Now that 2008 is finally here, it has come time to choose a New Year's resolution. I never know what I should do for a resolution, and this year is no different. I have so many things that I think I want to do, and my indecisiveness makes it hard to pick just one. It would be really cool if I could learn a new musical instrument, or start careers in professional whistling and stand-up comedy, but there's no way all of those are getting done. And, as the YouTube philologist, hotforwords reminds us, the key to accomplishing your New Year's resolution is to pick one thing and split it up into small manageable parts.
So, that leaves me with the task of sorting through my resolutions and picking just one. However, most people who only have one resolution never make it past February. So, maybe the answer resolution success is to just pick something really easy, like cutting my toe nails more often.
But that one is ridiculous. Maybe I can make is sound more lofty by incorporating my future travel plans to Peru and Europe. I think I've got a good one.
My New Year's resolution is to travel 10 new countries. Now, this may sound like a lot, but I already have plans to visit Peru and 6 European nations. So, now I just have to snag 3 more, which will probably be easy to do during my semester abroad in Florence. Perfect! It sounds ambitious, but it's actually very attainable. And I'll easily be able to split it up into smaller, more manageable parts. And as a bonus, I'll make my Facebook Where I've Been map look flippin' sweet.
So, I'm leaving to go to Peru tomorrow, and this will likely be the last blog post until I return on the 16th. Hopefully, I will be able to update while in Peru, but if the internet is still a developing phenomenon (see bottom of p.5) in Italy, then I have little hope for the small mountain town of Urubamba. There might be some internet cafes, but I know that my homestay family does not have internet access.
I'm really looking forward to Peru, but I can't help feeling like it's the last day of summer vacation. After today, I can't wake up late and do nothing all day. I've watched entirely too much Food Network programming during this break. I've watched the entire third season of The Next Food Network Star, The Next Iron Chef, dozens of episodes of Good Eats, Iron Chef, and Rachel Ray, Giada, Emeril, and Ina Garten. My favorite by far is Paula's Party, with Paula Deen. I love Paula Deen. I'm also really excited for that new show with Jamie Oliver - probably because they show that same commerical for it every single commercial break. But I won't be able to watch Jamie at Home because I won't have access to Food Network in Peru or Europe.
Now I know Peru will be a lot of fun, and I guess it's fine that I won't be with my friends Alton Brown and Iron Chef Cat Cora, but I'm kind of worried about the amount of work I'll be doing. Looking at the itinerary, almost every day is marked as a "Project Day." And since I'm in the construction group, I'll probably be building stuff most of the time.
Then, after I get back from Peru, I'm turning around and going straight to Florence. Italy will be really cool, but still a real semester - including classes and grades. And right after the semester ends, I'll be traveling for a couple of weeks. I love traveling and learning about new places, but it all just seems like so much so close together. So, it's kind of hard to wrap my head around it all, and all at once.
But I guess no one really remembers how dreadful the last day of summer was, because once school gets going, you're already preoccupied with work, friends and all the new experiences that come with a fresh start.
Well, I'm back from my long hiatus, and I've go a lot to show and tell you. Since the last time I blogged, I've been on 3 continents, in 4 countries, and taken 6 planes. It's been a very exhausting week, but it's been one of the best, and I have no regrets about any of it.
So, last Monday, I got to Peru and got introduced to my homestay family, and with ProPeru, the NGO we were working with in Urubamba. Living in a homestay was an interesting, new experience. The food was also... interesting. The language barrier wasn't as huge of an obstacle as I thought it would be, especially since one of my roommates spoke Spanish fluently. Claro, I couldn't speak a lick, but I was surprised at how much Spanish I was able to understand on my own.
So what did I do in Peru, you may wonder? Well, for the first half of my trip, I stayed in the tiny town of Urubamba, which is where ProPeru has it's headquarters. Here's the play by play: Every morning, I would wake up to stomach pains, so many birds, the sun and the cold at 5:30 , deal with TD, then wake up my lazyroommates around 7, eat a traditional Peruvian breakfast, head over to ProPeru by 7:45, and then get to the work site in Chinchero around 9:00. Then, we worked from 9:00 to 5:00.
The entire group of MLK Scholars (around 50 of us) were split up into four work groups: a medical campaign, a clean burning stove project, and two bathroom construction projects. I was part of one of the bathroom construction teams. Now, you might be thinking that these jobs may not sound very demanding -- that's what I thought before I got to Peru. But there are so many basic luxuries that we take for granted in the US that people in the Sacred Valley don't have access to that makes even the most basic of needs -- like sanitary waste removal -- so hard to come by.
Constructing the bathroom in Chinchero was an extremely difficult, strenuous, and often frustrating process. First of all, there is no Home Depot in Peru. There's not even a Walmart. So all building materials have to be made from things found naturally. Instead of wood or bricks, they used adobes, which are big, hardened blocks made from a mixture of clay, hay and water. They are used in many nations around the world to build structures. Another fun fact about adobes: they each weigh anywhere from 30 to 60 lbs. After loading and unloading truckloads of adobes, carrying adobes up the mountain, and lifting adobes to the tops of walls, I probably handled like 700 of those dirty, bug-infested blocks.
