The coolest thing I did on Sat was buy an XLR cable for my mic. I got directions from Kiko at the Escuelab, and they took my through downtown Miraflores, a big city part of Lima where the multicolored poncho natives mingle with business suits. Did I mention the traffic in Lima? It's aggressive. I got to a little electronics store front and asked the guy about mic cables and he hands my two ends of an XLR and about four feet of cable in a plastic bag. I'm like "Que? Yo Hago?" and he's like "Claro" which comes up about every five sentences here. So he puts the cable together in front of me - a real clean job, I learned a lot about soldering watching it done - and when I get home it works fine. That ruled.
We gathered for our trip to Juarez at 9pm and taxied to the bus station where a double-decker shuttle craft of a bus awaited us with cheap food and a cheesy "in-flight" movie to boot. We dozed for the ride and pulled into Juarez around 6am on Sun, dumped our baggage at the hostel, and my fellows naped in a nearby hotel while the hostel preped our rooms and I took a ramble. These poncho ladies have guinea pigs for sale, live ones, about 30 per sac, and the poor things are squirming over and around one another while the ladies are grinning yellow in the clean mountain air.
After breakfast - I can't recall what - we check out the town square just in time to catch the high school parade. Horn band in front and uniformed grade schoolers marching in tow, under the perusal of the town and the guidance of nuns and suits. Some local politicains made speeches to which no one - thankfully - paid much mind. There's a majestic old church under reconstruction at one end of the square. Later that day after a nap I returned to find the kids have filled the streets with flowers and sand in the images of doves and words of God and peace, and there's a Catholic service going on under the geometric stained glass of a modern church which neighbors the more majestic site. Peruvians make Hallelujah their own.
Monday is another day of traveling but not like before. The landscape is beyond me. These mountains are giants, some snowcapped, some cracked by timeless water flow now replaced by lush groves. And as we near a town the land is loosely squared for the cultivation of barely and wheat and corn, and the towns never last more than a couple of miles and they're all crumbling but it doesn't make the people look poor, just a part of the world that contains them. There's an old philosophical word, sublime, which refers to the suggestion of everything outside ones perception, that being the bulk of creation, and the word has become passe but I find the referent thriving.
Huari is my home for the next few weeks, along with my fellows Beka, Mark, and Tiffany. We got trucked off in pairs this morning for what will become our daily routine. So you wake up before the sun and stuff yourself in a sedan with some day workers and kids and go tumbling down one mountain, follow a river across the valley, and shoot up another mountain, at a pace surpassing your previous understanding of security, though barely noticed by the cattle whom share the morning commute, and this is the most normal thing in the world you stupid American. I spent the rest of the day playing computer games with 5th graders and their patient teacher. We sang and misunderstood a lot. They love me. Can't wait to see them tomorrow. My fellows had less fun, caught between Ministry paranoia from teachers and lawlessness from the kids. I hope my day is not a diamond in the rough. I think its the best idea to introduce yourself with a song. Works for me.
