From Noon To Midnight and Beyond

Last Saturday, I danced for 14 hours.  Fourteen hours? You ask. Were you training for some sort of Peruvian salsa competition or the next season of So You Think You Can Dance? Nope. Because apparently fourteen hours doesn´t qualify as marathon dancing in Peru; it´s just a typical Saturday at Embarcadero 41.

Playing card décor.

It all started when my friend asked if my roommates/coworkers and I would like to be put on Saturday´s list at Embarcadero. Having grown accustomed to such lists and their privileges (no covers, no waiting in line), I happily agreed.  He told me the location and the name of the list we´d be on.

¨Great.  And what time should we meet you?¨

¨Around 1PM.¨

¨1PM?¨ I asked, thinking he was surely confusing the abbreviations used to indicate early morning clubbing hours with those of Saturday afternoon napping.  It certainly wasn´t out of the question to arrive at a club in Peru at 1AM, but 1PM?

¨Yeah, 1PM,¨ he confirmed, not seeming to think anything of it. ¨We can spend the afternoon there dancing, then eat something and go clubbing again in the evening.¨

It´s not the idea of daytime drinking that made the 1PM start time sound foreign; most Americans of drinking age have done their fair share of afternoon (and early morning) tailgating for football games and concerts.  It was the intimidating idea that my afternoon hours would be spent inside a jammed packed club, dancing until my muscles ached, rather than in a spacious parking lot with comfortable folding chairs.

How would I make it?

But my friend promised we´d have a good time, and Embarcadero delivered. The day held many surprises, from cover bands and on-stage contests to all the free glow sticks, balloons and felt hats a girl could want. When we were tired of dancing, we refueled with large servings of pollo a la brasa and chaufa at a nearby restaurant.  Then we were back out on the town again (this time at a proper hour) for our second wind of drinks and dancing. 

You know how you hear those Top 40s songs about dancing until 4 o´clock in the morning? As you bop your head to the beat and mouth the words you´re probably thinking, ¨nobody in their right mind actually dances until four in the morning.¨

Make no mistake, my friend.  In Lima they do.

On Second Languages

What´s tricky about a second language is that it is the most unreliable friend you can have. Before heading south, I thought I had made some sort of silent pact with the Spanish language:  I´d remember all of the irregular, nearly unrecognizable conjugations of the verb ir and in return, the language would be patient with me, supplying me with vocab words and grammatical structures at my most desperate hours. But when those desperate hours arrive, my Spanish flakes on me.  And then, typical of any audacious friend who´s prone to disappoint, it comes back to me in fluent spurts of friendship, never acknowledging its previous betrayal. 

You might be thinking that the flakiness of my Spanish is not a reflection on the language itself, but rather my understanding of it. That´s likely true.  My seven years of study have prepared me for lengthy discussions about literature—the metáforas of a Neruda poem, the influence of modernismo and simbolismo in Borges´ work—but leave me at an utter loss when it comes to describing the time I fell off my backyard swingset and broke my arm.  My fumbling description of the Liberty Bell as a must-see historic site in Pennsylvania also leaves something to be desired. (Mainly the word ¨bell¨--try describing the Liberty Bell in Spanish without that word.  Here´s what I came up with: Churches have them? They ring? And finally: the sound they make caused Quasimodo to become deaf? Always falling back on the literary…)

Despite the awkwardness and discomfort of these scenarios, the unexpected upside is that I´m using language more creatively than I ever have before. Fluency might remain on the tip of my tongue, just about ready to roll its first r (but not quite)—and that may not be such a bad thing, especially for an aspiring writer.  Often we take first languages for granted, spewing off any hackneyed phrase or nondescript vocabulary word that comes to mind. But a second language just beyond our comprehension forces us to see the world differently, to make connections we might not otherwise. 

Kitchen counter plate tectonics. 

