Author Archives: wwelvaert

September

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Back to school in Belgica, unofficial end of summer in the US, and soon it’ll be springtime in Cusco. But the turn of the calendar had me thinking, this month marks the 6-year anniversary of the time that….

Somewhere in a Mexican restaurant in North Carolina, a Peruvian girl named Norma picked up her cellphone and pretended to be a Peruvian girl named Patricia. The real Patricia got out a phone number on the back of a crumpled business card that a goofy Belgian guy gave her in an Irish restaurant a few weeks before.

The real Patricia had said she would call the goofy Belgian guy, but never did. She wasn’t too interested in goofy Belgian guy, in fact the only reason she had talked to him was because he blocked her view of the TV.

Nevertheless, pretend-Patricia (aka Normita) had a blind date the following evening and didn’t want to leave her best friend Patricia all by her lonesome self. Pretend-Patricia was going on her blind date no matter what, so she called goofy Belgian guy…

“Hi I’m Patricia, the girl from Ri-Ra’s…”
“I’m hungry, let’s go eat something and watch a movie…”

So I was shamelessly deceived and the rest, as they say, is history.

“Left a good job in the city,

Working for The Man every night and day,

And I never lost one minute of sleeping,

Worrying ’bout the way things might have been.”

Never tell a Peruvian 15 minutes

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Peruvians are famous for their rather peculiar sense of timing. Peruvians are habitually late, they call it “la hora Peruana” or “the Peruvian hour”. Even for business meetings everyone is typically at least 20 minutes late.

That isn’t news in itself, I’ve written about this before. However, the other day I jinxed myself, I know better by now…

Since mamacita now works in the afternoons, I’ll try to cook dinner most days right around the time when she arrives home, around 8:30 or sometimes later. Now meals in any Latin culture are typically much later than in Western Europe or the US. We normally eat lunch between 2:30 and 3:30 in the afternoon, dinner is sometimes as late as 9:00 pm.

As I said, the other day I jinxed myself. I was cooking my famous lemon-pepper baked chicken with tortellini and alfredo sauce… Mira, que rico 😉

chicken with tortellini

Papi's famoso lemon-pepper chicken with tortellini and alfredo sauce

Just as I was getting the water for the tortellini to a boil, mamacita called to say she’d be a little late. I’m not the best cook and I usually wing it a bit when I’m cooking, but one thing I’m picky about is the time to cook the noodles. So as I was talking on the phone I just happened to have the box of noodles in my hand and looked at the “recommended cooking time” and said to mamacita:

… okay, hurry home, the food will be ready in 15 minutes exactly.
… okay, love you, bye.
… okay, love you, bye.

Just as soon as I hung up the phone it hit me. Because the “recommended cooking time” said 15 minutes I told Patricia 15 minutes.

You never tell a Peruvian 15 minutes

You can be assured 15 minutes will be at least 45 minutes on a real clock, and probably closer to an hour. If you want a Peruvian to do something in 15 minutes, you better use words like “hurry up”, “right now” or “2 minutes”. That’s not to be fussy or anything, that’s simply the Peruvian sense of timing.

So I turned down all the food as best as I could, but after about half an hour the little goose and I ate our dinner anyway, since it was after 9:00 already. About 45 minutes to an hour after the original 15-minute call, mommy did make it home and gobbled away the remaining noodles and chicken, which was sort of lukewarm but still yummie 😉

News of the day

Posted on by under Life in Peru

In the US, seems that people don’t want to make wawas anymore. I don’t know what the birth rate is here in Peru, but I sure see a lot of wawas every day.

It makes sense, people have more babies when their outlook on life is more optimistic. The only issue I have with the article is this:

“The downward trend invites worrisome comparisons to Japan and its lost decade…”

A lot of English language news refers to Japan in terms of “lost decade”, but this so called “lost decade” has lasted from the late 1980s until today.

But have no fear USA, Bernanke sez he’ll just print up more money. Printing money has sustained the US economy for 30 years, why stop now?

Words fail me, take it away Bruce…

The so-called economic growth in the so-called developed world will continue somehow or other because the old guys in suits that run the place will find a way to spin it that way. They’re desperate for you to believe that you need their whizdumb and leadership. They need you to build up their ego, so they can sip their expensive wine and eat their caviar at Davos every year.

Look, I’m really not pessimistic. I’m happy with my life, my family, my wawa. Rant over 🙂

Infierno Peruano.

Posted on by under Life in Peru

NOTE: as I am copying / pasting this chiste from an email, SEDACUSCO has once again turned of the water in our neighborhood.

Un hombre muere y va al infierno.
Allí descubre que hay un infierno para cada país.

Va primero al infierno alemán y pregunta:
¿Qué te hacen acá?

-Aquí primero te ponen frente a un foco de luz durante una hora, luego en la silla eléctrica otra hora,después te acuestan en una cama llena de clavos otra hora, y el resto del día viene el diablo alemán y te da latigazos.

Al personaje no le gustó nada el asunto y se fue a ver en qué consistían los otros infiernos.

Tanto el infierno estadounidense como el ruso y el resto de infiernos de distintas naciones hacían lo mismo. Entonces, ve que en el infierno peruano hay gente esperando entrar.

Intrigado, pregunta al último de la fila:
¿Qué es lo que hacen acá?
-Aquí te ponen frente a un foco durante una hora, en una silla eléctrica otra hora,
luego en una cama llena de clavos otros sesenta minutos, y el resto del día viene el diablo peruano y te da latigazos.

