Pick up a cuy and some bread.......Evidence of E.T visitation....

 Here is a common scene in markets around here.  A woman is selling various animals including chickens, turkeys, ducks and guinea pigs.  The guinea pigs are known as cuy and were domesticated by the native people of Peru along with the Llamas, potatoes and quinoa.  Cuy are considered by some to be a wonderful source of meat, however, the upper class consider it to be an inferior food.  It is kind of "cute" but not taken seriously.

 These juice bars are very popular in the markets.  Here the different juices are in pitchers with cotton "lids" made with different patterned fabric.  These fabric lids are common and serve to keep the bugs out as well as the dust.  I always go to the market in the town I am visiting and get some fresh juice. A great place to get a Juice Boost!

 This huge stone wall is found in the mountain top fortress of Kuelap near Chachapoyas.  It is second only to Machu Picchu in size and significance to the archeological history of Peru.  Interestingly, only Peruvians know about it so it is much easier to access the other, more famous destination.  This is another example of a pre-inca culture.  They built this city betwen 1,000 and 1,300.  The Inca´s took it over in the 16th century but did not destroy it.  Rather, they added to the construction.  There is a photo of what they added below.

 Much of the site has been left as it was found about 100 years ago.  The forest has overgrown the three tiers of stone walls.  I have never seen anyting quite like this.  It seems that there is much left undiscovered at this place.  The fortress is on the top of a mountain at just above 3,000 meters.  It has a commanding view of the surrounding valleys.

 The structures inside the walls are almost all round.  There is evidence of artistic expression in the designs found in the walls.  It is not clear what these are supposed to be.  It is belived that due to the predominance of snakes carved in the rocks here that the people held serpents in high regard.  The wall below is about 15 feet tall.

 The walls here are about five feet tall.  They show other patterns that stand out.

 Here is a collection of round homes that were perched at the edge of the wall.  You can see the valley beyond off to the left.  Each house is about 20-30 feet in diameter.

 Below is shown a photo of what the Incan engineers added to Kuelap.  It is clear to me that this is the space ship landing site.  It is at the highest point on the mountain top.  There is an alien face carved in the rock at the base of this platform.  This place is awesome!

My Peruvian family

These photos are of the neighborhood and house that I am living in.  The park on the left is in the middle of the block.  The house on the right is where I live.  The houses surround the park and look out onto it.

This is Barena, our dog.  Conventions with dogs in Peru are different than in the U.S.  Dogs are not neutered and they do not have leashes or collars.  There are not any rules for them as far as I can tell.  There are many dogs that appear to be stray in the streets but it is possible that they have owners, I'm not sure, it is hard to tell.

My room is on the roof, or sort of.  The roof is the utility room it also has a room for me.  The roof space in a Peruvian house is an open-air space where all sorts of housework gets done.  I sort of have a roof patio outside my door, not bad huh?.  The above photo is taken from the patio looking into the park in the middle of the neighborhood

 The photo above is of Sebastian, my Peruvian brother.  He is in fourth year of secondary school.  This means he is a sophomore.  I think he is 15 years old.  We have hooked up the trailer with his "quatro moto" and we are going to the beach.  The trailer has no license plates or lights and he does not wear a helmet when he rides this thing.  There are some rules about driving such a thing on the road and the beach but he does not have to follow them.

 The above photo is taken with the first dog I have ever met that has the same name as me, Aaron.  This is pronounced "are-rone" with emphasis on the strong "o".  The dog is owned by my paternal grandmother.  We go to her house on Sundays for dinner.  Extended families are important here.  Grandparents are visited regularly.

The women in the above photo make up the household of the paternal grandmother.  She is wearing the green sweater.  Her sister, Conchito, sits next to her in a blue jacket.  The women standing next to me are housekeepers, Christina and Victoria.  If the seated women were standing they would be the same height as the other two.  As with everyone in my family, they are very welcoming and generous.  There are many jokes between these women.  

