I left the U.S. on August 1st, 2008. A year ago.
Even as I write now I know I have no profound reflection of my time here, no epiphany that I have arrived to after 365 days. I am just as lost as when I arrived.
What I have been able to do in my time here, as day after day have gone by, is compare my life as it is and as I desire it to be to a life that may have been if I would have stayed in The Sates.
It seems (as the world or my society tells me) that at this point in my life I am supposed to have some direction, some stabilization. I should be moving with steps in the direction of career, or plan. Yet, daily I realize that I have no desire for stabilization, and that my direction is multi-dimensional.
In a constant effort to create my individual life the only thing that has meaning is following whatever I am passionate about at the moment I am capable of realizing that passion. On any given day I might want to go teach in Brazil, travel through the Andes on horseback, paint and write in Barcelona, be a dirtbag climber in The States or Europe, travel through Japan, China, India. I want to fall in love with beautiful women. I want to be alone in the mountains. I want to finish my projects with my students. I want to start new projects. I want to learn a new language. I want to adapt to a new culture. I want to discover and know true beauty. I want to never have to work again. I want to teach. I want to learn. I want to live happy.
I am realizing that the more I live like this, wandering and teaching, the more I lose my desire to live within the conventional. All of my desires, all that I am passionate about, keep me moving and wanting more. I think of what my future life could be, of all the things I could do or could try to do, and I want to make them all happen. It seems that perhaps I have made a plan then: live pursuing my passion, whatever it may be at the time.
May this first year be the beginning of a life of constant movement toward new adventures around the world. I smile to think of where I might be next year.
-Josh
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Better Late than Never
I know, I know. It's been awhile. One of the realities of living in Peru is that it is hard for me to load pictures on the internet. My disability to do so has more to do with my really crappy computer than with Peru, but regardless, posts take longer to create. I have been working on the following post for about a month, waiting for my computer to work, and then waiting the ten minutes for each photo to load. But now you have something to feast your eyes on.
Here's the post about my 8 day trek through the Huayhuash range of the Andes
Hope you enjoy.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Opportunity Knocks..then runs away.
I was hoping that the next post would be to tell of you that I was published online for Glimpse.org. I was waiting through the publishing process in hopes of getting a final draft put on the website. However, I was recently informed that my piece didn't work as a Feature piece, and therefor would not be published. So back to the drawing board.
Below is the piece that I was going to submit.
Quechua Elbow Grease
A dense blanket of fog always comes in midday at Hatun Machay, Peru. The locals know that there is a pattern to the weather: first fog, then cold, then rain. It’s the wet season so it’s fair to expect to get wet. The best thing to do is hide out at the mountain refuge, seeking shelter, honing bread making techniques, or taking up a local sheepherder on a game of chess. There are few other options in the area, a land of volcanic rock outcroppings and small shepherd huts that sit at nearly thirteen thousand feet above sea level. As a teacher in the nearby chaos of Huaraz, Hatun is my destination for escape and relaxation. While there, I try to avoid all forms of forced labor.
In those high peaks of the Andes the rain was normal. The stalled car that we encountered outside the refuge however, was not. While waiting to pick up some locals, a taxista fell asleep with his lights still on. At the time of departure the turn of his key only led to a brief electric click, and then silence. The result was four old Quechua women, wrapped in bright pink and turquoise blankets, getting ready to push the taxi up a hill. The idea was that once at the top they could get the vehicle rolling and bump start it. The rain started to come down harder.
My experience in Peru had taught me that Quechua women, though they sometimes looked frail and weak, were tough as nails. They would barter with unwavering determination in the markets, and in the campo were always seen hauling massive loads of crops on their backs. The four that gathered around the beat up Toyota station wagon were no exception to the rule. They hiked up their elaborately inlaid dresses, revealing their thick, long underwear-like panty hose beneath, and started pushing.
The thought of pushing a car up a muddy road did not appeal to me. But the four old ladies were giving it a good effort and I couldn’t let myself, a fit, self-described ‘mountain man’, just sit there and watch. I came up beside them and lent a hand.
