When did the kitchen become a shrine? The two covered items are those we worship, the microwave and the toaster oven. In order to keep them functioning, they must be covered with a towel when not in use. This may sound silly, but it works. We now have had the microwave for more than one year! It’s a miracle. The toaster oven is new (previous post) and therefore larger than the microwave.
The candles and vases are a nice touch, though I don’t keep the vases filled with fresh flowers as in a proper shrine. Now take a look at the opposite side of the kitchen, where the kitchen mother overlooks all the activity.
I particularly like the forest of travel mugs below her and the wine and water glasses on either side. I guess that covers everything.
The original goal of a visit to Lima was to see the Julie Taymor version of “The Magic Flute” being offered as part of the Metropolitan Opera in HD series. It’s an abridged version of the opera, finishing in under two hours, and absolutely gorgeous, as well as having wonderful singers (Nathan Gunn, Matthew Polenzani).
We ended up tacking on an additional day and a half to accommodate doctor visits and shopping for our home redecorating project. Welcome to shopping in Lima! Here are a few thoughts.
(!) Lima traffic has always been bad–now it is worse. Traffic is rerouted from major streets for projects that do not have a projected end date. Traffic is rerouted within neighborhoods for projects to replace water lines. There is no indication of where these projects are located or how long they will last. The extensive system of one way streets guarantees that you cannot escape the long line of cars backed up to turn onto the only street going the direction you want. I brought a book.
This is the highway, not a parking lot(!). We stopped at one of the large malls (San Miguel) and I headed for Ripley, one of the largest department stores, to look at their “Beach and Terrace” section. I finally asked for directions. It was in the underground parking garage and unlike the catalogue with its sets of wicker furniture neatly arranged, there was a row of bicycles, one set of plastic wicker (too small), and two unmatched chairs. Lots of molded plastic chairs in a stack. The only beach umbrella available was part of an extensive set of loveseat, chairs, table and pillows (plastic). So much for getting a pair of wicker chairs and a beach umbrella. This scenario was repeated at the two other large stores I visited, right down to the location in the underground parking and lack of stock. On line I found a store that sells wicker furniture in Lima but it was far from any other place on our list and we ran out of time before getting there. Result: a new toaster oven. No wicker.
Here’s my shopping issue. I’m ruined for shopping in the developing world because I want to shop like I do in the US. Go someplace, find things, pay, take them home. The “finding” is the biggest job. In Peru, finding may require a lot of work, but the paying and taking home can make you want to tear your hair out.
Take the toaster oven. First the cultural issue: Most Peruvians do not have any oven. They have a range top. Thus, they do not want a toaster oven for toast, but to roast a chicken, or bake dinner for six. Sadly, we just want toast. All the toaster ovens are too big and their heating elements are in the corners to make room for the chicken. We decided to buy the smallest, only double the size of what we would buy in the US, and with heating elements somewhat closer to the center. We now needed a sales person.
The floor is teeming with sales persons. They are grouped in tight circles chatting and laughing, or they are hidden in the corners of the display areas. Their training does not seem to have included anything about sales or customer service. We break into a group and ask for help. We are referred to a young man, who seems nonplussed that he would be asked about a toaster oven. He finds a young woman. She would like to demonstrate the features of the toaster, show us how each rack is positioned and that it slides in and out. We say that we have made up our mind just need a toaster oven in a box. There are none of the one we’ve selected visible. She waves vaguely to indicate that we should go pay and she will get the toaster oven. We go stand in line to pay. We are allowed to pay with a credit card (It used to be worse. You used to have to go to a bank, pay into an account there and return to the store with the voucher for the payment). We return to the toaster zone, looking for our box. Our helper is not there.