Here is the rest of the family.  Eliana and Antonio on the left and Sebastian on the right.  This is the kitchen in the grandmother's house.  Antonio, grew up in this house.  It is about a 25 minute walk from his house shown in the photos at the beginning of this blog.

Here are the two sisters.  They are wonderful people.  They cook lots of great food and love to watch us eat.

Here is another photo of my Peruvian parents.  Eliana is a school psychologist and her husband, Antonio is an opthamological surgeon.

Peruvian public schools and pre-Incan archeology

This past week I was detailed out on a field trip with the students in sixth grade primary.  We went to an important archeological site in Northern Peru that was built by the Chimu or Moche culture between the first and 12th centuries.  The place is known as Tucume.  A book by the same title was written in the 1980's by Thor Hyerdahl the Norwegian explorer/self-taught archeologist.  You may remember the story of Kon-Tiki another earlier and well known adventure by Hyerdahl.  He came to Peru in the 1940's and built a large balsa wood raft and sailed it to the S. Pacific in an attempt to show that S. Americans could have populated the S. Pacific islands.  Tucume was built by the people that had the folklore telling a story of a great leader who sailed to the west.  This is also the place where you can see images of glyphs made of adobe depicting the large balsa rafts with strange bird-people sailing  them. These people also used reeds to build seafaring rafts and it is not clear to me if those depicted in these reliefs are supposed to be reed or balsa... for the record....most formal archeologists in academic fields think that Hyerdahl is totally wrong about S. Americans sailing across the Pacific. Just because he did it doesn't prove anything.   His book about Tucume is less controversial because he actually worked with trained experts  when he excavated the pyramids here.     

Below is a photo of the images made in adobe.  There are two of these large rafts in the relief.  It is hard to point them out with this photo, but have a look at this website to see them

http://www.kon-tiki.no/E-Exp_Tucume.php

These people were definitely not Incas, they were pre-Inca.

Below is a photo of part of the remains of a once magnificent city.  The buildings and pyramids were made of adobe and over the years have suffered from El Nino events.  If you thought that the impact of El Nino was big in N. America in terms of rain and snow, this is where it all starts and where the weather phenomenon was first named.  These pyramids show the effects of many El Nino years that have nearly washed away these structures.  In fact, many archeologists think that it was the severe precipitation events of El Nino that contributed to the decline of this culture.  Right now it is hot and dry, but apparently they have serious inundations of water every 5-7 years.  You can see from the landscape photos why the Incan ruins might be a bit more popular with tourists.

On the same field trip we stopped at a small public school on the outskirts of Chiclayo in a place called La Raya.  It was not clear to me what we were doing at first, but it became obvious that the students were doing a bit of charity work in addition to seeing how the rest of Peru lives and goes to school.  It was a huge eye opener to me and I'm sure that a few of the students felt the same way.  This school has significantly fewer resources than the well- fortified halls and classrooms of San Agustine.  The school in La Raya (essentially a colonia) consisted of a few scattered buildings around a sandy and dusty playground with one soccer goal made out of broken bamboo poles.  We organized some relay races for the students to do with mixed teams of students from both schools.  After a few "races" the students from San Agustine opened their backpacks and presented the local kids with new notebooks, pens, pencils, snacks and juice boxes. It was a touching moment clearly part of the social mission of the curriculum at San Agustin.  The students from La Raya were having a great time, it was obviously a special day for them.  I've never seen anything like this before done in the US.  Maybe private Catholic schools do this in our country as well.

