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Pituco Summer
Bring on the inflatable breasts! It’s summertime in Lima It’s summer in Lima. It’s hot, there’s no air-conditioning, all the pitucos are at the beach, and the city street-sweepers are roasting in their masks and full-body jumpsuits. I haven’t mentioned the pitucos before. I was going to get around to it. The word roughly means “snob,” but that doesn’t begin to cover it. In Peru a pituco (or pituca, if female) usually refers to a white person with money (some or a lot) who flaunts his or her status. I don’t categorize all financially stable/rich Limenos as pitucos. My criteria are stricter: You have to be a conspicuous status-seeker,…
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Blogging on Fieldwork in Peru: Melting glaciers, camera-shy bears and nasty stomach viruses
Excuse the radio silence. I’ve been holed up writing grant applications to fund an expedition that El Fotografo and I want to do this year in the dept. of Cusco. Keep your fingers crossed. Expeditions are not the only projects in Peru that are eligible for funding. Research projects undertaken by investigators in the “hard” and social sciences, as well as the humanities, also attract seed money and, in some cases, hefty grants that can sustain grantees abroad for up to a year or more. A substantial number of these grantees come from the United States, whose major grant-giving entities include the U.S. government (National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health), corporations and nonprofit foundations. Foreign researchers and…
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The Haircut (El Fotografo gets sheared)
El Fotógrafo has an erratic relationship with his hair. He goes for weeks without doing much of anything to it, letting it sprout in extravagent clumps, and then one day, he will be struck by a severe urge to cut his hair Now. This can be hazardous because EF has a cowlick. It’s not something a person can trim on his own, but EF doesn’t see it that way. I’ve found him in the bathroom with a pair of not-very-sharp scissors hacking at his temples, silver and black hairs falling into the sink. He’ll step back and admire his handiwork in the mirror, raking his fingers through the cropped cowlick. He doesn’t…
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Salami Sandwich Man
Deli counter, Wong supermarket, Miraflores; photo c. Barbara Drake 2008 I bought Braendt salami from this guy at Wong supermarket a few nights ago. It wasn’t a lot of salami — maybe 100 grams — but my purchase merited a regalo: half a ham/salami/cheese sandwich on whole-grain bread, with lettuce and tomato. Nice guy, no?
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Panettone Madness
Stacked to the ceiling in Wong supermarket, Lima It is December in Lima; therefore, Christmas is coming; therefore, the city is being overrun by armies of panettone boxes. You may wonder what this Milanese sweet bread is doing in Peru, which does not have a large Italian population. Don’t ask. It’s Peru. Many decades ago, the dessert bread became coupled in the Peruvian imagination with Christmas festivities, and eating gobs of panettone became what one did at Navidad. (Actually, the custom was introduced by Antonio D’Onofrio, the son of immigrants from Caserta, Italy, who licensed the Milanese recipe and packaging and proceeded to build a baking and ice cream empire in Peru, according to Wikipedia.) Peru isn’t…
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Conde Nast Goes Ga-Ga Over Peru’s Gaston Acurio
Chef / restauranteur Gaston Acurio is on a mission to bring Peruvian cooking to the world; photo by Karel Navarro The latest issue of Condé Nast Portfolio features a highly readable profile of Superchef Gastón Acurio, the culinary mastermind behind La Mar, Astrid y Gaston and more than a dozen eateries in South America and now the United States. Writer Andrew Curry notes: Over the last two decades, Peruvian cuisine has gone from being overlooked (even in Peru) to the hottest trend in South America, thanks in part to Acurio’s evangelism. “Peruvian cuisine is a phenomenon,” says Mayalen Elizondo, a society editor at the Mexico City daily Excelsior. “In Mexico, everyone…
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Happy Halloween, Peruvian-style
It’s 5:30 in the afternoon here in Lima, and the Peruvian version of Halloween is underway. In my neighborhood of Miraflores, the holiday consists of big groups of kids running through the streets screaming “Halloween! Halloween!” Some are wearing costumes, but many aren’t. Every child has a bag for candy, though. When the children ring the doorbell, they scream “Halloween!” over and over until someone answers. They may stand at someone’s door for five minutes, hoping that someone will eventually poke a head out. El Hijo is disgusted that they don’t know the proper protocol. “They don’t even know that you say ‘trick or treat,’ ” he sneered. “Duh.” My son has…
