Brujo

I didn´t believe in messages from the universe in the same gentle, curious way that she did.  Still, in that moment, I tried to listen for one.  My devout agnosticism allowed for neither belief nor disbelief in anything.  Sometimes I was smug about it; feeling exalted above the need for false security and “absolute truth”.  Sometimes, it was exhausting.

“El universo es sabio,” my expat girlfriends told me borrowing from a variety of different clichés and languages -- the universe is wise.  “Everything happens for a reason.”

Perhaps it was a chink in my armor that allowed me to entertain the idea.  I try not to linger too long near the doors of churches in moments like these.  There is something about the things you allow to touch you when your guard is down.

My incredulousness wasn´t reserved for conversations on religion.  It also extended to modern medicine as a whole and, with more tangible reason, to the medical system in the small Peruvian village where I´d chosen to carve out a home.  The pain was bad, but the nearest clinic was not only a hassle to get to, but offered little hope of resolution. I ruled it out almost immediately though I was vaguely enticed by the promise of strong, easily-accessible painkillers, illegal in the country I had left behind.

Later, a friend from Lima would laugh at me over cervezas and ceviche about the route that I had chosen to take.  “Fucking gringos,” he would say if though my decision was typical of my kind.  His reaction was fair enough, I suppose.  I couldn´t keep a straight face through the story myself and as soon as the word “brujo” (shaman or wizard) escaped my lips, the table erupted into laughter. 

As I walked home from dinner through the chilly desert night, I thought back to the so-called “brujo” who had pushed on the back of my head in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  In my mind, I had neatly labeled him as a chiropractor.  Still, in his own, the work he did was irrevocably tied to God´s.   It made it hard to maintain the secular little bubble I so wished to confine him to. 

After a few minutes of pressing his fingers deep into my shoulder blade, he paused.   He left his hand cupped a few inches from my head, presumably to stop my soul from spilling over.  Moving his hands over a few inches, he went back to work.  Something cracked deep in my neck and a gaggle of goose bumps flew south down my spine.  He slipped softly from the room.  I could hear his kind voice from the other side of the door.  “Está durmiendo,” he said—she´s sleeping.  I wasn´t. 

Her voice softened to meet his and their conversation slid under the door into the tiny room which was barely wider than the cot that supported my wilted body. 

She had come to the brujo with burdens of her own and her hopes that he could help her seemed to be higher than my own faith that he would put an end to my two weeks of migraines.  Her man, she said, could not be brought to God.  I wondered if the problem was really his lack of faith or its perceived connection to his lack of faithfulness.

Familiar with the machismo reality in which we existed, the latter seemed, to me, the most probable.  I understood her desperation intimately.  I did know a few honest men who had seemingly been kept honest by religion here.  Far more common, however, were contradictions definitively not unique to this corner of the world.  Splattered across the windows of every motorcycle taxi and family restaurant in town, God was flaunted ostentatiously but seemingly absent from day-to-day dealings.   The incessant cycle of sin, repent, sin, repent was as deeply ingrained as the other rituals rarely questioned in Catholic country. It dribbled out of the churches and into the Peruvian men we were trying so hard to love, or not to.

Hold him, that was his answer for her; simple and precise.  Instead, she held me.  Tiptoeing into the room where I lay, she hovered over me and draped her arms across my bare back.   Hot tears trickled from my pounding head into my ears and I wanted nothing more than to run.  I wanted to run to the place that felt closest to home here, so far from my own.  I longed to sit in his earthen-floored living room.  I ached for the familiar smell of his mother´s cooking and the resolute way his father talked about God.  I cautiously toyed with the notion of prayer and how nice it must be to have a one-size-fits-all remedy for everything.  I knew that I was playing with fire, even just  thinking it.

The next day, the migraine intensified, just as the brujo said it would.  The world around me blurred and pulsed to the rhythm of my beating head.  I strained my eyes trying to find beauty in the reality I had chosen.  The distinct life I had carved out on this seemingly randomly selected speck on the map made increasingly less sense.  At the end of a long day, I collapsed into a puddle of pain, exhaustion and doubt.

In the morning, the clouds parted.  Once again, I had the necessary headspace to grapple with the uncertainty of the unknowable.  Once again, everything was equally as likely as it was unlikely.  God was everywhere, and nowhere.  The pain was gone.

I didn´t believe in messages from the universe in the same gentle, curious way that she did.  Still, in that moment, I tried to listen for one.

