amendment

Lake Titicaca was incredible. You have never seen skies that blue in your life! Well I guess if you have been up to over 15,000 ft. it is likely you have...
I had an awesome few days with a new friend from France who spoke perfect Spanish. But I mean like eloquent-lovely-make-me-wanna-give-up-right-now perfect Spanish. He made me remember why I like traveling alone. Without anything to compare it too it was easy to take for granted things like meeting and talking with lots of new people. He was saying when you travel with friends you tend to just talk to them, hang out with them, etc. Which I imagine can be even more frustrating when they only speak your language. You're not really getting anything out of that.

So. It is now one week until I am back in the United States, pretty much to the hour. I was feeling rather ambivalent about it and all of a sudden I feel this huge urgency to get home! Like this week couldn't pass quickly enough! Good thing because I am leaving a lot of awesome friends and family here and I was worried I wouldn't be willing to go.

My list of things I need to do before I leave:
- Pick up books for auction in Miraflores
- Buy the last few items I have been procrastinating from the artisan shops (and Pisco!)
- Go back to punk music place and buy the CDs I have been lusting after
- Try to hang out with each group of friends at least once
- Visit the non-profit my cousin works at (really should have done that already)
- Go to three really good shows this weekend
- Visit Paracas with my aunt (this is seeming more unlikely with every bullet point)
- Go with my uncle to music store to look at guitars
- Have despedida lunch with family and cry a little

Hmmm I was congratulating myself on having just barely enough money left but looking at how much of my list has to do with buying things I may fall short. Then again that is what credit cards and lack of responsibility are for!

blawgz

Instead of writing a "post" exactly, I am just going to copy+paste a letter I wrote to Robin. I didn't change anything and it cusses so for all my fans that have an aversion to such language, please disengage yourself now.

I can’t believe this Melissa Ethridge song. Or I am just assuming it is the good ‘ol ‘ridge because she is strumming a guitar like she wants to die doing it and singing about George Bush. I could be wrong but I’m probably not. I just started writing this while I was trying to write the conclusion to my program application essay. I hate writing conclusions but I like writing to you. It was a mistake for me to try to write it while I am at a bar anyway. I am like “well, let me just repeat everything I already said.” So today I arrived in Puno, it is one of the towns off of Lake Titicaca. This lake is the highest altitude lake in maybe the whole world or something. I can just reach out and touch the clouds, they are so close. When I was little I got altitude sickness super hard and would spend whole vacation spots puking in the hoe tell room (ok that was just once) so I am really excited that I haven’t felt sick at all! It kinda just feels like I have been spray painting down in the basement of punx palace for a really long time. You know, headache, can’t think, ‘bout to spay up walls, etc. My body definitely hasn’t gotten used to the altitude yet. I just paid a cab a dollar to drive me like five blocks up a hill. Fuck me right? I am not really at a bar, I am at the “rooftop bar” at my hostel. I hate hostels like this I don’t even know what this decision was. You know how old rich people stay at big hotels that have like restaurants and bars and they are like “ohhh I just love how we don’t have to leave the hotel, we can just stay in away from all the robbers and dirty third world country folk!” ? Right? You know? Well, tourism has segued into a “hostel backpackers” version of this. Like “Hey backpacking folk! We speak English so you don’t have to learn another language! Also, we have a bar and restaurant and we are still dirt cheap!” It’s like… such a big fuck you to the real hostels in this world. You know? Closet-sized room, twin bed, cockroaches, all these best amenities. So how did I get here? It started hailing so I started hailing and then told the cab to just take me to any stupid hostel. Life. Not just for breakfast anymore.

I was traveling for a little bit with the dude I am dating. Oh I didn’t tell you I was dating a dude? I wouldn’t have felt like I was an American girl in South America without dating a Latin dude, you know? Last gringa left behind and all that business. The point of this paragraph was to say that we traveled a little together and it was way cooler. Hopping trains, bumming around, selling handcrafts to buy food and beer, etc. and so forth and whatever. But now I am traveling again by myself and I have come to this conclusion: I hate traveling alone. I mean, there are some scrappy type reasons that it is nice, kinda like I can tell myself I am being a strong independent woman. But in all seriousness, I just want you here. I want Amanda here. I want to be video-taping an interview of you in front of a fancy restaurant and I want all my pictures to have your face in them instead of just the gorgeous landscape that would be behind you. Ok, I like documentation but ok, I haven’t been much of an artist lately. My inspiration is gone. Well, when we travel together it’ll be a project. It’ll be an experimentation in all that is real, a documentation on the only real thing in the world which is the individual experience, am I right? They really just played My Chemical Romance, Beyonce, and then U2. Robs, shoot me in the temple with your index finger.