To my right was Antonieta, a shepherdess who I had befriended previously at Hatun when I returned her lost lamb that I had discovered among the rocks. She was one of those souls that you meet in a foreign country that instantly makes you realize how blessed you are to be there. Her hands are chestnut brown and calloused from a lifetime of labor. Her sun hardened cheeks meet stretching crow’s feet that branch out from the corners of her eyes; eyes that are dark and profound. She is beautiful in the same way as the natural stone around her: hard and imposing, but an integral part of the landscape.
Slowly, in the pouring rain, we began the slough of moving the taxi.
Antioneta shouted something to me in Quechua. I failed to grasp the clucking of hard Ks and Gs. The extent of my Quechua only covers the phrases “How are you” and “Pretty sheep”. Since her shouts revealed nothing that my Quechua repertoire could comprehend, I assumed she was saying something along the lines of, “C’mon gringo, push!” Embarrassingly, it seemed that the old Quechua ladies were giving the job more elbow grease than I could muster up. I dug my soaked shoes into the mud and heaved with all my might. The car began to move slowly as the four women and myself treaded the wet earth with the united goal of getting the car to the top of the hill.
I, a gringo in a bright blue GoreTex jacket, pressed against the back of the car between four pink and green bundles of strength and vigor adorned in traditional sombreros. It was a Peruvian cultural experience beyond the expected, yet it was almost quintessentially Peru. I was in the misty rain of the high Andes, among the native people, and dealing with the realities of terrible public transportation. In fact in all my time working in Peru, I had never combined all of those Peruvian cultural elements into one single experience. Suddenly, the pushing didn’t seem so bad. I looked at Antioneta, grunting through the motions of moving the car, and smiled at her. She looked back at me with a stern, fierce gaze and said in Spanish, “Didn’t I tell you to push gringo?”
The trudge was slow, laborious. My expensive trekking shoes, supposedly designed for rugged mountain environments, slipped with every other step, causing me to face plant into the cold wet earth. The old women in their clog like shoes made of old tire rubber and leather, moved with firm footing. I expected that with each of my falls the women would no longer be able to push since my great strength was lacking as a force to get the car to the top of the hill. But they continued, without slowing their pace or wavering in the slightest. I watched their clogged feet walk by as I lifted my muddy body from the ground.
After half an hour of pushing we made it to the top. The taxista jumped into the driver’s seat and Antioneta, myself and the others gave one more good push to get the car rolling downhill. Within a few seconds the car had enough momentum to try and bump start it. The taxista shifted into second, released the clutch, and the car lurched to life, coughing exhaust from its rumbling muffler. We all cheered at our success, and the women gathered their things and threw them into the now functional vehicle.
“Gracias gringo,” Antioneta said to me with a smile.
“No hay de que” I responded, letting her know that there was no reason to say thanks.
The four women said goodbye and hopped aboard the taxi. I turned to reunite myself with the warmth of the refuge. They continued down the hill, disappearing into the mist.
Below is the piece that I was going to submit.
Quechua Elbow Grease
A dense blanket of fog always comes in midday at Hatun Machay, Peru. The locals know that there is a pattern to the weather: first fog, then cold, then rain. It’s the wet season so it’s fair to expect to get wet. The best thing to do is hide out at the mountain refuge, seeking shelter, honing bread making techniques, or taking up a local sheepherder on a game of chess. There are few other options in the area, a land of volcanic rock outcroppings and small shepherd huts that sit at nearly thirteen thousand feet above sea level. As a teacher in the nearby chaos of Huaraz, Hatun is my destination for escape and relaxation. While there, I try to avoid all forms of forced labor.
In those high peaks of the Andes the rain was normal. The stalled car that we encountered outside the refuge however, was not. While waiting to pick up some locals, a taxista fell asleep with his lights still on. At the time of departure the turn of his key only led to a brief electric click, and then silence. The result was four old Quechua women, wrapped in bright pink and turquoise blankets, getting ready to push the taxi up a hill. The idea was that once at the top they could get the vehicle rolling and bump start it. The rain started to come down harder.