Take, for example, a conversation my roommate and I had with one of our Peruvian friends while preparing dinner last night. We were discussing (in English) the tremor we felt yesterday here in Lima, and our friend was trying to describe why Lima is particularly seismic. Fumbling for the exact words in English, he used our kitchen counter for a makeshift lesson on plate tectonics. The coastline of Peru, Lima included, sits on the edge of two plates—the South American Plate and the Nazca Plate, the latter of which is sinking underneath the former. In our kitchen plate tectonic scenario, the top counter represented Lima, the bottom represented the ocean. He demonstrated that because the plates moving below Lima continue to collide, scientists fear that Lima will eventually just break off into the ocean.  The distance of the fall was represented by the gap between our two counters. Genius. 

Peruvian Dating for Expat Dummies Cheat Sheet

*Warning: The following article is based on true stories. This could happen to you.  

Dating can be tricky and uncomfortable in any culture, but for me and my roommates, it has soared to new levels of awkwardness during our time abroad. Many incidents have arisen where intentions/motives/customs have gotten lost in translation, so for this entry, I thought we should review the popular For Dummies Dating Cheat Sheet, making a few uniquely Peruvian revisions.

Asking for a First Date:

• For Dummies tip: ¨Offer a specific opportunity (as well as alternative days).¨ 
• Revision: Offer a specific opportunity, as well as alternative days, locations, and times.  Don´t take ¨no¨ for an answer. If she says ¨no¨ she really just needs to be worn down until she says ¨yes.¨ Don´t be afraid to call. Don´t be afraid to call six times in a row, because though she´s clearly avoiding you after the second call, there´s still a chance she might answer the phone by accident.

Tips for Flirting:

• For Dummies tip: ¨Pay attention. No looking like you´re trying to remember if you fed the cat.¨ 
• Revision: Pay attention. Track your desired female at all times. If she says she needs to go to the bathroom, escort her and wait patiently outside.

• For Dummies tip: ¨Lighten up; don´t bulldoze. Telling your date she is incredibly hot isn´t flirting; it´s steering your dating experience into a mountain.¨ 
• Revision: Bulldoze, never lighten up. Telling your date she is incredibly hot is flirting. So is cat-calling or honking at passersby on the street. Who can resist you as you cruise down the streets of Miraflores in your Volkswagon bug? Steering your dating experience directly into a mountain is exactly your intention; doesn´t everyone want to go to Machu Picchu?

Making Safe Connections:

• For Dummies tip: ¨Don´t wait more than a week or two before arranging to see each other in person.  Any longer than that, and you´re just perpetuating a fantasy and building a false sense of intimacy.¨ 
• Revision: Don´t wait more than an hour or two before arranging to see each other in person. Any longer than that, and she may think that you have a life outside of creeping on her.

Using Technology Wisely When You´re Dating:

• For Dummies Tip: ¨After a date, don´t text your date repeatedly hoping for confirmation that the date went well. You wouldn´t call this person again and again, would you? (Would you?) Have some confidence in yourself, and give your date some breathing room. 
• Revision: After a date, text your date repeatedly hoping for confirmation that the date went well. You would call this person again and again, wouldn´t you? (Wouldn´t you?) Don´t give your date breathing room—she might forget about you and start dating other people.

Affirmations:

• For Dummies: ¨A date is only a date—it´s not do-or-die time.¨ 
• Revision: It´s do-or-die time.

Top 5 Most Difficult (Mundane) Things to Do In Lima

A traveler´s truth that my roommates and I have come to know well is that the things we take for granted at home (i.e. buying groceries or mailing a letter) can be big adventures in a foreign country.  At one point or another, the most mundane activities have left all of us puzzled, looking for clarification and explanation from Peruvian friends and co-workers.  Cultural confusion—as opposed to culture shock—is the most accurate label for classifying the following five mundane activities: 

5.) Buying a cell phone
By the third week here, a few of the other interns and I were feeling nostalgic for the convenience, portability, and privacy that a personal cell phone offers. Thus we traversed afar (down the street) to the neighborhood Claro store, one of the biggest cell phone providers in Peru. 