Here, Nostalgia is an Illusion

Photo by: Aino Huotari

Silhouetted by the skeletons of old fishing boats, now put out to pasture, gulls squawk and ferrell dogs scrounge for breakfast through the heaps of garbage that line the coast. The sun is  rising on Talara; a city of few charms.

Thirty minutes down a long dirt road from home in Lobitos, Talara houses the only large, "Western" (for lack of a better word) grocery store in the area as well as an expansive fruit/vegetable market, bus station and my preferred internet café. With time, I have come to view my frequent visits as a necessary annoyance.  The burden can usually be softened with some special treats from Plaza Vea, fun school supplies for my English classes and perhaps a tamale and beer from Cocoro's.  Today's trip affords no such luxuries.

Sandwiched between a sleepless night and a full day of teaching, a six am drop-off at Talara's EPPO Station was less than ideal. Regardless, when Moises brought the car around to pick him up, I couldn´t say goodbye. Instead, I threw myself in the back seat like an extra piece of luggage.  

"You've never seen this place without Jackson, have you?" Seth had asked me a few days before.  I hadn't.

"To be honest," he said, "it's exactly the same.  People come for a while and then they fuck off.  You'll get used to it."


I was only a third of the way through my one-year work contract then and Seth was just a few months shy of finishing his. Jackson had just completed the longest volunteer stay in the history of the development organization we worked for; six months in total. Over the last four, he had become one of my best friends and an integral part of my life in Lobitos.  It was the first, but not last, significant goodbye I would have to say in this town. 

Seth wasn't wrong.  Here, “despedidas” come in such abundance that they rarely mean much anymore.  At the time, I couldn´t imagine my Lobitos life without one of the people who had become so ingrained in it.  Now, the constant shuffle of employees and volunteers that have come in to and out of my life over the past year is a virtual blur.  I´ve seen four members of our tiny team arrive and four others leave, abruptly.  With less than one year in Peru, I am currently the longest-standing international staff member on site. 

I've seen well over a hundred volunteers pass through the organization.  I've lived with them, cooked with them, dined with them, worked with them, surfed with them and said goodbye to them.  Each time, the deck is shuffled again and a new hand of friends is dealt.  With it, comes a new soundtrack, a new routine, new recipes, new jokes and new values. 

The last few months have been sprinkled with a handful of goodbyes that were particularly hard to swallow. Tied to fond memories and paths that vow to cross again, they protrude from a bleak backdrop of a dozen meaningless ones.  A fresh batch under my belt, I am reminded of another conversation that I had with Seth, many months later.

“Here, nostalgia is an illusion,” he interrupted as I started to wax poetic about some false notion of the “good old days”.  We were sharing a few beers on the tree swing at La Casona and looking out over the ocean.  Life here, he reminded me, has always been a constant cycle of adjusting, recalculating and scrambling to pick up the pieces. 

In the span of six months, I watched every member of the staff that received me upon my arrival to Lobitos as they packed up and left town.  Between the four of them, they had taught me almost all of the simple, but important, things about daily life here.  They taught me when to take public transportation, how to pump water and where the vicious street dogs hang out.  They taught me how to avoid being eaten alive by mosquitos, how to light the oven and how to coax coffee out of a particularly fickle espresso machine.  They taught me a lot of the big things too.  It was largely through my conversations with them that I came to understand what we were moving towards, what we were fighting for. 

At times, I still find myself clinging to the memory, though perhaps partially flawed, of a team that marched together triumphantly towards a common set of goals.  I remember each individual blow as that train was repeatedly derailed by one unexpected despedida after another.   As the cliché goes, the only thing that has been constant is change.  Ironically, it can also be summarized succinctly with a classic Tali-ism: adapt or die.   There were times when the latter seemed all but inevitable.

Now I find that reminiscence comes in a variety of flavors.  Sometimes it curls up the hole left by a particular person´s departure.  It's the caffeine headache around noon because your standing coffee date is gone now.  It's the lazy feeling of rolling out of bed late now that your solid dawn patrol crew has been broken up.  It's the guitar collecting dust now that Tom isn't there to play Shins covers, Seth isn't singing Bob Dylan songs and Jackson isn't incessantly strumming the four chords that make up the chorus of “Fast Car”.

There are times when I miss the naivety that once allowed me to feel like I was part of something solid; secure, stable.  Luckily stability comes from other sources.  I find it in the tranquility of small-town life.  I find it in my relationships with the amazing people here and even long-distance from loved ones elsewhere.  I find beauty in a lifestyle that allows for days filled with surfing, ceviche, sunsets, good chats with Zoe and hugs from small children.  I find comfort in feeling one step closer to finally figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.  I find hope in the knowledge that dovetailing interests and paralleling good intentions will continue to spark group synergy.  Wonderful people will continue to find their way here and happy things will continue to happen.