I go looking in one direction. Jonathan goes in the other. He finds our assistant hiding in a corner playing a game on her phone. She grudgingly agrees that she will go get our toaster. We, of course, are ready to leave but must await the toaster. She leaves. We get very tired of waiting. A supervisor steps out of the circle of chatting women nearby and I ask her why we can’t get our box. I begin to wave my arms and try to describe how simple it should be to get us our toaster. The supervisor looks alarmed and leaves. A few minutes later our person returns with our toaster on a cart. She had to go to a warehouse area and there was no one there to help her. She had to open the box to make sure all the pieces were there and she had to do it all on her own. (They do this. They open every box you purchase to make sure that its sealed contents haven’t disappeared between China and the department store). Now she must accompany us downstairs before we can leave. Three young men in the next location do not want to help us, they want us to sit in a row of chairs for a while. We decline. Our assistant retapes the box and we leave. We need lunch. Or a drink.
I did find some of the things I was looking for, bedspreads, small rugs for the floor by the bed. We ended up finding chairs and lamps at a store that Jonathan passed on his way to the Surquillo market, one of the good city markets where we buy a few upscale items (baby artichokes, cheese, nuts, sushi vinegar). Whether a store is on one of our routes in and out of the city definitely shapes where we shop, which shows you how truly awful traffic is in Lima.
Last but not least was the shopping at the tourist market. We like traditional craft items, and we needed two more decorative plates to go with the others we hang in the patio. We found these without difficulty. Our final stop was the stall of the people who make finely woven floor mats from reeds. The reeds are harvested outside Huacho, less than an hour’s drive from our house in Barranca, but the sales are in Lima, so we visit the tourist market for the best selection. They have lots of colorful baskets, but no floor mats. They don’t make them for the stall any more, they are made to order. They offer to carry out the process via Whatsapp, sending photos and prices. We are thinking this over as we leave with their phone number. I think about suggesting a visit to the wicker store and decide that I would rather lie down. We return to the hotel.
The next day we visit the “Bioferia” the organic market that takes place on Saturday mornings. It is lovely, outdoors along the side of a park. We run into a friend and catch up a bit. I buy a vegan tart with whole grain crust, cashew cream filling and big berries on top. It’s actually pretty good and my day is already a success.
We get to the theater on time for the movie and find out that popcorn is not available because the opera goers as a group don’t purchase enough of it. My entreaties to the concession manager fall on deaf ears. Next time I’ll bring my own damn popcorn. The show is wonderful. We head for home. It takes forever (4+ hrs for 100 miles, you do the math). Jonathan says he is not going to Lima again, except we bought tickets for the next opera on Jan. 16.
I’ve moved ahead with preparation of the suite for guests. Here’s a photo of the partial redecoration. By next weekend I should have most of it completed, though there will be fine-tuning until Lillian and Neil arrive.
Here is stage 1 of the basket wall: Now stage 2 with better chairs:
Here is where the new table and wicker chairs will go.
Here is the new table and temporary chairs.
I created this wall hanging from mantas that women use to carry babies and other things.This will have a bar and clothes hangars, and perhaps a small lamp shade on the overhead light.
Making ice cubes with bottled water.
Outside the bathroom in the guest suite.
Should I put a dispenser of drinking water outside the bathroom on a stand (in the space to the left of the door) or just a pitcher of water? You can brush your teeth with the local water, but we drink (and make ice cubes) from bottled water. We make tea and coffee with local water on the theory that it is boiled, though not for 15 minutes. Neither of us have suffered from the local water, ever. I drank it full time for a few weeks at one point a few years back, though I don’t remember exactly why. No ill effects, other than the gray hair.
That’s it for now. We are going to Lima on Thursday for doctor’s appointments and shopping. I am hoping to have the rest of our improvements in place shortly after we return on Saturday.
If you wonder how I manage to spend four months in Peru, here is how some of my days go.
Coffee–fortunately, Jonathan gets up before I do and brings me a cup at 8 am. I get up, get dressed and eat breakfast while reading the New York Times on line. I subscribe to the Lima newspaper, El Comercio. That gets delivered around 10 am. If I don’t answer the door, it gets tucked behind one of the shutters in the window well, as the windows are always open by that hour.