It was a Thursday night, but the place was teeming with disgruntled businessmen and disinterested teenagers, all with one cell-phone related issue or another. But the problem with the phone store wasn´t the sheer volume of traffic: it was the number of lines.  If you´re hoping to get an issue resolved at Claro, you´ll have to stand in at least three separate lines: one to discuss your problem/purchase, one to pay for your problem/purchase, and one to pick up your purchase.

That description might not do justice to the stress. You´re probably thinking that the store has nice, orderly lines right next to one another for speed and efficiency—a sweet, if naïve, thought. So now picture that there are 25 different lines with about a half dozen customers in each, packed so tightly together that it becomes nearly impossible to tell whether or not you´re in the right line. And the most frustrating part? The first salesperson you meet always has easy access to the storage cabinet that contains the cell phone you need. Wanted: efficiency expert.

The most stressful ATM en el mundo.

4.) Using Your Bank´s ATM
Yes, you read that subtitle correctly. This isn´t a grievance against using any old ATM in Peru, but the ATM where I actually set up a bank account one month ago. Insert card, get no cash. I´ve tried to withdraw soles.  I´ve tried to withdraw dollars.  I´ve tried to withdraw different amounts each time. I´ve tried to withdraw it at different branch locations. I´ve tried to withdraw it from checking and savings. Tried to withdraw it holding my breath, with fingers crossed, with one eye open…

3.) Crossing the street
My friend Eric describes crossing the streets of Lima as having ¨a sort of Darwinian logic.¨ In this mad world, a ¨walk¨ sign doesn´t mean walk, and a driver beeping and waving his hand at you doesn´t mean you have the right of way. 

2.) Going to the movies
In the absence of cable or Netflix, my roommates and I decided to venture out for an evening film at Larcomar. We surveyed the not-so-thrilling selection of movies until we found one that caught our eye: Me enamoré de Nueva York (New York, I Love You).  Theater #12—4:50 p.m.  Price: S/. 18. My roommate approached the counter window to purchase our tickets:

--¨Hola. Tres para Me enamoré en Nueva York.¨
The cashier pointed to another line--shocker.  (Why are there always so many lines?) We sauntered over there, confused about the direction we should be heading.  With each line we passed, the cashier pointed to the next one, until finally we were at the exact opposite end of the place we started.  We waited in line some five minutes more before we reached the front of the new line.
--¨Hola. Tres para Me enamoré en Nueva York.¨ My roommate tried again.  This time it sounded more like a question.
--¨Setenta y cinco soles.¨ Seventy-five soles?  Mathematically, that couldn´t be right.
--¨¿Cuánto cuestan?¨ My roommate repeated.
--¨Setenta y cinco.  Es sala bar.¨ 
--¨Que es esto?¨ What´s that?
--¨VIP.¨ The cashier said.  VIP? What did that mean—that they were going to deliver gold-dusted popcorn to our seats?
--¨No, queremos los regulares.¨

The cashier shook his head, annoyed.  Defeated, we got out of line.

1.) Buying 1 Liter Bottles of Beer
There´s not much to relay about this one because six weeks later, we´re still confused.  My roommate managed to buy a liter her first day here but has been unsuccessful ever since.  We´ve been able to buy beer cans and small bottles, bottles of liquor and wine, but not liters of beer.  Here are a few theories we´ve had, in flashes of brilliance and confusion:

•    One liter permitted per customer (Disproven)
•    Purchase prohibited past a certain hour (Half-disproven: Sale of alcoholic beverages in supermarkets ends at 11PM.  But we haven´t been able to purchase the bottles at more reasonable hours either, like 3PM).
•    Purchase limited to Peruvian citizens/banned for expat consumption (No strong evidence to support this, though a leading theory for some time.)