Easter Sunday, making copies and table tennis

 

Last weekend was a big deal for Christians around the world.  Latin America history is of course heavily influenced by the Catholic Church so Easter was huge here in Peru.  Two days off of school, fireworks, parties, parades and of course mass at all hours, in all churches for several days in a row.  I went on Sunday to see the Transubstantiation happen in a Catholic church on the biggest feast day of the year.  Alas, I didn´t have the patience to sit and stand through however long it was going to take to get the the big Mysterious event.  Meanwhile, as I´m waiting, I find a place to sit down.  After a few minutes the folks around me are gesturing and saying something to me that I don´t understand.  I don´t know if you have ever been in a huge 19th CenturyCatholic church but they retro fit them with these awful sound systems that prevent anyone from understanding anything including the person sitting next to you. Oh,yeah, he was speaking Spanish.  Anyway, I eventually figure out I´m in the line for confession and these people are wondering if the gringo is really going to confess because if he´s not maybe he should show some courtesy.....Only a minor disturbance on a normal day but this is Easter! For Christ´s sake does anyone care about the rules!  The photo below is of the colorguard ceremony in the plaza in front of the church on Easter Sunday.  

 

 This is Ceasar in the photo below.  As far as I can tell he runs one of the key offices at San Agustin.  He is the one and only manager-employee-BMOC of the one room office that handles all of the photocopy requests for all of the classrooms and teachers at the school.  The school has grades K-11.  He operates with one very important rule.  This rule states that all copy orders MUST be posted with 48 hours advance notice.  This means that if you want a worksheet, handout or exam prepared for your class you have to make the request 2 days in advance.  This stikes me as different than the way we do things in the US. Ceasar has awesome organization skills and as far as I can tell does his job very well.  I have no idea how he keeps all the requests straight.  I've heard no complaints from the teachers.

It turns out that photo copies are something of a cottage industry here.  I needed some copies made from a text book in the library.  This is one request that Ceasar can't complete out of concern for copyright laws.  Therefore, I borrowed the book and took it to one of the thousands of photocopy businesses around town.  These businesses amount to someone who has bought a copy machine, put in their garage, backyard or laundry room and  placed a sign on the street that says "copias".  Below is one of these businesses.  The neighbor has a computer that is available for internet use while you wait for your copies.  These businesses are really little and I don't understand how they make any money at all.  No matter, they are everywhere.  

Here are a few more photos of the school.  The one below is the library.  I hang out here quite a bit.  For the first week every time I entered or exited I set off the book thief alarm.  I feigned ignorance for awhile and then was forced to figure out what was going on.  It turns out that the Spanish-English dictionary that I bought in the states before my trip had a little magnetic sticker in it that set off the alarm.  To the staff of the library It looked like I had stolen this book from another library or bookstore.  At least I'm easy to spot in a crowd around here so they can find me when a book really does go missing.

 

 

Here is a photo of the ping pong team practicing.  I play with these guys a few days a week after school.  I'm totally impressed with their coaching staff and level of play.  There are three coaches for about 15 kids.  They are mostly grade school age.  I have played a few of them in matches, mostly we simply practice volleys and serving.  They define a match as the best of five games to 11.  You must win by two.  You serve two points then trade.  I have won a total of between 7 and 9 points to players that are between 9 and 13 years old.  They are AWESOME!  I can't recall seeing top spin like this before.  It turns out that this school sends competitors to international contests regurlarly.  I hope I get a chance to see them compete.  They have the best tables I've ever seen and each player has a totally killer raquet. 

  

 This weekend I'm taking the bus to Cajamarca it is in the mountains, yes!  This is the city where Pizarro captured the last Incan emperor, Atualpa, and held him for ransom.  You may have heard this story. The conquistador demanded that a huge room be filled with gold or else the Inca would be executed.  You can guess what happened.  The room was eventually filled with gold and Pizarro excecuted the Inca anyway.  I guess that is what conquistadors do.  There is a famous market in this town.  I'm on the lookout for a good curandera or witch doctor. 

Bald Peruvian Dogs, phone booths and a surfing lesson

Yet another interesting form of transportation that I am now familiar with is the overnight sleeper bus.  These are a common mode of transport if you want to go a few hundred miles away for a few days.  You get on the bus at about 9 or 10 at night and it drives all night and you get off in the morning.  I was on an intermediately priced bus that had intermediate comforts.   It was hard to tell one city from the next and the driver made no announcements.  In other words, I wasn't able to sleep much because I had to keep asking others where we were so as not to miss my destination.  So, at 3AM I arrived in Mancora, a popular surfing spot not only with Peruvians but with the international crowd as well.  There is a big international pro surfing contest here every year.  Interestingly, this place is North of Chiclayo and warmer.  Recall, I´m south of the equator.

