Speaking a Foreign Language

Kids travel abroad, ostensibly, to do a couple things: broaden their horizons, encounter new experiences, and (hopefully) pick up a foreign language. Well guess what, folks? I've picked up two. Yeah, my Spanish is coming along quite nicely, to the point that I could even pick a fight in a bar if I wanted to, but I've also learned another language. When living abroad with a small group of friends who all speak English, but different versions of English, it sometimes becomes necessary to create our own, mutually intelligible version of the language. Below, you will find a brief glossary of important words and phrases that facilitate communication in La Familia Cusqueña:

donde: One evening, Helga wanted to ask where something was, but just as the word "donde" slipped out of her mouth, she tripped and fell. All we heard as she went down was, "Dondeeeeeeeeee..." Now it's a running gag.

douchebag: Basically, a really terrible person.

es posible: Dagny's Spanish is a little fragmented, so every one of her questions begins with, "¿Es posible...?" Now we sometimes begin our English questions with it.

fried: Brought to us from Iceland. Apparently, in Icelandic, "fried" is slang for "special" - and not the good kind of special.

fit: Also from the British kids. When Holly sees a hot guy, she says, "Yeah, I find him quite fit."

I'm down: the phrase that made Holly decide I might just be a little bit ghetto. Note: this is a fairly common phrase in Southern California.

prendo sexo: Doesn't actually mean anything. Vivi wanted to learn how to say "rape," for some reason, so she asked some kid on the street in Arequipa, "Como se dice... cuando una persona no quiere sexo, pero... PRENDO SEXO!" Unfortunately, the verb "prendar" means "to charm or captivate" or, alternatively, "to pawn or pledge." Neither of those meanings work very well.

raspiketippibrunt (sp?): Icelandic. Vulgar. Ask for a translation if you dare.

vexed: Holly's signature word. Often accompanied by "quite."

wegietables: Helene sometimes has trouble with certain English words. This was our favorite of her mispronunciations. Now we refer to all of our vegetables as "wegietables."

A Vacation from my Vacation

Life here in Cusco is, for the most part, pretty mellow and relaxing. Still, it's a city, and with it comes some of the stresses of living in a city - noise, pollution, too many people, not enough space. After being in a city for 7 weeks, I was ready for a bit of an escape. Luckily, our trip to Machu Picchu was more than just a day trip. We managed to book ourselves a couple rooms in a fairly nice hostel and decided to spent the weekend in Aguas Calientes, where our friend Niels works as a teacher in a camp for laborers.

Aguas Calientes, as previously mentioned, is only accessible via train. It's not very big, and there's not much to do, and everything is overpriced. Still, it's breathtakingly beautiful, right on the banks of the roaring Urubamba River and squished between several obscenely tall mountains. "But wait, the Urubamba River is cold!" you may say, and yes, in that you would be quite right, so where does the town get its name?

See, Aguas Calientes has these thermal hot springs tucked up in a little valley at the top of the town, so after our trip to Machu Picchu, we decided we deserved some relaxation. We threw on our bathingsuits and trekked up the hill, to find several pools full of hot, relaxing, BROWN water. Turns out the color is just due to the minerals, so we decided to hop in after a bit of mild trepidation. I guess the prospect of soaking in hot water was more enticing than the prospect of avoiding weird discoloration of our bathing suits.

Of course, we soon encountered another problem once we got into the pools. It seems that a group of six foreign, reasonably attractive girls doesn't go long without notice. Within about 30 seconds, we had some creepy middle-aged man trying to sell us tour packages and asking us about our life philosophies. We managed to eventually shake him off, but not before fabricating some rather outrageous lies first. It went like that for much of the evening - creepy man, weirded out girls, outrageous lies, solitude, repeat.

But after two hours of soaking in the pools, we were all so relaxed and rejuvenated that we didn't much mind the weirdos. We were happy, we were calm, we were... hungry.

Then we got burritos.

