It’s Halloween and there were plenty of ghosts and goblins kids invading the neighborhood looking for candy.
Most kids didn’t bother dressing up or bringing a bag. There were many kids in the Halloween spirit, Spiderman, Power Rangers, Powderpuff girls, Pucca and princesses were well represented.
We saw all kinds at the door. Kids with nanny’s in tow along with large groups with their parents all begging for sweet treats. You could tell many of the kids came from poorer neighborhoods. Their hands and clothes were dirty, if they had a sack, it was a garbage bag. Some even lingered or put their bags out twice trying to con me into a few extra pieces. Vanessa says this could be the only candy they will see all year.
Another distinct difference is getting the candy. Since every home in our neighborhood is surrounded by a concrete wall, the kids have to ring the intercom and yell “Halloween”. Then you go out, unlock the door and the candy feeding frenzy begins.
Vanessa made a new friend today. She started talking to a 3-year old kid named Bruno and shook is hand. She gave him one piece of candy for each of his years. It was cute. By that time I had put my camera away though.
Halloween at our house was a success! We ran out of candy.
We are not going to any parties. Vanessa’s sister has a handful of her teenage friends over (no costumes though). We might order pizza.
Really, nothing has changed. However they did give me a Nextel so they can get a hold of us anytime. In fact we were “chirped” this morning from Miami. Turns out their flight to L.A. was delayed 3 hours. Vanessa’s parents left Lima at 11 last night.
So if any of you have Sprint/Nextel’s PTT service drop me a line. The walkie-talkie works in most of North and South America including parts of Europe with no international connection fees. Actually, I think the direct connect has unlimited minutes.
Tonight Vanessa’s parents are heading off to Hawaii for three weeks.
Her step-dad says while they are gone I’m the “jefe de casa” (boss of the house). Yeah right. However I’m worried about is making trips to the grocery store and dealing with everything in my emerging second language.
Today I spent most of my morning typing up study sheets for a student Vanessa tutors in English. Grammar was never one of my strong-suits and trying to explain modal verbs, progressive tenses, etc. in simple language an 8th grader can understand was a challenge.
This exercise and my ongoing study of Spanish really makes me realize how amazing language is and how we take our native tongues for granted. Sure, we all butcher grammar rules (this blog is likely an example), but most of us have internalized many of these complex rules without even thinking about it.
I’ve also learned there are a lot of good websites out there for people learning English as a second language or just need to brush up on grammar. There are also plenty of websites for people trying to learn Spanish too. Maybe Avenue Q was wrong the internet is for more than porn.
I just went back to the doctor. He says if I lose more weight, I can go off the high blood pressure medication.
He also ordered a flurry of lab work. Everything was ok except my good cholesterol (HDL) is bad and the bad (LDL) is good. It’s a little strange. He advised me to eat more fish and add more omega 3 to my diet.
After taking a week off from writing food related posts, its back to food.
A view of Chinatown
Sunday we went to a Chifa in Central Lima’s Chinatown. (If you are new to this blog a Chifa is a Peruvian only term for a Chinese restaurant. I’m told the term comes from a Peruvian mispronunciation of the Chinese word for “with rice”. Although Wikipedia says another possible origin is the Chinese terms for “food and drink”.)
Chinatown is a street closed off for pedistrians. It may be the cleanest street in all of downtown. Lining the street are markets selling everything from Chinese spices to toys. Of course, just about every other stall is a Chifa.
The Chifa we visited was just off the main drag. I would like to think that Peruvian Chifa is more authentic tasting than American-style Chinese, but without a trip to China I’ll never know. One thing I’ve noticed is all the dishes have very authentic sounding names nothing like “sweet and sour” or “General Tso”.
What's left of dim sum
We started with Dim Sum, which is a typical Chinese breakfast made up of one or two bite pockets of steamed and or fried vegetables or meat. The dim-sum in Peru tasts a lot like the dim-sum I’ve had in the Twin Cities, both must rank high on the authentic-meter.
Then we moved on to the main dishes. Two in particular really captured my taste buds. One was what I would classify as the Chinese take on the turducken, a fried chicken ball stuffed with pork and asparagus.
The second was sesame duck. The duck was roasted and slathered in a sweet-citrusy-sesame sauce. If I could learn the ways of Chinese cooking I’d take up duck hunting right away. It was so much better than that poor excuse for a duck jerky your co-worker who claims to be a hunter brings to work a few times a year. I know you’ve had it. Your co-worker brags about how all you have to do is marinade it in a little teriyaki sauce, stick in in the Ronco food dehydrator for a few hours and bam. In reality its just little pieces of a chewy salty rawhide most dog pounds would reject. People seem to like hunting ducks and geese in the Midwest, but few can do anything useful with them.