Tomorrow I am visiting the floating islands and I am going to stay the night on one of them. These islands float. Get it? And they can move them. Like when they moved them closer to the mainland during the Shining Path era of glory. Watching the changes in my country of heritage has been strange and uncomfortable throughout my life. The way I see Peru now is so different than the younger years of my life. I mean what is really scarier? Tanks in the streets and the Shining Path blowing shit up like they meant it, or thousands of white tourists flocking to the beach and blogging about the “to-die-for” Peruvian cuisine? Please I am not separating myself from the problem. Although my Peruvian duel-citizenship should take care of all my doubts and unease, no? yes? no?

Robin I love you. I doubt I needed to write you this email as my slack-jawed, english-impaired mouth will be regaling you with the very same topics in just a few short weeks. Speaking of diminishing nouns in a way that is realistically impossible, I really like how Peruvians say “eso cuesta un solcito” as if I were to say “that costs a tiny dollar.” It really sounds like a small sol is less than an entire normal sol, you know?

This has gone on for far too long. I love you and I will call you soon.

one more thing

I visited the ruins of Caral. The oldest city in all of the Americas! The just discovered it 16 years ago and they are only 40% done uncovering it. While I was there I carefully listened to the music made by my friends. This has been an accidentally developed tradition of mine throughout the exciting places I have gone. I just feel like... how many people can say that someone listened to THEIR band while they were at the oldest city in the whole western hemisphere? Especially while it is in the process of being discovered, right?

the book

Have you ever tried dancing in socks on a hardwood floor to Jackson 5? Because it is one of the finest things I have ever experienced in life. Weeks weeks weeks. My mom was here and my dad was here… bueno my dad is here right now! He is sitting next to me on this couch watching TV. When my mom was here we went to all kinds of fancy restaurants because my mom really likes food and likes to try exciting new types of foods. You know what doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all? Being around rich, fancy people. I know so many people who are like “going to expensive places makes me uncomfortable” but I don’t really get that. Which leads me to this question on the subject of social work: job :and: school applications when it asks you to explain what kind of experience you have with diversity. What experience do you have with people of other races, with people of other genders, of other cultures, of other economic standing, of other sexualities. How can I answer this question? Life is a big treadmill your foot keeps falling and it isn’t like you can stop it, you encounter all kinds of people every day. Or is that just me? That can’t just be me. What kind of people are applying to these jobs and programs that are able to categorically list what experiences they have had with diversity? Well, today I interacted with a Chinese man and yesterday I am pretty sure I talked with a gay man but maybe he was “bisexual.” I AM ENTERING SPANISH EXPLATIVES HERE IN MY BRAIN BUT NOT ESCRITO. That treadmill metaphor was awful but can it segue into me saying that I have been going to the gym every day with my dad? I can jog through so many Rage Against the Machine songs now-- it’s really top-notch.
Ok, RATM. I don’t usually go to bumpin’ clubs in the United States but can anyone tell me if they generally play Rage Against the Machine, Violent Femmes, and Refused? Because I rather like discoteques here and the reason is explicitly that they play JAMS ALL THE TIME. Ok they play some generic rap and hip-hop and other quality grind-up-on-yer-man music but when you are jumping around in a room with a bunch of Peruvians in shiny halter tops who all know every single word to Smells Like Teen Spirit, you gotta wonder if just maybe you are experiencing something altogether unique. Songs, music, lyrics and notes and stuff I have been writing music on a guitar. Not like music I can actually play because my calluses are still developing so much that I can’t play as fast as I am writing. Really the first time I have written music on a guitar and it kinda sucks so I have been listening to Panic at the Disco in the hopes I will feel better about myself. And it’s working. A special thank you note will be sent to: the human ability to feel superior based on the judgment of others. I have been thanking my human qualities as of lately. An email chain between Teague and I left me feeling grateful and happy about disapproval and sadness. I remember a time when I felt lonely, I felt this longing for a feeling, a person, a time, or a place.
But the emotions are not being felt as much as they are being looked at now. My little heartstrings are being pulled in the same directions but I am not living it, I am looking at it. Like everything is a pipe organ and I am just watching the frustration sound and then the satisfaction chime then the insecurity and then the lust and they are all equal, you know? My emotions don’t seem to be swelling up to insurmountable heights anymore, they are just pulsing in and out and it isn’t really affecting ME. And what is that me that I speak of? Take it away, Alan Watts.

