Goodbye.

Saying goodbye is always hard.

Saying good bye in front of a bustling morning market, with rumbling car engines and women hollering about gelatina & tamales, to a woman who has taken amazing care of me for the past 2 months was almost impossible. There was no way to affectively communicate to her how much I appreciated her care and attention. With tear filled eyes I hugged her tightly and quickly hopped in the combi to avoid an explosion of decidedly non-macho behavior in Latin America.

I fell in love this summer. With my Peruvian host mom. Her laugh, honest and loud. Her love of her land, from chickens to cuy to peas to potatoes and culture.

Each time a Peruvian asked me, what was your favorite part of Peru, the answer is exceedingly easy: the people. Ruins are not really my thing. Weaving is interesting and impressive. The food here is good, but the the people, the genuine love and care shine through so clearly that I cannot possibly name any other reason why I'd want to return.

When you leave love behind, the love of a mother, a sister, a brother, of aunts and uncles, of a family, of dogs and cats and chickens and cuy. Of moonlight and dustclouds, love from cooking smoke and cold showers, you want it back so bad, I want it back so bad that you cannot really imagine it otherwise. A part of me feels like this was the first time a family has really loved me, unconditionally, directly, in ways American families, my American family doesn't. Why would anyone leave this?

The taxista who drove me to the Cusco Airport asked me how Peru compares with the USA. I told him that each country has things the other does not. I said that we do not value family back home, like you do here. I asked him, if his grandma was unable to live by herself anymore, where would she go? With him right? He said absolutely. Not like that at home. We ship 'em off to homes for the elderly, where we cannot see the descent into old age. I told that we don't live with our families from around age 18. That I live 3000 miles away from parents and brothers, that I am accustomed to not being around them. That we value independence more than we value families and that something is lost there, something precious. Something I saw this morning when the aging, dementia and arthritic tia bid me farewell.

She cant talk. Well, she kind of talks. She grunts and mumbles sounds that are Quechua in origin. She never learned Spanish. So, we hardly understood each other. We even fought a bit. For the past week she has had a really bad cough and I kept trying to get her to drink warm water to calm her throat down but she, as the old often do, has lost most of her taste buds and only likes extremely sweet or extremely salty food. Drinking plain water is a punishment for her. When I would try to get her to do so, she would respond by grunting loudly and trying to hit me with a stick. A kind of communicating.

Her dementia is pretty far along, so when leaving this morning, she was watching TV and I thought it'd be best to not bother her, but Katy told her I was leaving and she got out of bed, shuffled down the stairs, fast, to see me off. The fastest I've ever seen a 65 year old Andean woman with arthritis move. Ana Maria was stunned that she was moving this fast. She wanted to say goodbye and to ask for pills for her headaches. I was shocked. I was saddened. Im sitting in food court at the Lima Airport, eyes brimming with tears, because of an old woman who might not ever remember me again but whose face filled with genuine emotion when i was leaving today. What happened there?

I've never really lived with anyone older before. And that was touching.

I know how Dhyana feels now. When she talks about Alejandro's family. It makes sense in a way it never did before. We both come from broken families. Her's broken, physically and emotionally. Mine, together physically but broken emotionally. When you find a family that is together, something clicks, some stupid fucking evolutionary button or desire that you never knew you had pops into place and you see things clearly, maybe for the first time. That capitalism, the quest for individuality and freedom is destroying something greater and stronger than money.

Im alone in this airport. I don't ever want to do this alone again. I felt lonely last Thanksgiving, made a promise to myself that the next Thanksgiving I'd be with friends I really cared about and that I would put the effort into building those relationships for the next year. I'm moving back to Shotwell in a week, that is where my SF adventure started. In that backyard. I've built some amazing friendships last year. Laid some ground work for a family. I missed those people powerfully on this trip. I missed my home. I found another home. Found another family. Realized how much I love my real family. How much I love my friends and my home. I do not know how to reconcile the two.

My glasses clink on the polished metal table. My head rests in my hands with curls spilling over my fingers. Im so tired of being alone. And I am so happy to coming back home.

Cooking in Peru

Cooking is many things to me. Creative expression, tangible manifestion of emotion, a professional endeavor and an activity that brings me comfort and joy. Food builds bonds and relationships but presents as a challenge with students and host families. Who is the kitchen boss? What can I touch? Where can I help? Can I cook a meal for everyone? Luckily, Alejandrina and Ana Maria are thrilled to have me in the kitchen.

Peruvian food centers around potatoes and locally raised meat like chicken, beef, guinea pig, trout and occasionally pork. There are lakes in the Sacred Valley where trout is raised, so fish makes regular appearance at meal times. Carrots, onions and celery from local farms start most dishes, just French food. I've eaten papas boiled, fried, mashed, in soup and fermented. The fermented ones remind me of stinky tofu. Rich, stagnant, meaty and almost putrid. Intense. Picante food is uncommon here, but I love the heat and was missing it dearly. So the first thing I made was hot sauce with local chiles, garlic, pepper and white vinegar. My host mom, Ana, loves it and even Alejandrina, biggest cooking critic ever, likes it in her soups. Success!

