Experience Blog 6

Some final thoughts on the trip :)

Hello my loves!

Since Jules and I left you all in Lima we have been battling a fever of 103, I’ve ruptured my sinus membranes due to the changing altitudes and dry air of the flight, and neither of us have a sense of an appropriate temperature. Thankfully, we have made it to Seattle, albeit with minimal composure. Six months of travel without getting sick, and now it seems like it all piled up just to send me to the trenches. But I’m feeling a bit better now so here’s my final experience blog. 

One of my primary motivations for coming on this trip was to learn more about Latin America for myself. I tried to walk into his experience ready to lead with kindness and openness. I think one of the most startling things to me was how I was treated when I explained I was Colombian to Peruvians. I expected a level of comradery and acceptance to flow for being neighbours and sharing a language. I found this behaviour amongst my bestie Venezuelan bartender at the Cusco Irish pub, fellow South American tourists, our lovely TA Daniel, and the Argentinian and Chilean families with free-roaming kids in Pisac. 

However, my experience with Peruvians was much different. I don’t have a lot of opportunities to practice my Spanish back home so I was keen to use it in most of my interactions. At a lot of meals and shopping stalls I acted as a translator, so my intermediary role went slightly unnoticed by those delivering the service. However, when I first gained the confidence to get something for myself I was brought to tears by a woman who I ended up not buying a jersey from because she wouldn’t let me try on the size I wanted. I was taken aback by her bluntness and harsh words, and from then on I was very meticulous with how I interacted with vendors. 

I realized many of my friends on the trip kept raving about their terrific experiences with the vendors so I decided to do a little experiment. I started inquiring in my California girl reminiscent voice, and all of a sudden the service I was receiving was worthy of 5 stars on trip advisor. It felt similar to when I had been in Japan and just acted ditzy and used big english words when I wouldn’t pay for the train and the gate would catch me and everyone rushed to the aid of this vulnerable foreign girl. There is a certain protective privilege to being a tourist that I was grateful to have in Asia, and that I could selectively put on in Peru. 

My ability to chameleon between spaces has been advantageous, but sometimes I just long to belong amongst strangers. In my life I’ve always had a confusion between having culturally Canadian customs, but being perceived as exotic. I’ve occupied a niche where I’m just foreign enough to check a diversity box, but familiar enough to not make anyone uncomfortable. I think in some ways I was hoping to just be and not have to question how I can either approximate or dissipate membership from a group. However, I quickly learned tourist spaces were not where I was going to connect with my hispanic roots. 

Thankfully, I was able to have some pretty awesome conversations with Peruvians in less transactional environments. Learning about Dina (our favourite market stall) and her family was very heartwarming, and she remembered to always replace my rice with lentils or arroz verde. Minerva from the market who I met dancing in the square was also very eager to speak to me personally instead of using me as an intermediary figure to talk to others on the trip. The surfers kept calling me la “Europea elegante”to tease my very not surf appropriate outfit and there was some comradery there. And finally, our beloved Doña Rosa Marina. In all honesty, her inquisitions on my whereabouts were awfully nosy. There was a catholic judgment that permeated from my arrival at the hacienda in the early hours of the morning. There was a pride when she spoke of her family's history with the hacienda, when we all know the dark history of it. When Jon was sick she offered to call a Cuban doctor, and explained to me the joys of privatized healthcare. She subtly, in perfectly mastered passive aggressiveness put down the Pisac Inn for not being as historic and beautiful as the hacienda. But most of all, I felt like I was talking to my Colombian abuelita. There was an odd comfort to her distorted means of communication, fluttered with Catholic superiority. After I moved to the Pisac Inn, she told me she was upset that I had moved and invited me for tea. For our final week in Pisac I had afternoon tea with her frequently. Beneath her judgemental exterior, she’s just a woman in search of some company. She doesn’t speak much English, so being able to culturally and linguistically understand her made for easy conversation. Our time together made me feel like I have some cultural knowledge of Latin America that I was able to apply in giving Doña Rosa Marina some grace. I’ve learned a lot more about the history, politics, and literature of Latin America which was one of my goals, but my search for belonging continues!

I’m so grateful to have spent the past 6 weeks with such an incredibly inspiring group of young folks. You are all so intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate. Hopefully our paths will cross soon. Much love to each and everyone of you!

Xoxo,

Ana