1 month

I've thought about it and I have decided that Time and God have a couple of things in common. Both work in strange and mysterious ways and it's not easy to measure the existence of both.

As a child, time was luxurious and gentle. The news on TV would come on at 8pm and that would be the only marker of time I had in a day. Things changed as I got older. When I worked in radio, I used to measure time by the quarter. Every 15 minutes = (more or less) 3 songs. The ads came in at the 40th minute, and then again at the 50th minute. I applied this to my daily life for 5 long years.

There were also the times I experimented with mushrooms and to keep track of time (and my mind), I tweeted. When I reread the tweets later, I realized that the trip didn't last all that long but at that moment, the mental hemorrhage I experienced gave me a different sense of time.

It's been a month since I first got here and I still can't quite decide how to measure the new time. I mean, it seems like it's been ages since I found the half dead Mimosa but really it's only been 2 weeks. She tricked me by growing so fast so she's pretty useless as a measure of time.

Then I thought I hit the jackpot when figured I could measure time by the amount of toilet paper I use. But that didn't work out because I share it with my other housemates in the common toilet downstairs. Friends also don't make good measures, just to let you know. In this past month I've gotten really close with Mary and Melissa and it just hit me the other day that Mary's leaving in 2 weeks and come June, Melissa will be gone. How does the F in BFF work now? That muddled my humble brain a bit.

Neither does it help to go away for the weekend because you just come back feeling a little confused and almost convinced that time might have actually slowed down while you were gone. Like last week on Easter when we 3 went up north to Pacasmayo, another beach town just 2 hours away from ours.

We stayed at a pretty house owned by a lovely old couple who rent the rooms out since their kids left the nest (S25 for each of us in a 3 bed room). This is also where we found a special late night movie playing on a cable channel about a girl who's researching for her bisexual psychology thesis with the help of her stripper friend. At one point, Melissa comments, "This open relationship is not going to work out.." We were watching it for the storyline obviously.

I'll figure out a way to get around Huanchaco time. Give it another month. As for the God thing, let me know if you do.

More pictures on www.facebook.com/julestang

Moonlight and mescaline

We managed to raise 3000 soles during the fundraiser, success! I wish I had taken a photo of the updated moneymormeter which I painted to show it red hot at the end of the night but since the death of my camera battery charger, it's like I've lost the will to click. I did however possess a mighty strong will to get wasted after cleaning up and there were only 10 of us left sitting around the fire. Which is fine really... if I didn't have a lunch date with Padre Isidro at 12 noon the next day.

Yes, I met the priest when I was watching the sunset from the church on the hill after one of my rare runs. He invited me over to his home so I could meet his 2 daughters s and his mother. He is in his 40's, single and plays the piano beautifully. We got along very well even though he speaks almost no word of English and my Spanish sucks balls. I think I will accept his invitation to join the family at church this Sunday. In the meantime I'll take a bus down to Trujillo sometime this week to pick out my modest white wedding dress.

Strange as it sounds, everything I mentioned above is true. Except the wedding dress part of course because I refuse to be wed in anything but a short, sunshine yellow dress and Padre Isidro just couldn't handle that. He wanted me to meet his kids and share my culture with them, which I did over a nice homely meal of chicken and rice. It was actually very nice to be invited into their simple house for lunch but I was nursing a pretty colossal hangover so I had to pretend that I was a little unwell. Carrying on a conversation in your native language is tough enough when you've had a few; doing it in your fourth language is like trying to open a coconut with a butter knife. Plus, drunk and lying about it in the house of a priest surely gets you a 3rd class ticket to hell in a non A/C cabin doesn't it?

Anyway, this is the pause-for-a-moment-and-think-about-life view from la Iglesia de Huanchaco.

Background music is from Chopin's Andante Spianato

Opus 9, nocturne no. 3 in B major

Current situation is strange. I think it's due to the combination lack of:

1. Sleep
2. Cash
3. Phone credit
4. Confidence

The past couple of days have been very unhealthy. I resolve to center my energy again in the next week. On the plus side of things, we are throwing a fundraiser tomorrow at Otra Cosa restaurant in aid of the C.E.P school. Winter is approaching and a lot of the classes lack doors to protect the kids from the cold. 1 door is a comfortable estimate of 400 soles and we need at least 6 doors. Who would've thought that classroom doors are important to serve any other purpose than keeping students in class?