I'm a dedicated sauerkraut maker. At home a pot is always fermenting away and I saw no reason to stop the tradition because Peru would be my summer home. I bought a head of cabbage on my way back from the hospital during the first week and Alejandrina immediately asked how much it was. 2 soles, about 66 cents, I said and she laughed cause cabbage shouldn't cost more than 50 Peruvian centimos. Sigh, la cara del gringo. Kraut draws its flavor from the cabbage and spices(cumin, garlic and pepper are my favorites) used and the reactions between local bacteria and said ingredients. In SF I eyeball the amount of salt to prevent rampant bacteria growth while achieving desired flavor and texture. Peruvian bacteria is a whole new ball game, so I aggressively salted to avoid getting stupidly sick. Two weeks into the fermentation process I tasted it and discovered that while not rotten, it was inedible due to the salt. Alejandrina tried some too and promptly spit it out. We all laughed heartily at this gringo's cooking attempt. After a few rinses with warm water, I returned the kraut-to-be and crossed my fingers that in a few more weeks it'd be edible, at least. Yesterday I tasted it again and its delicious! Crunchy, salty and pleasantly fermented.

Margarita, host sister, is a phenomenal baker and we've made a few cakes together. For my birthday she made two orange cakes. Yum. Who doesn't love cake for breakfast and then cake for dinner on your birthday? I loved it. For another volunteer's birthday I made a mint lime cake with candied limes and a mint caramel on top. Margarita and I made a strawberry chocolate cake for six volunteers's goodbye party. I made the jam filling and we both made the cake. She decorates in this marvelous Martha Stewart style and finished the cake with a strawberry carved like a rose.

Dark, leafy greens are one of my favorites foods and severely lacking in the diet here, so Ana told me that a neighbor of ours has chard growing on her farm, I flipped out. She brought home a huge armload of chard and I cooked it up with red wine, raisins and peanuts. Ana couldn't stop talking about how yummy it was and that made my smile go wide. Veggies are cooked thoroughly here so when they ate this chard, still crunchy, they were shocked, pleasantly. This chard was the sweetest I've ever eaten. I happily munched on it raw while cooking.

For another potluck I made a tomato salad with tons of basil, oregano, queso andino and fennel. Finding the fennel was fun cause its not eaten here but used in teas instead. There was a grandma at Urubamba's midweek market who had fennel fronds and when I asked about the bulb she looked at me like I was off in the head. I explained what it was for, she remained unconvinced and I bought the biggest stalks that she had.

Marga and I made pizza the other evening. Using my dad's tomato sauce(my ultimate comfort food) as a base, Marga rocked the dough and Tia and I did the the toppings. One pie had corn, basil, ricotta, peas and caramelized onions(another new favorite for the host family) and the other was topped with cherry tomatoes, sausage, oregano and a local hard cheese. The first pie came out a bit soft, but we configured the oven right and the second pie was smashing. Volunteers who live with a host family that owns the best pizzeria in town, were freaking out about how good it was. Both Marga and I were blushing.

Funnily, I expected this post to be short. Oh well, I'll undoubtedly cook a few more times before the end of the month. Missing the summers bounty in the bay is painful and I am going to go produce crazy back home. Fig jam, stone fruit jam, pickles, corn preserves and possibly ketchup are on the list of things to make this fall. I bet I can make some awesome ketchup. Heinz, I'm gunning for you.

Walking the tracks

As an angsty suburban teen I walked a lot of train tracks. So, when I found out you could get to Machu Picchu, for free, by walking the tracks, I lept at the chance and yeah, I've been to Machu Picchu.

I didn't hike the Incan Trail, take a train, a bus or fly in on a helicopter. I walked for 9 hours along the train tracks from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes.

Irregularly sized steps across varying degrees of gravel is tough terrain but I found a stride and enjoyed it. Walking through slowly changing scenery and listening to the soundscape change along with it.

Dodging tourist trains and waving at the people who are staring, slack jawed, at us as we scamper around the rocks alongside the tracks.

We left mid-morning and arrived well after dark with jello legs and went hotel hunting. I felt powerful after having completed that walk, in the way you feel after exercising the limits of your body and not your mind.

Aguas Calients is a shit hole. It feels like Costa Rica. Empty. Fake. Dirty. Used. A gaping hole where a culture once was. I wanted to ascend Machu Picchu and leave STAT.

Machu Picchu was amazing but boring? A place that doesn't feel special anymore. Just a line item to initial and move on from. What is up next? Ankor Wat? The pyramids?

Ariela ate a pot brownie and got stupid sick. We had to hospitalize her, give her an IV and spend 6 hours in a clinic while she rehydrated. She pushed the limits of my frustration in ways that I had not known were possible. Lesson learned: Never hike 8 hours with someone you don't trust on a gut level. Just don't do it.