Hoosier Prof in Peru

The calendar says December 24 today, but in many ways it doesn’t feel as though Christmas is only a day away. For one thing, our daughters just started a monthlong vacation, summer vacation. For another, it’s 22 degrees outside, 72 Fahrenheit, and it’s getting warmer by the day (the only conversion that I seem to be able to remember without having to look it up is 16 c = 61 f). On Sunday I went to Mass at a nearby Catholic Church, and while the readings were appropriate enough for the fourth Sunday of Advent (including Isaiah 7:10-14), the Christmas carols we cherish this time of year were all missing. And most of all, we’re far removed from family and old friends.

Even as we think about what’s missing this Christmas, though, we’re also grateful to be here in Lima and have this chance to celebrate the holiday, Peruvian style.

On Christmas Eve, for example, we’re invited to the home of a host family that has taken care of several Goshen College students in the past and will welcome another one in January. In keeping with the Noche Buena tradition, we are to arrive at 10 p.m. (when our host told us that we should come at 10, I naively asked whether that was 10 in the morning or 10 at night. Silly me.). We don’t know what is on the menu, but maybe turkey, which in Peru is to Christmas as it is to Thanksgiving in the States. And the next day, on Christmas, we are going to be with a group of other friends, including our invaluable country coordinator, who celebrates a birthday.

Some other gifts, large and small, that I’m grateful for this season:

• Our host families. We had the chance to visit with several families in their homes this month, and each time felt as though we were learning to know people for the first time. We saw many of them at the despedida, or party, that was held at the end of the study term for all students and their families, a social whirl of a night. But in living rooms conversations were much easier to manage, and we learned about children, studies, hobbies, jobs. These are the best of families, each remembering a “son” or “daughter” now back in Goshen.
• Desserts. Our most recent host family visit featured some of the best arroz con leche that I’ve ever had (we really should add coconut to our rice pudding in the States).
• A Christmas tree. The wife of the pastor at the interdenominational church that we attend as we can was kind enough to find a Christmas tree in storage and lend it to us for the season. Most of our ornaments are in Goshen, but we do have some popcorn, stars and lights to dress up the tree.
• Riding on buses. After so many years of having to hop in a car to go anywhere, it’s great to be able to leave the driving to someone else. We can board a bus, usually at a stop near our apartment, and get to most any point in the city. Buses are a great equalizer: a great mass of humanity traveling in the same direction, usually paying 1 sol (35 cents), squeezing into seats built for the young, lerching together as zany drivers take turns cutting each other off.
• People who are kind, no matter the level of our Spanish. In “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which we recently watched for the first time with subtitles, there’s a scene in which Robin Williams, who is about to become Mrs. Doubtfire, calls up his ex-wife, pretending to be a nanny she should not hire. “I am job,” the fake nanny says with a foreign accent. “I am job.” Makes me wonder whether I’ve ever said something like “I am SST. I am SST”
• Skype and wireless. We may be far away, but we’re not out of touch. Thanks to 91.1 the Globe, we can listen to college basketball games as well.
• DVDs of “The Office.” When we need a laugh, we have two seasons to choose from. Favorite lines show up around the apartment, like this exchange between Dwight and Jim, which someone just wrote on the white board: “Where is my desk? Where is my DESK?” “Okay, calm down. You were the one who lost it. Where was the last place you saw it?”
• SST. I’ve come to appreciate even more the importance of this 13-week journey of study and service. “Expect to be transformed,” the college says. And this: “You will also learn to better understand yourself and your place in the world.” SST, or an equivalent, should be a requirement for all presidential candidates and for the rest of us as well. What about expanding SST into the adult education arena, sending retirees or others with a flexible schedule to the same locations that students now go, for three months of study and service?

Living in Peru, a popular news and information source for English-speaking expats, recently released “101 Reasons to be Proud of Peru,” which represents a distillation of the best suggestions from the more than 800 readers who wrote in. Here are a few of the reasons that caught my eye.

Gastronomy

1. Ceviche is from Peru

“Perhaps the dish that is most representative of Peru, this simple yet spectacular dish fuses ingredients both native and foreign to the South American nation.” [This-meal-on-its-own is often available as an appetizer at menú restaurants as part of a $2 lunch.]

Personalities

18. Chabuca Granda

“Maria Isabel Granda Larco, better known as Chabuca Granda, was a beloved Peruvian singer and composer. .. . Her best-known song was “La flor de la canela.” [My language professor played this heart-string-puller on a CD player and had me try to write down the lyrics -- a memorable challenge.]

Historical

33. Caral: The oldest citadel in the Americas

“Located just 182 kilometers to the north of Lima, Caral has been labeled as the oldest known city in the Americas.” [We have yet to visit this site but hope to do so sometime in the next seven months.]

Flora and Fauna

66. Peruvian hairless dog

“Back from near extinction dating back to more than 3,000 years, the Peruvian hairless dog was known to have been part of Peru’s historic past.” [We saw one of these odd-looking dogs running around as a pet at the Huaca Pucllana archeological site in Lima.]

