the volunteers -- my body is still aching from the hours of dancing, and Sam hasn't quite recovered from the huge buckets (literally) of cocktails we bought. Each mixed drink came with about a dozen straws and one person would hold it for a few minutes while twelve others suckled. Quite an experience. On Monday, we're beginning Spanish lessons with a private tutor ($3/hour each for the two of us) and on Tuesday, we're checking out Capoeira dance lessons with a few other volunteers. According to Wikipedia, Capoeira is "an Afro-Brazilian art form that makes a ritual of movements from martial arts, games, and dance."
I've recently had a mini-revelation regarding the next few years. As of this very moment, this is how I'd like my life trajectory to manifest (all subject to change):
-Work at a non-profit in New York for a year while continuing to learn Spanish
-Spend 6 months in Peru volunteering with INTIWAWA (teaching English)
-Peace Corps (ideally in Latin America)
-NYC Teaching Fellows (an intensive summer program that provides a teaching certification and then subsidizes an education masters, with the requirement that I teach in NYC for some period of time)
After that, no idea! For now, I'm going to enjoy the afternoon rain in Arequipa and practice my Spanish.
Love,
Ally
Life's been pretty sweet in general. This volunteer experience (INTIWAWA) has been incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable. The kids are so sweet. Every morning begins with the volunteers being swarmed by children, each of whom greet every volunteer with a kiss on the cheek. It takes a while, but it's adorable. Every class day ends the exact same way. Last night, Sam & I went out to a discoteque with the volunteers -- my body is still aching from the hours of dancing, and Sam hasn't quite recovered from the huge buckets (literally) of cocktails we bought. Each mixed drink came with about a dozen straws and one person would hold it for a few minutes while twelve others suckled. Quite an experience. On Monday, we're beginning Spanish lessons with a private tutor ($3/hour each for the two of us) and on Tuesday, we're checking out Capoeira dance lessons with a few other volunteers. According to Wikipedia, Capoeira is "an Afro-Brazilian art form that makes a ritual of movements from martial arts, games, and dance."
I've recently had a mini-revelation regarding the next few years. As of this very moment, this is how I'd like my life trajectory to manifest (all subject to change):
-Work at a non-profit in New York for a year while continuing to learn Spanish
-Spend 6 months in Peru volunteering with INTIWAWA (teaching English)
-Peace Corps (ideally in Latin America)
-NYC Teaching Fellows (an intensive summer program that provides a teaching certification and then subsidizes an education masters, with the requirement that I teach in NYC for some period of time)
After that, no idea! For now, I'm going to enjoy the afternoon rain in Arequipa and practice my Spanish.
Love,
Ally
2.05.2009
Arequipa
I miss my guitar with the passion of a thousand suns. The impact of music cannot be underestimated considering the mark it makes on our lives every time we pick up an instrument to play. When you hold a guitar or a flute or whatever day after day after day, your hands learn where to go, what to do, how to coax that special sound out of an otherwise inanimate object. My guitar is one of my best friends--I know its ins and outs, its strengths and weaknesses, its voice. A slab of wood with strings cannot produce music, it can only provide an easier way for two hansd ana soul to speak through it.
We are in Arequipa now, sitting at sunset on the Plaza de Armas as twilight transforms the white marble city into a gilded masterpiece of streetlamps and red-tinged light on the horizon. The Arequipeños mill about the Plaza, and every seat of every bench is taken. The city is drenched in a sense of calm, sensible history and pride--there is none of the rushing about of Lima or the frantic hustling of tourists we found so aggravating in Cusco. There is simply a sense of friendly cohabitation with everyone who calls the city home.
Although it is only a few minutes away by bus, the world of San Isidro and Intiwawa (the former is a town outisde Arequipa, the latter the organization with whom we are doing volunteer work to help educate women and children about their rights and end the endemic domestic violence that occurs in San Isidro) is so different and so separate from that of Arequipa. In Arequipa, we are the children, learning and being taken care of by our parents at the hostel and all around town as we inevitably make mistakes in judgment, the language, or simply get sick and need to be taken care of. We stand out as being more helpless than perhaps even the niños peruanos, and the city comes to our aid. At Intiwawa, the roles are entirely different. We, along with 20 other gringos and a smattering of peruanos are repsonsible for over 50 children over the course of 5 hours every morning. They listen to us as we instruct them to behave properly and think in specific ways. We must have all the answers, and even when we do not, we must appear as if we do lest we lose their respect. We teach them English despite their higher skill in Spanish and we require that they brush their teeth as we arrive, frequently with hangovers or without having washed ourselves.
