First Update from Perú

What should I tell you?

How should I answer your question?

The dust from the unfinished streets is being blown upwards in torrents by the hundreds of small taxis weaving their way ungracefully through the throng on Avda. De Cultura. The sun is so bright that when the specks of earth shoot up into the air, they sparkle and shine like the Incan gold still hidden in these mountains. Small, dark people laugh and chat on the street and indigenous women wearing top hats and dark knee-length skirts with petticoats tote huge loads on their backs in brightly colored blankets. Flashes of red, green, blue, orange, pink, and yellow contribute to the energy of Cusco.  On one of the biggest streets in the city buildings shy below 7 stories, children play on crumbled walls and llama sized potholes keep the taxi drivers clear-minded.

I grip my bag from the pharmacy tightly and look out the window. The sun burns my eyes and I quickly glance back inside the cab. The driver, Roger, is looking at me in the rear-view mirror. I smile to make it seem like I intend on answering his question. He asks again in case I haven’t understood.

“Tell me, how do you find South America?”

What should I tell you?

Should I tell you that I find the land beautiful? The hills and mountains and rivers are all too impressive as to not be exaggerated. If National Geographic and Apollo had a child, it would be South America. The sea rolls in blue on white beaches with tiny black stones. The valleys are deep and still and cool. The stars light up the night like tiny points of hope and the mammoth snow covered mountains cause the unbelieving to question their faith.

Or should I say that the people are accommodating, sweet, and helpful? Because they mostly are. I could tell you that the men in Chile make a sucking sound when women walk by and yell horrifically vulgar things. You can’t (if fate endowed you with ovaries) cross the street without a car swerving to cut you off so that the men inside can stare-literally sit and stare-at you as you fumble to move around them. I could mention that the women are stoic looking. In Chile they are beautiful with long, loose curls and blue or green eyes.

What else do you care to know?

I like that fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, legumes and sugar are so cheap. In Santiago, a girl can live for two weeks on $14 worth of food from La Vega, one of the largest markets in South America. The Central Market in Cusco boasts the same products but for even less. A careful girl can eat for two weeks on $10. This is a model that I wish the US could figure out a way to follow, roughly. It can’t be overlooked that the food prices are a reflection of poverty and it’s odorous reinforcement.

Did you know that I was walking by a fence and surprised a little sparrow who was sitting on the wire? It peeped and fluttered but got confused in the wire. Panicked, I peeped and fluttered and got confused by the sparrow. It stopped moving and stared at me, tiny chest inflating and deflating rapidly and I stared back, chest inflating and deflating rapidly.

Chileans spend 12-14 hours at work every day. They spend about 6 of those hours on coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, talking, walking around, looking out the window, watching youtube, eating, making-out, and ignoring customers.

Street dogs abound in Santiago. They are mostly little fatties who love to be pet and will follow you like a friend while you walk. It’s easy to forget that your hand is resting on their head, fingers slowly scratching the dip right above their eyes as you navigate the sea of busy people on the streets. The fur is soft and warmed by the pulse of blood in their foreheads. It’s the one tiny point of heat available in that winter-y city so grey and pavement-choked. They stick with you until you go into a building and then they wait for a second as though you might turn back. If you do, you’ll see them disappear into the throng of business suits. If they waited a second longer, they’d see you do the same with fingers already turning cold.

Does that make sense, Roger?

When I had a raging fever and hallucinations for the second time in Chile, I stood on my balcony fourteen floors up and gazed down on people’s heads. Maybe parents smooth their children’s hair as they sleep cuddled in blankets at night when they’re young. New lovers strive to know every part of each other in moments stolen from their responsibilities and understanding friends. Girls learn to French braid each other’s hair in grade school. But these moments are heart-breakingly brief in comparison to the duration of life. How intimate it is to gaze at the top of another person’s head! It implies a level of trust. Of comfort. Even though I lack their permission, I lean over the railing in order to get a better look. If any of these passersby die tonight, the universe will know that the tops of their heads have been seen and that no part of them was neglected. If I die tonight, the universe will know that I did not waste the gift of sight on common planes. And hopefully I’m forgiven for the intrusion.

I am ecstatically happy to be living in Perú for awhile, taking Spanish classes and working as a volunteer. I don’t like children but somehow I keep getting put with them. Their fucking genuine smiles, their sweet honest emotions, their fearless approach to love-

Damn kids.

