I realized that by spacing my last two blog entries apart so much, it might have seemed like that was two typical weekends. All of that happened over four days, however, that are the biggest fiesta days of the year here because it was the celebration of Tacna´s return to Peru.
Anyhow, I figured I should write about something maybe a little more touching. My school - Santa Cruz - has many issues of control and discipline (it was decided recently that they would hold out kids who came more than five minutes late of the first two hours of class while they wrote ¨I should not arrive late¨ five hundred times), but when there are serious issues at stake, it and the people in charge can surprise me. When it was discovered (though honestly I am not entirely sure) that a girl in first year of secondary was being sexually abused by her father-in-law and her mother did not know, the secondary teachers acted swiftly. They brought in the mother, met with her, discussed how to address it with the authorities, met with her and the man involved in this, and generally just seemed to care sincerely for the best interests of this girl.
I mention this story because shortly after I found out about all this, I saw her one weekend on a crowded bus. She was working as the assistant who opens and shuts the door, who collects fares, and who has to manage everything while the driver drives. She told me that she does this every weekend on Saturday and Sunday. I put it altogether in my head and realized that what I had taken as an attitude of not caring and being lazy when she was in my section for the first semester (she failed and was moved down) was in reality just probably an overwhelming mix of emotional and physical demands. I mean, what 12 to 13 year old can be expected to work all weekend, go through the issues she was facing at home and still have enough time and energy and focus to do what is expected of her in school (much less that of a class like English that is fewer hours and less intense than some others).
Since then, I have made an effort to reach out to her more (not to pry or try to get her to open up, but just to chat and joke), and she definitely seems more cheerful and more involved. I honestly do not know how everything has been settled at home, but I do know that everytime I get a chance to talk a bit with her, she always has a smile on her face. And that gives me more life too.
And the afro dance classes I started taking early last week are super fun (even though I am the only guy other than the teacher). I really enjoy moving my hips a lot, though I have not yet mastered the moving your feet, getting some hip twist and shimmying with your shoulders all at one. Here is a little clip if you are interested in what its like (though not so good quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv8WDNHfVNE&feature=related
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tacna Day Weekend Continued
Saturday: So although I am posting this long after the fact, it definitely warrants some ink (or computer space?). On this day, I went with my host mother and Cara to the Feritac (Feria de Tacna) that might be basically the equivalent of a state fair, but for Peru. It had all sorts of advertisement booths giving out free nonsense on different products (replete with free samples, but I will get to that later), some stands selling traditional candies and delicacies, a car show (which in its own right was bizarre because it was a car audio show and so it was all about who had the loudest sound system and some of the cars were crap), a horse show (also bizarre), and assorted other things.
We end up getting in because my host mother, who is a nut, goes up to a random guard at a random gate and starts badgering him about how she knows the head of the fair (possibly through some distant, random connection) and has free passes (untrue) and has been walking around the fair forever trying to find the right gate (also untrue). Her craziness/persistence/lack of shame makes things work and the guy just waves us through instead of fighting.
After strolling through the fair and seeing what it had, we entered the big building where all the little stands were. I would estimate that about a fourth to a half were wine, pisco, or ¨healthy drinks¨(everything from coffee liquors to fig wine to the like). We walked around sampling everything and getting a little buzzed off of all the free little shots of the different drinks. Though I did get a tired of trying to pull the ¨I might be interested in your product¨attitude.
Then we go to wait where they are going to have a food festival of different alpaca dishes. Showing her crazy brashness once again, my host mother goes behind one of the tables where the different culinary schools are preparing their foods and drinks and just pretty much steals a couple seats for us. So, we sit there for awhile, and then she starts to ask for samplings of the different foods from the different culinary schools, and most are friendly enough and buzzing too (they were passing around more pisco that they shared with us) that they were totally cool with it.
All of a sudden, next to us arrives the mayor of Tacna (a gordo named Lucho Torres) and he takes his seat right there. We have been thrust into the spotlight as the guests of honor at the left hand of the mayor! And since he was educated at the Jesuit school in Tacna, of course my crazy host mother starts talking with him and before I know it we are all friendly and chummy, he is giving us big servings of the numerous alpaca meat platters he is recieving (at one point, we each got our own couple of grilled alpaca ribs - delicious), serving us wine and pisco that they have given him, and we are being serenated as well by what looks like a fifties washed up lounge singer who is singing ¨typical¨ music for the occasion. By the end of the afternoon, we were invited to numerous pisco sours as well, saw some trick bartending, and basically just had a grand old time. I have pictures to prove it all that I will put up when I can.
Sunday: Birthday of this sweet old lady who cooks breakfasts at the market by my school. We go to her house for wine, a delicious cocktail of some sort and heaping portions of arroz verde (or arroz con pollo) that is simply outstanding.