Peruvian Traditions

71. The Peruvian Cajón

“The cajón was the most widely used Afro-Peruvian musical instrument in the 20th century.” [A student in our first group took one of these drums along back to the States.]

Geographic

82. Alpamayo: the Most Beautiful Mountain in the World

“Standing at almost 6,000 meters (more than 19,500 feet) above sea level, Alpamayo is the highlight of Peru’s Cordillera Blanca.” [Maybe when we go to see Caral, we could swing east . . . ]

Since it’s the end of the year and a good time for taking stock, I have to say a few words about my two favorite news sources in Peru: livinginperu.com and El Comercio. My internal gauge tells me that they’re doing good work because my morning doesn’t feel complete without at least looking over the lead stories in El Comercio; meanwhile, at the office computer, www.livinginperu.com is one of the most visited sites (let the record show that the most visited site is www.goshencollegebusiness.edu).

But both news providers can be shameless boosters of the country, and that can compromise their better judgment and their willingness to speak the whole truth.

A recent example came in a headline in El Comercio this week: “Un 85% de peruanos percibe cambio positivo en el presidente García.” Even if you don’t regularly read Spanish, you know that the article points to very favorable trends for President García. But let’s dig a bit.

The paper conducted a survey in which residents were asked — among many other things — “Do you think that Alan García has changed in relation to his first term?” [Here it's important to bear in mind that García left office in disgrace in 1990, when daily inflation was at 2 percent, and social unrest was likewise climbing.] In response to the question, the country in December 2007 shows itself to be divided: 50 percent said he had changed, and 46 percent said he had not, which is to say, many people think he is doing a pretty terrible job.

Then, as the paper noted in very small type, it asked the 50 percent crowd: Do you think he has changed for the better? In the 50 percent crowd, all of whom said the president had changed, 85 percent think he has changed for the positive, and 10 percent think he has changed for the worse. One should really add the 10 percent who think he has changed for the worse to the 46 percent who think he has not changed at all and conclude that about half the country is very unhappy with his performance. Instead, the paper ran a headline trumpeting news that 85 percent of Peruvians said President Garcia has changed for the better, suggesting all is well when clearly a lot of people are disappointed with the administration. The economy is growing, but not all boats are being lifted.

So the press should report that Lima’s stock market ranked third in profitability worldwide this year, but also tell us why a boy of about 10 years old with a tin can was singing religious songs on a crosstown bus for a few centimos in the middle of the school day earlier this week.

But enough with criticizing the press. It’s almost Christmas. As the editors of Living in Peru said, let’s celebrate a country that is “rich in its culture and diverse in hundreds of ways.”

In a recent cartoon strip, Mafalda, a little girl who champions world peace and justice for all from her pulpit in the Comercio newspaper, and Miguelito, her friend, are arguing about what to drink.

“I’m thirsty,” Miguelito says in the first frame. “Do you have a little Pepsi?”

“There’s coca,” Mafalda responds, suggesting a cup of the traditional tea from the Andes, good for altitude sickness and a general pick-me-up. “I’ll bring you some.”

“Forget it,” he says. “If there’s no Pepsi, don’t bring me anything.”

“Coca is still better,” she says.

He responds: “That’s a matter of opinion.” And then he slams the door on his way out.

“In this age,” she says, “we are a generation divided. What does the future hold for us?”

The Mafalda strip, published by the Argentinian cartoonist Quino from 1964 to 1973,  still enjoys a large following; the cartoon appears in the paper every day, and Karen, who introduced me to the world of Mafalda, said she has seen books, calendars and other products devoted to Mafalda, who, like Charlie Brown, ages well. I don’t know the exact year when Quino wrote this strip, but it would have been roughly in the era when Pepsi was marketing itself to a young audience of baby-boomers: The Pepsi Generation.

What we drink, whether in the U.S. or in Peru, whether we want it to or not, often sends a message. I was reminded of this during a field trip toward the end of the study portion of the semester. At a meal of broasted chicken and fries, students were free to order a soft drink; in overwhelming numbers they went with Coke and Fanta (a vote for North America). Our guide ordered Inca Kola (a vote for Peru). Whether or not anyone intended to take sides, I felt as though I was stating an allegiance, or affirming cultural openness, when I poured a drink that night. I chose Inca Kola, not wanting our guide to drink alone. (While Inca Kola is made from Peruvian lemon verbena and is the leading national soft drink, it is also 60 percent owned by the Coca Cola Company. So are Inca Kola drinkers toasting indigenous might? or Yankee imperialism? As with so much else in the world these days, Coca Cola and Inca Kola remind us that product lines are muddled, stakes are joined and recipes are shared).

Another Mafalda cartoon features the smart and sassy character calling out to three of her friends: “We’re screwed, guys! It turns out that if you don’t hurry up and change the world, it ends up changing you!”

If Quino were writing fresh scripts today, one imagines Mafalda bringing her commentary to bear on global warming, or at least cheering on former Vice President Al Gore. In his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, delivered this week, Gore said that “our world is spinning out of kilter.”