The sea was really warm and the waves are perfect for surfing.  Very nice asymmetrical left hand break with small to intermediate swells, perfect for a beginner.  I took an hour long surf lesson and was able to stand up on my second wave.  I continued to ride more waves, but I tired out soon since my back became very sore from paddling.  Since I´m out of my element in the heat and in the ocean my body and it´s abilities are undergoing a phase of reconditioning.  No splitboarding, bike riding or bouldering for YOU!

Below is a view of the beach at Mancora.  The buildings in the distance are mild mannered restaurants by day and brilliantly illuminated bumping discoteques by night.  The intensity of the sun here is like nothing I´ve ever felt.  I was totally drained after a few hours on the beach and in the water.

 Below is a photo of one of the nicer resorts in Mancora.  There are various levels of comfort available in this small town.  There is a serious international presence in this place that makes Chiclayo seem like an isolated, locals only sort of small town.  English speaking vendors, lots of offers for drugs, topless sunbathers, currency in Euros and Dollars as well as Soles (peruvian currency) among other things.

There are lots of dogs running around everywhere I go.  Below is a common sight.  No, this guy didn´t recieve a body wax job from a Brazilian spa, he is just a Perivian dog.  They have a tuft of hair on their head and on their tail but that´s all.  The first time I saw one of them I thought it was a sign of illness and neglect, but that is not the case.  For whatever reason, they were bread to have these characteristics.

Superheroes don´t despair there are still phone booths out there in the world for changing in, albeit with a little less privacy. Most everyone has a cell phone, never the less, I see these frequently on the street.  Many of them have international calling capabilities and instructions on how to use them.

 More photos of Mancora below.  Of course there is a street market along the Malecon.  This one had the best beads and jewelry that I have yet seen.  Really cheap amber and turquise that was definitely the real McCoy.  There are lots of vendors selling cheap junk, but there are also some bona fide artisans doing excellent work.

This week is Semana Santa and many people are off work.  We have two days off of school.  I have had many teaching experiences recently which I will relate soon.  I´ll get some photos of my family and of some of the teachers I work with and tell of few anecdotes about teaching physics and biology.  One thing I´ve learned is that it is completely normal here to have your biology lesson interrupted by the Friar who comes in and takes your class to the chapel in honor of holy week.

Ciao!

The school where I am a guest student teacher

 

 

Colegio San Agustin is a private, catholic school in Chiclayo, Peru.  It is located on the outside of town on the way to the beach.  It takes about 30 minutes for my mini-bus carpool to get me there.  Due to the tropical climate the school has an open design with few interior hallways.  There are two large plazas one for primary students and one for secondary.  There is no central heating or cooling system.  The building is mostly concrete with wooden doors and windows.  The students stay in the same classroom for the most part throughout the day.  It is the teachers that must move around to find the students.  Exactly the other way around from the way schools work in the U.S.  The teachers don't have a desk or personal work space.  Things are different here.

 

The organization of the grades is different that in the U.S.  Primary grades are counted from 1-6.  Upon entering the secondary grades, the numbers begin again at 1 and go through 5.  I'm not sure where the 1st year secondary students are, I haven't seen them.  Second  year students in  the secondary grades in Peru are equivalent to eighth graders in the U.S.  Third year students in secondary grades in Peru are therefore equivalent to 9th graders in the U.S.  Fourth year students here are equivalent to Sophomores in the U.S. Since Peruvian students are finished with secondary school after year five, they graduarte when they are the equivalent of Juniors in high school in the U.S.  Interestingly, the students start school when they are younger than U.S. students so my statements about being equivalent to U.S. grades is not exactly accurate. This means that secondary graduates are usually 16, sometimes 17, but never older than that.