My experience in Peru had taught me that Quechua women, though they sometimes looked frail and weak, were tough as nails. They would barter with unwavering determination in the markets, and in the campo were always seen hauling massive loads of crops on their backs. The four that gathered around the beat up Toyota station wagon were no exception to the rule. They hiked up their elaborately inlaid dresses, revealing their thick, long underwear-like panty hose beneath, and started pushing.
The thought of pushing a car up a muddy road did not appeal to me. But the four old ladies were giving it a good effort and I couldn’t let myself, a fit, self-described ‘mountain man’, just sit there and watch. I came up beside them and lent a hand.
To my right was Antonieta, a shepherdess who I had befriended previously at Hatun when I returned her lost lamb that I had discovered among the rocks. She was one of those souls that you meet in a foreign country that instantly makes you realize how blessed you are to be there. Her hands are chestnut brown and calloused from a lifetime of labor. Her sun hardened cheeks meet stretching crow’s feet that branch out from the corners of her eyes; eyes that are dark and profound. She is beautiful in the same way as the natural stone around her: hard and imposing, but an integral part of the landscape.
Slowly, in the pouring rain, we began the slough of moving the taxi.
Antioneta shouted something to me in Quechua. I failed to grasp the clucking of hard Ks and Gs. The extent of my Quechua only covers the phrases “How are you” and “Pretty sheep”. Since her shouts revealed nothing that my Quechua repertoire could comprehend, I assumed she was saying something along the lines of, “C’mon gringo, push!” Embarrassingly, it seemed that the old Quechua ladies were giving the job more elbow grease than I could muster up. I dug my soaked shoes into the mud and heaved with all my might. The car began to move slowly as the four women and myself treaded the wet earth with the united goal of getting the car to the top of the hill.
I, a gringo in a bright blue GoreTex jacket, pressed against the back of the car between four pink and green bundles of strength and vigor adorned in traditional sombreros. It was a Peruvian cultural experience beyond the expected, yet it was almost quintessentially Peru. I was in the misty rain of the high Andes, among the native people, and dealing with the realities of terrible public transportation. In fact in all my time working in Peru, I had never combined all of those Peruvian cultural elements into one single experience. Suddenly, the pushing didn’t seem so bad. I looked at Antioneta, grunting through the motions of moving the car, and smiled at her. She looked back at me with a stern, fierce gaze and said in Spanish, “Didn’t I tell you to push gringo?”
The trudge was slow, laborious. My expensive trekking shoes, supposedly designed for rugged mountain environments, slipped with every other step, causing me to face plant into the cold wet earth. The old women in their clog like shoes made of old tire rubber and leather, moved with firm footing. I expected that with each of my falls the women would no longer be able to push since my great strength was lacking as a force to get the car to the top of the hill. But they continued, without slowing their pace or wavering in the slightest. I watched their clogged feet walk by as I lifted my muddy body from the ground.
After half an hour of pushing we made it to the top. The taxista jumped into the driver’s seat and Antioneta, myself and the others gave one more good push to get the car rolling downhill. Within a few seconds the car had enough momentum to try and bump start it. The taxista shifted into second, released the clutch, and the car lurched to life, coughing exhaust from its rumbling muffler. We all cheered at our success, and the women gathered their things and threw them into the now functional vehicle.
“Gracias gringo,” Antioneta said to me with a smile.
“No hay de que” I responded, letting her know that there was no reason to say thanks.
The four women said goodbye and hopped aboard the taxi. I turned to reunite myself with the warmth of the refuge. They continued down the hill, disappearing into the mist.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Real World?
I am very sorry to admit:
1) I work from 7:50 until 6:00, Monday through Friday.
2) I have a two story house and cable television (both given to me for free by the school).
3) I live in a suburban, cookie cutter home neighborhood (because of the free house).
4) I haven't climbed all week.
5) I am on this link
6) I made more money last month than I have made in the past year and a half (yes, I am sorry about this).
It seems I am a member of the real world now. However, the list of good, non-real world things is:
1) I am surrounded by 15,000+ ft peaks.
2) Quechua ladies say hello to me in the campo when I go climbing.
3) I have learned 6 words/phrases in Quechua in order to respond back (then the women giggle at me)
4) The climbing I have found and do get to do is world class, no joke.
