Yesterday at about 1:00 pm, we get back to Quito. Our travel agency guide in Cuzco picked us up on time from our hostal to take us to the airport. It was the first time he had been on time. When we arrived last Tuesday, we waited outside the airport for 15 or 20 minutes before he came. On the morning of our train ride to Machu Picchu, he was 15 minutes late. But yesterday, he was on time and very helpful. He even took our boarding passes to the tax window to pay the outgoing taxes for us. He said it would be $5 per person. Only after we were waiting at the gate did we notice the sticker on our boarding passes that said $4.28. He had pocketed almost three dollars from us.

Such a thing was pretty normal in Peru. In Cuzco, for instance, we went to a church and the guide told us it would cost three soles when the tour started. We waited around for the beginning of the tour for about 15 minutes and then went in the church. After we were well inside, he said the price was 3 soles for students in Cuzco. It was five soles for foreigners, and it was another 5 soles for the guide. So rather than being 3 soles, it was actually 10.

Later, at a museum, I asked how much a tour was. Ten soles, she said. Do you have an English-speaking guide, I asked? No, but we have a great Spanish-speaking one. Eric was gung-ho, so he said he´d pay our entrance fee if we´d translate. We had just translated the church tour, so we were ready for it; Eric bought the tickets. THEN, we found out the guide wasn´t free.

When we got into Quito, we were happy to be back in Ecuador, where you might get robbed but where you aren´t regularly swindled. Don´t get me wrong. Machu Picchu was beautiful; Cuzco was a charming little town; Aguas Calientes was nice too. But it was all touristy, full of (whiney) gringos, and thus full of Peruvian people who saw you only as a source of money. Ecuador felt comfortable.

Then, yesterday afternoon, we watched Ecuador´s soccer team beat Argentina 2-0. It wasn´t just a lucky win. Ecuador clearly dominated. With one minute left in the game, they scored their second goal. We were watching it in a restaurant full of lively Ecuadorians, who slapped high fives with us. It was the height of my Ecuadorian pride.

After the game, we went to see the new Star Wars. Overall, it was a great day. Unfortunately, Joni and Eric head out tomorrow morning early. Just now, we tried to go to a restaurant where they served cuy (guinea pig) for Eric to try, but they were closing at five and thus wouldn´t serve it cuz it takes too long. It´s been that kind of a day today. Kinda crappy. It´s raining slightly, we can´t really decide what we want to do, our plans falter or fail, and tomorrow, everyone goes back to work and/or real life.

More Peru stories to come.

On Monday, we left Ecuador for Peru. Our flight was at 5:15 pm, so we had all day to prepare and worry about last minute things. We spent a lot of time text messaging our friend Bill to try to arrange for him to get us tickets to the Ecuador/Argentina game this coming Saturday.

We arrived in Lima at 7:30 or 8, I don’t remember. We then had to stay in the airport until the next morning, when our flight for Cusco left at 6:00 am. It was rough. Just as I was getting the hang of falling asleep on a cold, hard floor, I had to wake up.

Our first impressions of Peru were formed on Day 0. The airport itself was much nicer than the five Ecuadorian airports we’ve been in. The people were just as nice, and if anything, their Spanish was clearer. When we disembarked in Lima, we were herded straight to a guy who offered to find us a hotel for the night. But since it would have cost $50 per person, we decided to pass.

We did, however, talk to him about Machu Picchu and Cusco. He warned us that high season is just starting and that we might want to book things right now. So we did.

He was with a travel agency called InkaWasi, and he gave us a quote for a whole package. It would include the following: a tour of the sacred valley of the Incas on day one, a hostal in Cusco for two nights, the train ticket to Aguas Calientes (the town closest to Machu Picchu), a hostal in Aguas Calientes, a guide and park entry fee for Machu Picchu, the train back to Cusco, a final hostal in Cusco, and a ride back to the airport.

We decided it might be a good idea to have some security for our plans, so we bought it, blowing most of the cash we brought with us.

More to come. . .