“The future is knocking at our door right now,” he said. “Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask, ‘What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?’ Or they will ask instead: ‘How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?’ ”

8:15 p.m. — I’m sitting in a tent in Parque Kennedy, on day four of the Ricardo Palma Book Fair, waiting for the program to start. This last event of the evening is to be a celebration of poems by Alonso Rabi. I should say right off that I’ve never heard of Alonso Rabi; and the only reason I’m here tonight is to listen to Spanish, poetic or not. My day has unfolded almost entirely in English, by turns with e-mail and in an SST meeting and at the family dinner table. Some days I can fall almost into in a panic, thinking that if I don’t act quickly, I’ll forget everything I learned, or thought that I had learned. This is the ocean school of language acquisition — the tide is either lifting you and your boatload of words or threatening to beach the whole lot of you on the sand.

8:20 — Someone taps me on the arm and begins saying something. I wasn’t paying close attention and the first part of the sentence flew past me, but I did manage to hear “comienza,” or start. In something of a guess, I say 8:30 — the program is supposed to start at 8:30. The person thanks me and walks away, so I think I guessed right. But as I reflect on the state of my language learning, I’m reminded of how often I understand only part of what someone is saying and in stringing together those words in a meaningful context — say, sitting in the bleacher seats and looking at an empty speaker’s seat on the dais — the message can often be inferred.

8:22 — Someone else asks me when the action starts. This time I’m ready with the reply. I must have the look of a person who is well-informed and approachable this evening; then again, I might be getting this attention because I’m seated just inside the main entrance of the tent. We number about 17 in the bleacher seats, with room for a couple hundred. Poetry struggles for an audience everywhere it seems (Who is Alonso Rabi?).

8:25 — Four months into our stay in Lima (I could say “almost five months” but as I think about language learning tonight, I’d rather round down) — I continue to be impressed by how difficult it is to become conversant in Spanish. After four months in Peru — there he goes again — I must be communicating more fully than I did when we arrived, but it often doesn’t feel that way. To gain some perspective, I can look back over the 10 goals I set for myself back in August, as one form of accounting:

1. Read signs aloud (yep. still doing this).
2. Develop a customized dictionary (20 pages and growing).
3. Read the front page of a paper every day (check).
4. Speak as often as possible with cab drivers etc. (C grade).
5. Repeat unfamiliar words several times (B+).
6. Watch videos, with Spanish subtitles turned on (A).
7. Study first thing in the morning, last thing at night (D).
8. Commit useful words to memory (B+).
9. With my wife, speak only Spanish outside the apartment (ouch).
10. Make flash cards (I forgot about this one; I’ll do it).

I have two more strategies to add to the list:

11. Listen to the radio at least for a few minutes every day (my Spanish teacher’s idea).
12. Speak only in Spanish for a full day (is this possible?).

8:26 — Yet a third person asks me what time the program starts.

8:31 — There’s no sign of movement at the dais. I think I should apologize to the people who turned to me for their information about the program.

8:35 — I notice an interesting slogan on a nearby poster promoting the book fair: “Provecho con el libro!” “Buen provecho” is a kind of polite secular blessing offered at the start of a meal — may you enjoy the meal, may the food be to your liking (is how I hear it). Attached to books in this way, I gather it means “may you find books to your liking and taste” or “may you enjoy this feast of words” or some such. I like it. I write down the phrase to add to my dictionary on the PC at home. The tide is rising.

8:40 — Still the presenter’s seat is empty. I have a sudden flashback to teaching Writing for Media and Expository Writing back in the States. In both classes, I took time to drill students on some of the finer style distinctions that can separate the literate writer from the poseur (infer/imply, further/farther, unique/very unique and so forth). As I sit here in Lima wondering how I would quickly say “If this show was supposed to get underway at 8:30 and it’s now 8:40, and the poet is apparently otherwise occupied, then why don’t we all share some of our own verses in an impromptu session,” and knowing how hard that would be, the subtle distinctions between words on the “commonly misused list” seems much less important than it used to.

8:42 — Time for positive thoughts. I was really pleased with the start we made this past semester in developing a usage guide for North Americans learning Spanish in Peru. Each student was to submit four entries during their stay, words gleaned from host parents or friends or signs. The list can be found on Moodle, an online learning tool available at the college. Consulting this list, for instance, you can learn that arroz con leche is not only the name of a tasty dessert, but also that of a children’s game, and that “!Miercoles!” is slang for “Wow!” One imagines that more than a few SSTers will want to know the meaning for sobar: to scrub one’s clothing when hand-washing. Access to the list now requires a user name and password, as well as membership in the class; if we move the project to a Web site that is open to all English speakers in Peru, we might be on the road to creating a really useful and dynamic guide. When you want to look up a word, you should be able to quickly search a bookmarked site; having to type in a password will keep many people away.

8:45 — A man in a suit takes a seat up front, and the program begins on an encouraging note. “Buenas noches.” So far, I haven’t missed a word.