 

One of the plazas is lined with Palm trees.  Secondary students and primary students share all the same facilities: cafeteria, recreation areas, library and sports fields.  The recreation areas are in the plazas and are used twice each day when there are scheduled breaks for all students.  The boys of course play futbol at any opportunity.  The girls gather is small groups to talk and hang out.  Its interesting to see all the age groups in the same spaces. 

The school is organized as a small campus.  There are outlying buildings for athletic teams to use.  These include a gymnasium, a coloseum and a swimming pool with grandstand.  Below is a photo of the coloseum.  In addition, there is a soccer field and pista, or running track made of sand.

Local markets and plazas

 

This past weekend I went to the neighboring town of Lambayeque to see a few museums and a local market. I utilized another interesting mode of transport, the" colectivo" .  These are essentially long distance taxis that  you share with other passengers to reduce the cost.  I'm not sure how they get organized but there are certain street corners and garages that you go to where these things congregate.  You simply holler out what city you want to go to and look around to see if any of the drivers take notice.  As soon as you get over to the car other folks have congregated and are also getting in.  It cost me 45 cents to take a 30 minute car ride with three other people.  Great!  Of course, I'd like to get a bike.....see below. 

 

The markets here are very colorful, busy and odoriferous, you might say smelly.  I'm sure that many of you are familiar with this style of marketplace.  The variety of items and authenticity of Peruvian culture is exactly what I was looking for when I signed up to come down here.   The first photo is of the shop of a herbal healer or cuarandero.  I've heard they have many ancient remedies that include psychoactive cacti.  I would assume that they also have medicinal mushrooms but I haven't looked into it.   

 

 

 

 

 

I've been trying to figure out the bike shops and have learned a few things. Below you will see a photo of one of the better bikes I've seen. Bike riding around here is going to be tough.. It's really dusty and when it rains it is a serious disaster with mud and flooded streets. Of course, out on the road you are on your own. There is very little respect given to anything other than a tractor-trailor or loaded dump truck.

Every city also has a Plaza de Armas or central square. They are know as Zocalos in Mexico. There will be a statue of The Virgin or a war hero surrounded by beautiful gardens. Without fail a huge Catholic Church is across the street.  They are a charming central gathering spot.  Despite some of the dilapidated infrastrucutre that I've seen, there is always a well manicured Plaza de Armas not far away.

 

More later on the school where I'm trying to figure out how to teach.  It's going very well.  The teachers and students are psyched to have me around and are not at all concerned about the difference in language.

 

Dietary and cultural "adjustments"

During my first weekend here the Arrascue's took me to see both sets of grandmothers and aunts.  In Latin American cultures families stick together.  Aunts and grandmothers and other family members my live together and are visited regularly.  They do a good job of feeding the rest of the family and other visitors.

I can't seem to get enough Peruvian coffee and am drinking it at all opportunitiesSo I had a few cups with "lunch" which is at 9:30PM over at grandmothers house
This prevented me  from getting to sleep until something like 4 AM.  Of course this means that I overslept my "combi" pick-up time.  This is my ride to school in the morning that was pre-arranged. Eliana, my adoptive mother, made arrangements with the combi because she is an insider and very thoughtful about my needs and level of comfort.  So, I totally overslept and the combi is on the street honking its horn, this is what they do.  I'm trying to put my pants on and....well.....I have an "accident" as a result of eating lots of new, uncooked, rich, forgein food.  This is not a big problem, but it required a clean up and a change of clothes.  All the while the combi is honking its horn and my family members are yelling for me. It was a....moment....but it seemed to last for a long time.