Contact unpredictable for next few days. We leave this afternoon and get back on Saturday the 4th. Will try to give some updates. Expect pictures next Sunday or Monday.

the courtyard at the orphanage

For the past six weeks or so, I’ve been teaching a basic English class at an orphanage called San Vicente de Paul. The picture above is of the courtyard at the orphanage, as the helpful caption tells you. The class is an hour and a half. We’re trying to implement a sustainable English program at the orphanage; in its initial stages, it is for adults, not the actual orphans.

My friend Bill and I have been teaching the classes. Yesterday, I was supposed to teach, but on Friday night, I got a text message saying that there were no classes due to the holiday. I’m ashamed to say, I was thrilled. We had just watched “Sideways” finally, and it kept us up late. I checked the phone at midnight as I was heading to bed, dreading having to wake up in seven hours, and then plan for and teach a class. Then I read the message: “no hay clases mañana por el feriado.”

Woo hoo.

crumpled paper

Eileen�s parents were kind enough to put together a little care package for us in the form of an extra suitcase sent along with Eileen�s friend Joni. It was packed with clif bars, vitamin water, xbox magazines (bathroom reading), livestrong bracelets (gifts for my students), a couple of birthday presents for me (I made a list for those of you who want to get me a little something), and a bunch of newspapers for padding. It was like Christmas morning, opening up the suitcase. Today, we just finished packing it up with things we don�t need for the next couple of months. We�re a little worried that it�s going to be hard to get everything home in July.

Yesterday, I read several of the crumpled Madison newspapers. And I got a little foreshadowing of how a complete understanding of the language I�m living in will be annoying. Right now, I�m comfortably ignorant of the daily idiocy that appears in local newspapers.

I was first lured in by a headline that read, �Lure of CDs snared terror fugitive.� About a third of the way through the piece, I read, �They burn and break in by night, melt into the mainstream by day. They work alone or in tiny cells motivated not by profit but by passion. The Animal Liberation Front . . .� Wait. What? The Animal Liberation Front? Tell me something. Prior to September 11th, would The Cap Times have used the same ridiculous rhetoric in their headline? Terror, huh?

Good grief.

I decided to move on to some local education issues. The first thing to catch my eye was a very compelling headline from the May 16th Cap Times: �Be yourself, graduates told.� That�s front page news? A clich�d, ho-hum commencement speech? No need to read that article.

I uncrumpled a �Metro� section which had an article written by a friend of mine, Lee Sensenbrenner, about the school referendums. I�ve been out of the loop on the issue, so I read it. Unfortunately, the names I read there brought back my worst memories of my teaching career — the career I�m returning to.

I turned to the Lifestyle section next. It had an article entitled �Why we need good English.� I figured maybe the piece would make me feel more appreciated, so I read on. Ironically, the writing was at about 6th-grade level. And it quoted Barbara Coonradt, of Albany, N.Y., who said, �When people speak or write improperly, I immediately view them as not very intelligent. While I realize that my perception may be incorrect, it�s hard for me to forgive the misuse of English when proper usage is something most people can learn easily.�

Barbara, listen to me. I�ve spent the past year trying to teach people how to speak any form of intelligible English. And prior to that, I spent five years trying to teach people some things about �proper English usage.� It�s NOT easy to learn. Have you ever been to a country where you didn�t speak the language, Barbara? How many languages do you speak other than English? If someone had grown up in a culture where �proper English� was not the language, would you still contend that �proper English� is easy to learn? (I�m not just talking about foreign-born people.)

Barbara, I know the difference between lie and lay. I know the difference between effect and affect. I know that in the sentence, �It is I,� I is the predicate nominative and thus should be in the subjective case. Barbara, I�m sure I could kick your proper usage ass in a grammar bee. And I�m telling you as a teacher of English that it is not an easy thing to master.

Good Lord. What�s really scary is that there�s a 90% chance that this idiotic article got posted on the bulletin board in the English department at West.

No wonder I never read the local newspapers.

The real �terror fugitive� in all this is the career I�m going back to. I�m terrorized by the thought of returning to the likes of Joan Knoebel and people like Barbara Coonradt. I console myself with the knowledge that Madison is not a town full of idiots, and that there�s lots to love.