Gringo Sandwich

Disinfected.

 

Today is a day of photos and other odds and ends.   Enjoy.

Gringo Sandwich! (Only posing. Didn't ride it.)

I’m psyched to be heading back to the US for the holidays in just over two weeks.  I’ll be moving up and down the eastern seaboard seeing family, friends, and Kelly, but unfortunately won’t be making it back to Iowa for this trip.  I’ve lived away from home for the last 7 years and am used to not seeing family regularly.  Still, it hadn’t quite prepared me to go almost a year and a half without seeing them.  It’s gonna be awesome.  Until then, I’ll be here chugging along with work and other shenanigans. 

Matt and host family (LtoR) María, Martin, Jeisson, Consuelo @ J's Confirmation

 

 

 

I just took the GMAT (business school entrance exam) last week in Lima.  No longer studying for that, I’ve got some time freed up and am setting my sites on learning guitar.  Bought a cheap, piece of crap guitar and some new strings.  We’ll see if I can make it sing. 

"Get your lettuce!"

What else have I been up to lately? I helped disinfect a water reservoir.  I hit up the town market with some students to sell organic lettuce from their school's vegetable garden.  I pushed a trash/recycling project that I'm trying to get off the ground to the local government.  I killed the godforsaken ants that had stormed my room.  I read Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Lauren Hillenbrand, the author of Seabiscuit. (Hell of a story that follows Louis Zamperini, an American Olympic long distance runner and bombardier in WWII. Check it out if you're looking for a page turner.) 

Chao.

Boomerang Bits

No real big news to report from Peru.  Mid-service medical exams showed that I don't have worms growing in my intestines.  Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful.  Etc. etc.

I'm writing, though, because I wanted to post some funny passages from a book I just finished reading.  I'm a huge fan of Michael Lewis (think Blind Side and Moneyball) and just finished reading his new book, Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World.  The book follows the global financial woes we're seeing today, from Greek's insolvency issues to the debts issues faced by local and state governments, like California.  Lewis' The Big Short tells the story of the 2008 financial crisis and this book is a follow up to that.  The book itself was pretty good, but not great and, in my opinion, not at the same level of his other material.  Still, I found a couple passages from the book pretty amusing and wanted to share. Enjoy.

“As the fish lives in water, so does the shit stick to the asshole!” - German saying

(Arnold Schwartznegger on running for Governor, while him and the author ride bikes) 

“I thought about it but decided I wasn’t going to do it. I told Maria I wasn’t running.  I told everyone I wasn’t running.  I wasn’t running.” Then, in the middle of the recall madness, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opened.  As the movie’s leading machine he was expected to appear on The Tonight Show to promote it.  En route he experienced a familiar impulse – the impulse to do something out of the ordinary. “I just thought, This will freak everyone out,” he says. “It’ll be so funny. I’ll announce that I am running. I told Leno I was running. And two months later I was governor.” He looks over at me, pedaling as fast as I can to keep up with him, and laughs. “What the fuck is that?”

(old Irish man, upset with big, bailed out Irish banks)

            Gary Keogh thought about how Ireland had changed from his youth, when the country was dirt poor, “I used to collect bottle caps,” he says. “Now the health service doesn’t even bother to take back crutches anymore? No! We’re far too wealthy.” Unlike most people he knew, Keogh had no debts. “I had nothing to lose,” he says.  “I didn’t owe anyone any money. That’s why I could do it!” He’d also just recovered from a serious illness, and felt a bit as if he was playing with house money. “I had just got a new kidney and I was very pleased with it, but I think it must have been Che Guevera’s kidney.” He describes his elaborate plot the way an assassin might describe the perfect hit.  “I only had two rotten eggs,” he says, “but by God they were rotten! Because I kept them six weeks in the garage!”

            The AIB (big, Irish bank with solvency issues) shareholders meeting of March 2009 was the first he’d ever attended. He was, he admits, a bit worried something might go wrong.  Worried parking might be a problem, he took the bus; worried that his eggs might break, he designed a container to protect them; worried that he didn’t even know what the room looked like, he left himself time to case the meeting hall.  “I got to the front door early and had a little recce,” as he puts it, “just to see what was going to happen.” His egg container was too large to sneak inside, so he ditched it.  “I had one egg in each jacket pocket,” he says. Worried that his eggs might be too slippery to grip and throw, he’d wrapped each of them in a thin layer of cellophane. “I positioned myself four rows back and four seats in,” he says. “Not too close but not too far.” Then he waited for his moment.

            It came immediately. Right after the executives took their places at the dais, a shareholder stood up, uninvited, to ask a question. Gleeson, AIB’s chairman, barked, “Sit down!”

            “He thought he was a dictator!” says Keogh, who had heard enough. He rose to his feet and shouted, “I’ve listened to enough of your crap! You’re a fucking bastard!” And then he began firing.