Jonathan may go to the market, and I may or may not go along. This time I am stopping by to see whether the woman who gets baskets from Huaraz has gotten the ones I requested. She’s very crabby and generally very anti-American but business is business. Since I purchased five baskets when I asked for five baskets, it seemed like I might show up to buy the next lot. She may or may not get them. If I stop by several times to say hello it becomes more likely she will remember to get them for me. (She wasn’t there, her stall was shuttered.)
Our Peruvian friends seem incredulous that we actually like the Barranca market. They describe it as dirty and disorganized. To me it is only underfoot in the fish section that is a problem.
Today’s fish was cherlo, something like grouper.
So much water drips off the tables that it gets muddy underfoot. People often put down cardboard, but you end up walking on sodden, muddy cardboard. On the bright side, the fish are absolutely fresh, often still in rigor or even alive.
My response to our friends is that food in the US is so old by the time it gets to stores that the food in Barranca seems wonderful in contrast. Much of what is in the market is no more than two days from the plant or tree it grew on. Chickens are killed while you wait. The sound is not very nice, but the chicken is fresh. We have a regular person from whom we get chicken and eggs, another for oranges and most fruit, another for vegetables, except avocados, because Jonathan likes the ones a woman around the corner sells.
Today’s fish was a cherlo, something like grouper.
Vegetable lady peeking out from under parsley.
A giant squash in the walkway.
The strawberry seller
Artificial flowers.
A family we have known for years sells us olives, cheese, butter, raisins and nuts. We look forward to seeing our vendors, and they look forward to having us as regular customers. Explained that way, our delight in the market is more understandable.
From the market, we are likely to go to the Metro, the supermarket. It is not very interesting and the selection is not great, but it has decent Chilean and Argentine wine, club soda, UHT milk, crackers and a few other things. I did just buy new towels at the Metro, too.
There may be other errands at this time of day, more dog food, or the hardware store. Today I wanted to get new canvas backs and seats made for the two directors chairs we have not been using. You cannot get the fabric from the tailor, you must take it in. My first stop was at a fabric store, looking for canvas of equal weight to what was on the chairs. There was one option that was acceptable. On to the tailor, where we spent some time discussing the quality of finishing that I want, with double folded seams and heavy stitching. It’s a chair, after all. We settled on the work being finished by next Saturday. Now let’s see how it goes.
Back home, we sit down to work on the portion of our research that we are writing up this year.
It’s important to have a project in Barranca, because there isn’t a lot to do other than walk up and down the beach. There was no movie theater from about 1999 to 2012, and the new theater only shows films dubbed in Spanish. There is no local theater, music or art. No branch of AAUW. Thus, we need projects. We each have books we are writing and together we are writing about our research. Though the field work is over, there is still quite a bit of data that needs to be brought together. We plan to post our completed work on the project website. This should keep us busy for several years of spending the austral summer in Peru. (We are not much for sitting on the beach.)
At one pm, we put all the things we’d like to have for lunch on a tray and set a table and two chairs out on the front porch. We look out at the Pacific Ocean, I read El Comercio, Jonathan works on crosswords, and we have lunch. We chat with friends who pass by.
Today Leila was painting a new logo on Las Gaviotas, the restaurant next door. She does this most years, as the restaurant repaints before the start of the busy season each December.
Start
Lunch Break
Ready to go!
After lunch is siesta (optional) and more work. If there are other errands to run, we go out around 4 pm. At 5 pm we head out to walk down the beach, checking on what has been going on in the neighborhood. We say hello to as many people as possible, from the restaurant owners and staff who are there every day to the young men who stack their surfing gear on the sea wall, and the mototaxi drivers who play soccer on the beach. We wave or say hello to the police on motorcycles, the mother, daughter and granddaughter who are out on the sidewalk every day at this time.
Can you see the shiny new padlock?
We check out what is changing. Three story brick houses are being tucked in behind the row of houses that fronts the beach. The new hotel almoar finished the wall around the top floor where they’ll hang the laundry. There’s a new padlock on the door of a long-abandoned house. Will there be new construction? The debris from the two guys knocking down old wall segments is indeed piled in the nearest alley where we thought it might end up.
We spotted a new bird on the beach, a single black skimmer in a flock of laughing gulls. I often wear my jacket just to have a pocket for binoculars.