Monday: The birthday of the communications teacher Rosalia. Needless to say, much alcohol (so much was being pushed on me that was trying to hide the glasses and ended the night with six or seven on the table next to me, all with varying amounts of alcohol) was served, some delicious large portions of food were doled out, and I became a dancing fool. I really enjoy those type of smaller, intimate gatherings that are just good times to share and relax.
Man, was I tired the rest of the week though.
We end up getting in because my host mother, who is a nut, goes up to a random guard at a random gate and starts badgering him about how she knows the head of the fair (possibly through some distant, random connection) and has free passes (untrue) and has been walking around the fair forever trying to find the right gate (also untrue). Her craziness/persistence/lack of shame makes things work and the guy just waves us through instead of fighting.
After strolling through the fair and seeing what it had, we entered the big building where all the little stands were. I would estimate that about a fourth to a half were wine, pisco, or ¨healthy drinks¨(everything from coffee liquors to fig wine to the like). We walked around sampling everything and getting a little buzzed off of all the free little shots of the different drinks. Though I did get a tired of trying to pull the ¨I might be interested in your product¨attitude.
Then we go to wait where they are going to have a food festival of different alpaca dishes. Showing her crazy brashness once again, my host mother goes behind one of the tables where the different culinary schools are preparing their foods and drinks and just pretty much steals a couple seats for us. So, we sit there for awhile, and then she starts to ask for samplings of the different foods from the different culinary schools, and most are friendly enough and buzzing too (they were passing around more pisco that they shared with us) that they were totally cool with it.
All of a sudden, next to us arrives the mayor of Tacna (a gordo named Lucho Torres) and he takes his seat right there. We have been thrust into the spotlight as the guests of honor at the left hand of the mayor! And since he was educated at the Jesuit school in Tacna, of course my crazy host mother starts talking with him and before I know it we are all friendly and chummy, he is giving us big servings of the numerous alpaca meat platters he is recieving (at one point, we each got our own couple of grilled alpaca ribs - delicious), serving us wine and pisco that they have given him, and we are being serenated as well by what looks like a fifties washed up lounge singer who is singing ¨typical¨ music for the occasion. By the end of the afternoon, we were invited to numerous pisco sours as well, saw some trick bartending, and basically just had a grand old time. I have pictures to prove it all that I will put up when I can.
Sunday: Birthday of this sweet old lady who cooks breakfasts at the market by my school. We go to her house for wine, a delicious cocktail of some sort and heaping portions of arroz verde (or arroz con pollo) that is simply outstanding.
Monday: The birthday of the communications teacher Rosalia. Needless to say, much alcohol (so much was being pushed on me that was trying to hide the glasses and ended the night with six or seven on the table next to me, all with varying amounts of alcohol) was served, some delicious large portions of food were doled out, and I became a dancing fool. I really enjoy those type of smaller, intimate gatherings that are just good times to share and relax.
Man, was I tired the rest of the week though.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Wild Weekend of Tacna Day
Last Friday marked 80 years of Tacna rejoining the republic of Peru after a little interlude (of about fifty years) as part of Chile. It ended up being a pretty wild weekend because of this, and it almost felt like a minivacation because we stopped with classes at 11 am on Thursday (and everyday I teach from 11 to the end of the day so I missed a lot of class) in order to have a little celebration in the school. Here is a little day-by-day breakdown, with photos to come if I can figure out how to get around the password protection they have put up on these computers.
Thursday: The ceremony at school was definitely a little interesting bit of the whole weekend. The kids mached in with the flag, but dressed up as citizens of the city from 1929. People threw the typical Tacna flower, the bugambilla, and we all sang the national anthem (which I have memorized by now and I am quite proud of). The secondary students read some poetry from famous poets of the city and danced a polka (I have no idea how this became a typical dance of here, but I found it quite funny and enjoyed the way the boys got to just basically rock back and forth while holding their suit jackets). Afterwards, we shared some picante - a typical Tacneno dish that has cow´s stomach in it. Apparently it comes from the time of the Chilean occupation when the Chileans would take all the good cow´s meat for themselves and give the local people the stomach to eat, and so they cooked it with a ton of peppers and a thick sauce to make it less disgusting. Now it is the dish of local pride - funny how that works, no?
Other highlights of the day were a three to four hour school meeting where each person individually talked about their thoughts of how the school has been since the fire (the director made his monthly trip down from Lima and it was the first time he was around since the fire), and going out at night to celebrate a friend´s birthday. The band played 80s rock and randomly at like 1245 a military procession passed by outside on the main street.