Coming Home to Lobitos

“Are we there yet?” I said to no one. 

No, we weren´t.  In fact, only two hours had passed since I had silently asked my imaginary travel companion the same question. I was anxious; squirming in my luxurious 160º reclining Exclusiva bus seat. I wanted to be home.  Fourteen hours and seven “are we there yet?”s later, I finally was.   My twenty-hour bus ride from Lima was followed by a quick moto-taxi transfer and thirty minute combi which finally dropped me at my door.

The house was in virtual shambles. The long, white tiled hallway was caked with mud and every dish in the entire kitchen appeared to be dirty and piled by the sink. “You must be Alicia,” said the unfamiliar face at the table. She was Michelle; one of the new staff that started during my three-week vacation to the states.

“We´re out of water,” she informed me. I smiled, settling back into the realities of life in Lobitos. She also told me that all of the other volunteers and staff were down at the point, doing the last of the winter vacation kids‘ surf classes.  I was off.   I kicked my shoes into my room which was exactly how I´d left it, only covered with a thick layer of fresh dirt.  I dashed down to the beach, taking full advantage of the carefully cultivated callouses that now cover and protect my feet after four mostly-barefoot months in this town.

“Miss Aliiiiiiiiiiiiicccccccccccciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Half a dozen wetsuited children swarmed me the instant my toes hit the sand.  Their tiny arms latched onto my legs and soon I was enveloped in a big, wet group hug.  The water was filled with familiar faces; coworkers, long-term volunteers, Lobiteño friends and all of the usual surf class kiddos. 

The little ones were taking off on considerably bigger waves then I´d ever seen them catch before. A stupid grin plastered to my face, I even let the kids talk me into jumping in for a (fully dressed) swim.  I figured it was the closest I was going to get to a shower after a long day of travel, considering our current water situation back at the house.   

Before I knew it, I had been roped into playing personal assistant to Adriana; a sassy seven year-old with a healthy fear of the ocean.  It was her first surf class and she was clinging on to my neck for dear life.  We soon had our routine worked out. I would crouch down in the water so that we were both up to our chins then spring to my feet each time a small wave rolled in towards us. She would shriek, presumably in some combination of delight and terror.  Then, after the wave had safely passed by, we would burst into laughter and nestle down into the calm waters again.

I had allotted myself a few days in Lima prior to my arrival in Lobitos.  My hope was that this pitstop would lighten the load of the fourty-three hours of travel from Los Angeles to Lobitos and provide for a bit of time and space to process a heavy trip home. It didn´t.  The first twenty-three-hour leg of the journey had wiped me out pretty bad and melancholy backdrop of a Limanean winter didn´t do much for lifting my spirits. That isn´t to say that it was all bad. I had a chance to meet up with a few different friends during my short stay and chat to some interesting people in the hostel. I wandered through city streets, spent lots of time snuggled up in the kid´s section of bookstores (for research purposes) and met up with an old co-worker for the first night of his Peruvian despedida. 

“VAMOS NIÑOS!” Surf class was over. Seth´s voice barreled down the beach, “A LA CASA!” Heeding the words of their beloved surf instructor, the “niños” ran to shore and climbed in the back of the trusty burro (the trailer towed by the WAVES´ motorcycle). I stayed back for a moment, watching the chaos from afar. The warm Lobitos sun on my face, I lowered my head back into the cool water and smiled, looking up at the perfect, cloudless sky.  It´s good to be home.

My Little Mocos

“Red, Rojo

Red, Rojo

Verde, Green

Verde, Green

Amarillo, Yellow

Amarillo, Yellow

Azul, Blue

Azul, Blue”

The singing voices of twenty-five small children fill the dimly lit classroom.  Most of the kids are holding hands in a large circle.  They are jumping up and down wildly and chanting the new rhyme that they have learned in today’s English class.

“Reeeed, Rojo

Reeeeeeeed, Rojo

Verde, Greeeeeeen

Verde, Greeeeeeeeeeen

Amarillo, YEH-LOW

Amarillo, YEH-LOW

Azul, Bluuuuuuuue

Azul, Bluuuuuuuuuuue”

With each repetition of the song, I change things up and try to make it even more fun and ridiculous than the last version.  The students started the class sitting at their tables (which are conveniently painted to match the four colors mentioned in the song) and touching each color as we sang about it.  Then, we got to our feet and sang along to a little dance that involves lots of clapping, drumming on our legs and shaking our heads around like lunatics (the latter is obviously their favorite).  Now we’ve moved up to the front of the class to form our big group circle.  Holding hands seems to be helping keep the kids together and minimizing the chaos.