5) I now know how to get great deals at the open air market that originally had vendors that would take advantage of me.
6) My Spanish has vastly improved.
7) I am many students' favorite teacher.
8) The school administration still thinks I am a rebel (but is happy to have me).
9) I'm in flippin' Peru!
10) This was a dream I had a year ago, and I am living it.
Not bad. Still happy to be here.
....but my head is filled with a lot of new, wild adventures once this one is over. I can't wait to get them started.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Friend's Visit Peru & Cochamó
I've been out of touch the last few weeks. I guess to live adventures one has to disappear for awhile. I was on summer vacation and was fortunate enough to have friends visit from The States before I went to Chile and Argentina for the remainder of my time off. It was good to get to know this new road, on this new continent, and explore.
In Chile, I was impacted greatly by my experience in a remote climbing area called Cochamó. It was a perfect trip. I have written most about that experience.
Below are links to two parts of my adventure: Friend's Visiting in Peru & Cochamó.
Crew Visits Peru
Cochamó
In Chile, I was impacted greatly by my experience in a remote climbing area called Cochamó. It was a perfect trip. I have written most about that experience.
Below are links to two parts of my adventure: Friend's Visiting in Peru & Cochamó.
Crew Visits Peru
Cochamó
Sunday, December 7, 2008
What? No Pictures?!?!
I know, I know. I was extremely fortunate to receive a care package from friends and family that included a camera, and yet, have not added photos. I am eager to get pictures out to all of you, but at the same time that I got the camera, I was also in and out of the hospital battling some vicious food related illnesses that had me bed ridden and hooked up to I.V.s. So no opportunity to take pics, but plenty of time to write. Below is a short story about Peruvian travel. I hope it suffices until I can get pics out to everyone in the next weeks.
Hope everyone is healthy and living life to its fullest.
-Josh
Hope everyone is healthy and living life to its fullest.
-Josh
Combi Ride
A combi is a small bus, similar to the old Volkswagon models, but never as cool. Often beat up, and run down, it is the principle form of semi-long distance travel in Peru. It’s appeal to foreign travelers lies in the fact that it is a quintessential culture shock. People are crammed together in bench seats that are merely medal frames with fabric wrapped around them. There is no cushioning, nor hint of an effort to put any in. The leg space is barely adequate for Peruvians; for gringos, it’s a medieval torture device.
I have ridden plenty of combis in my time here, and was once even enamored with the immersion into the characteristic Peruvian form of transport. Every combi ride was a clear elucidation that I was actually in Peru, living the dream. But since my three hour trip from Yanama back to Huaraz, I have changed my opinion about any part of the combi experience that may have had appeal.
It was the first time I forced to sit in a specific seat in a combi. Apparently, the driver wanted to make the experience seem like a real, legitimate bus ride. Usually I opt for the position that will promise a fraction of legroom, but this time I was mandated onto a small rectangle of space that they were trying to pass off as seating for two. My knees protruded through the seat in front of me and into my fellow passenger’s back. I apologized, but there was no chance of me being able to move in order to accommodate his comfort, or my own. To my left side was a short old man, and to my right a sack of potatoes crammed into the aisle. The sack made any stretching into free space a challenge, and the man that they had sit on the sack made it an impossibility.
There were enough seats in the combi to sit fifteen uncomfortably. Twenty-five of us squeezed in for the first half of the journey, until one woman left and then three more came aboard for the second half. The amount of discomfort was exponentially increased by the fact that there was relatively little ventilation and a free release of body odors from every possible human orifice. The only shame to release flatulence came with the audio and not the olfactory. Silently the petulant gasses arose, and silently they pervaded the atmosphere.
The road was not pleasant. It was windy and washboarded. It surmounted a ridge of 15,000 feet and then descended toward a rocky canyon below. I had hoped to see untouched granite cliffs, but was only able to glimpse the dirty pours of the man seated centimeters away from me. The road curved through endless switchbacks, inducing nausea to passengers seated in the rear. A call for bolsitas was ushered from the motion sick populous of the last row and small, plastic bags were sent to them to assist in any emergency.