Friday: Big old parade that was proceeded by lots of different organizations making these ¨carpets¨ along the parade root. Using different colored sawdust and flowers, they basically made these elaborate designs on the ground (I will put up pictures when I can), and until the big giant flag processed down, no one could step on them (so the first few groups had to crowd the sidewalks and step carefully as they paraded down to the main plaza). The highlight of the parade was a huge flag, followed by all the local politicians - and actually as it stopped for a second by us, Cara´s host family (I was watching it with them) rushed out onto the street
to serve a toast (or brindis as it is called here) to the main characters. Then there were a number of bands and many different groups from all the municipalities. And if one group was parading down without marching, the crowd would literally boo them and get angry (which I found quite humorous).
Also, I saw across the street a friend who had hosted us for lunch last weekend (and used to be in the military and is an older guy with tons and tons of Tacna pride. In fact, the week before at his luncheon, he shot his gun off into the air after singing the Tacna anthem and yelling Viva Tacna), and he shouted ¨Que viva las mujeres tacnenas¨(¨Long live the Tacnena Women¨). He then, using only improvised sin language, motioned to me that I needed to marry a woman from Tacna. He was quite forceful about it and everytime we made eye contact across the parade, he would do it again. He might have been a touch drunk and after seeing him with the gun last week, I figured it was better to just keep rolling with the joke and appease him.
Finally, the parade ended with all the military marching, from the military schools (not so intimidating) to the cavalary (not intimidating to me, but some people definitely backed away from the parade when the horse´s came down) to the commandos all painted up and armed to the teeth (very intimidating to me). I went with Nate and my host family to have lunch and we had some good picante and some delicious arroz con pollo (chicken with rice, but its a green rice that is super delicious).
Ok, so I will finish up the rest of the weekend later since I probably should get off to school now.
Thursday: The ceremony at school was definitely a little interesting bit of the whole weekend. The kids mached in with the flag, but dressed up as citizens of the city from 1929. People threw the typical Tacna flower, the bugambilla, and we all sang the national anthem (which I have memorized by now and I am quite proud of). The secondary students read some poetry from famous poets of the city and danced a polka (I have no idea how this became a typical dance of here, but I found it quite funny and enjoyed the way the boys got to just basically rock back and forth while holding their suit jackets). Afterwards, we shared some picante - a typical Tacneno dish that has cow´s stomach in it. Apparently it comes from the time of the Chilean occupation when the Chileans would take all the good cow´s meat for themselves and give the local people the stomach to eat, and so they cooked it with a ton of peppers and a thick sauce to make it less disgusting. Now it is the dish of local pride - funny how that works, no?
Other highlights of the day were a three to four hour school meeting where each person individually talked about their thoughts of how the school has been since the fire (the director made his monthly trip down from Lima and it was the first time he was around since the fire), and going out at night to celebrate a friend´s birthday. The band played 80s rock and randomly at like 1245 a military procession passed by outside on the main street.
Friday: Big old parade that was proceeded by lots of different organizations making these ¨carpets¨ along the parade root. Using different colored sawdust and flowers, they basically made these elaborate designs on the ground (I will put up pictures when I can), and until the big giant flag processed down, no one could step on them (so the first few groups had to crowd the sidewalks and step carefully as they paraded down to the main plaza). The highlight of the parade was a huge flag, followed by all the local politicians - and actually as it stopped for a second by us, Cara´s host family (I was watching it with them) rushed out onto the street
to serve a toast (or brindis as it is called here) to the main characters. Then there were a number of bands and many different groups from all the municipalities. And if one group was parading down without marching, the crowd would literally boo them and get angry (which I found quite humorous).
Also, I saw across the street a friend who had hosted us for lunch last weekend (and used to be in the military and is an older guy with tons and tons of Tacna pride. In fact, the week before at his luncheon, he shot his gun off into the air after singing the Tacna anthem and yelling Viva Tacna), and he shouted ¨Que viva las mujeres tacnenas¨(¨Long live the Tacnena Women¨). He then, using only improvised sin language, motioned to me that I needed to marry a woman from Tacna. He was quite forceful about it and everytime we made eye contact across the parade, he would do it again. He might have been a touch drunk and after seeing him with the gun last week, I figured it was better to just keep rolling with the joke and appease him.
Finally, the parade ended with all the military marching, from the military schools (not so intimidating) to the cavalary (not intimidating to me, but some people definitely backed away from the parade when the horse´s came down) to the commandos all painted up and armed to the teeth (very intimidating to me). I went with Nate and my host family to have lunch and we had some good picante and some delicious arroz con pollo (chicken with rice, but its a green rice that is super delicious).
Ok, so I will finish up the rest of the weekend later since I probably should get off to school now.
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