Another week has passed here in Lima and it is almost time to go. Crazy. This week was full of things oncemore; busy times full of study and running around. I have been doing a bit of photo uploading and finally I have a few photos online. Aside from the few photos on this blog I have a bunch more posted on my myspace page at www.myspace.com/cienfuegos2008
I took a "cooking class" with an old Peruvian woman who has spent many years making the ceviche that these folks are all so proud of. With good reason too. The dish includes nothing more than lime juice, firm-fleshed whitefish, aji chilies, shallots, cilantro and a little bit of salt, but wow, is it good. We also made tamales from corn and meat and herbs and then wrapped them in husks and steamed them. They have over a thousand types of potatoes here in Peru and the kind that we had that day are called camote. They are yellow with a redish-purple skin. We drank a homemade version of chichamorada which I described in a previous blog. All told, it was an incredible meal. After you've cooked for many years you don't really need to to be taught how to cook anything, you more just need to see it done and then understand where the cook is coming from. I truly believe that most food is really very simple, and that making it taste good is not so much technique, but more understanding what is right for the dish or ingredient. As with just about anything, it is best not to overthink it. This will sound cheesy, but the truth of the matter is that the most important thing to put into cooking is amor. These cooks here are not trained professionals, just as my teachers in Thailand and Africa weren't either, but their food tastes better than the majority of what I have had in restaurants where the cooks are formally taught. There is a lot of love for food in Thailand, parts of Africa, and here in Peru and it shows in what you eat...they don't think about it, they just make it, and it's great!
I had a funny experience with a salsa class that I was going to take with a friend from my school, Ruth from Chile. It was supposedly an instruction class, which I needed terribly, not being a formally trained dancer of any sort. (I can flail around in rythme with the best of them though!!!) We got all geared up for the class with a couple drinks and made our way there across the city. It was in a gimnasio, which I will admit raised a small red flag. Generally speaking, Matteo Del Norte has no dealings with gyms or gimnasios of any sort. It is safe to say that Matteo Del Norte could easily spend the rest of his life happily without ever entering a gimnasio...So we roll up into the gym, and we were greated by a small, but muscle-bound, Peruvian woman. This woman had her game face on. This woman was not about to take life lightly and it was clear that if we started goofing around there in the waiting area there would be Peruvian-style hell to pay. After surviving fifteen minutes under her no-pain-no-gain gaze, we ascended a couple floors to what was assumed to be our dance class. It turned out to be a dance/exercise class!!! With a very gay man as our instructor. I am sure that the gay part meant nothing to all the women who were there for the class, because even with the music playing, you could hear this guy's ass moving against the cloth of his gym clothes. He was enthusiastic about dancing to say the least. He started the music and then started going to town; stepping here, there and everywhere, shaking his hips and spinning around like the champ. It was a beginner's class and so I was waiting for some sort of explanation about what the hell was going on, but that never happened. I spent the next hour flailing around with the best of them. It was hilarious. It was actually really fun once I realized that I wasn't going to learn a thing and Ruth and I boogied and laughed and sweated like pigs in blankets until the Baby Jesus smiled on us and we were allowed to leave!! What a riot. I haven't "exercised" that much on purpose for years. There were times in San Francisco where I had to run for the bus, but that was only a couple minutes at a time. This was a solid hour and I admit that I was sore the next day. Good times. Next time I will be looking for a salsa teacher. Preferably a woman! Ha ha!!
On thursday I went to El Centro with my buddy Christian. We went to a bunch of old Euro-style churches which were quite something. We visited a bunch of historic sites and passed many interesting things on the street. People selling cheap tattoos, people trying to sell drugs to gringos, and amazing numbers of stores selling glasses. Eyeglasses...Cuppies would be in heaven here...they are all really good quality and cost about 20$ a pair. A lot of people come from Europe and the US to have dental work done or surgeries of various sorts because the medical care is top notch and it costs a tiny fraction of what it costs in the first world.
