Sunday, November 16, 2008

Cajamarca, Peru

Fairytales and Fondue

In which Cruz is nearly stolen by a band of spider monkeys

Three weeks ago we arrived in our new hometown of Cajamarca. The day after my last letter, we endured a grueling, hot and dusty drive from Chachapoyas with our horn-happy minibus driver, Segundo, down switchbacks into the Canyon Marañón and then back up the other side (the highlight of which was when car-sickness finally overcame Cyrus and he vomited on his sister’s head). Twelve hours later, Segundo unloaded us safe and sound (if a little woozy) into a lively Friday night crowd in the beautiful plaza of Cajamarca. As luck would have it, Segundo just happened to drop us in front of the office of his beautiful ex-girlfriend, Marlith (whom he hadn’t seen for years, which might just explain his willingness to volunteer himself to undertake such a daunting drive). Marlith and her friend Gloria run a tour company that organizes treks in the area, and we’ve become fast friends during our first three weeks in Cajamarca.

Rather than try to secure lodging in advance, we decided to spend our first two nights in a hotel and pound the streets in search of some poor soul keen on housing a family of global vagabonds. Our luck (and an insider’s tip from Marlith) lead us to a lovely nurse named Maruja who was happy to rent to us the lower half of her home near the center of town. What a godsend it was to have a nurse in the house the day Bella decided to pull little Cruz down the stone staircase on a blanket. When Maruja heard the screams, she came running to find Cruz with his face covered in blood and a gash across his scalp. She offered to accompany us to the hospital where they could treat the wound, which she said was definitely stiches-worthy. Recognizing the panic on our faces, though, she must have decided that the trauma of undergoing our first third-world hospital experience might just surpass the trauma of the head wound, and she offered an alternative treatment. She deftly stopped the bleeding by taking a chunk of hair from each side of the wound and winding it into a tight braid to pull the sides of the gash together. Then she applied a dab of antibacterial cream, and Presto! All better.

We’ve settled into a comfortable routine here in Cajamarca, which is a charming little colonial city in the northern highlands and is home to nearly 300,000 people. Our mornings are spent homeschooling and working, and in the afternoons we explore the town. We venture on longer journeys each weekend, sometimes on treks organized by Gloria and Marlith.

We just returned from one such adventure—an exhausting but exhilarating hike through the green rolling countryside to the village of Cumbayo, where Sunday is market day. We realized a few miles into the hike that, due to a minor miscalculation in the kilometer conversion, the trek was going to be a tad longer than the kids were expecting—around 16 miles, rather than 16 km. Jason was in rare form, though, and skillfully employed his customary strategy of distracting young ramblers with fairytales. Over the course of the first four hours, he pulled out every tale in his repertoire and, by taking some liberties with storylines, was able to stretch each to twice its normal length. We’ve never had television in the house, so our kids are suckers for stories, which can keep them enthralled for hours at a time. This got us through the first eight miles—past farmers plowing potato fields with stubborn oxen; past a trout farm where the kids each picked out a fish to take home; past colorful campesinas draped in countless layers of ruffled skirts timidly navigating herds of sheep around our sluggish crew and up to higher pastures.

When the repertoire of fairytales had been exhausted and grumpiness began to surface, we succeeded in stifling it, however briefly, with promises of fondue for dinner. Back home, we often reward ourselves with fondue after a long hike. Cajamarca is the dairy capital of Peru, and earlier this week Jason was lucky enough to stumble upon a cheesemaker who had emigrated from Switzerland and whose cheeses rivaled any we had tasted in Europe. With a stock-pile of gruyere back in Maruja’s fridge, therefore, we knew we could play this trump card if worse came to worse. Our Swiss friend, Yann, imparted his family recipe for fondue to Jason over the course of a few years’ worth of après ski lessons, and it has since become our main tool of bribery during extensive treks. The trick is that you can only indulge in fondue when you’ve completely and totally exhausted yourself. Only then can you fully appreciate the brick of cheese and white bread that churns in your stomach for hours after the feast. Hence, the fondue carrot can only be dangled in front of young ramblers during the most grueling (what they longingly refer to as fondue-worthy) hikes. This was one such occasion, and fondue bribery got us two more miles—past a settlement where neighbors had come together to build a traditional rammed-earth abode for a newly-wed couple, past meadows where villagers raked and burned the remnants of last year’s crops; past a river where squat women in tall woven hats gathered to dry wheat stalks on colorful blankets, all the while following a dirt road that grew more and more steep the deeper we went into the mountains.