Hey, Roger? I laughed yesterday and meant it, for the first time in months. I couldn’t breathe and that made me laugh harder and then I really couldn’t breathe and that made me dizzy in this altitude.

I’m living with a sweet young married couple from Virginia and am making friends at school.

“Do you guys have a facebook? Not in like a creepy ‘I’m aggressively looking for friends’ way but in a ‘I really think y’all are interesting and we don’t have cell phones here’ way.”

What is it that you’d really like to hear in the five minutes we have left?

Warm air is streaming through the open windows in the cab. It’s bothering my contacts but lifting my mood. The radio is blaring a popular Peruvian song and the bells in the miniscule shrine to Mary that sits on the dashboard are ting ting tinging. I can feel the sun on my right ear, the soft fabric of skirt on my knees, Roger’s stare, the pills splayed in my lap, the itchy seat cover, my labored breath.

A quick note on friends, Roger, but then I won’t speak about Chile again. I didn’t like it there, which was a true maturation aid and a real bitch. Before I arrived I was generally excited to be alive and constantly smiling. After a few months I realized that No. We don’t always make the right decisions. Sometimes it really is better to just give up. We release, we proceed. Tears are recommendable. Friends are essential.

~~Hanna and her boyfriend, Jose, are incredible people. She’s smart and straightforward and a beautiful writer. Jose is as sweet a man as I’ve ever met. He loves Hanna deeply and is gentle in all his mannerisms. When she speaks, he watches her. When he smiles, she blushes. When she tries to pick fights he responds in heavily accented English, “Honnneeeeeyyyyy, what’s the matter?”. I frequently dropped my napkin when we were all at the dinner table so that I could check to see if their hands were clasped. They always were. Somehow, from meeting in Germany to her following him to Chile, from his panic about the seriousness of their relationship to her homesickness, their hands are always clasped tightly as though only love flows through the skin on their palms~~

~~Kristin saved me. A bubbly, energetic and easy-going blonde her beauty is matched by her intelligence. Although we didn’t know each other very well she flew thousands of miles to come see me in Chile. We explored Argentina, La Serena, Cajon del Maipo and “hot” springs (trying to weasel our way out of camping in winter- ick), San Jose del Maipo, Santiago, how to cook rice and veggies a million ways, drinkable yogurt, Yogashala and one of the craziest yoga classes ever, frequented La Chacra for it’s unbeatable vegan desserts and whole-wheat empanadas, taste-tested wines and piscos, avoided my roommate, and practiced Spanish. But a thousand apologies couldn’t make up for my depression the whole five weeks she was there. I was hard to make smile, preoccupied, distant, sad. Santiago was a cold, expensive city and I worked all the time. My dog, friends, family and love were all too damn far away. These fevers kept giving me intense misery and feelings of desolation. Still, Kristin never got outwardly angry or annoyed and was always willing to talk. She told stories and gossip and her unwavering belief in happiness made those weeks bearable and gave me something to look forward to. If she so embodied positivism, then there must be more out there. Now that I’m in Cuzco where it’s warm and scenic and I don’t have to work it’s hard to keep me from smiling, from laughing. Although I wish she were here with me now when I’m so much more like I used to be, nothing has ever meant more than having someone who doesn’t fear your darkest side and instead faithfully endures it with you~~

Yep, Rog-Rog, there’s nothing I could say that would be the whole truth. Honestly, you don’t care much and I’m looking forward to shaving my legs. Would you cluck your understanding when I say I miss all my sisters and one of my best friends is moving to Guam? That I’m worried my brother works too hard and that my grandma’s health is deteriorating? Or would you laugh when I tell you that I love being lost and on my own, that I ate a bug in my soup by accident and started to cry because I killed it or that I want to explore every crevice Perú has to offer whilst singing Discovery’s completely unrelated ‘Can you Discover?’...loudly?  

Would it mean anything to you to hear me say that although love falters and lovers’ eyes turn, that even though depression keeps the brightest smiles from provoking a reaction, when friends leave each others comfort for opposite points on the globe, when your loved ones’ breaths suddenly become precious, would it mean anything if I said that the world is enchanting, loving, hopeful, helpful, fateful, fascinating, endless, and a macrocosm for the beauty of human endurance? These words aren’t enough.

So I smile at Roger in the mirror and answer.