I don't mean to imply that we aren't doing anything to help, only that the description of volunteer work sends the message that help, transferrence of knowledge, betterment of life, etc., only exist on a one-way street. These children teach us more in every moment we share than perhaps we can ever impart on them, and for this I am sad that we only have more or less another week with them.
I find myself worrying frequently about the lack of epiphanies or profound learning experiences that I have had on this journey thus far. I get depressed when I realize how few experiences have hit me just so such that I change my perspective and point my life in a different direction altogether. I waste time and anxiety worrying about these things and yet in the last few paragraphs I have described three very profound realizations that occurred to me only today.
I think perhaps we look in the wrong places for change to enter our lives, and sometimes simply by looking we blind ourselves to the change occuring around us. We live in such a dynamic world and we inhabit such dynamic bodies and souls that it would be a mistake to assume that just because we don't notice the change that none has actually ocurred. Truly, change is the only constant force in the universe: love, life, pain, joy, white sillar marble, all these will fade, increase or decrease with intensity or clarity or desirability. The only thing you can be sure of is that from this moment to the next, in the infinite matrix of information that is our universe, everything will change eventually.
Now. I think I'll go buy a guitar.
We are in Arequipa now, sitting at sunset on the Plaza de Armas as twilight transforms the white marble city into a gilded masterpiece of streetlamps and red-tinged light on the horizon. The Arequipeños mill about the Plaza, and every seat of every bench is taken. The city is drenched in a sense of calm, sensible history and pride--there is none of the rushing about of Lima or the frantic hustling of tourists we found so aggravating in Cusco. There is simply a sense of friendly cohabitation with everyone who calls the city home.
Although it is only a few minutes away by bus, the world of San Isidro and Intiwawa (the former is a town outisde Arequipa, the latter the organization with whom we are doing volunteer work to help educate women and children about their rights and end the endemic domestic violence that occurs in San Isidro) is so different and so separate from that of Arequipa. In Arequipa, we are the children, learning and being taken care of by our parents at the hostel and all around town as we inevitably make mistakes in judgment, the language, or simply get sick and need to be taken care of. We stand out as being more helpless than perhaps even the niños peruanos, and the city comes to our aid. At Intiwawa, the roles are entirely different. We, along with 20 other gringos and a smattering of peruanos are repsonsible for over 50 children over the course of 5 hours every morning. They listen to us as we instruct them to behave properly and think in specific ways. We must have all the answers, and even when we do not, we must appear as if we do lest we lose their respect. We teach them English despite their higher skill in Spanish and we require that they brush their teeth as we arrive, frequently with hangovers or without having washed ourselves.
I don't mean to imply that we aren't doing anything to help, only that the description of volunteer work sends the message that help, transferrence of knowledge, betterment of life, etc., only exist on a one-way street. These children teach us more in every moment we share than perhaps we can ever impart on them, and for this I am sad that we only have more or less another week with them.
I find myself worrying frequently about the lack of epiphanies or profound learning experiences that I have had on this journey thus far. I get depressed when I realize how few experiences have hit me just so such that I change my perspective and point my life in a different direction altogether. I waste time and anxiety worrying about these things and yet in the last few paragraphs I have described three very profound realizations that occurred to me only today.
I think perhaps we look in the wrong places for change to enter our lives, and sometimes simply by looking we blind ourselves to the change occuring around us. We live in such a dynamic world and we inhabit such dynamic bodies and souls that it would be a mistake to assume that just because we don't notice the change that none has actually ocurred. Truly, change is the only constant force in the universe: love, life, pain, joy, white sillar marble, all these will fade, increase or decrease with intensity or clarity or desirability. The only thing you can be sure of is that from this moment to the next, in the infinite matrix of information that is our universe, everything will change eventually.
Now. I think I'll go buy a guitar.
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