-Pero es exactamente igual a los otros infiernos. Entonces, ¿por qué aquí hay tanta gente queriendo entrar?

Porque nunca hay luz, la silla eléctrica no sirve,
los clavos de la cama se los robaron y
el diablo peruano es funcionario público, viene, firma y se va.

¡Viva el Perú, carajo !

The man knows his food

Posted on by under Life in Peru

I just have to chuckle every time I see this…

Picture of Alan Garcia

Posing with the president and a pig...

That would be Alan Garcia, current (and former) President of Peru, next to a huge pig – click on the pictures to see full size.

These pictures hang on the wall at a chicharonneria we go to in Saylla, a town just outside of Cusco known for “chicharron” or fried pig. I positively know there’s no pun intended. I’ve asked the owner (the lady in the picture with Alan Garcia), and there’s no special relation or political affiliation, they’re just proud that Mr. President frequents their restaurant.

Here’s a couple of closeups:

Alan Garcia and a huge pig

Picture of Alan Garcia

Regardless of how you feel about Peruvian President Alan Garcia and APRA politics, one thing is for sure: the man knows his food 🙂

And the award goes to…

Posted on by under Life in Peru

This Jeff Sessions dude who had this to say about the 14th amendment:

“I’m not sure exactly what the drafters of the (14th) amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen,”

Go read all the hypocrisy at AP.

For the record, let’s check the native Americans on the US Senate’s ethnic diversity web page. Just saying…

Look, I understand there are some shady operations who bring women to the US just to have an “anchor baby”, and that’s not ethical nor beneficial for the baby and their family. And large-scale migration does have a significant social impact, but so far what I’ve experienced in Peru is that people are proud when a foreigner decides they want to make Peru their home, as it shows a way of approval and appreciation for the country.

So here you go Mr. Sessions, perhaps you ought to be grateful that many Latinos indeed want to live the American Dream.

STFU

Ahh, Holandés

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Last week while I was in Lima I had breakfast a couple of times at a small, local restaurant by Benavides and Porta in Miraflores. A typical family business, there were 2 girls working in the front, a cook and his “ayudante” in the kitchen and dad keeping an eye on the place.

Since it was a local place I was usually the only gringo there, and the girls in the front started to ask me some of the typical curious questions:

Are you visiting Peru for vacation?
Where are you from?
How long are you staying?
…

All pretty innocent stuff.

When I told the girls I was from Belgica, they didn’t really know what to make of that, so I told them a bit about where Belgium is. “Between France, England and Germany.” After all, Belgium as we know it was created back in the day to be a buffer between those countries and keep them from going to war all the time, but that’s another story.

“Oh, Belgica. En Belgica hablas Alemán?”
“No, Holandés”
“Uuh… Holandés.”

I could tell right away the younger girl was taken back a bit and she became all quiet, while I kept eating my yummie pan con bisteck and her older sister went back to squeezing the lemons for that afternoon’s ceviche.

“So what do you think about that Holandés Joran van der Sloot?” asked the younger girl after a while, kind of embarrased and not wanting to look straight at me any more.

What could I say. I believe in “innocent until proven guilty” as much as anyone, but 2 young women are dead after they were both last seen alive with this guy. He destroyed the reputation of Aruba and now young women in Lima are on edge at the mere sight of a tall gringo.

“I guess probably not all gringos are like that…” the girl said after a while.

Joran van der Sloot in custody in Peru

Joran van der Sloot in custody in Peru

I hope the Dutch realize how much damage this guy has done to their reputation in Peru, with his picture in every tabloid newspaper until he gets convicted. Worse, since there are essentially no guards inside Peruvian prisons, a psychopath like Joran Van Der Sloot may end up thriving in that environment.

Note: check out Stuarts post on Peruvian prisons.

Bus / combi fares in Lima

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Here’s a question: What are the fares I’m supposed to pay for the busses / combis in Lima?

I’ve been in Lima for a few days now, taking combis to various places, and I can’t seem to figure out the fares. I’ve been paying S/. 1.00 for almost every trip, long, short, or in between. It’s not a big issue because 1 Sol is not a lot of money (~0.35 US$), but I’m just curious.

Here’s some examples:

  • I took a combi from the “Ovalo” in Miraflores to “Naciones Unidos” @ “Zorritos” in downtown Lima, about a 45 minute trip during the day. I gave the boletero S/. 1.00 and he accepted it.
  • On the way back from “Zorritos” I took the exact same route (Arica – 28 Julio – todo Arequiiiiipaaaaa) but in a different company. Since I didn’t have S/. 1.00 on me, I gave the boletero S/. 2.00 and he gave me S/. 0.60 change I believe.
  • The next day I took a combi from the “Ovalo” again going up Arequipa, but I told the boletero that I’d be jumping out at “Javier Prado”, so this trip was less than half the distance of the previous one. Again I gave the boletero S/. 1.00 and he accepted it, no change.

On the short trips, I see many of the locals give the boletero some change that is less than S/. 1.00, but I don’t know how much. I’ve asked “cuanto?” a few times, but the boleteros just look at me confused and I end up giving them my 1 Sol as usual. I’m kind of leery to ask, because the rates that are posted inside the combis are actually much higher, usually starting at S/. 1.50 and up to S/. 2.80 or something like that. Plus, I don’t want to look the part of the dumb gringo who doesn’t know his way around.

Again, it’s just small change, but I’m just curious as to what everyone else is paying. When in Lima, I guess I like to do like the Limenians 🙂