New Year, New Start

Waves crashing on at Arica beach, Chile.

Cheesy title, I´ll admit. But I feel like the ´newness´of the new year applies this time.

We celebrated the new year in the Plaza de Armas. Everyone was lighting off fireworks when and where they could. A little dangerous. I did see a couple of women duck last minute as firecrackers were launched in their direction, but I didn´t see any blood or lost fingers, thank goodness. It was really amazing to be with my husband, surrounded by that many people all lighting off fireworks and having a good time.  I only wished they´d had an official countdown, like we do in Times Square. Me and my husband kept watching the clock, wondering ´´Is it midnight now?How about  now??´´ until we realized that it´d probably been midnight awhile back, but that wasn´t really the point, at least not here!

Juan overlooking the beach at Arica in Chile

There was a switch of mayors in Tuti, and the new mayor, although busy getting all his paperwork in order and settling in, was extremely helpful.  For example, I´ve been trying to fix the broken glasses in the display cases I´d brought to Tuti over a month ago. First, I asked the old mayor to help out by taking glass from Arequipa to the Colca for me in his private car. As you can imagine, there was not a lot of care taken with the glass; the large piece broke in three places. It broke with him just as it had when we originally broke the glass cases bringing them up in the back of a truck. Even worse, there was no phone call to let me know what had happened. On my next visit to Tuti, I had to go around on my own personal seek-and-find, asking about the glass, and my search didn´t end very happily.

Deep breaths...

But that is now the past. I have glass now in the museum, and the new mayor suggested one of his councilmen  to help me replace the glasses and glue them in place with silicon.Perfect!  (Actually, the councilman offered once he heard of my situation, which was even better! Way to be proactive!) If all goes well, this next weekend should end the long glass fiasco for good.

Clean beach and palm trees make Arica´s beach the best!

Meanwhile, things have been fairly calm here. I´ve been learning a bit about Corel Draw so that I can perfect the design of the museum panels. I have to admit, I was impressed at how even simple designs require a perfect set of intricate steps. As always, it´s so simple to do if you already know, and so frustrating if you don´t! One of the former councilmen, who also used to work as a tour guide and is really in-the-know about Tuti´s cultural past, passed on some photos he and others have taken from different archaeological sites in the region. (I had originally thought about using my own, but because we´re in the rainy season now, the lighting isn´t the best... as you can probably see even in the photos from Naupallakta...). So, in the end, having these pictures is the best option, and I spent last night playing around with neat dissolve and transparency techniques, and text wrapping. My computer held out for the first hour or so before it started sputtering... I guess we don´t have enough power to run a design program for that long!

Along the ridge high above runs Ugarte´s wall, marking where Ugarta fleed from the Chileans holding the banner of Peru, before throwing himself into the oeean (or so legend says). Arica used to belong to Peru, but they lost it to Chile once again.

I´m also waiting to see how my frame design turns out at the carpinter´s. The plans I gave to the carpinter were the first I´ve ever made with AutoCad (which was a whole other learning experience!). I think they turned out fairly well. Definitely more intelligible than my scribbles on grid paper would have been! Ironically, when I returned to the same carpinters in Chivay that had originally requested a detailed design of the frames I wanted, I was told that all the wood they had at that moment was wet, due to the rain, so I would have to look somewhere else. I went down the road and spoke with a nice older gentleman who took the time to actually go through the plans with me and make sure he understood (fingers crossed).  As frustrating as going over the same measurements over and over can be, I´m thankful he was patient enough to ask questions and not just accept a plan he didn´t understand, then choose not to make the frames once I´d left!

Plan for the frames I´m having made. There will be two frames mounted together on hinges that can move independently.

I´ll go ahead and post the image of the plan, and we´ll see in the next week or two how close the actual frames resemble the plan! I haven´t printed the panels yet, just in case the frame measurements come out a little bit skewed...

All the kiddos here are in summer vacation til about mid-March, which will give me time to, hopefully, finish all the panels and othe rparts of the exposition just in time for classes to begin again. As soon as class is back in session and the principals are back in Tuti (they all live in Arequipa when schools out), I´ll be able to start on the final phase of the project: promotion and an educational program.  My good friend and Peace Corps volunteer in Tuti has worked with the primary school director before and says she is really enthusiastic about extracurricular projects and activities for the kids, she had no doubt that incorporating the museum would be any problem. Good news! I´ve met the director before too, and she is a perfect mix of strictness and leadership with openness and kindness. We´re lucky to have her!

Beach at Tacna, in southern Peru. Notice the desert mountains in the background.

During the summer months here, everyone in Arequipa goes to the beach. I was silly enough to miss out on the trip my husband and our friends took to Mollendo (I will never make that mistake again!), even though it was worth it to meet Tuti´s new mayor. We did however get to swim in Tacna in southern Peru, on our trip down to Chile to cross the border. The water there, and from what I hear everywhere else, is pretty cold. Me and a friend of ours braved the waves - I couldn´t imagine going back home saying I hadn´t taken the plunge!- and to be honest, despite losing feeling in your extremities, the cold water can be pretty refreshing. I wouldn´t suggest long dips though...

Scenes of the beach at Arica, Chile.

The majority play on the beach, bring picnics and play soccer. Its really interesting to see such stark, desert mountains in the backround and a big, blue ocean before you. What a contrast. Worth a visit.

People swimming and splashing at Tacna´s beach, Peru.

I also have to mention that they have opened Parque Lambramani here in Arequipa. I know that this blog tends to be about working in the rural Colca Valley, but I can´t help but mention how nice it is to have a totally Americanized shopping and dining experience, even if just once in awhile. They have a Chilis, with the best chips and cheese salsa ever, and a CineMark movies, where I got my first buttery popcorn in ages. Again, I don´t want to offend the arequipeños, I have tried my share of lomo saltado, chupe de camarones, plenty of sandwiches of jamonada, and homemade chicha. But I´m still aware of my culture, and love to revisit it sometimes :)

Also, there has been a wonderful climate change the past two weeks: RAIN! That´s right! It might night be the heavy thunderstorms us Kentuckians are used to in spring, but it is so great to see big, billowy clouds and puddles in the street! For once, my nose isn´t burned to a crisp.  We do have hours of warm sun in the morning, but by about 1-2 pm the rain comes rolling in. Great! We actually heard it from within our apartment one morning, and I was so tempted to spend the whole day in bed!  I hope this lasts for awhile, I feel a little bit more at home now. Even better, the climate in Tuti and Arequipa is about the same now, except for the freezing cold Tuti nights.

Juan an our friends looks for little sea creaturs between the rocks.

Summer sun, something´s begun...

Para la historia...

Well, that´s about all for the moment. As soon as there is anymore news, I´ll let you know!