yankee foolishness

Today in the market I bought a pair of llanquis – sandals handmade out of tire rubber. The word is pronounced yawn-keys. I asked one of the guys I’ve been painting with at the orphanage if they’re called this because only yankees are stupid enough to buy them, but it turns out it’s just because they’re made out of llantas (tires).

You’d think I’d know better. Tire rubber and nails doesn’t really sound like it would make for the most comfortable podiatry, but at $1.70 I somehow convinced myself it was worth the pain of breaking my feet into them. I’ll have plenty of time, because apparently they last about five years.

Now comes the self-examination/recrimination/justification that follows most of my purchases. Did I buy them because the sandals I’ve been wearing got chewed up by a dog, or was it a symbolic act intended to identify myself with the extremely poor folks who usually wear them? The jury’s still deliberating on that one.

Speaking of juries, are you aware that in Peru you are guilty until proven innocent? If someone doesn’t like you and you’re a poor sap without powerful friends, they can write out a denuncio against you and then pah! You’re off to jail until you can prove you didn’t do it. This is entirely off topic, I realize, but I think it important to remind you - after all my ranting and raving - that there are some real upsides to living in North America where democracy is still occasionally quasi-functional.

The reason I say this is that my time here has me considering returning somewhat permanently to work/serve and I realize it will take a bit of self-discipline to avoid making a big decision like that lightly.

everything you ever wanted in a candy bar

I said I’d try to write every day on this site and yet here I sit, three days later, with nothing. At such times, I find myself tempted (and what better to give into than temptation) to start off with some sweeping generalization and then just see where my mind will go from there. Today’s generalization was to begin with “Life is sometimes…” But that was as far as I got before I realized it was a stupid idea.

Then I hit upon this idea, to write about how writing is hard. On second thought, though, I realize that you didn’t come to hear me whine. Which makes me wonder – why are you here? There are a number of reasons I can think of. One, you’ve got a habit. You make internet “rounds” and I’m a part of them. Two, you’re my mom and this is an expression of filial piety (by the way, I’ve no idea if I’ve used that expression correctly, but the words rolled off my fingers beautifully and I couldn’t resist). Three, you like art and I sometimes talk about art. Four, you like philosophy, and I have pretensions of knowledge-love. Five, you are bored out of your mind. Sixth, you’re an old peruvert like myself and you’re hoping I’ll write about something you recognize from “the old country”. Seventh and finally, you’re a random stranger casting about online for something you haven’t been able to find in the world of flesh and bone and strawberry sherbet.

Do I pick one of the sacred seven reasons and just write for that? Do I try to find some sort of middle ground that all can read and enjoy? Or do I rather write whatever it is that pops into my head? And which is this?

So many questions. Hopefully you like questions, because I find I have a lot. For today, let me just say this: Hi mom and those who feel they’ve begun to know me (in the impersonal, lopsided internet sense) (one and two), I think the poet was right about beauty being truth and truth beauty, but not in the sense he meant (three). Furthermore, while I’m not sure exactly who God is, I’m pretty sure he’s not dead – I saw him yesterday in the smile of a child (four). Speaking of children, Stupid Videos on www.bored.com should fulfill your craving for brainless entertainment (five) and the child who smiled was a Peruvian (six). Finally, go hug someone and take them out for ice cream (seven).

truth for sale

Let’s you and me go shopping trip for truth. I have a feeling we might just find some in the market. It’s a vibrant, lively and stinky place, with the sort of muggy air that tends to stifle pretensions. In the market if something itches, you scratch.

Since it’s Saturday, we can forgo a moto-taxi and catch a ride with Aunt Becky, who will pick us up in the truck at nine o’clock dull. I say dull, because times are never sharp in Pucallpa. And by the way, don’t worry about the whole “Aunt” thing, I grew up calling her that. Since you and I are such good friends, I’m sure she won’t mind.

It’s a bit tricky getting to the market. The town’s full of one way streets and choked with traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, so you can be glad Aunt Becky’s driving. People tend to watch out for themselves, but there ain’t no accounting for stupidity, as the saying goes.

Over there on the left you can see the cathedral they’re building. Check out the beautiful painted and carved wooden doors. I only mention it because it is now the largest building in town, beating out the newly-constructed municipal building. Yup, that’s it right there – the pastel-blue behemoth.

