The Misa Challenge

I only remember going to mass only once before in my life and it was quite the event. I want to say that I was around 10 years old and due to my parents absence for the day I was left under the care of my neighbors and close friends, the Howards. I ate with them, spent time with them and ended up at the local church with them. Although not at all religious I truly was fascinated by the atmosphere and the overwhelming faith which resonated through the space. Of course as all things go in my life I managed to cause quite a scene when, during silent prayer, I knocked the Holy Bible off of the pew and onto the floor where, like the faith, if not with more force, the sound resonated throughout the chamber. Now, since then I have not attended a Church service until this very morning. I'm going to have to back up a bit though, tell you the stories leading up to my graceful return to religious services.

This week was filled to the brim with almost solely Quechua language class. Although we had afternoon lectures, the main focus for each and every SIT student was Quechua since it was our final week and we had our final exam scheduled for Thursday. Monday through Wednesday, after each 3 hour session of Quechua and after our 3 hour siesta we returned to the SIT classroom for cultural lectures ranging from Andean religions to gastronomy to musicology. Each lecture had its own high and low points but in general they were enjoyable, although quite difficult to understand. By the time Wednesday night came around all of the students had crammed themselves into a local cafe where we spent 3+ hours studying for what we thought to be a verbal and written exam able to kick our butts up and down the Andes Mountains. The next morning we all boarded a bus at 7:30 and began a 1.5 hour drive to the indigenous town of Qorca. Driving up and over the hills surrounding Cuzco, past the cities trash dump and across dangerously narrow ledges we landed in Qorca and was immediately set upon by the stray dogs of the rural setting. Making our way past the dogs, horses and cows we divided into three smaller groups and began our "exam". 3 hours of bread-eating, cola-drinking, coffee-hounding studying was not at all necessary for the exam that we faced. Each small group was presented to a family, and, as a group, all we were required to do was read a list of questions from a sheet of paper and write down the answers that were given to us by the Andean families. Even in Quechua, with the collective powers of 8 college students, it was almost too easy to answer all the questions correctly.

More important than the exam was the experience of spending an entire day in a ultra-rural Andean village. From the tours of the guinea pig pens to the Quechua guided explanation of all of the functions of a kitchen, it was beyond eye opening to trek through fields of cow poop in order to reach a living space or to cross flowing rivers to get to a platter of food. After the "exam" was finished, all of us convened at a house deep in the valley, a 15-20 minute downward hike. Upon reaching the house we saw more guinea pigs, plump and prime for a feast, and on a whim decided to take a dip in the nearby river. A handful of gringos plunging into icy water did not seem to phase the locals at all and by the time we had dried off a soccer game had been all set up and we once again passed the time by kicking a round ball between two rocks, a very basic yet exceedingly enjoyable activity. A hike down into the valley of course meant an eventual hike up out of the valley and through sweat, gasping breaths and a few tears I made it back to my haven, the bus parked on flat ground.

The return to Cuzco meant one more day of classes before the weekend and what the boys of SIT had dubbed the Misa Challenge. Having been asked to attend a Quechua mass at 6am on Sunday morning we had made the intelligent, college level decision to attempt to stay awake and dance at the discotecas from 10pm Saturday night until 5:30 the next morning when we would attend mass or "misa". With the recommendation by my host parents that I drink Coca-Cola as well as Burn energy drinks in order to complete the challenge I was rip-roaring and ready to take the misa by storm. Friday night was a night of dancing and meeting other foreigners which led perfectly into a Saturday of laundry, more cafe bread and the watching of Fight Club, a cultural classic. Energized, roudy and decked out in clean clothes I was ready to take the Misa Challenge by the figurative horns. To start the night all the boys convened to watch Due Date and laugh our way to the discotecas and what a night it was. One movie, an enormous pizza called the "Terminator", and 2 liters of Coca-Cola later we were all set to.......go to bed.