            “He thought he had been shot,” he says now with a little smile, “because the first egg hit the microphone and went Pow!” It splattered onto the shoulder pad of Gleeson’s suit. The second egg missed the CEO but nailed the AIB sign behind him.

            Then the security guards were on him.  “I was told I would be arrested and charged, but I never was,” he says. The guards wanted to escort him out, but he actually left the place on his own and climbed aboard the next bus home. “The incident happened at ten past ten in the morning. I was home by ten to eleven.”

Church, Earthquakes, and Sea Lions

Sea lions basking in the sun at Islas Ballestas

I'm halfway out the door to Lima, where I'll have mid-service medical exams and meetings for the next week.  But a lot has happened over the last month so I wanted to jot it down before I took off.  Some quick hits:



Kelly was here for a week. We went camping, took a tour of Islas Ballestas (Peru's own, weaker version of the Galapagos Islands) where we got 10 feet from some mammoth sea lions, saw a gazillion birds, and a gazillion pounds of bird poop.  The visit was a lot of fun but short, as they always are.

There was an earthquake while Kelly was here.  The epicenter was about an hour from my house and it hit 6ish on the Richter scale.  Kelly and I were still fortunate to find ourselves in Lima at the time.  Though there was no real damage in my town, people were still pretty scared as the huge earthquake from August 2007 is still fresh in their minds. 

The radio show, Gringos Locos, that Matt and I have started is going well.  One hour each week talking about all things American.  Food, music, sports, customs, it doesn't matter, we'll talk about it.  Check out and "Like" our raw facebook page when you get a chance.  Improvements are coming.

Sweet Aviators

Last weekend, I attended the confirmation ceremony of my host brother, Jeisson.  Not knowing the norm, Matt and I showed up in slacks and ties, way overdressed.  The church was packed and we got there late, so I stood in the threshold of the church for the entire ceremony.  The priest gave a 'no masturbation, no sexual activity before marriage' speech to the sexually charged teens to be confirmed, said some other things that I didn't pay attention to, and two hours later, we were done.  Afterwards, to celebrate the occasion, Jeisson disappeared and the adult males drank beer all afternoon in the typical Peruvian circle.

I'm going home for Christmas and New Years.  This will be my second time home.  I'm especially excited for this visit though, because I'll be home longer than my last visit, be home during my favorite holiday, get to see Kelly and for the first time in over a year, get to see my family.  Cool.

Off to Lima.  See you later.

What is Peruvian Food? Part 2

La gaseosa peruana

Food, Part 2

There are a ton of different fruits here I'd never heard of before, all grown locally. In the US you get used to eating imported fruits that were picked long before they were ripe and then chemically-manipulated to look fresh when they arrive at your local supermarket.  Two of my favorites are a fig-like fruit called higo (E-go) and a white, fluffy one called pacai (pa-KYE).  Oranges are in season right now. 

Very few raw vegetables here.  Matt and I made tacos the other night and every Peruvian was surprised that not even one vegetable was cooked.  The salads here are usually just lettuce and one other topping – usually avocado, cucumber, or radish – and covered in some lime juice and salt.  Not bad but not great.  Also, raw veggies pose a greater health risk, so I’ll often turn down even the rare salad offering.

They eat ALL the meat.  Chicken foot, liver, intestines, cow heart.  Sometimes you’ll find some pig skin with little piggy hairs still sticking out. Mmm.

Pachamanca

They are proud, think it’s the best in the world, though most haven’t tried much ethnic food or foods we see as normal in the US.  Most have tried the crappy pizza and Peruvian-Chinese food, but tacos, tortillas, peanut butter, barbecue chicken, and the like are all unknowns here.  My new site mate Matt has done a better job than I at sharing some of these with the host family.  They really enjoyed the peanut butter.

People are very generous with their food, always serving to guests and usually serve heaping portions. 

Family is important but it doesn’t mean the family eats together.  The dinner table is a transient, with people coming and going, watching TV, etc.

Inka Kola is THE soda in Peru, with Coke coming in a distant second (note: Coca-Cola makes Inca Kola).  Tastes like bubble gum, but, when served chilled it's kinda good.

Ceviche de Pescado

Couple of my favorite Peruvian dishes:
 

Pachamanca - A traditional Sierra dish that means "earth, cooking vessel" in Quechua, the indigenous language.  Dig a hole in the ground, heat up some stones (fire, smoke? not sure), toss in a ton of food - your choice of meat, corn, regular and sweet potatoes, green beans, a sweet corn meal, and more.  Imagine Thanksgiving, but cooked in a hole in the ground.  That's pachamanca.

Ceviche - Fish or seafood that's "cooked" with the acidity of lemon/lime juice.  Tender, flavorful, and, mixed with sweet potatoes and corn, a delicious combo.