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Clarification: It’s called “skitching” (that bombero thing)
I knew there was a word for catching a ride on the back of a moving vehicle: It’s “skitching,” as I’ve just found out. I posted on some skitchers in northern Peru in “Dangerous Skateboarding in Peru” (October 30). Skateboaders in North America skitch rides mainly for the thrill of it, but in Peru, kids do it out of necessity. Skitching rides is the only way that some poor kids in the provinces have to get around. They kids sell food and drinks to truckers along the highway, but don’t even have bicycles to ride. I think the Peruvian skitchers photographed in yesterday’s post deserve this t-shirt: It’s made and sold by Neighborhoodies, available online. The dangers of…
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Dangerous Skateboarding in Peru: Bomberos Hitch Rides, Risk Death on Truckers’ Rigs
My eyes popped when I saw this image on Boing Boing, taken from Zeraga’s Flickr pool via Street Use: In Perú from Huánuco to Tingo Maria, where the road from the Pacific coast across the Andes finds its way towards the Amazon lowlands. This is near the top of the last mountain pass. From there, a soapbox rider can enjoy a vertical 1000 meters of gravity assisted ride. As these kids help stranded truck drivers along the road, they’re called bomberos (firemen). They transport drinks, food and spare parts to broken trucks. A Peruvian (ZU) who travels that part of northern Peru adds: “I usually use that highway go to…
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Of Earthquakes and Philosophers
This past Monday (October 6), at around 6:50 p.m., El Híjo and I were sitting in the living room when we felt an enormous jolt. EH leaped from the couch: “Earthquake!” The rapid shaking last for ten seconds and stopped. El Fotógrafo emerged from the kitchen where he was cooking a very fragrant Bolognese sauce. His brother was right behind him, wafting on the scent of sautéed garlic. “Yes,” said his brother, stroking his beard. “This is October. The month of the earthquakes.” He paused thoughtfully. “Also May.” Now is a good time in this blog to introduce El Filósofo, EF’s older brother and a lifetime Lima resident. Plato and…
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Dollar Staggers out of Ditch for Brief Day in the Sun
For the last 14 months in Peru, the value of the U.S. dollar has been tanking. That trend really hurts when you’re an expat, like me, who still keeps a bank account in the U.S. When El Fotógrafo and I arrived in Lima in July 2007, the dollar was trading at 3.3 Peruvian soles. We didn’t realize at the time, but that was a sweet exchange rate. A few months later, the dollar started dipping in value. We were shocked when it went under 3 soles. Then it began dropping more, all the way to 2.65 soles. The official money changers (see guy in green vest, above) we traded with…
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How to (Maybe) Cure a Lima Chest Cold
El Fotografo can't kick this chest cold he's been suffering from for three weeks. Not even the schlep to Santa Eulalia last weekend could knock it out of his system. So I decided to try a home remedy on him that I read about in Suite 101. Now EF's lying in bed swathed in poultices and blankets, just four feet away from me, and the room reeks of Indian food.
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Desperately Seeking Sunlight
Valley of Santa Eulalia, Peru, which has sun, big rocks and amazing avocado ice cream There is no sun in Lima during the South American winter. No shifting light. No shadows. No way to tell 8 a.m. from 5 p.m. Just a flat grey sky that stays put, like lint in the dryer basket. I wrote about this yesterday in “Panzo de Burro” and now I’m at it again. This week I’m writing about the weather in Lima because it defines the city. And like many elemental things, it goes unnoticed but influences nearly everything. The sunless Lima winter is strange, bordering on freakish. Surviving a Lima winter is like living on another…
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“Panza de Burro”: The Donkey-grey Sky of Lima
The sun disappears almost completely. The sky is the same dead grey color, from 8 in the morning to 6 at night. A strange weather condition called garua invades the city. Garua is a damp, cold mist that hangs in the air like a cobweb and turns the sidewalks into slippery deathtraps. It never truly rains, however, so the dirt and soot don't wash away. Buildings, plants, cars, street signs – everything is covered in layers of dust (polvo) made moist by the garua. Humidity levels climb during winter, intensifying the cold. As the months wear on, the chilly humidity creeps into the marrow of your bones, until you feel…
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