October 10, 2007

From SATA-Peru-2007

The door slams open at 7:30 a.m., but neither Hans nor I notice because were sound sleep. Then I feel someone sit down on my bed and realize that it’s just Darwin, full of energy. I’m not sure why he’s here, but I welcome the wake up visit because I probably would have continued to sleep since the alarm should have woken me up already. Darwin stays for only a few minutes as he dishes out some inappropriate Spanish slang at us. We hurry to breakfast and then off to Spanish class. It was a good class, because we did a lot of speaking, which always helps the learning process. We also worked on some subjunctive and our ability to form opposites.

After Spanish class on Mondays and Wednesdays we have Ethnohistory with Ana Maria and in class we discussed the difference and position of the peasant class. We looked specifically at whether or not the Peruvian peasants are inside or outside the capitalist class as well as their specific modes of production. After class, I went back to the hotel to read a portion of Manuel’s thesis for Thursday’s class as well as working on a Spanish composition, which was assigned to help us learn how to use the subjunctive in the Spanish language.

During this time I also had lunch, and before our Quechua class at 5, a bunch of us went out and about to explore more of Cusco. We stumbled upon an underground mall off of Avenida del sol, where we found many clothes stores as well as stores for fashion and haircuts. I consider it a blessing that we stumbled into here because on Monday Shana gave me a Mohawk with a pair of dull scissors. The haircut wasn’t terrible, but was terribly uneven and needed some fixing up. I decided to take off my hat and show the stores my head of hair, hoping that someone would force me into their store. Sure enough, a lady waved me in and everyone in the store proceeded to laugh hysterical at my hair. She asked me if I wanted my hair to be one length and I told her that I liked the style of having it long in the middle, which the ladies again laughed at (I’m not sure their familiar with the Mohawk in Peru). Despite the fact that she was unfamiliar with the style, she fixed me up and 7 soles later (about $2.50) I was on my way with enough confidence to keep my hat off.

At 5, I went off to Quechua class where Gina taught us how to use natural verbs (such as rain, snow, hail, wind) in quechua, among other things. After dinner, I read more and did some more homework, before checking out this bar that Rick, Hans and I had found a few nights before. About 6-7 of us went and it turned out to be a pretty cool place, because a DJ was playing some form of house music. We stayed out until around 12 chatting with the DJ and the guys who worked at the bar.

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October 9, 2007 October 11, 2007