We passed Hadar and Marita sitting with a friend on the patio of the Casa Blanca, the hotel they manage.
I have never seen this before in Barranca. Salud!
At the Malabu, we turn around and stroll home.
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Someone was celebrating on the beach.
There is late afternoon light that is particularly beautiful.
Since we are in the tropics, the sun still sets around 6:15 pm. The longest day of the year is coming up on Dec. 21, and the sun will probably set at 6:21 pm.
From the patio, the sky is beautiful. The two vultures are heading for the tree where they roost. We see lots of them them gather there every evening.
We often put chairs on the porch to watch the sunset. Today’s is particularly lovely because the previous three days were cloudy and there was no sunset to watch. Summer is on the way in.
We go inside at sunset, close the shutters, bar the door and move the center of activity back to the office and the kitchen.
Jonathan brings me an appetizer so that I won’t get cranky before dinner, and then he cooks.
After dinner there is Netflix, blog posts, email and such until bedtime. That’s my day!
Every afternoon at 5 pm we walk down the sidewalk to the end of the beach and back We say hello to most of the people we pass, and occasionally stop to exchange air kisses with friends who we have not yet seen this season. We also keep track of what changes and what stays the same.
One thing that stays the same is the group that plays soccer most afternoons on the beach. Here the tide is high enough that they splashed in and out of the water.
Both teams are mototaxi drivers taking a break. Sometimes there are a dozen vehicles parked along the sidewalk. Friends and family watch and chat.
Working moms in Barranca often take children to work when they are not in school, or on the weekends. Here are a couple of women who sell goods in street stalls with their playpen set up beside them and their babies playing together.
Something that is new is the construction of a very small two story house right by the public water tap, where people who have no plumbing get their water and wash their clothes. You can see the large sign “No washing cars” that is ignored.
We spoke to a man working on the project who said it is a space for the local security men (Serenazgo). I’m wondering whether this location was selected so that the security people can collect bribes from the people who insist on washing their cars with the public water.
And in the “Some things never change” category,
Some time ago, this hole in the pavement was cordoned off as you see, shoveled out (pile in background), ready for repaving with new asphalt. Now there’s a good crop of weeds, but no sign of a road crew. Will they come before I leave Barranca on March 1? Wait and see.
There’s nothing like an unexpected procession to enliven my Saturday.
For the feast day of Saint Martin de Porres, a very important saint in Peru, there was a procession on Saturday that went up the street past our house and then back down to his shrine, set up outside the Ordonez restaurant. After the solemnities were over, there was a fiesta with food and dancing, and regular fireworks. For late in the evening a large framework for fireworks was constructed on the beach. I didn’t stay up late enough to see it, though I checked outside the front door a couple of times during the evening.
We are planning to offer one of our bedrooms that has a private bath on Airbnb after the first of the year. My pilot guest will be Lillian and her boyfriend Neil over Christmas, and before they arrive I want to get the room as well-arranged as possible. I can use some help.
The bedroom has high windows and I don’t want to put curtains on them because it becomes difficult to open them in the morning. The mattress is a good one, so I believe the bed will be comfortable. I am going to center a hanging over the head of the bed. I have good cotton sheets, so the basics are there. I believe it also needs a coverlet that is coordinated with the hanging, pillows, and a small straw mat on either side of the bed. Since we are on the beach, rugs don’t work very well, and there are some very nice locally made straw mats. The next photo is the space to the left of the bed.
I am having a coffee table made to replace the checkerboard table, but I’m not sure what to do about chairs. The doors of this room are narrow and an overstuffed chair or recliner won’t fit through the door. Small upholstered chairs made here are very low.
I am considering mounting a group of baskets on the wall because it is a large space. I was going to bring in an armoire for the corner of the room, but it won’t fit through the door.
Below is another photo of the space and a couple of ideas I have of patterns for mounting baskets.
If you have other suggestions, let me know. I am thinking about using natural baskets, because I would like to use quite a few.
Colorful baskets are also available.