All we know is that the word ¨deposit¨ has been thrown around a few times, but how that deposit is made, and how that first bottle of beer can be purchased, remains a mystery.

Got Milk?

Laive Entera: Look for the smiling cow

Picture It: In Metro last week, I found myself in a milk lover´s nightmare: supermarket shelves stocked only with milk substitutes—rows and rows of coconut, pineapple, and soy parading themselves as milks in flashy blue, yellow, and pink bottles. I frantically searched for the unassuming bottle of Danlac milk I had bought the previous week and began to silently panic about the future osteoporosis that might ensue after six milkless months abroad. Nothing on the top shelves, nothing on the bottom ones.  My bones felt frailer by the minute.  I was just about to resign myself to a milkless existence when I found what I was looking for. Well, sort of. I was looking for bottled milk; what I found was bagged.

Bagged milk? While the initial thought might seem puzzling to most Americans (How do you pour it? Where do you store it after it´s opened?), bagged milk—most commonly found in Latin American and Middle Eastern countries—actually makes a lot of sense. For one, its packaging uses less plastic than its plastic jug counterpart. After bagged milk is opened, it can be poured into washable, reusable containers.

Containers That Hold Bagged Milk:  In the absence of a jug or jar in which to pour the bagged milk I bought (and too cheap/lazy to go out and get one), at some point or another I considered transferring my bagged milk into a beer bottle. The only thing that stopped me was that I also lacked a cap to seal the bottle.  Other containers I would have considered for milk storage if readily available: Coke bottle, sugar bowl, vase.

Ironically, in the meantime I found good old Danlac at a grocery store down the road.  So I ended up waiting until I had drunk the Danlac milk and reused its container as a receptacle for my bagged milk, thus defeating any noble intention I had of saving the planet while building stronger bones.

How to Use Bagged Milk: The experience of transferring milk from bag to bottle for the first time is a strange one. In my estimation, it´s a five-step process:

1.)    Place reusable container and milk bag together in kitchen sink.
2.)    Cut corner of milk bag with scissors or kitchen knife, careful not to puncture any part of the bag containing the milk itself.
3.)    Delicately grip corner of bag and tip it at approximately a 30 degree angle to meet lip of plastic jug.
4.)    Begin squirting milk from bag to bottle. Treat the milk bag like a tube of toothpaste: press gently at first, and then, when the bag looks nearly deflated, squeeze the bag from bottom to top to remove the last bits of liquid.
5.)    Cap milk and refrigerate or, if you´re like me, enjoy immediately.

So Much Cooler Abroad: ¨En la lista¨ in Lima

Curious things happen while abroad. Sometimes you find yourself lost in the cultural jumble at the Claro phone store, scratching your head and wondering why you have to stand in three separate lines to buy a cell phone. Sometimes you find yourself unable to understand a word that comes out of the supermarket cashier´s mouth, despite seven years of Spanish classes.  And sometimes you find yourself ¨en la lista¨ (on the list) at one of the hottest clubs in the hippest district of Lima. 

My fortunate brush with exclusivity is thanks to four degrees of separation—a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend.  The mystery man that gets me into Peña del Carajo every week is named Clive. I´ve never met him, and I don´t have the slightest idea what he looks like. Until last night, I didn´t even know his name. But as I am pushing my way through the throngs of anxious club-goers outside the main doors each week, if someone mentions that I am ¨with Clive¨, I get motioned to the front of the line.

Wall art at Peña del Carajo, Barranco.

Those who know me at home would immediately recognize that Peña del Carajo, located in the nightlife hotbed district of Barranco, is too hip for me. By 11PM, the street outside the club is bumper-to-bumper taxi traffic; hundreds of college-aged Limeños push through the crowds in their coolest threads: off-the-shoulder sweaters and leather boots for the ladies, Abercrombie and Gino polos for the fellas.  There´s women selling big, sparkly earrings and men selling packs of cigarettes by the door; inside, there´s graffiti and Warhol-style paintings on the walls.  The music spins on into the wee hours of the morning—it´s suddenly 2, 3, or 4 am, well past the time when even after-hours bars shut their doors in U.S. cities. Yesterday, we saw an artist bring his easel onstage. There, in the midst of thumping music and crowds so thick you can barely swing a hip without bumping into someone, he completed an elaborate profile sketch.