My contribution for the fundraiser is:

1. A 30 minute massage for the auction
2. Donation boxes made entirely from scraps
   
   
3. A thermometer to gauge how much money we've managed to raise so far, made from scrap wood and paint

If by any chance you would like to make a contribution of any kind for the kids at this shanty town school, just leave a comment below .

Gremlin kitten hybrid update:

1. Turns out that Feo is a girl. I wanted to name her Faye, short for Fea (which means ugly in Spanish) but the vet came up with a beautiful name - Mimosa.
2. Besides being undernourished, she is otherwise just filthy but in good health.
3. Maricarmen's lesbian friends came over earlier and they might want to take Mimosa into their home. Phew.

Tip: do not name stray animals you don't intend to keep.

"No tengo dinero..."

I have hit an all time low in the personal finance department. In my pocket now I have 40 centimos and nothing else. I can't put my finger on how this is making me feel. But it's close to how I felt the time when I was 10, waking up knowing that I had a terribly messy accident in my pyjama pants, and I just laid in bed for 5 minutes with this awful feeling of dread because I didn't know what to do.

I swear I had USD$100 stashed somewhere for emergency and last night I thought I'd just admire it for a bit, you know, just to get me the warm fuzzy feeling that money sometimes can give. After frantically searching everywhere, the $100 bill remained elusive. Never mind. No point worrying about money.

In my wallet was S100 that I have yet to break. There wasn't a need before because I barely spend money here. But because the Benjamin Franklin shaped hole in my heart was getting bigger, I went and had some drinks at Mamacha to numb the ache. It's all good, I told myself. I have 50 soles left which is more than enough to last the weekend if I don't party too much. Tomorrow I'll just go over to the bank and get some cash out.

Then as I was walking home from the bar, this black scrawny thing happened...

It's all skin and bones, crawling with fleas and ugly as hell. It followed me home so what I could I do but let it in?

Thankfully, Maricarmen said it could stay while I look for a permanent home for Feo. In the meantime I will have to take him to the vet (because we wouldn't want any of the other house pets getting sick) and buy him some tuna to flatten him up. Sorry, I mean fatten.

So there you have it. No tengo dinero. Google translate that.

Happy happy joy joy! I also found out that my credit cards and bankcard are not working.

Technologic

Friday night before election weekend. Here in Peru, there is a ley seca rule - literally meaning lay low. No sale of alcohol, no consumption of in public places and no public gatherings allowed for the entire weekend. Adhere or you'd be thrown in jail or fined 1800 soles, gringo or not.

Quite refreshing really. Else it'd be another night of over friendly male locals trying to get off with the huge variety of foreign women in Huanchaco. I'm sure they're probably decent guys in their own right. But when you make your way around the circuit only talking to gringas, you'll end up looking like a blow up doll with an odd shade of skin colour.

Luckily the same cannot be said for the exciting presidential elections in Peru. 5 candidates, neck to neck in terms of popularity, all trying to win the votes of their people. There's a high chance of a second round election in June because it looks unlikely for any of them to receive more than half the votes.

Currently in the lead according to the polls is Ollanta Humala of the Partido Nacionalista Peruano (PNP). Following closely behind is Keiko Fujimori, then former President Alejandro Toledo, and closing up the rear are former Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Luis Castañeda, former mayor of Lima. Here's a quick lowdown on the 5 candidates.

Ollanta Humala

Ran for presidency in 2006 but lost to current president Alan Garcia by only 5% of votes. Military man with many shiny medals to prove it, he is also brother to the notorious Antauro Humala who is now in jail under 25 years sentence for kidnapping 17 police officers, 4 of whom he murdered back in 2005. Some accusations under his name include human rights abuse in the 90's while serving as commander of a jungle military base - we're talking actual torture here; that he started the 2000 military uprising against the (then) Fujimori government, and having close ties with president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Notable mention: Mama Humala made a statement in March calling all homosexuals to be shot.

Keiko Fujimori

Daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori whom this glowing Wiki entry belongs to:

She was named First Lady of Peru in 1994 by her father after he stripped the title off her mother (his estranged wife), making her the youngest First Lady in Peru and the history of the Americas at 19 years old.

By the age 25, she had constructed Peru's first pediatric cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit among several orphanages across the land and received the honorary Orden Bernado O'Higgings which is the highest honor a foreigner can receive from the Chilean government thanks to her social accomplishments.

Notable mention: Keiko Fujimori is now working on a project law to make death penalty a punishment for very severe crimes. That, and possibly pardoning her father.