At mile eleven we ran out of water. Now, our children take most of the forms of abuse in stride—we’ve been forcing them to hike and travel unreasonable distances for so long that by now they consider it normal. However, being their father’s children, a lack of sustenance is one thing they just cannot endure. They are just-add-water children who, though teeming with exuberance when fully hydrated, shrink into wretched little banshees the moment the water dries up. Therefore, despite our best efforts (and Jason’s offer to start the fairytale sequence over again from the beginning), mutiny was imminent. Luckily, since not many people in the countryside of Peru own vehicles, hitchhiking is common. Jason stuck out his thumb and got a ride from the first vehicle to pass. We piled our exhausted crew into the back of the pick-up where, along with a handful of other market-goers, we relished in the cool breeze and the company of chickens for the last few miles of our journey. When we finally reached Cumbayo, the village was buzzing with the Sunday market where campesinos from nearby mountain villages had descended to sell their produce, and city folk from Cajamarca had ascend to buy. By then, however, the kids were too beat to do much exploring, and Jason and I had done quite enough cajoling for one day. After a brief forced march through the market, we boarded the next combi back to Cajamarca where all was made well by one of the most hard-earned fondue feasts in Smirkman family history.

Last weekend we went on a much easier outing—bussing to the farming cooperative of Porcón. As far as I can tell, Porcón is some kind of religious commune, and fervent locals specialize in everything dairy and wool. The highlight was touring their make-shift zoo where the spider monkeys took a particular liking to Cruz. We have always called him our little monkey and had just recently teased him that if we ever encountered real monkeys, they would probably recognize him as their brother and steal him away. He wasn’t too pleased, therefore, when this nearly came to pass. As we crowded around the cage laughing at the ornery spider monkeys, the youngest scrambled toward us, reached through the cage, and grabbed a slice of mandarin orange out of Cruz’s hand. Delighted with his exploits, the monkey decided to take a fistful of the shiny golden hair as well. Cruz screamed and scared the bejeebees out of the monkey who took off running, failing at first to release his hold on the golden hair and thus pinning Cruz’s screaming face to the bars of the cage. The Peruvian tourists, who had already been eyeing the little toe-headed gringos, were in stiches (along with the spider monkeys), and suddenly our family (the lone band of gringos within a hundred kilometers) became the most popular exhibit in the zoo. After peeling Cruz’s face off the bars of the cage, we were obliged to endure a lengthy photo shoot so that every teenage girl in attendance could go home with a picture of the gringo family for her scrap book.

Back in Cajamarca, we’ve been taking daily lessons, and this has helped us feel more connected to the community. The kids and I are studying guitar with a local virtuoso, Carlos, who is painfully soft-spoken, but an amazing teacher. He is in the process of teaching me a few traditional Peruvian songs, and some Tracy Chapman to boot. Carlos comes to our home three days a week and charges what works out to be around $1.25/hour. Wow. Come to think of it, maybe I should ask whether he babysits too.

The kids are also taking voice and piano lessons weekly in an old abandoned opera house we stumbled upon during a recent walk around the neighborhood. As the kids and I stood on the street one afternoon, marveling at the dilapidated architecture, we heard music drifting from the basement. We peaked our heads in to find a portly, kind-faced woman who was teaching musical scales to a handful of youngsters. She has been quite happy to welcome Cyrus and Bella into her weekly lessons.

Jason and Cyrus are taking cooking lessons with a local chef named Percy whom we discovered in an excellent little restaurant a few blocks away. After falling in love with the house specialty—Trout Carpaccio served over a rainbow of different mashed root vegetables—we cajoled Percy into coming to our home twice a week to teach the boys some Peruvian dishes. Bella, Cruz, and I try to stay out of the kitchen, but get to join them for the feasts, which have been remarkable. Thus far, they’ve learned a few dishes that, though rooted in Peruvian tradition, have had a gourmet flair—risotto with black forest mushrooms, rocoto peppers stuffed with chopped sirloin, and duck breast with sauco (elderberry) sauce. ¡Absolutamente delicioso! I can’t wait to hear what’s on the menu for next week.