A nice painting a friend recently got. Boris, a darling kitty I went visiting, and some lovely peruvian ceramics. Everything from Sarah´s flat.This entry is dedicated to
Charlotta (Min bästa Tellusdelare) since I fell asleep last night in my laptop, when I was supposed to write you an e-mail. Right now I am waiting for the designated printer to get back to me with a solution to crisis which arose yesterday with my publication, and while doing so I thought it would be a good idea to write in English, since I don´t have the symbols I need to write in Swedish at work. And if I write in English, I might just as well share on my blog. Furthermore I warm up for the report I will complete today on the emergency relief after the earthquake for the US. Final justification for updating at this hour: I worked late last week. A lot.
Hello Winter. It is Tuesday again and it has almost been a week since I Improvised Oranges last time, how about slowing time down a bit please, yes, pretty please, universe?? And wondering if you´ll ever come, dear day, when sun shines over Lima again. Heavy, orange, intense sun, hidden behind thick curtains of fog, woollen foggy soggy socks. The humidity is too damp and thick and eats my bones. Sun, You have gone up into thin air, up, high up in the Andes.
Yesterday I brought out the Indian in me (to say it in Peruvian), Joanna the warrior. Some days are jigsaw puzzles of people and opinions and points of views. I guess those days are for learning about diplomacy. Some days I get really frustrated. People don´t show up unless you confirm and reconfirm, weird things happen to the left and right and in the end it makes you bitchy. Something worth remembering though is that anything can be resolved or at least made easier with a smile.
On Monday morning I found that a part of the wooden railing surrounding my house was missing and I assumed that someone had tried to brake into our house, a common crime in Lima. We have barbed wire surrounding the sides of the house and the balconies but only the railing separating us from the street. Having thought about it all day (even going home in the lunch to check on the house), I asked the first housemate I saw coming home in the night. He said the railing has been broken a while since someone leaned against it too much at the last big party. It must have broken totally last night, he said. All though to me, that does not seem too logical.
Luckily, Security in Lima is getting reinforced for the V Summit of Heads of State and Government of the European Union, Latin America, and the Caribbean (EU-LAC), which will be held in Lima in the mid of May. Police patrols are hanging out in my street and the city is being polished, a quite desperate try. I think I might be able to relax for a few weeks. This time around in Peru I´ve been robbed twice, once in a taxi (the driver changed my 100 nuevos soles for a false ticket) and once in the office (a guardian asking for a favour grabbed my cell phone). The third time I got away, a man in a car passing by screamed to me "you´re getting robbed", and the thief ran away before he got around to emptying my bag.
Because of EU-LAC, all Limeños are given two free days in May (15th and 16th), in order to stay out of sight and out of trouble in favour of the presidents. Some streets will be blocked and it will be obligatory to bring documentation with you on all times. On my streets, police where collecting information about the residents since I live very central and my street will be closed. I think we´ll be given special permission for the security checks to enter in our own houses. This morning, the trees outside my house where getting new haircuts for EU-LAC. They have grown all summer and the leaves where reaching my waist when I passed under them, so I always used to round them on the outside, popping out in the streets sometimes almost getting hit by a car, or bending forwards to get through the ocean of greenery. Now they look proper and elegant and make my old hippiehouse look way to boho and decayed.
I spend all my lunch break queuing at the bank only to be informed that my legalized copy of my passport is no longer ok for bank operations. Walked home, picked up my passport and had a teenager moment and felt it necessary to cry a bit. I think I was hungry and stressed. Later in the night, I picked up my new plastic strip to use at night, yay, Joanna the Boxer, to protect my precious little white ones from the bruxism. I used it all night and it was quite comfortable. It will do good for my bite too. I´ll use it every night, do better this time!