The Misa Challenge crashed and burned in an epic fashion equaling a Red Sox loss or the last month of a Mets season. Each of the SIT boys were asleep by 10:30 or 11, to the surprise of my host brother, and upon arriving to misa the next morning were subjected to comments which were as complex as "OMG, even WE stayed up longer than you" and as simple as "hahahahahaha". Quechua misa within itself was an experience, to say the least. I understood 5 words of the entire hour and for the most part spent my time bundled up in the drafty 40 degree church marveling at the ancient Spanish architecture of the Catedral de San Sebastian. Statues of Jesus Crista adorned the walls, sharing space with other Spanish Catholic saints and many, many, many candles. The priest was dynamic, inspired and had quite a set of lungs if I do say so myself. At the end of the misa as we all shuffled out surrounded by well over 100 locals I could not help but think about my earliest church memory and how even without the dropping of the bible and even with the 8-foot thick language barrier I still felt the same awe being in a space so packed with faith and belief. My host parents could not believe that Quechua misa had been only my second time at a church service, another aspect of Peru which I have come to recognize, a lack of religion, more accurately a lack of Catholic faith, is rare and met with questioning looks and at times even a light chuckle.                                        

Tomorrow I depart for a 16 day excursion to Lake Titicaca in Puno, Colca Canyon near Arequipa and Lima, Peru. I'll be staying with an indigenous host family in both Puno and in Colca Canyon, "chilling out maxin' relaxing all cool" with a number of alpacas and trying to balance my body between being ice cold and sunburned. Look out for some quippy posts during the trip and a recap upon my return. Unquestioning faith and a relaxed sense of time, these are what I have found to be the basis of Peruvian society and although I might go about approaching these two aspects quite differently I now can say that I have begun to grasp and understand a very alternative way of life to that of my own.

alpaCasey 

The Sick Pan-Floutist

Today officially ended my first full week of classes in my new home of Cuzco, Peru. Its been a long, difficult, humorous and generally engaging week with ups and downs and quite a few visits to various bathrooms. Yup, you heard right, the bathroom. Not only did today mark the completion of 5 days of classes but it also marked the completion of my first week of complete and total environmental sickness. By the end of the first day of class I was beginning to feel a bit funny, a lack of appetite, a constant rumbling in my stomach and the occasional rush to the bathroom. By day 2 my body decided to pick it up a notch, really raise the bar and after a trip to the plaza during the night I found my self popping out of bed at about 12:30am and lets just say I had to make a quick decision on what to aim at the toilet...so is life in a foreign country. In any case the next few days were interesting and really peaked when I was asked to leave class early on Thursday after really outwardly expressing my discomfort, projectile vomiting in the bathroom and more or less passing out during our very important lecture. Suffice to say that night was spent watching a bootlegged Social Network, sleeping and having my host mom fret over my every pain...so is life with a middle aged Peruvian woman.

Moving away from the graphic details of my immense bodily discomfort, the day after my in-class debacle the entire program departed on a two day excursion to Calca, the same town where my market adventure developed and now the site of a 2 day music and art fest. We arrived at the sprawling house of a Swedish art professor and her Peruvian musician husband. The art professor had already been a lecturer earlier in the week for class and its safe to say that no one stayed awake for the entire talk, she is that kind of speaker. The house was of course gorgeous, the two dogs were cute and their daughter was a handful but beyond that the experience was a bit too much like elementary school for 25 independent, intelligent college students. For about 6 hours each day we "practiced" 3 different songs using our professional voices, natural talent on Incan percussion instruments and heightened aptitude for the zampona, more commonly referred to by Americans as the pan-flute. 36 hours later we were ready to perform our masterpieces around a bonfire with a grand audience of ourselves. Our teacher, thinking we were preparing to perform in Carnegie Hall forced memorization for all songs and displayed the general attitude of Johann Sebastian Bach. Well I can say with complete faith that I do not think we lived up to the expectations of Mr. Holland's Opus, but we had a lot of fun, danced around and got to yell in foreign languages (Quechua and Spanish).