See those shops right there side-by-each – the wooden rectangles about the size of phone booths? Every single one is a watch repair shop. Crazy, isn’t it? Especially when you consider that you can buy a black market watch for just a couple of bucks. They’re skilled craftsmen, and they just barely eke out a living. You see a lot of that here.

That little alcove on the left has a whole bunch of little tiendas where they sell bootleg movies. You can some that aren’t even out on dvd yet in North America, but usually for those you’ve got to put up with silhouettes of people getting up to go to the bathroom. They sell them for about eighty cents, but most have been dubbed into Spanish and you never really know what you’ve got until you get home. Last weekend we ended up watching Batman Begins in Russian with Spanish subtitles.

OK, here we are on the left – Mercado Dos. That just means market two. Those moto-taxis all lined up outside there are waiting for customers who are finishing they’re shopping. They’re supposed to go in order, front one first. I don’t know if there’s some sort of moto-taxi mafia to bring down holy retribution on defilers of the line, or if they just exercise judicious use of peer pressure. Anyways, we just need to find a place on the other side of the road to squeak in. Ah, right there, Aunt Becky, in front of that broken-down push-cart.

Hola, Willie. This is Willie. He’s pretty much always here covering this side of the street. He’ll watch the truck while we’re in the market and give it a good rubbing with that dusty rag he’s got. There’s a lot of thievery here. I like Willie cause he keeps that cute smile plastered on his face all the time. He probably does this all day, all week. There is public education here, but a lot of families can’t afford uniforms, notebooks or pens.

This covered strip along the outside sells mostly clothes – we have to go inside for food. I don’t really know how the whole system works. I mean, somebody had to have put this roof up. It’s not much – just tin on wood – but they must have some sort of system where they pay a yearly or monthly fee. We should ask. In the middle on those long tables you can see all the meat lying out. Not exactly FDA approved, but it was probably cut up just this morning, and we’ll make sure to cook it well. Smell that E Coli – just don’t breathe in a fly. Most of the fresh goods – the fruit and vegetables and everything – are all out in the open air. You can get most anything you could want here – even seafood trucked out over the Andes from Lima. Crazy, hey, quasi-fresh squid in the middle of the Amazon? It is easy to get swept up in the spirit of the place. All the people weaving in and out, shouting. Tired middle-aged women cooing in low, almost seductive tones about the freshness of their pig intestines. Little boys bumping against your legs, feeling for an easy wallet. It’s no Safeway, and of that I’m glad.

These walled-off booths along the outside and in the middle sell all sorts of random oddments, but we’ll probably just get our dry goods here. I need a big flat of TP. Twenty rolls for two dollars. What’s he say? Oh, he asked what country we’re from. I’m a dual, so I started out saying Americ… and then thought better of it and said Canadian. He responded with “Oh, yeah – that country up above the States.” He continued by saying “Americans are very… warlike… and… bloodthirsty. Canadians, on the other hand… are more…………………….” and then he couldn’t think of a word, so I threw out “tranquilo”, which produced a big smile. “Yeah, that’s it – tranquilo”.

Tranquility is a big thing here. It’s not just a word for placid lakes and cottages, it’s a way of life. “TRANQUILO!” is something you shout at someone who’s getting too worked up and starts making mistakes in a futbol game. It’s something you say out of the side of your mouth about someone who runs around like mad, never satisfied and never able to sit back and chat for a few minutes or hours over drinks, a meal, or a particularly cantankerous motorcycle engine.

It’s funny. I spent my life growing up as an American with this slightly odd Canadian aura hovering about my head. There were only two Canadian families where I lived, so I wasn’t prepared for the move to Canada for University after high school and the serious U.S.A. bashing that went on there. Canadians derive most of their identity (beware, I’m about to hit you with a gross generalization here) from three things: Canadian hockey, Canadian beer, and not being American. It’s hard not to be a bit embarrassed of being a part of a country that invented a song with the words “my country right or wrong” as a chorus and elevated it to near-anthem status. Maybe it is just jealousy, but I’m too American to be jealous of myself.