My new glasses are still making me dizzy and tired and sore after a week, I think they have been made to strong. I look professional but fall down at 9 pm unable to work on my freelance stuff, too dizzy! Yesterday I was told to give it two days more. Lets see. If not I´ll let the inner indian out again. Yesterday I was supposed to teach a girl English after work but she never showed up. So I spend the last hours of the night in bed with cold fingers, fixing broken stuff that needed fixing and watching Peruvian soap operas, very hungry but too cold to get up from bed. It was about 17 degrees Celcius in my house but the humidity makes it feel worse, and the draft. The remedy is tea lights though - they do heath up my small room and look nice :)
Today I am the boss in the office. It is so nice to have entered in a new office, a new NGO, in a different culture, language etc. and having been accepted, having earned respect and confidence, and having learned a lot of Spanish, again. Though, right now, sadly, there has been a confusion regarding the format of my publication and I spend the day yesterday trying to figure out the best solution money and time-wise. Everything is ready, the design, the paper has been bought, and now, the document is 16 mm to wide. Personally, I see now point in looking to blame anyone, which is a general factor here, not assuming responsibility for your own faults, or simply telling the truth.
oooh a sun beam, I saw a sun beam! Perhaps sun will come out! And the printer just called, it is not ending up that expensive after all correcting the error, now to celebrate the Indian in me! There is hope for humanity!
(Skip this part if you´re not a hypochondriac, oh, but C, you indeed are, heee). It is kind of weird to think about how much ill I have been the past seven months. The first month I arrived in Peru (Oktober) I got an infection, sprained my foot and got scabies during a work trip. At the sime time, I got some severe exema and allergies from insect bites. I tried to get wrid of the scabies for a month before the doctors finally agreed with me on the diagnosis. Then in December I got more infections which lasted throughout January and February. Then in March I smashed my toe into metal in the street, and in April I removed two wisdom teeth. To that, add a few flues and intoxications and hormonal chaos. Now, to keep myself healthy I have decided to rely on herbs from the Amazon. All the antibiotics I have been taken started to make me ill in other ways. The local clinics know me well since I have been coming in almost every week and I keep saying that my boyfriend´s mother´s pharmacy will run out of supplies because of me. So now I am about to prepare tea based on Chancapiedra, Achiote, Huamanpinta, Cola de Caballo (Horsetale) and Uña de Gato (Cat´s Claw). The tea is branded "Shalom". Sounds promising. And this was the whole point of this elaborated story. Go herbs! Go health!
I think I might have found a nice gym, at last, where the instructors do they job and leave you alone and the music is nice and the people too. I want to start going tomorrow! Action! Afro dance, yoga, salsa, pilates, thai box, cardio, spinning, sauna, nutrition...Now I just have to hurry up with my freelance jobs to pay the fee.
I have found a cheaper and safer way to go the the rainforest during the short holiday coming up: there is a zone inbetween the Andes and the Rainforest, still green and nice and warm and exotic, but a lot closer to Lima and requires no Malaria medication and less risk of mad allergic reactions (with the luck I have been having lately).
Next time around in Peru, I will be going to the amazonia for sure, and to Buenos Aires, and to the volcanic city Arequipa. I don´t think I am going to cover Cuba after all, I haven´t found any newspapers willing to pay yet (do you know any?). What I do need to do still is go to Cusco in June or July to interview for my thesis (gasp, thesis and time angst). Thankfully I do have a few weeks of vacations still from work. Hello July---
And August will be all about home, going home. Right now it seems to be a bit tricky to find cheap enough flights, and that kind of goes with my longing to stay on in my new house, be with my loved one, hand in hand, begin a new Unesco oriented internship, keep seeing the friends here I have finally gained confidence with and just be happy (hopefully not ill nor robbed or too poor). But then again, my Masters degree is waiting for me and I have a nice room in a nice flat ready to live in.
Little animals (parrots and snakes and djungle thingies) wait for me in my room, finger buddies, to send home. They are lovely, I´ll show you them.
Love will never walk away, I will do anything to make you feel that it´s allright. Autumn music from 2006 (The Lost Patol - Alright :) and my upcoming expo in Lima are my lights right now.
Yesterday I saw a colibri, tiny, flashing its wing superfast, floating over the flowers. Green and pink and yellow. I had great cofee and inspiring ideas for a new painting. I was also invited for dinner along with my boyfriend by a person that I think might become important for me. This week is also the Lima art week. Celebrate Art! Oh Joy!
(Wow, I can´t believe you actually read all of my ramblings!)