Machu Picchu and the Visiting Gringas

When I was a little kid, my mom had this anthropology book, whose title ran something to the effect of, "The Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas of America" - clearly an engrossing tome. Still, I was fascinated by it, and used to spend Saturday afternoons flipping through its pages and looking at all the pictures. I didn't understand a word of the dense writing (cut me some slack, I was only 7, and precocious as I was, it was still difficult stuff), but those pictures drew me back to them time and again.

Somewhere in there, I managed to learn about the Inca and, more specifically, about Machu Picchu. That was all it took. Ever since the first grade, I've been wanting to come to Peru and hike up this mountain and take a look at the abandoned city of the Inca. Yesterday, I finally did that. Hey kids, 15 years of dreaming, and I finally did it!

Of course, getting there necessitated rousing my lazy ass at an ungodly 4:30 in the morning, so that I could be on the train to Aguas Calientes by 6:00. Aguas Calientes is the town at the base of the mountain where Machu Picchu is located, and there are no roads to get there, so anybody wanting to visit Machu Picchu has to get on that train and sit tight. Still, the girls and I got a few hours of sleep and felt quite cheery by the time we arrived.

We made it up the mountain by about 11:15 (air-conditioned bus! oh, the luxury!) and realized, belatedly, that the guide we thought would be taking just us around actually had a large group of about 35 people. We all sighed sadly, bemoaned the fact that "we don't do tour groups," and resigned ourselves to our fate. Mario was a very sweet man, but he spoke in a barely audible monotone for a large part of the time, and, well, I'm afraid our boredom was somewhat visible. We tried to hide it, really we did, but... some things just don't work out.

People are always saying things about how Machu Picchu is this holy swirling magnetic vortex or something like that, but honestly? I didn't feel it. Maybe I'm just not in tune with nature enough, or maybe I didn't take enough (or, um, any) psychoactive drugs before arriving,

but all I felt was the incredible weight of history that I feel whenever I visit sites as old and precious and intriguing as this. I guess, in that respect, it was a minor vortex of something, but I didn't leave with any great spiritual revelations.

Of course, this is not to say that some people sure don't try their darndest. While we were having lunch in a hut we found near the visitor's center, this teenage boy came running in wearing an Inca poncho and an Inca hat and carrying a bundle of stuff that included a bunch of sticks and a dead bird, saying something really really fast in Spanish. Vivi and Holly thought he was trying to sell us something, so they just automatically said, "No gracias" like always. He looked a little hurt and went running down the hill, and we all shrugged and went back to our sandwiches. He came running back up the hill about half an hour later asking for a lighter, soaking wet, and stinking to high heaven of a mixture of incense and something else unidentifiable. Mystified, we dug around in our bags, found one, and gave it to him. He ran away, and brought it back another half an hour later. As he was leaving, Ali yelled, "So wait, what were you doing anyway?" And he said, "Well, I want to make these amulets of Inca bones, but I'm not strong enough on my own so I had to make an offering to the Pachamama so she'd help me." Vivi asked, "What, strong like sit-ups?" And the kid said, "Yes, strong muscles and mind, really fucking strong. Do any of you have any marijuana?" We didn't, so he left, and then we proceeded to see him all over town for the next two days. Naturally, it became a bit of a running joke.

So, overall, the trip to Machu Picchu was quite the success. We got a history lesson (did you know all the rocks for building it were quarried right on site?), interacted with a teenaged mystic, crawled through tunnels, saw some llamas, got a little sunburned, and had a rip-roaring good time.

La Furia Roja, or, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!"

Football - that is, the variety with a funny-shaped ball, and men wearing lots of pads - is very popular back home. People are religious about watching their Sunday football games. They get dressed up. They have parties. Kids on the high school team are mini-celebrities, if they do well. For some, football is life.

Fútbol, however, is a different story. We're talking the no-pads, round-ball, run-for-90-minutes variety here, and as Chuck Klosterman so wisely pointed out, Americans view soccer as the sport for kids who can't play a real sport. It's a little different in California, but the basic attitude is that "real Americans don't play a fake sport" - and by "fake sport," we must understand that "sport not invented in the United States" is what they're really trying to say.