The vomiting started about an hour and a half in. A little kid seated in the aisle spewed forth his breakfast to the cacophonous melody of the unmistakable wretch. Clearly he was in pain, as second after second his guts contracted and his throat echoed the sound of complete submission to the body’s will. But this was of no concern to the driver, nor to many of the other passengers, the kid’s mother included. The combi continued its descent hitting every curve just as fast and abruptly as the initial ones that were the catalyst for the child’s projecting forth of traditional Peruvian food. I noticed that the event at least offered a new odor to intake, albeit much worse then those released after food digestion had already taken place, but new nonetheless.
The word ‘agony’ came to mind just as the mini torture chamber arrived to its stop. I emerged from the cage as a victim of a natural disaster emerges from rubble, using all my might to escape the clutches of that which had toppled me and turned me into the broken body that was moving forth to free itself. I had taken on the smells or all the other passengers as well as stinging pains in both knees and in my lower back.
The honeymoon must be over. I no longer believe the combi to be quaint or a good chance at a cultural experience. I believe it to be painful and an unfortunate necessity to get where I need to be. I’ll continue riding them, out of pure need, but have forgotten any romantic illusion that I may have had about them before.
I have ridden plenty of combis in my time here, and was once even enamored with the immersion into the characteristic Peruvian form of transport. Every combi ride was a clear elucidation that I was actually in Peru, living the dream. But since my three hour trip from Yanama back to Huaraz, I have changed my opinion about any part of the combi experience that may have had appeal.
It was the first time I forced to sit in a specific seat in a combi. Apparently, the driver wanted to make the experience seem like a real, legitimate bus ride. Usually I opt for the position that will promise a fraction of legroom, but this time I was mandated onto a small rectangle of space that they were trying to pass off as seating for two. My knees protruded through the seat in front of me and into my fellow passenger’s back. I apologized, but there was no chance of me being able to move in order to accommodate his comfort, or my own. To my left side was a short old man, and to my right a sack of potatoes crammed into the aisle. The sack made any stretching into free space a challenge, and the man that they had sit on the sack made it an impossibility.
There were enough seats in the combi to sit fifteen uncomfortably. Twenty-five of us squeezed in for the first half of the journey, until one woman left and then three more came aboard for the second half. The amount of discomfort was exponentially increased by the fact that there was relatively little ventilation and a free release of body odors from every possible human orifice. The only shame to release flatulence came with the audio and not the olfactory. Silently the petulant gasses arose, and silently they pervaded the atmosphere.
The road was not pleasant. It was windy and washboarded. It surmounted a ridge of 15,000 feet and then descended toward a rocky canyon below. I had hoped to see untouched granite cliffs, but was only able to glimpse the dirty pours of the man seated centimeters away from me. The road curved through endless switchbacks, inducing nausea to passengers seated in the rear. A call for bolsitas was ushered from the motion sick populous of the last row and small, plastic bags were sent to them to assist in any emergency.
The vomiting started about an hour and a half in. A little kid seated in the aisle spewed forth his breakfast to the cacophonous melody of the unmistakable wretch. Clearly he was in pain, as second after second his guts contracted and his throat echoed the sound of complete submission to the body’s will. But this was of no concern to the driver, nor to many of the other passengers, the kid’s mother included. The combi continued its descent hitting every curve just as fast and abruptly as the initial ones that were the catalyst for the child’s projecting forth of traditional Peruvian food. I noticed that the event at least offered a new odor to intake, albeit much worse then those released after food digestion had already taken place, but new nonetheless.
The word ‘agony’ came to mind just as the mini torture chamber arrived to its stop. I emerged from the cage as a victim of a natural disaster emerges from rubble, using all my might to escape the clutches of that which had toppled me and turned me into the broken body that was moving forth to free itself. I had taken on the smells or all the other passengers as well as stinging pains in both knees and in my lower back.
The honeymoon must be over. I no longer believe the combi to be quaint or a good chance at a cultural experience. I believe it to be painful and an unfortunate necessity to get where I need to be. I’ll continue riding them, out of pure need, but have forgotten any romantic illusion that I may have had about them before.
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