In the three-year-old room, keeping everyone engaged and on task is no easy feat.  Not only is this only our third English class of the year, but they also lack general experience in the classroom since it is just their second month of school.  Despite my best efforts to round everyone up, there are still a few kids who haven’t quite made it yet.

Luckily, I have the help of a WAVES volunteer, as well as the students’ regular teacher during my two weekly classes.  This gives me the freedom to concentrate on the students who are on task while my helpers work on integrating the stragglers into the larger group or working with them individually, if needed.

Kristin, my volunteer for the day, also helps me later in the class when we go around the room and evaluate the students individually.  They are very excited because, after correctly identifying the color of each item, each child is given a paper bracelet, some stickers and a small piece of candy.

Sometimes, the rewards for repeating a word or arriving at a correct answer are even more simple.  Although, like any group of three year olds, they spend a good part of their day playing in the dirt and picking their noses, handshakes have become a staple in the classroom.  When I saw how much excitement this simple gesture evoked during our first few class, I put aside my urges to dip the kids in a large vat of Lysol and started using handshakes as one of our primary sources of positive reinforcement.  Pair that with a few simple words of affirmation (in English) and you're golden...germs be damned! 

Although I have quite a bit of experience with kids, this is the youngest group I've ever worked with and it continues to present new challenges and personal learning opportunities.  Their unbridled enthusiasm and endless energy make them a pleasure to work with and the fact that they're just stinking adorable doesn't hurt either.

Una Blusa Lila

I’m sorry. In retrospect, I guess it was a slightly misleading to call something the “first update on my new life in Peru” when, in reality, the post contained next to no actual information about that new life.  Instead, I gave you a long, incoherent list of Spanglish words and phrases and left you to your own devices to decipher how they might relate to my first few weeks in Lobitos.  Hopefully the next few posts will shed a little light on, at least, some of them.  Let’s start with una blusa lila; a lavender blouse.

I arrived to Lobitos at mid-morning on Monday and started work on Tuesday.  The old secondary school English teacher had quit abruptly which is why everything turned around so quickly. 

The timing was a bit strange really.  Coincidently, Kate had contacted me about the available position the day before the shit hit the fan with the mine in Chile.  After we spoke, I walked away from the conversation feeling really bummed about missing out on the spot, the surf and the organization; all three of which Kate had been raving about literally every time I’d talked to her for the previous seven months since she left Iquique.

When the mining job was suddenly pulled out from underneath me, my initial response (as you may have read about in this post) was utter disbelief followed my blinding rage, waterworks, feeling totally directionless and confused about the next step to take and a long rant-tastic blog post.  Essentially, I worked my way through something roughly resembling the five stages of grief… in the span of about an hour.  I was literally still walking home; with red cheeks and puffy eyes when I remembered about the job in Lobitos.  I think I actually might have jumped off the ground a little, I was so excited about the idea.  I ran home and sent Kate about a million messages via facebook and skype telling her to get in touch with me ASAeffingP.  28 days, and way too many travel hours later, I was here.

They kids were already three weeks into the school year when I arrived because of my little detour back to North America so I hit the ground running; no time to lose.  First thing Tuesday morning, I went to talk to the directora of secondary school.  I was terrified.  I had already heard that she was a little "complicated" (a euphemism Spanish-speakers commonly use to avoid directly calling someone a bitch) so I was trying to make a good impression by dressing professional for our meeting, sitting up straight and minding my ps and qs.  I have never been looked up and down so hard by an authority figure in my entire life. 

 My outfit got the thumbs-up from my co-workers but was I still scolded profusely.  She explained the exact uniform I should be wearing (speaking slowly and annunciating to make sure I understood); looooseeellllyyyyyy fiiiittttiinnnnggg bbllllaaacccckkkkk slllaaccckkkkks, bbbbllllaaccckkkkkkkk cccccllloooooooseeeee-ttttoooooooooeeeeedddddd ssshhhoooeeeesssss aaaaannnnnddddd aaaa llllaaaavvveeeennnndddarrrr bbbbbllllouuuuussssseee.  Then, to make sure I really got it, she explained it three more times.