Whatever the case, I love this market and this feeling of a ragged, frantic calm. If the TP dude was right and Canada does have the spirit of “tranquilo”, then I’m glad that when I have to leave this land of my sojourn it will be to tarry a while in the Great White North. Let’s go home.

dear everybody

I have decided to send detractors to heck on the whole “Dear” thing. I grew up writing lots of real letters on real paper, corresponding with a variety of friends back in the United States. Guy, girl – it didn’t matter – I always greeted them as “Dear”.

One seemingly placid day, though, electronic mail reared its “1” and “0” encrusted head, and the instantaity (my word) it brought meant more than just the death or slow, guttering demise of the long tradition of pen and paper and stamp. Letters became more like conversations – so informal you could turn them on and off like your TV - and "dear" went the way of the "dodo".

Force of culture now makes me avoid this slightly more formal “dear” at the beginning of letters. It feels rude to me, though. It’s as though by this new internet convention of instant communication we agree implicitly to create corporately a fantasy world in which we are never in reality separated by space and time. The phone was a precursor but now internet and text messaging and video conferencing mean that we no longer require time to adjust to the proximitous existence of the gargantuan miracle that is another human life. We have created a world in which all we say on contact is “oh. you again” and then launch into whatever enters our mind. There is no revision and very little forethought.

The nature of man is weak and hates change. John Steinbeck once wrote (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the perfect time is always two generations ago. A wise man, though, rejects nothing - not even change - out of hand. He meets new experience with the equanimity born of a knowledge of the fragility of his own understanding and an awareness that this world is designed to be good.

Email and the internet may be dehumanizing and disassociating but that's the reality of our world, and they also give us a medium in our strangulating, isolating, suburbanized world to reconnect with humanity. Furthermore, the web allows me to get on my website from here in Peru and cogitate (or proselytize, Mike forbid) on whatever rabbits my mind may be trailing. While some may bemoan the downfall of formality and excellence in communication, it is equally easy to argue that the benefits outweigh the cost.

To you then, dear friends and associates, I dedicate this website. May I help staunch the flow of informality and stand as a bastion against bad grammar. May I encourage you to think before you attack and then to attack wisely before you submit. And may I above all tell amusing anecdotes, to keep you interested.

By the way, I have decided to start writing for this site every day. We shall see if I can be as diligent as I am well-intentioned.

peepholes

It is 8:15 p.m., jungle time. I open the gate to the fence of the housing/office complex where I am living and walk down the dirt road to the local store. Two days of rain have settled the dust into a hard packed clay, which will last only until the next bright sun. I salute the few people I pass with a “buenas noches” and am returned with the same. The stars are out and bright, and the ever-present rainforest symphony of frogs and cicadas and Carlos-only-knows-what kind of mad insect fiends blur into the comfortable white noise of familiarity.

Thieves abound here where unemployment is high and the poor are a highly visible majority, so walking alone through Pucallpa at night is inadvisable. The street is well lit, though, so I am vigilant but not afraid. It is only two blocks away. A moto-taxi grumbles by and three girls crossing my path remind me by their giggles that I am alone, and male, and white.

At the store I buy a two-litre plastic container of Coca-Cola for Anya, whose stomach is unsettled by the change in food. I quibble with the teenage boy in the store about my change. It makes me feel less an “extranjero” to argue in a streetwise fashion.

As I turn to go I glance over at six men gathered around a bar slapped onto the side of the store. They had been talking about something and I wonder if it is my presence that has shut them up, but as I walk by I noticed that their attention is fixed on a small yellow chick sitting on the bar. One of them who is smoking strokes it with his cigarette hand and murmers something that makes the others laugh. Then I am past.

This is a moment - like so many others - for which I wish I had a camera . They happen so often here, tiny visions that are really peep-holes into whole worlds outside that to which I have grown accustomed: a black puppy half-heartedly chasing a large white rooster through the noisome street of mid-day as the rooster’s owner hurls rocks and insults, or a whispy-bearded, highly-wrinkled old man in faded but pressed clothing pedaling very slowly by.