This results in the combi driver being highly stressed because she has many other pick-ups to attend to.  The van is filled with school kids all going to the first day of school.  Well the situation is kind of stressed since we are late and everyone knows it.  Their is a range of ages, mostly gradeshcool.  Next thing I know one of the students vomits on himself and then partially in a plastic bag. ( At least I wasn't the only one with a gastrointestinal upset.)  The combi driver is at the ready with cleaning materials and is actually really good about dealing with this.  All the while she was taking calls on two cell phones and driving on a interstate-ish road, honking the horn.  She is actually passing the two phones back and forth with her assistant, the "cobradron".  The horn thing is hilarious because since everyone is doing it nobody listens to anyone else.  It's like subatomic particles annihilating one another and becoming a photon.  the "photon" is just a bunch of noise.

Well the driver gets to school on time because she is highly skilled and doesn't listen to anyone elses horn.  This means she yields right of way to nobody!  Well I feel bad and apologize and promise to be on time the next day and give her a monetary tip above the fare that I owed.  Since this was the first day I was supposed to pay for the whole month.  Since this was a substantial sum, I paid for a month's worth of rides, it was a substantial tip.  Well, this actually made the situation worse because in Peru a tip is seen as a clear indication that tip giver thinks they are of a higher social class than the recipient.  I of course was oblivious to this custom and was simply trying to be a good and repentant customer.  My adoptive brother, Sebastian age 15, filled me in on this.  The combi that drives the students to school is NOT like the other combis.  It is very nice and the driver is very professional.  The driver is doing well with this business.  My gratuity was something of an insult.  So tomorrow our transaction will be completed and I'll get the change.  I have to be careful with this in the future.

Anyway, so went the first hour of my first day.  It was Awesome!

Be careful what you wish for.....

I wanted to do something different than the average student teaching experience, you know, go somewhere else where they do things differently so as to provide some contrast and perspective.  Well, here I am, in Chiclayo, Peru and yes there are a few things that are different. The language, the food, the weather, my living arrangement and my daily routine.  That's a good start.  Things are really different, but I'm up to it.  This is going to be fun!

Upon arrival I was met by the director of secondary academics, he is kind of like a principal as far as I can tell.  In addition, I was met by a catholic priest who is the director of the school overall.  The practice and study of the Catholic faith is an integral part of the student experience if they want it to be.  It's not required.  This is a private school, but apparently not a parochial school as we know it.

These administrators took me to my host family's house.  They live in a suburb of Chiclayo.  It is hot and dusty here; something like 90 deg. during the day and 70 deg. at night.  The host family is very generous and are delighted to have an American teacher staying with them.  They have a son in the school where I will be teaching.  They have given me my own room and a private bath.  Their house is very comfortable.  Today they fed me ceviche made with octopus, scallops, shrimp and peppers.  The food here is fantastic!  Ceviche is not cooked, rather it is cured in citrus and vinegar, I think. 

Everyone rides taxis to get around town.  They have been described variously as "dangerous", "safe" and "I'm not sure".  Some are cars and some are three-wheeled motorcycles.  Another common way to get around is a "combi".  This is a co-op van driven by someone who is familiar to you.  To me they look like any old van on the street but if you look close you will see certain language on the van identifying it and its route.  It's a cool idea since these vans travel short routes and carry a few of your friends to work or school.  I took one to school and was amazed at how many there were.  Effectively, this group of vans functions as a fleet of school busses in the morning and the evening.  During the day they are elsewhere around town doing other regular pick-ups and drop-offs.  You kind of have to be an insider to know which combi to take.  At the moment I am not an insider.

I have been downtown to see the central markets and have walked around the neighborhood a little bit.  As you can imagine the streets are extremely confusing to a new guy that is used to street signs and other indications of location.  I did manage to find a bike shop, however, the bikes are what I would describe as "recreational mountain bikes".  They are the throw away kind in the U.S. if something breaks because they don't really have interchangable parts.  I've seen lots of "single speeders" around town.  These aren't the cool kids with custom horizontal drop-outs in the rear and sweet looking crank sets with shiny disc breaks.  Rather, this is what you do when your derailleur breaks on on a mountain bike while you are on the trail and you can't fix it.  The locals are making do with what they have.

Too long of a story already.  I'll get a camera and post a photo soon.  Ciao!