bsw

So I am starting the social work program at PSU in September and I have to write an essay for the application (I can imagine everyone I know here going, "so wait you haven't actually gotten it yet?" just like every time I assumed I would get a house or job). I haven't written an essay in maybe 9 months and I tried to just start writing on this subject of "Why Do You Want to Be a Social Worker?"

I just wrote this hoping it would evolve but it went further and further from being what they are probably looking for:

I want to have a career in social work because I need to pick something. I have always had a drive to change the world, battle the evils, and be a superhero but as the days keep coming, the more I am realizing that this battle is more subtle than I had imagined. Individuals are becoming more conscious in regards to production and consumption, as well as humanity and diversity. During which, large autonomous bodies of power such as corporations and governments are becoming less concerned with the very same subject matter. As this fight continues, we (and I say “we” as referring to the collection of individual human bodies) are lucky if we break even. We are lucky if we live in a culture that allows us to choose happily-produced, well-lived, and securely traded products. Because only by consuming consciously are we contributing at all the superhero team. But this is only one part of the cycle, are we not to assume that the currency you are using is coming from somewhere? So this brings the questions of who you are working for, what do they do, and what are you doing? Let me complete my previous statement: I want to have a career in social work because I need to pick something and social work is the one and only thing I could imagine devoting my time and my talents to. I don’t want to work for corporate profit, I don’t want to work to consume or produce. This battle is heated enough on the field of our everyday lives and for 40 hours a week I will be safe. I want to work in social work because for those working hours I am a human interacting with other humans because that’s what we’re made for. We’ll talk about problems, about the battlefield, and about food and technology and love and fear. I am really good at talking, I am really good at listening. I was made for this career like I was made to be a human.

quejarse

Marianna and I were sitting at the beach, she was writing in her journal and I pulled mine out to do the same so she asked me if I write in mine everyday like she does. I laughed and showed her the half page which I had written in September and the half page which I was then about to write four months later. My blog writing habits are apparently only a little bit better.

BARR lyrics:
“And there is no need to even complete a thought because the situation is so whole and complete itself.”

I finally remember the word for “complain” after being sick for over two weeks. I felt it coming on New Years Eve and opted to go out anyway, knowing I would be sick the next day. My lovely life has been otherwise kind to me.
A few days after the turn of the year, I went to go visit some friends in Huancayo. MEJORC decided that we will pursue a partnership with Expand Peru, which is a non-profit based out of Huancayo. So, I went and stayed with my beautiful Huancaina family, met some of their new volunteers, and gave big hugs and kisses to the old ones. Marianna and I packed bags full of movies, blankets, pizza, and chips and took it all over to the orphanage for a pajama party! I love those kids, but jesus they can be jerks. Actually it’s pretty funny because they are all young and stuffed with hormones so supervising a pajama party was like remembering the days of old surrounded by sexually-frustrated high-school band nerds. We went out to dinner another night and this nightclub that they always talk about but that I had never been to. The dudes from Denmark were so confused when we left at 3am to go home. Europeans party way too hard for me sometimes.
Marianna, Virginia, and I all took the top VIP night bus back to Lima together. It was my first experience on a bus cama and I felt like I was in first class on an airplane or something. Spending a week with these two girls was super fun and really helpful with the varying levels of language competence. I was able to ask when I didn’t know a word in Spanish AND I learned how to say a variety of useful French phrases!
During the weekend I could feel I was getting pretty sick again but decided to continue in my plans to go with Marianna and Ruben to Punta Hermosa, a beach about half an hour south of Lima. We went and stayed at an incredible house there with really lovely people, a balcony, and of course an ocean. The waves felt great and the food our hosts cooked was in every way magnificent but my black sinus cloud dampened my time. I ended up leaving a day earlier than everyone else. I felt sorry for myself that an otherwise good time was ruined but then I realized if I was going to be sick anyway, no better place to do it than lying on a warm beach all day, right?