Alejandro Toledo

Former president of Peru from 2001 - 2006 after defeating (then) former (but now) president Alan Garcia. Also the founder of the party Peru Posible, Alejandro Toledo comes from an extremely humble background where his father was a bricklayer and his mother a fishmonger.

While he was in office, he provided local newspapers with much juicy headlines. "President Toledo's illegitimate daugher!" "USD$18,000 - President's salary, USD$200 - teacher's salary" "Peru Posible possibly forged thousands of signatures for re-election, including President Toledo's own signature!" Okay so it was a bit difficult to cram the last one into a headline.

Notable mention: Together with former PM of Spain, Toledo is behind the "Friends of Israel Initiative", a non-Jewish international project which supports Israel's right to exist.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski a.k.a. P.P.K

Alumni of both Oxford and Princeton, P.P.K is a bit of an economics expert. As the Minister of Energy and Mines in the 80's, he sponsored a law promoting energy and oil exploitation but that didn't go too well because it granted tax exemptions to foreign oil companies.

In December last year, Mr Kuczynksi announced that he had started proceedings to renounce his U.S citizenship but was not able to show any proof to his claims. In March however, he laughed in the faces of non believers and produced a document relating to this. Alas, despite having an Ivy League education, he must not be good with dates because the document showed that he had only begun the process a few days earlier and not in December.

Notable mention: Freshly honored Nobel laureate, writer Mario Vargas Llosa not so secretly sent "emissaries" to P.P.K telling him to drop out of the elections in favour of Alejandro Toledo.

Luis Castañeda

Former mayor of Lima from 2003-2010. A report was released last week by the new mayor of Lima, Susana Villaran (a bit of a leftist herself) detailing abandoned and poorly built infrastructure projects during his term as mayor. To add on, budgets were increased at that time and the appointment of the International Migrations Organization as supervisor and executor of most of the projects. Not a problem really...except that their commissions were close to 50 million soles.

Notable mention: Ex Miss Ecuador/current deputy mayor of Quito, María Sol Corral mysteriously accompanied the presidential hopeful to a debate recently. He referred to her as his 'amulet' to which she responded that he is very "dulce, suave y delicada." I don't think translation is needed for that.

In the past 5 years, poverty in Peru has dropped by 10% from 44.5%. Economically the country has grown as well thanks to more flexible regulations and open trade regime amongst other factors. But chatting to my adult students and other Peruvians, I noticed that more important to them than reducing poverty rate is the state of corruption in the country. With their manifesto centred around fighting corruption and transforming the current neo-liberal system to one that's more "para la gente" - for the people - leftist Humala and his Gana Perú party could be just what the people are looking for.

Losing my third eye

If there's one thing I feel slightly guilty about, it's my attachment to my camera.

Sorry. Not just any camera. I'm talking about my Panasonic Lumix GF1. The camera I use to video and photograph everything on. After I am long gone, my grand kids will find my life story recorded on the footage of this camera. I could be so desperate for cash that I'd sell my autographed Justin Bieber album but the GF1 stays. Around my neck. Chained to my feet.

So you can imagine how gutted I am to discover that the battery charger is not working. My tech expert Ben says that it could be due to a power surge, which is highly possible because the plug points here are of different voltage. And to make things more uncomfortable, I can't/don't know how to get it fixed here unless I get to Lima.

Oh well. Counting my blessings, at least I still have my phone.

This here is the entrance to my room.

Yep, I have a garden.

Very humble quarters as you can see.

This here is another place where I teach, at la biblioteca (library) de Huanchaco.

My housemate's dog, Gina. She loves playing catch and because I oblige her every time, she would wait for me even when I'm in the shower just so I will throw her ball. Or in this case, a random stone.

The cheapest cereal at the supermarket.

My housemate Maricarmen loves her pets. This is Michu.

Pirina (again). Look what the silly little thing wore...

Her "conejos". Spanish for rabbits.

Funny :)

Last week Mary and I took a combi in to town with no idea where we were going. Somehow we found this museum of art. I thought the colours were pretty nice.

I wanted a picture of the woman against the wall without making it obvious so I took this while I was crossing the street. Mary was standing there staring weirdly at me. Initially I wanted to crop her out but I think the picture looks better with her in it.

Peruvian desserts are massive. And sweet. And massive. And merengue is everywhere.

Dulce con leche, the most sinful cake known to man.

Okay I'll stop. Your teeth are probably aching already.

This was taken over the weekend where we had one of the best days since the start of autumn. Look closely, that's actually the mountains covered in mist.