Last night, I went to my very first soccer - er, fútbol - game ever. Cienciano, Cusco's local team, played Toluca, visiting from Mexico, so the fútbol fanatic Thomaz decided it would be a great outing for us all. I shrugged and decided hey, why not? It could be an experience to tell my children about. Maybe there will be riots. That would be interesting.

So, like a good little fan, I bought myself a red and white Cienciano scarf, bundled up for the freezing cold (it had been raining all day and the stadium is open-air), and trooped off with my friends to go watch some crazies kick around a ball. I know, right? But at least we figured there would be beer to keep us warm. Beer and sports are as hallowed a combination as peanut butter and jelly, or ham and cheese, or, shoot, bread and wine.

Well, no beer, but we had lots of amazing popcorn. Ali and I bought, I believe, four bags, and even though we shared some of it, we mostly ate it ourselves while trying to see over everybody's heads. Good thing we're about a foot taller than most of the Cusqueñans or we would have been pretty much out of luck. We arrived late, so most of the seats were taken, but we didn't mind standing. It probably kept us a bit warmer anyway, what with those concrete bleachers and all (hey V-town kids, remember Friday nights at Larrabee in November? It was kinda like that). Everybody sang songs that we didn't know, and some kid with a huge mohawk brought a drum. Quite the experience.

Our team wound up losing in the final minutes, which I have to say was kind of embarrassing, but it hardly put a damper on my evening because, win or lose, there will always be...

HOOLIGANS!

Practicing My English

One of the reasons I came to Peru was to improve my Spanish. Although I had a fairly good classroom foundation, it was nonetheless classroom Spanish, and when I arrived I had some difficulty doing things like navigating airport security, buying a cell phone, and dealing with the bank. Modern daily life isn't exactly something addressed in Cervantes or Becquer.

My Spanish has gotten much better since I arrived six weeks ago. I chitchat with taxi drivers about the weather and the price of fruit, and I tease the boys in my music class at the center, and I even manage to have conversations at nightclubs where I can only halfway hear what people are saying. Not gonna lie, I'm rather proud of myself and how much I've improved. Sure, I still have trouble with the subjunctive sometimes and phrases like "la mano izquierda" still trip me up sometimes because it feels like mano should be masculine, but overall, I'm much improved.

However, there's a slight problem here in Cusco. As much as I want to practice my Spanish, all the Cusqueñans want to practice their English just as much. Due to my accent and my occasional grammatical mistakes, it's quite clear that I'm not a Peruvian, and as soon as they find out I'm from the U.S., they all switch into English. One vendor at the artisan's market even asked me to help him with his English class homework in exchange for a discount.

This isn't exactly limited to Peruvians either. I've met Chileans with better English than my own, Argentinians who love American hip-hop, and untold numbers of kids my age from all over Latin America who've studied in the U.S. and know all my favorite spots in L.A. What's a gal to do in this environment, anyway?

I've come up with a rather useful solution to this, inspired by my friends whose parents don't speak English or prefer to speak another language. It's a common phenomenon in the U.S. that immigrant parents will speak to their children in their native language, and their children will answer in English. I've decided to flip-flop this situation. The Cusqueñans can speak to me in English all they want, but unless I'm helping them with an English grammatical question or something like that, I answer them in Spanish. Neither of us are speaking our native language this way, but it's a good way for both to practice the language we want to practice.

Next up: getting the boys at the Centro Juvenil to stop trying to practice their Italian with me.

Carnaval, or, The Festival of the Wet

On my way home from mass on Sunday, I decided it would be a good day to stop and buy some gelato at the Italian restaurant I've been eyeing ever since I arrived. It was a hot day, I'd had a yucky morning, and my weakness for gelato is startlingly bad. Five minutes later, I had a beautiful cone with two scoops, one of strawberry and one of guanabana, and I was a happy little Lauren - until about 30 seconds later, when a water balloon full of dirty water hit me square on the shoulder and splattered all over my gelato, completely ruining it after only three licks.