You may notice that right now the room doesn’t have a color scheme. The floor is brick red, a common treatment for cement floors in Peru. The walls are white. (I don’t want to repaint.) What about shades of blue or blue/green? Alternatively, yellow and orange to complement the brick colored floor?
I didn’t realize they would be throwing us a parade, but it was fun to see enthusiasm for education. Thanks, University San Pedro in Barranca. I am not sure what was being celebrated, but the queen might be “Miss Learner” 2015.
Part of the reason for the parade is to celebrate the presence of the university and I am all for that. As Jonathan noted on his facebook page, there are some dubious sponsors, like the mobile drinks truck, but the paraders were just having fun.
The blending of past and present is highly visible in parades like this one. A recent poll in Peru showed most people consider themselves to be a mix of backgrounds (mestizo).
The “Marinera” dancers here are from a traditional dance performed on the coast, especially in northern Peru.
The dancers dressed as skeletons and carrying bones display highland traditions, where there are many dances and dance groups, most consisting of groups of both men and women, like this one.
Many families that live in Barranca today emigrated from the highlands to this coastal region in search of work and to escape drought conditions. Some arrived as nomadic herders and later settled in towns and cities.
New York and Chicagoland are great, but it is nice to stop moving after a bit more than two weeks. We arrived in Lima on the night of 11/18 (Wed), stayed overnight at our usual stopping place, the Hotel Senorial in Miraflores, and began our resettlement process with a visit to the Surquillo market, more shopping at the Wong and shopping center in San Miguel and the drive to Barranca. Traffic is worse than ever, the highway entrance near the hotel (Bajada Balta) is closed indefinitely for bridge rebuilding, and it takes a half hour to get anywhere. I was happy to head out of town.
There was some new street art:
Lima has been reclaiming land from the ocean for many years and the results are emerging with a series of parks along the shore.
This is the “before” view. The shore has been extended outward, but it’s still settling.
The “after” view includes recently planted palm trees, bus shelters, streetlights, playing fields and some sports facilities.
I completely fell down on my obligation to the blog world during our week in Wheaton. I have almost no photos despite a very full schedule of events.
We arrived from NYC on Wednesday night, collapsing onto the soft bed provided by our good friend Peggy. Thursday, Peggy hosted a Caribbean dinner as part of our local AAUW’s Spice Routes interest group. There was a groaning board of dishes from all over the Caribbean and more than 20 participants. The program is kept to a brief period in the kitchen when each person explained the dish they brought. The rest is experimentation with knife and fork. I loved catching up with friends. (Did not take one photo.)
Our oldest daughter Amanda arrived from LA later in the evening, and the following day we went out to Dekalb to meet up with our colleagues at the NIU Anthropology Department and the Pick Museum of Anthropology at NIU. Another large group sat around O’Leary’s in Dekalb chatting about work and family. Emily and Tim brought their new baby Clara–an absolutely darling baby. (Again, not one photo.)
Bright and early on Saturday we left for Champaign to see our youngest, Lillian, and her boyfriend Neil. We shopped, took a walk, talked a lot, admired the pets (rabbit Gizmo and parakeet Green) and played Trivial Pursuit (I won!). Jonathan grilled steak and veggies and then drove back to Wheaton. We managed one picture. Hooray!
We spent a clear, bright Sunday visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
An earlier torch was shaped like an aladdin’s lamp.
Lyra is standing beside a full-sized replica of the statue’s toes.
My paternal great, great grandfather was Michael Dwyer, and he may have arrived at Ellis Island from Ireland. I didn’t find him in the records, but I could do more looking.
On the way back to Manhattan from Ellis Island, we saw a fireboat with all its hoses shooting in the air. It was a salute to an arriving Navy vessel.
When did the kitchen become a shrine? The two covered items are those we worship, the microwave and the toaster oven. In order to keep them functioning, they must be covered with a towel when not in use. This may sound silly, but it works. We now have had the microwave for more than one year! It’s a miracle. The toaster oven is new (previous post) and therefore larger than the microwave.
Llywindatravels 2025 