I am comforted by these things because they are possessed of some intangible element that is distinctly Peruvian. And while the indicators of change and the injection of American priorities and products abound, for now at least there remain vestiges of an untouched, different world. It is these that draw me out into the streets and it is for these that I am happy to be here again in a place where once before I lived, like this, without belonging.

a proliferation of words

I’m getting to the point where getting on the internet and writing an email requires an awesome act of will. Actually, starting out is not so bad, but to carry it through to completion takes a lot of gnashing of teeth. No offense, but writing for this website also tends to jerk some tears.

Writing is a strenuous discipline even in ideal conditions, and looking at a computer screen is most decidedly not ideal. Disregarding for a moment the difficulty of writing with the cold that has kept my nose a wide-open faucet all day, I have never learned to enjoy the probably-carcinogenic humming bluish glow of the screen and the way it makes my eyes burn redder the longer I sit staring.

Nevertheless, I am a man with a mission. I have decided that this time in Peru is too full of rich experience and that if I don’t unpack it, I might just explode. Or implode. Or laugh or cry or just plain sweat a lot. So here I go again.

Today I rode in a moto-taxi to town to get medicine and felt really vulnerable and unsafe. I don’t know if I’m getting old and therefore more pansie-ish or if my years in the safety-obsessed industry of tree planting have tainted my thinking, but I kept coming back to the thought that if anything happened, I was toast. A moto-taxi, for the uninitiated, is a taxi made of the front three-quarters of a motorcycle welded onto a padded bench seat with a canvas roof and some sort of floorboards, the whole thing being perched on an axle connecting two tires. It is open to the air on all sides. Moto-taxis are pretty standard transportation in third-world countries and in this town there are about two gagillion of them out there on barely regulated roads, weaving at hair-splitting speeds between pedestrians, animals, dump trucks, taxis (which run a route like a bus) and the odd shiny car owned by the infrequent rich person or missionary. Rich, here, would probably be defined as middle to lower-middle class in North America – so basically just about the same category as most people who might potentially be reading this. The contrast here is much more stark.

Which brings me to the two seemingly contrapposed lessons that being here seems to have been teaching me. First, it has fortified my distaste for consumer/conformist North American culture. A. by placing me once again face-to-face with the harsh and difficult struggle in which most of the world’s population (through no choice or fault of its own) is forced to live – and B. by constantly slapping me with little reminders that globalfreakinization has sneaked its dirty little fingers into everyone’s drawers – even here on the fringes of the wild and savage Amazon. It’s a cold reminder that the natives who snapped my photograph from a dugout canoe as I kayaked the Urubamba through what could almost be described as the heart of darkness back in 1997 were only a taste of the hyper-linked world tomorrow’s children will face. That is, of course, if the floods or earthquakes or famines or diseases don’t get them first.

This, for some antithetical reason, brings me to the second lesson – to stop worrying about it. For some reason, I find myself being more hopeful about the whole thing. Perhaps it is living in North American opulence and apathetic nonchalance that has had me wound up in knots. Maybe coming to a place where the problems are so blatant has freed me up. It could be that I’ve just been getting all hot and bothered living with the daily contradictions of a country where pain and suffering are only to be experienced in a sterilized fashion, with a soundtrack, on the evening news. Maybe I’ve felt myself being sucked into complacency and it’s been ripping me apart.

Here, though, I am shocked again by the daily reminders of my wealth and of the wealth of the country whose passport I carry. Reminders like the little boy, half of his face burned off, his clothes in tatters, who tries to sell me some cookies on the street. Or like Jesus - the blind, deaf and autistic boy at the orphanage who rejoices when touched, who takes my hands and jumps up and down laughing with glee. When he is eighteen, the rules of the orphanage dictate that he must leave. It is beyond the ability of most in this hot, harsh world to care for one such as him. It is here in my face though, and I find myself loving the reality of it. I love it the way I love planting trees, the way the physicality and intensity of that work forces me to set aside the existential angst borne of luxury and ease.

So here I am, being. I am in Peru in the midst of pain I cannot assuage, comfortable behind a wall of American dollars I have brought with me for protection. For the moment, though, the wall is visible and I am hoping and praying for the courage to burn it down - to destroy the lie of a comfortable fantasy and rejoin the truly painful work of living in the light of the way things Truly are.

it seems rather depressing

Sometimes, though, things go all right. After a few more interesting “come back laters” at the orphanage, we had the right conversation with the right person and the director’s wife decided to let us come paint their art building. We had to buy the paint, of course, but it got us in the door.

