Moviendo

Cuy is a specialty in the Andes, which the locals invest with a certain status.  Its a guinea pig, gutted and fried, its arms spread wide and its face wholly intact.  The fortunate diner picks around the fat and bones for the few morsels of meat clutching to the ribcage, jawbone, spinal column, etc.

I've been spending a lot of time on the hostel roof overlooking Huari.  The town got into my guts again this week, leaving me vomiting and bed ridden for most of Wednesday, but the visage of its buildings, lounging and crumbling in the mountain shade, and the echos of the school kids and buses and donkeys and brass bands sounding their presence put a real piece in me and I'm happy to have been there.  We're now back in Huarez, enjoying the semi cosmopolitan busyness and dining selection, awaiting our next deployment to Chavin, a town smaller than Huari but with tourist attractions that may lend it some Americanized comforts.  Where go the gringos, so go the coffee shops.

There are iconic paintings paired with large cartoony text announcing the contenders for upcoming regional elections in the area.  These works are everywhere, in every town, often coating a full wall or several full walls of a person's business or home.  I have noted two top contenders, a least judging by the proliferation of propaganda.  Anabal is represented by a stout figure in red and white stripes, and Manpe is represented by a condor in a barrette, clutching the stoic sun in its talons.  I'm told by Dhyana and Diego that South Americans have a conviction for regional politics that Americans can hardly understand.  Its not about moral issues or personal scandal.  Its about whose going to have the resources next year, to feed their families and expand their crops.  Its about bread and butter, life and death, material power over your life.  I asked if I could engage the kids about their political experiences, but was told that kids were left out of such matters, and even if they had some opinions the classroom is not the place for it.  A child could get beat up for their political affiliations and teachers may even ostracize them.

This weeks school had five students and a little girl who wasn't old enough for school but just liked to hang out.  She liked my camera and smiled like a greedy imp.  So cute.  The last day we attended none of the kids showed up because of the weekend festival and all the dancing and church services that were going on.  Twitchy folk moves to drums and flutes.  I chilled with the band dudes a bit this week but got turned off when all they could focus on were the gringas I was supposed to bring along for their charms to work on.  The festival parties go past midnight, the town grooving to harp, bass, and singer doing this melodic minor/pentatonic folk music that I'm really getting into.  I saw a more commercial version here in Huaraz yesterday, on a booming beer ad of a stage in a dusty field surrounded by old bricks and families.  I drank my beer for an hour or so, contemplating hybridity, and was invited to dance and converse with a rotund older woman who knew every word and mouthed them as she masde her little steps and spins, and this younger woman cut in and showed me some real moves and we all sat back down and the younger one was several sheets to the wind and grabby like she was looking for something in my chest.  Right now I'm in this gingo joint with Bob Dylan on the speakers, eating french toast and drinking the last cup of real coffee I'll have for a while.