We did get fortune cookies. Instead of the familiar crescent shape, these were little piles of dough with wax paper sticking out of each end.
Mine said your children are the engine of life. Well, Vanessa and I don’t have any children so our engines must be stalled.
A view of Chinatown
What’s left of dim sum
Food clockwise from top: Chinese broccoli, sauces, pork, stuffed chicken, sesame duck, fried rice
Yesterday Vanessa’s step dad was complaining to me about the “bolsa mala” or bad bag. Balsa also has another meaning, the stock market.
He was complaining about how much money he’s lost over the last few weeks. He recently crunched all the numbers. And things don’t seem to be getting much better. Today all the world markets are down again. I feel bad for people like him or my parents who were hoping to possibly retire in a few years. Who knows if they can now.
When the U.S. stock market tanked a few weeks ago the Peruvian market tumbled too. The government here shut it down early that day because it lost something like 40% of its value. Although, there doesn’t seem to be credit crunch here. Peruvian banks loaned a record amount in September.
There used to be a saying that when the U.S. markets sneezed the the rest of the world would catch a cold. Now it seems like the U.S. has the flu and the rest of the world has pneumonia.
Its even trickling to parts of the Arab world and China. I watched a British TV story about toy factories in China closing up shop and laying off thousands of workers. This should be their busiest time of year, getting ready for Christmas season in the U.S. and Europe. Stores are cutting back on orders, so there are no reason for these factories to stay open. The reporter did his stand up in an empty factory that used to be the world’s largest Christmas Trees manufacturer, now its a big empty room with fake plastic tree branches all over the floor.
My mother-in-law recently got an e-mail about the Amero. She wanted me to explain it to her. I did, but you look it up for yourself. Its a monetary conspiracy that’s been circulating for a while.
I had a dream last night I was working in McDonald’s again. Who knows, it might be my only option when we get back.
Today we went to visit the apartment Vanessa and I should be living in, but its not in a livable condition.
The apartment is in Miraflores, an inner-ring suburb of Lima. Vanessa’s job is in La Molina, where we live. If we moved her drive would go from 5 minutes to at least 30-45 minutes, depending on traffic of course.
As I’ve written before Miraflores is the tourist hub of Lima. If you were to visit here on business or pleasure chances are your hotel would be in Miraflores. Its also the most urban of all the suburbs with the requisite tall buildings, traffic, busy sidewalks, cafes, etc.
One thing that’s nice about the area is its proximity to the ocean. I would guess the Pacific is about 1-2 miles from the apartment.
From what I’m told, nobody has lived in or been in the place regularly for at least 10 years. There is a calendar on the wall from 1990. Vanessa’s mom told me it was used by her step-dad and his friends as kind of a hang out for a few years, but thats about all.
The place is small. This observation is coming from a guy who recently moved out of a lovely 600 square foot apartment. When you walk in the door, there is a the galley-style kitchen is on your right and there is a space to put a table and chairs. The living/bedroom has enough room for a couch at one end and a bed at the other. Maybe a desk or TV stand too. You can separate the room in two by a folding curtain like you would find in a church basement.
Off the bedroom is a closet and bathroom.
In both the kitchen and bathroom, there is paint literally falling off the walls. The bathtub is full of paint chips. In the kitchen the burners on the stove are rusted out. There’s a small, larger than a dorm room fridge stocked with tonic water and mostly empty bottles of Gin and flavored vodkas. Some of the closet doors have fallen prey to termites. At one time there was navy blue carpeting covering the room. That’s now ripped off the floor (those are the piles in the pictures) and will soon be replaced with ceramic tiles. In fact, the whole place will be gutted.
The whole place will be remodeled and livable again although its not clear if Vanessa and I will be living there. Her step dad wants to rent it out. Despite its size, its location is key. In a perfect world he may get $4-500/month for it.
Saturday night we headed to downtown to see Senor de los Milagros (the man of miracles) or Jesus Morado (Purple Jesus).
The faithful turned a empty street in a bad neighborhood into a mass of religious humanity.
Before we get to the event itself here’s some history. Forgive me if I get a lot of this wrong, but I’m cobbling it together from what people told me.
Senior de los Milagros began as painting of Jesus made by a black slave south of Lima sometime in the 17th century. The slave painted the portrait on a wall inside a building. His image featured a Christ with darker skin tones then most portraits (even by Latin American standards) which is why its sometimes called “Purple Jesus”.
An earthquake hit, leveling the town. The only thing that remained standing was the painted wall.