The food I having been eating lately makes me indescribably happy. A strange little shiver of annoyance washes over me when I think about returning to American food. It would be one of my top reasons to never come home again.

So now I am lying in bed surrounded in my own germs, a mug of tea, and soda crackers. I am thinking about instead lying in the hammock of a balcony in Punta Hermosa and Marianna calling to me from inside, “Mónica? Estás muriendo?” because I do in fact feel like I am dying.

Lima, Peru

I am officially living in the house that my father grew up in! Going to spend over two months here and I am already off to an awesome start. Last night I left the house in search of food and ran into my aunt on the corner. We went out to dinner, bought a map, got ice cream, waited in holiday lines. I met a man at the mall who grew up down the street from my dad and all my uncles and aunts when they were kids! Today my cousin, his girlfriend, and I walked around Lima, got sandwiches and tattoos. I just walked to the corner store under a beautiful smog sunset, down the streets that my father did! Walked through the intersection that defined his entire childhood. Now I am helping my aunt, my cousin, and her boyfriend string up Christmas lights. Tonight we will dine on the traditional Christmas Eve midnight turkey dinner! Man it's good to be Peruvian.

living a fantasy fairy tale

I am going to start this blog post off with something Robin said to me: “monica, you could bend this world and make it get down on it's hands and knees and bark like a dog for you.”
That is exactly how I feel right now. I feel like some kind of queen after the way my life has been unfolding in such an incredible, peaceful way the past couple weeks. After Cuenca, I went to Baños which gets its name from the natural thermal baths. It was so gorgeous and I rented a bike. My first bike ride in six months and it was like 5 hours long! The bike also meant that I got to stop whenever I wanted to take pictures! I am getting pretty good at the self-timer. I met a guy who lived in a little town called Rio Verde and he showed me around the waterfalls and the city. I met so many incredible, helpful people! I feel so grateful when I can meet people to talk to in Spanish because invariably other foreigners will opt for English with me. Damn international language.
Actually, I retract. I was just thinking today that I should be really grateful I already know English, it’s extremely useful. That thought occured after a guy from Berlin approached me to talk about the Mumia Abu Jamal shirt and the Camille Rose Garcia tattoo. So awesome!
So yes… I highly suggest Baños just as it had been highly suggested to me. After Baños I took a bus to Guayaquil. Actually, first I hitchhiked to Riobamba! At this point I need to make a public apology to my parents for hitchhiking alone in South America. Sorry mom. Sorry dad. Sorry World Tourism Organization.
Immediately upon arrival in Guayaquil, I knew I was going to be so happy to leave the next morning. But don’t worry I didn’t forget to salute the four sets of glorious golden arches on the way from the bus terminal to the hotel. I left my stupid over-priced hotel briefly but it was already getting late and Guayaquil is known as the most dangerous city in Ecuador. So after enraging a man by accidentally calling him “señora” I retreated to my hotel room, sinking into a deep Seinfeld haze triggered by the level of discomfort I was feeling.
Finally I am at the beach and I went swimming in my familiar Pacific today and laid in the sun long enough to burn the parts of me that I forgot never see the sun. After being down here for so long I don’t have to wear sunscreen anymore on my face and arms so I forget about like… the back of my legs and other typically-shaded body parts. What? That wasn’t supposed to sound like I was at a nude beach. I really just mean the upper legs.
I met a lovely woman from Amsterdam and we shared a couple meals. Also, I just ordered a beer and the guy was like “no beer on Sundays. All of Ecuador doesn’t serve alcohol on Sunday” and now I feel guilty for disgracing their sacred native beer tradition. Actually there was a holiday going on in Baños when I was there and supposedly they also don’t serve alcohol on holidays but my recently acquired friends and I speak-easied long into the night anyway. Where there is a will, there is a way.