The first two weeks were rough.  The kids were awesome, a bit hard-to-manage at times, but overall engaged, fun and a pleasure to work with.  When I was in the classroom, I was happy but the administrative side of things was driving me nuts.  

Every day, I showed up to the directora's office where she scrutinized my outfits and threw together an arbitrary schedule for my day.  Then I would run home (luckily, just across the street) and scramble to get things prepared before running back to school.  It was chaos and would likely have continued this way up until now if the organization where I work hadn 't put their very influencial foot down.  All it took was one stern phone call simply stating that, unless I was given an actual schedule, I would not be returning to teach English; which we provide to the school free of charge (and they are required by law to teach).

The directora cracked instantly.  She immediately put together the schedule which was communicated by phone and handed to me on the Monday of my third week.  I haven 't seen her once since then.  She hasn 't even popped into one of my classes to tell me how to manage it or to snap at one of my students for looking at her (not joking...we 're talking Cruella Deville here).  

I never did buy the outfit she so slowly and clearly communicated to me during our first meeting.  It wasn 't part of the power struggle, they just don 't happen to sell those things in the one store I frequent, 20 minutes away in Talara (there isn 't even a grocery store in our town lady...give me a break).  I have, however, found somewhat of a compromise: a lavendar shirt with a black skirt and close-toed shoes.  So far it seems to keep her appeased at least enough to let me do my job in peace.  Which is great, because I love my job.

¡Qué sorpresa!

Lobitos, Peru

A few of you may have caught my last post (please excuse my weak attempt at being enigmatic there).  “Some airport somewhere” (if you even care at this point), happened to be LAS; Mccarran International Airport in Las Vegas.  About a dozen hours deep into almost exactly three solid days of traveling back down south, the photo resembles something between a mug shot and a PSA for sleep deprivation. 

My master plan was to maintain a little ambiguity about my current whereabouts until I finished off the pile of half-finished posts about Chile that have been collecting dust in my drafts folder.  After that, I would release the news that SURPRISE, I live in Peru now.  Unfortunately, I frankly just don’t have the patience for that and I’m terrible at keeping secrets.

In fact, I’m amazed that I was actually able to keep my last minute trip to the states a surprise from my family for as long as I did.  I freaked the ba’jesus out of my sister and dad during two separate but equally wonderful surprise attacks and made a few, less successful, attempts to surprise my friends, who already had their suspicions about me coming up.

The ten days at home were (at the risk of sounding cliché) just what the doctor ordered.  Though chaotic and exhausting, I can’t even articulate how wonderful it was to have the time with Jeff and to see so many fabulous people that I have been missing so much.  

My journey started with a 5.5-hour bus from Iquique to Arica, followed by a quick 45-minute taxi across the border at Tacna and a (not-so-quick) twenty-hour bus to Lima (23 hours).  At the Cruz del Sur station, I touched base with a couch surfer friend in Mira Flores and caught a taxi straight to his house for a (much needed) shower and some lunch.  He showed me around the neighborhood a bit (beautiful by the way) and I set off for an unnecessarily long triple-layover flight through Huston, Vegas and, finally, LA. 

After my awesome little ten-day vay-cay, I retraced my steps back through LA, Vegas and Huston.  However, instead of busing back down south to Chile upon my arrival to Lima, I spent one night there before embarking on a different twenty-hour busing adventure (note the sarcasm in my voice).  Hopefully my last all-day bus ride for a while, this trip brought me to Talara.  Once there, a “moto” (motercycle with a little car for passengers built around it) carried me to a “combi” (a van used for transfers between Talara and Lobitos) where my luggage was tied to the roof while I crammed myself inside with fifteen Peruvians.  Twenty minutes down a dusty desert road and I was finally home.

Now I’ve been in Lobitos for about two weeks.  Things have been a bit rocky here and there but overall, I am having a wonderful time.  I feel like there are a million and one things I want to update you on  but, frankly, my blogging stamana is down after a few weeks of not writing and I feel a little overwhelmed.  Instead, I will just try to capture the highlights with this thirty word summary and elaborate later....

Waves. 
Water.

Thorns. 

Girls. 
Calluses.

Mosquitos. 

Ceviche. 

Cera. 

Rum. 

Coke. 

Shortcut. 

Vomit. 

ER. 

Mermaid Cast.   

Sunsets. 

Chifles. 

Mocos. 

Miss Alicia. 

Una Blusa Lila. 

Hello, Hello, Hello. 

¿Puedo Salir A Toser? 

Greetings From Some Airport Somewhere...

Round and round and round she goes...where she stops, nobody knows.