Today the original painting is housed inside a closed convent in central Lima. One day a year the convent opens up for people to visit Senor, touch him and ask for miracles. On the same day a huge shrine of silver and turquoise with the painting on one side and the Virgin Mary on the other “walks” the streets of Lima starting at 6 a.m. He is carried by members of his brotherhood who wear purple cloaks. In all he’s carried for about 20 hours.
I found this video on You Tube of a news story talking about the route Senor took this year. The first few shots gives you a real good idea of how big the shrine is.
At each stop he is handed-off to another group of men, who change the candles and flowers surrounding his base. The flowers are given to the sick and others in the massive crowd. If you are lucky enough to get a flower, its considered good luck.
As you can imagine, the men who carry him walk slow and sweat profusely. Walking in front of the shrine are women, also dressed in purple carrying incense. These are not nuns and priests, but lay people who I’m told Senor has granted a miracle to, in turn they’ve made a promise to him.
One woman we sat with told me she’s not a church goer at all, but she asked Senor for something small and it was granted. This was her first time seeing him because she wanted to say thanks. I’m told that you don’t ask Senor for things like money, success, beauty, etc. and in some cases you vow to give something up to have your prayer answered.
We caught up to him in front of a public hospital. We were invited to this stop by friends of Vanessa’s family. Our group sat on risers put up by the beer company Vanessa’s dad used to work for. So we were out of the crowd and got to see everything. It was truly unbelievable.
A large noisy crowd follows Senor as he makes his slow journey down the streets of central Lima. You can hear the cheering as he approaches. A band usually follows him, playing songs and the police shut down streets. The followers sing along, clap for him when he stops, shoot confetti, packing a whole city block, spilling over into the intersections on both sides. (I tried to take pictures of just how large this crowd is but it was dark. I’ll post them at the end of this entry.)
During the ritual Senior stops, turns around, people clap, turns again, more clapping, then he goes on his way.
At one end of the street groups brought out two more shrines from various churches. Once again Senior stops and turns to say “hi” to these shrines before going on.
People of all ages gather at these stops to get a glimpse of Senor. They hoist children on their shoulders for good luck and some elderly make it out.
Our riser was not full, so some of the people we were with recruited some families from the crowd to sit with us. One group was an 89 year old woman escorted by a couple who looked to be in their 60’s. She was obviously moved by having such an up close view of Senor. If they were in the crowd I don’t know how they would have made it. I’m told when you are down there, you don’t move with the crowd, the crowd moves you. After seeing this I’ll never complain about the crowd after a big game or concert again.
I’m told Senor is making another trip on the 28th where things get even more crazy. There’s a chance we might be going, this time in the crowd.
Everyday I speak more and understand the language a bit better. Spanish is confusing for the English speaker. There are sounds we don’t normally make and many of the words are a lot longer.
This morning I put my Spanish comprehension to the test with the hottest story to hit the Peruvian media in a while.
Gossip queen Magaly Medina is going to Prison. I touched on Magaly’s in my TV post a few weeks ago. (Remember the dancing crow?) In this video of her being loaded into the paddy wagon she’s the red head mobbed by cameras.
She ran pictures of a Peruvian soccer player running around town with a model claiming player ditched the teams big game against Brazil to knoodle with the woman. The truth is the pictures were taken two days before the game and the Peruvian soccer coach said his players had permission to be out.
The soccer player sued for defamation of character and won.
It’s been all over TV news last night and this morning. I could understand bits and pieces from the news, but figured out some of the history from reading this morning’s paper.
What my Spanish skills could cobble together Magaly has been sued 14 times since her show launched 10 years ago. She’s been convicted five times on defamation of character, three times she’s been given suspended sentences. Other convictions involved fines and/or community service. This time the judge sentenced her to five months in prison her producer got three months. Of course, there is an appeal pending.
If Magaly was working in the U.S. she would have been fired years ago. Not because of what she does, but a conviction costly to the pocketbook and to her credibility. She must make a mint for the TV network she’s on or she’s got some grade-A dirt on somebody high up the food chain.
In summation, I’m learning Spanish everyday and there’s no better language teacher than the news. Just don’t ask me to put together a grammatically correct sentence.
Today I had an ultrasound on my heart. I’m happy to report everything is working fine. No arteries are blocked, all the veins are pumping blood and most importantly the heart is beating.
This confirms something I already know and have written about on this blog, I’m fine. All I need to do is shed a few more pounds, watch the ice cream and things will take care of themselves.
For those of you wondering why there is so much food on this blog its simple: we all got to eat. Every culture has different eating styles and habits. Eating is universal. Eating tends to be some of the most exciting Peruvian adventures I have that are new.
You can read all my food and non-food related adventures here when they happen.
