Caminar

         Wednesday September 12, 2012 - written at 4:30 pm 

           I just got back from a great walk with Ricardo, my host father.

           This morning, Tatiana, one of the Projects Abroad staff, came to check on me and the family to see how things are going.  Tatiana will be coming to my house and/or Spanish lessons at least once a week to check up on me.  It’s nice to have that support.  Anyway, this morning I told Tatiana that I am not sure what else to do to interact with the family and that I really like them, but I am not sure what else to do to get to know them.  She asked me what I’d like to do with them and I said cook, go on walks, go with them to the market, whatever.  Tatiana told me that she thinks that both the family and I are shy and it’s hard with the language barrier but things will get better as I learn more Spanish.  I guess she must have told the family what I said though, because after lunch Fortunata asked me if I would like to go on a walk with her.  It turned out that Fortunata was busy and Ricardo took me on a walk, which I actually preferred.  He tries harder to make conversation, repeats things several times so that I can understand, and is more patient than Fortunata with my Spanish.

            Ricardo, Yonyo (the dog – I just learned his name), and I walked to the outskirts of Pisac.  We passed the Royal Inca Hotel, which seems very fancy and is about 15 minutes outside of the main town, and then we walked down various dirt roads.  It was fun to have Yonyo there because he kept going up to stray dogs (there are so many!) and trying to play with them.  Sometimes they would play with him and sometimes they would just stare at him – I think they were probably sneering at him for being so clean.  We also passed a couple of pigs on the road that Yonyo tried to play with, but the pigs got scared and took off running (this was especially funny because Yonyo is less than 15 pounds and these were big pigs!).  In addition to laughing with Ricardo every time the dog did something like chase a pig or pee on a wall for the fiftieth time, Ricardo pointed out sights such as various cafes, the direction San Salvador is in (the town I will be teaching in starting next week), and we were even in a place that we could see parts of the Incan ruins on top of the mountains.  Much of the conversation consisted of Ricardo saying things to me and then me repeating words – after I repeated the words he would think I understood.  I’d say I actually understood about 50% of the time.  My best Spanish moment today was asking Ricardo what the word “wasi” means.  The word is everywhere – restaurants, hotels – and has been driving me crazy because it’s not in any dictionary.  He said that it is a Quecha word and means “casa” (house) – that would explain why it’s not in my Spanish-English dictionary.  I was also able to explain to Ricardo that there are no mountains in Chicago.  He seemed surprised!

            Pisac is such a beautiful place.  Since the city is in what is called The Sacred Valley of the Incas (and it really is a valley) there are towering mountains in every direction.  And the mountains are almost always accompanied by clear, blue skies.

            Although I was nervous before taking this walk (How would I communicate? Where were we actually going?), it was great to be able to have this one on one time with Ricardo speaking only Spanish and I loved seeing a new part of Pisac.