After our unforgettable performance everyone was ready to leave and luckily we were able to get out a bit early and get back in time to enjoy some time at the infamous Plaza de Armas discotecas. Today was the best day yet with the family, upon waking up I ate a few hardboiled eggs, yum, and read a bit, quite exciting if I say so myself. Then it really got exciting, a couple hours after my eggs my family took me out to eat in a nearby town and they ordered me what they called a "Peruvian Platter" which is really nothing more than 6 different types of unidentifiable meat and a corn bread type substance. One type of meat was easily identifiable though, if not solely because there was a clear rodent leg sticking off the back end. Cuy, or guinea pig, tastes like a really salty type of meat with a stringy texture and strikingly resembles the actual live animal. While eating I attempted to explain to my host family that I used to have a pet guinea pig named Hunter so this was quite an emotional rollercoaster for my soft, emotional self. Either way I plowed through it and enjoyed almost every bite, except maybe the foot. After polishing off my former pet we took off to a little town nearby for desert and I could not resist buying a piece of the Obama cake, which of course in Peru where political correctness is nonexistent, was made up of a mix between brown and vanilla cake with light brown frosting. As I finished my slice o' Barack, my mom asked me if the cake was as good as my President and I had to say no because my god it might have been the most amazing thing I have ever eaten. Anyways it was quite a week filled with all types of foods, all types of people, only one type of music and a really good piece of American political history.

alpaCasey       

Jello or Icecream?

I've only been in Peru one week and I can already see drastic improvements in my communication ability, despite the fact that I still only understand a percentage of what is being said to me or even what I am actually saying in response. I found myself on the way back from Machu Pichu reading a quick history of the Incan Trail in Spanish without even realizing it was in a foreign language. Now this might have been because this sign was aimed towards tourist with only a slight grasp on Spanish but I like to stay positive and say I'm getting better. Another example of this "improvement" is that in our first day of classes in Cuzco we began learning the local indigenous language of Quechua. This would really not be that impressive since we are all learning at a kindergarten level and thus far I am having trouble saying the word for "bread" or "dog" but the important part to remember is that we are learning Quechua in Spanish. So I am struggling through a 3rd language with the use of my already choppy 2nd language. Confusion is of course expected and I quickly realized that in the first day as we sang a song while we clapped our hands, stomped our feet and more or less looked a like a bunch of crazy gringos for 3 hours.

Thus far my Spanish has only served me wrong in one very very very important aspect of my life here, food. In general my Peruvian Mama is a fine cook, nothing complicated, lots of rice and meat, but I can't complain. I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life though on the very first day I was living here with my family. At my first meal I was digging into a plate of rice and chicken with my host brother, a 17 y/o student, when I was asked by my mother if I would like some "gelato" and of course my immediate reaction was "YES, please, I love it!" Now this was met by a smile and and hustling around by my host Mom to fix me some "gelato" and man was I excited. I held my breath waiting to taste the wonder of Peruvian "gelato" and when I finally inhaled I was faced with a bowl of jiggling, wiggling, red Jello. Now, few of you would actually know this but arguably my least favorite dessert ever is Jello. Its not so much the taste but just the slimy, slippery texture. I of course was not about to tell my Mom this and take the smile right off her face so I took a deep breath and dug in, wincing with every bite or swallow or whatever it is called when you eat a Jello like substance. See the catch is that I mixed up the words "gelato" and "helado", I was expecting a nice cold bowl of icecream and instead ended up with jumping Jello. I don't have the heart to tell my Mom that I actually don't like Jello so therefore each and every lunch I top off my stomach with a bowl of the slippery red stuff, despite my true feelings. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for the betterment of your Peruvian mother's feelings, lesson 2 of my time in Peru.

Other than that little daily bump in the road, my time in Cuzco with my family has been great. I spent the last two nights exploring the city, making and drinking Pisco Sours with other Peruvian families, frequenting Gringo-filled clubs and high-stepping my way through Spanish language situations. Yesterday morning I was able to piece together enough Spanish to get myself and 3 other students a spot in a morning soccer (football) "tournament" at a local cement field (pitch). The game ended after 2 scores by one team or 10 minutes of play. We of course lost all of our games to the locals but my pride and glory came when my fellow American Chris, who plays soccer for Wooster, passed me a perfect ball which I was able to tap into the goal, the only one of the morning for our team! Watch out world I'm switching to playing soccer! Shortly after my miracle goal a hail-storm erupted and all the players were forced to huddle under the 10 inch edge of a tin roof to wait out the storm, oh what a country.