It´s the kind of place I would never think to venture back home, opting instead for a house party or a dive bar.  Yet the unusual mix of salsa and reggaeton, eighties classics and top 40 is strangely satisfying at Peña del Carajo. It´s not that I´ve lost the identity I had before I moved abroad: when I return to Pittsburgh, I´ll probably find myself with the same habits and preferences.

Routine is comfortable, but the word ¨routine¨ itself implies a life played on repeat: nights out at the same bars in the same neighborhoods, having the same conversations. Ready for a new beat.

Let´s Go Humans

The glow of a flashlight and the sound of my roommate´s backpack zipper served as my alarm last Thursday. It was too early for sunshine, too early for any sound above whisper.  Yet it was almost as if we had slept in, despite someone informing me that it was 4:30 in the morning; the day before we had awaken even earlier, at three—dead time—the hour when Peruvian legend says ghosts and spirits lurk among the living.

Halfway up: the view of our starting place

Colca Canyon

The reason for my early rising both mornings was to trek through Colca Canyon, which plunges some 13,648 feet from peak to valley, ranking it one of the deepest canyons in the world, second only to a neighboring Peruvian canyon, Cotahausi.  The first day, my fellow trekkers and I had done the ¨easy¨ part of the hike: six hours from the top down and through some of the canyon´s village communities.  The second day, we were set to trek three hours straight up the canyon, with an arrival time projected shortly after 8 AM.

After a cup of mate de coca (used ubiquitously as a cure for altitude sickness in the Andes), we began our climb. Other tour groups had begun to ascend the mountain ahead of us, so as we raised our heads to gauge the canyon, we could see their flashlights snaking along the path of switchbacks. They were groups from all over the world—the States, Germany, Australia—who´d come to trace the footsteps of the Collaguas and Cabanas cultures from pre-Incan to the present. Except trekking has never been an occasion for people who live in the Colca Valley, rather a part of everyday life.  Some of them, our guide Carlitos informed us, can make this journey from top to bottom and back up in 2 hours and 17 minutes—making our total trek time almost five times slower than the natives´.

Considering this, my fellow trekkers and I marveled at how ridiculous we looked, dressed in our hiking gear, armed with water bottles, and panting uncontrollably. Against the backdrop of the canyon, we seemed like infants, our footing wobbly and uncertain, without the benefit of years of practice. 

Though I wanted to enjoy the view of the canyon—the plunging brown and gray rock cliffs, the cacti and tufts of grass clinging determinedly to patches of dusted earth, where no other vegetation dared to grow—I found my thoughts consumed by the placement of each footstep: how I could boost myself to the next rock, how I could avoid mule droppings while continuing to climb. There was no space for musings, for mind games, for triviality.  The canyon demanded my full attention.

Carlitos, our guide

Carlitos led the way, a Peruvian flag tucked into his yellow knapsack like a red and white cape. When we lingered too long at the viewpoints to gulp our water or snack on apples and trail mix, he´d lower his voice and say: ¨Let´s go humans.¨ The reference to Transformers is fitting because compared to us, Carlitos is a marvel, a machine: he estimates that he´s hiked Colca Canyon six hundred times.

The pace was slow and the sun was hot. By 7AM, we´d stripped down from heavy sweaters to T-Shirts.  Moments seemed to go on for hours; each one of us was pushed close to our physical limits.  But when we took those final steps —jelly-legged and sweaty—to reveal the view of the condor exactly three hours later, there were high-fives all around. And, most importantly, there was the promise of a hearty breakfast ahead.