We got really lucky and ended up getting a tour of the Peruvian Congress. I guess normally they don't let people in off the street but my boy explained to the people at the gate that I was in town for a short time and it was really important for me to see the congress and the guard pulled some strings and the next thing we knew, we had visitor's passes and we were ushered through a series of metal detectors and armed guards into the huge electoral hall. (Nothing like the age old art of bullshitting!) It was cool to see the place where so much policy has been dictated for so long. Fujimori did his thing there, Bolivar too back in the day. We got the full treatment, descending into a rarely seen dungeon to admire The Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier, a soldier whose remains were found intact long after dying for his country. He is now a heavily guarded symbol. Of what, as of yet, it is not clear to me. They have had 12 different constitutions here, and many coup d'etat's, many interim dictator ships and many changes of direction. Throughout it all, old, white men with beards have dominated large groups of brown people. It's just not right.
Another this that just wasn't right was a thing called The Spanish Inquisition. We visited the Museum dedicated to the Inquisition here in Lima. It was basically a dungeon where people were interrogated as to their religious beliefs and then tortured, and frequently killed, when they answered "incorrectly". It strikes one as being quite ironic that, around all the world, the Godhead, (i.e., one GOD or another) is always quoted as being a cause for peace and unity, while at the same time, in reality, the Godhead has been one of the leading causes of death over the history of man. This fact is indeniable, and in current times we risk heading even deeper into this craziness. The Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Cathars were good examples Christian thinking gone berserk. Islam is not exactly a peaceful religion either, despite it's name translating to "submission" and it's claims of a peaceful core. Judaism has it's violence in Israel, Gaza and The West Bank. It is insane to think that you can convert the rest of the world to your way of thinking and believing, and if it doesn't work out, just kill the non-believers. In today's world of globalized politics mixing with so many versions of religion and weaponry, we really have to hope that those who enjoy the "my God has a bigger PeePee than your God" battles, will allow cooler heads to prevail. Anyway, on to the museum. What is was, basically, was a life size model of what was happening in this place at the time. Potential non-believers were tried and tortured to determine whether they would live in freedom, be imprisoned, or be burned at the stake. The tortures were horrendous. It is hard to believe that humans have come up with such unhuman ways of hurting each other. Here they would frequently hang a person from their wrists, while the wrists were bound behind the back so that the gravity pulling the body down effectively pulled the arms from their sockets. The person would hang for long periods of time in agony. Others were drawn with ropes from each arm and leg and the ropes would pull in four different directions until the body part was wrenched from the body. Chairs with spikes in them, (you can figure this one out) the placing of legs in wooden stocks with a wedge hammered in between the feet, (like in the Stephen King movie Misery) and all sorts of other sadistic things. The irony being that these sadistic practices were supposedly used to find out which people were sadistic. The prisoners were kept all the while in cold, dark holes with no light, food, or contact with other humans. There seems to be a disconnect between the genuine love for God, which can only be good in its simplicity and intention, and the fanaticism which more and more frequently defines our global perception of Christians and Muslims in various parts. It seems to me that God himself would rather not have his/her children dropping to a level below animal, to spend great amounts of time and energy concocting slow and torturous deaths for others. On this little, blue, spinning globe, the odds of human life happening the way that is has are incredibly low. We, as living creatures, face so many possible extinctions, and yet as a people, as a species of being, we spend so much time not helping each other to survive, but rather helping each other to die. On the other hand, with the looming global population crisis, maybe it is just as well that we kill each other off. Save Mother Nature some time and a few drops of sweat. This museum made an impression on me. It was a reminder that human nature is a thing that often contradicts itself. Humans, all in the same moment, have the ability to be immensly pious in one respect, and vastly evil in another. It's quite a thing.
Matteo finished his classes in Lima on friday by getting an A on the final exam!! Yay for A's! Maybe I would have done better in high school if it wasn't the most torturous experience of my life!! Ha ha! It's funny how we can do great at things that we actually like. I had a great time with my friends from the school and today my family is having a big going away meal. Marta is cooking something that smells like heaven, Aji de Gallina, so I am stoked. I will definatly be sad to leave here though. I get the feeling that if I was in this same situation for another month, I would be almost fluent and almost Peruvian!! It is a great place to be. I am leaving in the morning for Cusco to visit Machu Picchu. It sits at almost 12,000 feet elevation and the word is that el sorrocho (elevation sickness) is pretty heinous. I am ready for whatever may come, stay tuned amigos.
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