It truly is lovely to be back here – to begin to see this area through adult eyes. The people are wonderful, and the kids are a joy to be around. My Spanish comes back in fits and starts. My grammar sucks the camel’s tail and I’ve got huge gaping holes in my vocabulary, but people are generous with whiteys who try to speak their language and I’ve always had an ear for the accent, so most folks say I speak really well.

Anya and I have just returned from spending a day over at a friend’s place, someone I grew up with who with her husband is sort of taking over for her parents at a technical training school they’ve run for a million zillion years. We spent the afternoon relaxing by and in the lake. I tell you what, folks, there’s no place like it – tropical paradise with a capital “YES!”

We canoed around through pods of freshwater dolphins, sun-baked on a raft out about thirty feet from shore and had some restorative practice throwing a hand-net. I caught four boca-chicos (little fish with big mouths, called “small mouths” for laughs), which were promptly consumed by my friend’s dogs.

Last night we stayed up watching the local kids playing volleyball (they’re tiny, but tough) and then ended up playing soccer from about ten o’clock to midnight on the concrete field/court. The local boys are good, I tell you, but I managed to save a lot of energy by being fairly lazy so that when they were plumb tuckered out by the end I squeaked in a few goals.

This morning we strolled over to the local church where Jairo, a dude who used to work at the mechanical shop for the center where I was reared and raised, spoke with poise and dignity about stuff.

For lunch some other folks from the old days came over and we ate mounds of food, played ping-pong and chased an iguana up a mango tree. It’s good to be home. So good, in fact, that I’ve got none of my usual ranting and raving to do. I’m happy as a jay-bird these days, even though I’ve got a cold and I’m sweating like an inebriated dog in a sauna. I suppose later, if you stick with me, I may have something to whine about. For now, just hop on the love train.

beaurocracy

It is important, when you're visiting a country, to never write home dissing your hosts. So I won't. Sort of. It isn't really our hosts, see - it's the system. We came down here to help out in an orphanage. We called and wrote ahead and they seemed happy with the idea, if decidedly un-curious about us. Then the fun began.

Step One: Called the orphanage. The director said he'd had no idea we were coming. He said we could come on a certain time on monday and talk to him.

Step Two: We show up at the orphanage at the appointed hour and are told the director is gone. The guy at the gate won't let us in. He shuts us outside the gate, goes inside, and comes back five minutes later to tell us that we can come in. We enter the sala and wait, sweating, in a claustrophobic little room without a fan. Eventually, the director's wife invites us into the office and tells us to come back the next day with a letter with references, requesting permission to help out at the orphanage.

Step Three: We return, in the morning, and end up waiting at the gate again, and eventually being let in to wait in the same sala for about an hour. The director shows up, goes into his office and after about fifteen minutes decides to invite us in. He talks a bit with me, and then tells us his boss isn't there for him to ask, so could we wait outside some more. We wait some more, and then he sends his librarian out to give us a tour. The tour is very nice, but we end up waiting again. After about fifteen minutes of this, the director tells us that his boss won't be around for a while, so we might as well come back the next day, bearing a program of activities we'll be conducting when we come with the kids. Not exactly what we'd planned on.

Step Four: We come back again the next day, as told. This time, Juan the gatekeeper lets us right in. We go into the sala of the office. We wait a while, and then the secretary tells us the director's out. "Well, when should we come back?", I ask. "A half an hour", she replies. So we walk around the block in the blinkin' heat and come back, dripping with sweat, a half-hour later. We enter and sit down to wait. After a while, the secretary comes in to say that the director is on a trip, and won't be back until the next day at two-thirty. It is one o'clock. This time, we're calling first.

Beaurocracy is fun. Make no mistake, though, there are also lots of other great things about being here. Right now, though, I'm just hungry for lunch and rather tired of it all.

i'm like a bird

This is it. Tommorow morning bright and early we're going to make like a baby and head out. To the airport, that is, for the purpose of taking wing towards Lima, Peru (no, not where the beans come from) and then on out to the homeland. Peachy keen, jelly bean. I'll try to keep you posted.