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.