Hail, getting smoked in football and more Jello than a stomach can handle has not suppressed my positivity though. Maybe someday I'll actually be good at soccer, the rain/hail will actually stop and I will no longer be affected by the texture of Jello, we can all dream!

alpaCasey   

A Market Adventure, An Ancient City, and a Fashion Show

The last 3 days have been filled with adventures, confusion, wonders of the world and interesting characters. It all started with a Spanish training exercise which divided the group of 25 into 5 teams and sent us off into the wild to search, scavenge and buy food at local markets. Luckily I ended up with a girl with all the vocal attributes of an Argentinian and the attitude of a Peruvian hustler. Along with 3 other SIT students we were sent off to El Mercado de Calca, a town that was said to be only 5 minutes away by public transportation. Without any aid we were instructed to go to Calca buy as many strange/local fruits as we could find and return in an hour. The hour time-frame was completely inaccurate, in the first hour my group managed only to find the bus stop in Urumbamba leaving a bus ride and a shopping trip to be completed in less than 60 seconds. Even if we had turned around then and not competed the exercise I would have learned a valuable lesson, Peruvians work on their own time schedules and aim to be 10 soles richer rather than punctual. Minutes ticked by and we still had no bus driver for our trip to Calca. After 30 minutes the driver finally showed up, realizing he had filled his bus as much as possible, and we began our "5 minute" drive. Of course, having at that point learned about Peruvians punctuality, 5 minutes ultimately became 25 on a cramped smelly bus with various men staring at my female partner's chest. The market was easy enough to find once we got Calca so we hustled to buy fruit and get back to the bus stop. Buying 20 /soles of fruit only took about 10 minutes so we made it back to the bus stop just as  our return bus arrived. 25 minutes later we were back in Urumbamba jammed into a motorcycle carriage with some cold Inca Colas in our hands bumping and bouncing over dirt roads to our eco-hotel. So ended the Market Adventure just about 3 hours late. I returned with a sore butt, a sunburn, bags of fruit I couldn't pronounce and a valuable understanding of Peruvian time frames. 

The nest adventure of my new life was not only for comfortable but also proved to be one of the greatest experiences in my 20 years. At 4 in the morning the day after the Calca Mercado all 25 of us rose to the sound of a bell/gong calling us to the main hotel building to depart for the majestic Machu Pichu. A 30 minutes van-ride through the dark early morning sky brought us to a train station where we boarded for a 2 hour trip to the little town of Machu Pichu. As night became dawn the train curved between the Andes, past cows, lots of dogs and the occasional coca-chewing worker. While on the train I took pleasure in reading my guide book with some other students and mocking the language used, all of which I remember seeing and not understanding while taking the SATs. By the time we reached Machu Pichu, which is the name of the town, national park and mountain but not the actual ruins, everyone in the group was chomping at the bit to reach Incan city. Weaving our way through the tourist loaded town we caught a bus up switchback turns to the base of the ruins, from there it was like nothing I have ever seen. We began with a tour led by a friendly Peruvian and as we made our way through the city, which is enormous, much larger than any photo, it was nearly impossible not to take a picture of every perfectly situated stone and man-made waterway. Although I would love to explain all of the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of the city I will not, it is impossible to do it justice with words and therefore I highly recommend that everyone reading this begin to pack their bags immediately, quit your job if you have to and hop a plain to Peru. At the end of the tour we were given 90 minutes to explore on our own and with the company of two of my fellow students, females of course, who else, I walked up and down the entire area, played with llamas and took a couple of pictures from the famous picture-taking site. The train ride back from Machu Pichu featured a dancing tribal-dressed man and a sweater fashion show put on by the stewardesses. With my creative explanation abilities running out of steam I would like to end simply by saying that these first 5 days have been more than I could have ever expected, I do not think I have ever woken up in a place more beautiful, met more wonderful people and had my jaw drop so many times. With that said I continue to look forward to all that is going to happen in my near future and hope that soon you will all personally know how hard it is to express feelings of absolute wonder as I have in these past adventures.

alpaCasey