Adobes are the basic building block of Peruvian construction, and barro is the cement used to fuse the bricks together. Barro is made from the same clay as adobe bricks, but does not contain hay and remains wet. It looks like mud, but it hardens into whatever shape you want it to be. To make the barro, first we had to take a pick axe to the side of the mountain to collect dirt. Then, we had to mix it with water, and stomp it with our bare feet (like when you're making wine) to give it an even consistency.
Most of the skilled work was left to the local Peruvian builders, who we called Maestros, and who called us, "Adobe, adobe!" or "Barro, barro, barro!" There were a lot of times when I felt like I was too tired to work, or when I had trouble motivating myself, but in the end, I was really proud of the work that my team and I were able to accomplish. Despite the long hours and the grueling labor, we were able to help the community complete the bathroom (sans roof), and have a lot of fun while doing it. I learned a lot about the culture of the Sacred Valley, especially during lunch breaks and chicha breaks.
For the final couple of days of the trip, the MLK Scholars and I toured much of Peru, including the ruins of Ollaytantambo, Machu Picchu, and Moray, the salt mines of Pisac, and the cities of Aguas Calientes, Lima, and Cusco. My trip to Peru was a great experience, and I liked the balance of volunteer and tourist activity.
Even though my group and I were working with the Peruvians for less than a week, it really opened my eyes to the real conditions of rural life in a developing country. Don't get me wrong though; I don't mean that it's all hardship and sanitation issues. I guess I used to think that "developing" countries were places that needed fixing, places that were somehow broken. But after spending time with some of the people and listening to their stories, I don't think that they're broken anymore. They need some touch-ups here and there -- a bathroom here, some clean stoves there -- but their culture and communal way of life is very much in tact, and very much a reason for their survival.
UPDATE: Here's an overdue video with some footage from Peru. I didn't get that many chances to tape because I was working all the time, and because this guy used my entire battery to tape some stupid futbol game, but here's what I managed to get away with. I'll post some pictures, too.
So, after living in Florence for a full 3 days, I started classes at NYU Florence today. It was a pretty easy day. I walked to class, which takes about 30 minutes, and I had only once class today, Italiano con Professoressa Contini. I have Italiano 4 days a week (Lunedi - Giovedi) for 75 minutes, and the class is conducted entirely in Italian. At first, I was shocked at the thought of spending an hour everyday fumbling with Italian, but I got over it when I realized that I would rather look stupid in the classroom than when I'm lost and clueless at the train station in Venezia.
Another thing I'm learning about classes here in NYU Florence is that there isn't a whole lot of it. I only had once class today. In fact, most days I'll only have once class. Most classes only meet once a week, for 2-3 hours (except Italian, of course). This is a huge change from NYU in NYC, where I'm used to about 5 classes a day. I don't know how I'll get used to so few classes, so I think I'll try to enroll into classes for no credit, or volunteer teaching English at a school. I'm part of the community service program here in Florence, called Vivere il Volontariato, so the part-time teaching position looks like a good possibility. The Vivere il Volontariato coordinator is coming by later for a pizza party, so I guess we'll see how this idea works out. Ciao.
So, I've been in Florence for almost a week now, and I'm starting to get used to it. I've made friends with the lady who works at the register at the supermarket, I kind of know my way around the neighborhood, and I watched my first episode of La Ruota Della Fortuna.
I had a couple more of my first classes, and I'm growing to like the music program here. It's much less complicated than how music is taught in New York, but still very demanding. It's also very individualized, which makes much more sense. The teachers are also really cool and seem interested in helping us learn the material. I think my favorite teacher so far is my piano teacher. He plays at the local jazz club, Jazz Club, and he invited us to play with him.
I made a video showing NYU Florence's campus and my apartment. It's called, "Ramil Lives, Goes to School in Florence." I show you what the campus looks like, what my apartment looks like, and the walk in between. It's kind of cheesy, but it's how I'm going to be spending a lot of time this semester, so I figured it deserved some air time.
Also, I wanted to post a link of my friend Dean's video. It's hosted on Facebook, and it's a trailer to an upcoming film about our trip to Peru with MLK Scholars and ProPeru. It's a great trailer, and I'm sure the final product will be amazing.
So, on Sunday, I went to the final production of Madama Butterfly at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. I had never seen Madame Butterfly, and I thought it was great. The orchestra was amazing, the acting was good, and the ending was so tragic! It was also a big help that there were subtitles to go along with the show. Although everything in Italian, I was able to fumble through with some degree of understanding.
I also realized that, since most operas are in Italian, all Italian people can easily understand them. It's like going to the movies for them. In America, opera is so inaccessible, and it's always associated with high culture and grandeur. But I think that if we could understand the words being sung, then we probably wouldn't think that way. I think that if Puccini wrote Madame Butterfly in English, then it would be as popular as High School Musical... No, I take that back. Nothing will ever be as popular as High School Musical. But now that I can navigate my way through some Italian, I have a new appreciation for opera.
With the help of my Italian class, and also with the help of TV, the need to eat food, and opera, I'm slowly learning Italian. But I still have trouble communicating with English-speaking Italians, particularly my teachers. All of the Italian faculty at NYU in Florence is very distinguished and knowledgeable, but sometimes it's just hard for them to get their point across to us. And it's even harder for them to answer our fast, American questions. My flute teacher knows English, but he prefers not to speak it because he thinks it is an ugly language. So, he has his wife sit in on the lesson to translate. It's kind of weird having this woman who probably can't play the flute tell me what I'm doing wrong, but I guess I'll just have to get used to it.