That's it for now.

Norah Jones

All pictures on this post were taken by 7 year old iPhone hijacker Anita

So I've started teaching at the Municipalidad El Tropico which is about 10 minutes bus ride from Huanchaco. I give free extra English classes to adults, or so I thought I was going to. Turns out anyone might just show up and that includes 11 year olds and 14 year olds. As any teacher will tell you, especially those from the foreign language department, unexpected surprises like these are no cause for celebration.

Clever boy Jheison

Today as I started my lesson with 23 year old law student Olje (very keen language learner), Maricarmen walks into the class. Luckily, Melissa was around to observe my class so she offered to take over with Olje.

My 2 amors, 5 year old Maira and 3 year old Pirina

Maricarmen is 11 and speaks no word of English. I think she can't even really write because she asked me if she spelt her own name correctly on the registry. Still I thought we got off to a positive start at first when I introduced myself in English and she was able to copy what I said and introduce herself in return. Then we began our numbers lesson.

Not quite sure who this kid is

I've taught this lesson before, pretty straightforward stuff. Clapping and saying the numbers. Flash cards. Matching the numbers to the words. Play easy numbers game. Maybe close the lesson with flashcards.

The church next door

Well. I see now how deluded and spoilt I've been. Having only taught adults with serious motivation (e.g. Middle Eastern students who need the grade to migrate/get into university/find better jobs) and sullen Korean kids (not their fault, they were forced against their will to take 9-5 English lessons during school holidays), teaching in El Tropico is...different. And that is like saying taking the NYC subway everyday in a unicorn suit is...different.

Two conspirators

15 minutes into the lesson and I realised we were not going to get anywhere past the number 10. Half hour later and I knew that even doing up to 5 today was going to be very challenging. After 45 minutes I started speaking Spanish which is something I never do during an English lesson, and asked her if she preferred to go home early or stay and learn. She choose to stay.

Happiness sometimes come in small packages

I brought out the chocolate. I used up 1 week in class's worth of encouragement. My mouth ached from smiling. And still after 1 hour, she barely got through numbers 1-5 correctly.

That's Kheira from Italy. I'm pretty sure I spelt her name wrong

Sure she was easily distracted and I could tell she lacked concentration. It may even have something to do with the fact that she comes from a lower class background and doesn't know how to learn. These are definitely contributing factors but whatever, it still reflects badly on me as a teacher because I could not even achieve a simple numbers lesson successfully.

This is where we have our classes upstairs

Frustration? For sure. Disappointment? An unbelievable amount of. Today's lesson has taught me the patience lesson, which is something we all can't learn enough of. I'm also reminded again why I shouldn't be a lazy teacher and be more ready to change teaching methods even if it means doing it in the middle of a lesson. In retrospect I should've also been less hard on Maricarmen than I was today.

Classroom with a view

I hope she comes back for class on Wednesday. I'll do better next time.

BIG LOVE WHEEL LOVE

Right after posting about our dilapidated skate ramp here in Huanchaco for the kids, I told my good friends from Wheel Love skate shop to check it out. Less than 12 hours later, I got an email back from co-owner Keats:

Aside from getting the country wrong - Keats must've been too excited - it was unbelievable!

Wheel Love is putting together a love box which as of now includes 5 decks, some clothes, a first aid kit plus other stuff. And though Louise and I are excited to show the kids the new gear when the box arrives, we are also thinking of precautionary steps to prevent them from stealing the things. To some of them, stealing is the only way they can be sure no one takes away things from them. These kids live in a shanty town populated by locals who lost everything when typhoon El Nino hit coastal Peru back in 1998. After the disaster, all the government could give them was a big piece of barren land and nothing else. This little town with no running water is known as Cerrito de la Virgen (Virgin's Hill) and this is also where our "park" is at.

Thank you to everyone who donated your stuff to these Peruvian kids. You cannot imagine how grateful myself and the rest of the volunteers are for your help. And please, don't forget also the other kids and people you can help back home just by donating something you don't need anymore.

Lastly, big love to the abang abang hensem of Wheel Love, Keats and Yeng for making this happen.

Yes, guys with their own shops and good hearts are very attractive but sorry ladies, both just recently tied the knot. No, not to each other. Meet Mrs Chee and Mrs Wei Yeng. Congratulations guys :)

Un Lugar skate ramp was built in 2010 by volunteers Johannes from Germany and Oliver from England. Read more about the project here.