I turned, bewildered, looking for the jackass prankster who had ruined my little piece of heaven. Across the street was a huddle of kids sitting in front of a store and desperately trying to look innocent. Anybody who has any experience with kids knows that whenever they try to look innocent, they are actually anything but, so I gave them a sorely disappointed look, sighed, and turned homeward to continue my journey sans fruity goodness.

10 minutes later, a taxi rolls by which, in Cusco, is nothing out of the ordinary. Said taxi slows down, which is also not that strange, because taxi drivers often slow down to let you know they're available if they're driving by. What WAS strange, though, was that all of a sudden a water balloon came flying out of the taxi and hit me on the other shoulder. I stopped dead in my tracks, furious now, as the taxi quickly sped away and a group of guys about my age inside burst into uncontrollable laughter.

I'd had it. What in the world was going on, Pick on Foreign Kids Day? I mean, sure, my blonde hair makes me stand out a bit, but come on, people, I was just walking home from church and minding my own business. This was out of hand.

A few minutes later I reached the park by my house and saw a full-fledged water-balloon fight. I stood at the edge of the park, watching for a while, and realized that the boys seemed to single out the pretty girls as they walked by, making sure to bean them with a balloon if at all possible. Could that be it? Do people throw water balloons at pretty girls on hot days here? I decided to avoid the park, though, and walked on the other side of the street to try and keep from getting hit again. No dice. A balloon hit me in the leg as I scurried by.

The next day, I decided to ask the boys at the center what the hell was going on. "Chicos, why do they throw water balloons at strange girls here?" I asked them, somewhat petulantly, I'll admit. They all burst out laughing, until one of them managed to choke out, "It's Carnaval. Carnaval lasts the entire month of February here. Don't worry, it'll stop when Lent starts."

Mystery solved, folks. It's Carnaval in Cusco already. Since then, I've been squirted by a prankster with a water gun at the market, have narrowly missed a bucketful of water being flung across the street, and have been beaned by a balloon just as I was sliding into a taxi. Guess it's a good thing I didn't bring any dry clean-only clothing.

I Guess The Meaning of "Parade" Gets Lost In Translation

A few weeks ago, while waiting at the bus stop to go to Ollantaytambo, we heard drums and horns and marching. Eduardo explained that every Sunday, there's a parade in Cusco, so we hurried over the sidewalk, expecting to see floats and high school marching bands. What we found, instead, was a group of soldiers all marching along, bayonets fixed, boots gleaming. It terrified me, and I vowed from then on to avoid the main streets of Cusco on Sunday mornings.

Today, though, I thought it would be fun to go to mass in La Compañía de Jesús, which is one of the 16th-century churches in the Plaza de Armas. When I arrived, I found the plaza cordoned off, so my taxi let me out at a corner and I ducked around the police barricades onto the sidewalk. Turns out that those military parades, which I had so desperately tried to avoid, all converge on the Plaza de Armas each Sunday morning, with a military grandstand set up on the steps of the main cathedral and a decent-sized crowd applauding each unit as they march by.

Now, I am not categorically opposed to the idea of a military. I understand its necessity for defensive purposes, and even, in rare instances, for offensive purposes. However, I have never been accustomed to the sight of large groups of camouflaged men and women marching through the city's streets. To be honest, the sight of several soldiers together at once, all in uniform with their guns, tends to make me fairly nervous. In my mind, military parades are strictly for wartime and, what's more, wartime pre-1946 or so.

But what really upset me, more than anything, was the military grandstand on the steps leading up to the cathedral. I'm no idiot. I know my church history, and I know the pope used to have armies, and I know wars have been waged in the name of God since people first became aware of the name of God. Nevertheless, just because something happened in the past does not mean it should continue to be encouraged in the future. Having the military set up with the church as such a distinct background was, in my eyes, a blatant attempt to justify military force by association with the divine, and that is unacceptable regardless of which nation is invoking the divine.

When the church doors finally opened at 11:10, I scurried inside and was met with the "Ubi Caritas" that we sang so frequently at the UCC. Few things could have comforted me more.