Pop culture and Peru

Have you ever wondered what an intellectual does to prepare for living 6 months in South America??? She turns to Youtube.

If you share my obsession with llamas. Here is the video for you... I have to confess that I have both seen a llama and eaten (part of) a llama.

Then, we have one of my favorite movies of all time the Walt Disney Studio's "The Emperor's New Groove," which you can watch because it is supposedly based on Incan culture, has the word Cuzco in it, celebrates llamas and alpacas, and in which a pinata makes a cameo appearance (which is a Mexican tradition, not Peruvian). As Izma would say, "My voice... Is that MY voice???? Oh well."

And then, we turn to Dreamworks motion picture "The Road to El Dorado, " which somehow manages to be slightly more culturally correct than the Emperor's New Groove because it combines Incan and Mayan culture, and depicts the invading Spanish as gold hungry war mongers. The Spaniards WERE obsessed with finding the lost city of the Incas because they believed that the Incas had been hiding all of their gold deep in the heart of the jungle. But, I'm not vouching for the rest of this film's cultural accuracy.

Still want to be a part of my trip to Peru? I promise that I really am "studying" Spanish and I do sometimes "read" books about Peru and watch real "factual" things (like documentaries). It's just that this is much more fun.

Cheerily yours!
Amanda

Comments

Keep Me Where the Light Is

It’s the Most Wonderful darkest time of the year over here in New England, and we have a new baby which means that when the sun goes down the dance of “will he or wont he sleep tonight?” begins. The other day as I was walking in the evening (alone for a few precious moments!) the afterglow of the setting sun painted the sky behind dark tree branches with highlights of gold. The words from that John Mayer song filled my head “keep me where the light is” and I thought about how dark this time of year feels and how hard it is to stay in the moments of Light. Having a new baby is amazing, but also completely disorienting. One moment you feel on the top of the world, like you have figured everything out, and the next moment you are wondering why babies don't come with owners manuals. He started smiling a few weeks ago, and now he smiles at us on purpose and makes cooing sounds when he is happy. I put him under the Christmas tree the other day and it felt like magic… ...

Home Visit in the Mountains

Two physical therapist and a nurse on a home visit, in a field. Feli our Quechua translator, Tajel and Stephanie (PTs) and our patient. He was paralyzed at the age of 14 and is wheelchair bound. We evaluated him under a tin roof while it was raining. Then his aunt brought us hand made cheese and toasted corn. The family farm, chakra (in Quechua) The cute donkey After our home visit we walked through Quinua Pampa a city up at 10,000 ft.

I pick my boogers, therefore I GO

When I was unemployed and still trying to figure out what direction my life supposed to take, I spent a lot of time reading blogs. I don't know why I typed that sentence in past tense. I'm not currently employed within my profession, I will probably always be trying to figure out what direction to take, and I still spend a lot of time reading blogs. This week I was reading one of my favorite writers, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, when I came across something that was written by Jamie's husband, whom she likes to call "El Chupacabra." This post is called "Therefore GO" and can be read by clicking here. El Chupacabra points out that the verbs "to go" or "to come" appear more often in the Bible than any of the typical Christianese verbs (eg. to love, to pray, to worship etc...). El Chup talks about how our story is a story of movement. God doesn't usually pick a person out of the mass of humanity and then tell them to stay...

Ale La (Go There)

Search This Blog