I finished my project and now I am traveling through Ecuador!

Yes, I am sitting in a “common room” at a hostel in Cuenca, Ecuador. It is day #3 of being a tourist and I have decided that I am pretty terrible at it but want to continue trying. I am in this historical city, full of gorgeous buildings and rivers and delicious restaurants, tours, I don’t know… mountain climbing, jungle treks, whatever else you are supposed to do as a tourist. And yet, I spent my day reading in a park and taking pictures of anarchist graffiti. I did attempt in the morning to visit tour places but I just stood outside and looked at the happy foreigners canoodling with happy indigenous folk and then I walked away. I started feeling a little anxious like “what am I doing here?, maybe I should consider cutting my trip shorter, etc. etc.” But then I read Eduardo Galeano in the park. You know, about the open veins of Latin America and what the conquests left behind. It was exactly what I would want to do in a historic city in Latin America! Robin said “uh, DUH” when I told her. Also, I talked with these women who run a women’s shelter for a while. I asked them about their lawyers and psychiatrists and everything and they gave me information to read.
There is so much that you find out traveling that no one could ever tell you. There are so many tour books and websites but the activity runs deeper than that. You know like what’s your bag system? Mine is a little backpack inside of a big backpack. And how do you prepare for the next city? I draw maps in my notebook! See, I just figured that one out today.
So I am getting on a bus to Baños tomorrow, which is a beautiful town operating almost solely for tourism! I know that going in but still everyone I talk to is always like “ohhh you have GOT to go to Baños” so I figure, why not? I am going to ride a bicycle which I have not done in six months. And I am going to go hiking and lay in the natural hot springs. Ok, so now I have a plan! Then from Baños I am going to go to Guayaquil and maybe meet up with a friend from Peru and then go north to Canoa. I met a couple women tonight who are going to “pick my brain” about Peru and tell me all about what to do in Ecuador.
Get it?? At the beginning of this post I complained about not understanding tourism and now I am forging my own path! Growth!

I just stopped writing this and had a really long conversation with this guy from Australia and he was surprised that I was from United States because I “have an accent.” Oops, now I feel like one of those people that goes to England for a month and speaks with an accent the rest of their lives. It wears off though. I just had it today because I have been speaking Spanish consistently for a few days. Now I am going to be hesitant to speak with my family or friends because I will embarrassed. Please don’t judge me.

none of you should see this in time

Mostly because you should all be hanging out with loved ones and eating the most delicious foods on earth.

I just now realized it is Thanksgiving! Normally I try to write blog entries ahead of time but I think I'll improv this one. I am writing this to say hi to my family on a day that they love and enjoy because it usually means being close to each other and bathing in the warmth of kind words and dangerously full stomachs. The years that I haven't been around my family, I try to call or send them a video (even though one year it was just all my friends singing tubthumping by chumbawumba) and this year I pretty much did nothing at all. Am I trying to say that this is an apologetic blog post? Yes.

When we sit at the table we do that thing where we all go "I'm thankful for blahblahblah" so here is my table-round family warmth turkey cranberry thing:

I am thankful that I potentially know more about myself than I ever have and understand that it will continue throughout my whole life. I am thankful for the constant change in roommates that I have and that my current one gave me a singing lesson while I laid on the ground about an hour ago. I am thankful to finally be able to speak properly with half of my ancestry. Throughout this experience I have talked with plenty of people who point out the total absurdity in social work and in the idea that I would continue trying to do anything for a world that is going DOWN. I am thankful that I skype-said to my mom "I have decided I am going to be a doctor" while I looked up the Social Inequality PhD Program at PSU. Why am I thankful for that? Because it means I am still dreaming way higher than any of my past has taught me is reasonable. This list could go so far right now. Every year I am thankful for my friends and my family because you know that when you say "it'll be fine" you mean that the entire world could disappear but if you had a few key people everything would always "be fine." But this year, it feels bigger. I think I have myself now and I am not sure I did before. So I am thankful that I exist and that after accepting a lot of shit about myself I still like what came out and am still willing to share it with everyone else.

I can't say "that's all" because it definitely isn't. I love you guys, have an awesome Christmas, New Years, President's Day, etc.