Unsure Footing

Inca Wasi

Posted on January 14th, 2012 in Uncategorized by Jeremy Kaye

I usually find the time to update this blog on a regular basis, but this morning I realized that I hadn’t posted a blog entry in almost 3 weeks. What gives? By now I was supposed to be well on my way to Santiago, Chile. The plan was to hike around the Cordillera Blanca for a week or two, decompress in Mancora, maybe tour around the ruined citadel of Kuelap, then make a bee-line for Lima and the North of Chile. So what am I still doing in Peru? Well, first thing’s first.

Cajamarca, if you’ve never heard of it, is a city situated in the north of Peru. It gets practically no tourism despite being the Peruvian capital of Carnival and boasting an idyllic mountain setting which easily rivals Cusco with its Baroque stone architecture and historic importance (this was the site where Pizarro, outnumbered 200 to 1, captured and killed the last Inca Emperor Atahualpa). Like most large South American cities, Cajamarca walks the tightrope between progress and poverty. Over near the historical center stands a two story mall complete with climate control, food court, fashion conscious shoppers and advertisements for the new iPhone 3G (now half price!). A brisk fifteen minute walk from there and you will notice that there are no longer any cars on the road. Ten minutes from there and the roads themselves are no longer even paved. Ten minutes further and the houses no longer have doors or windows. Ten minutes more and you may not have running water or electricity. The proximity of those with so much to those with so little is startling. Luckily, there are organizations like Inca Wasi which are working to correct the imbalance.

I first heard about Inca Wasi through a friend I met in Lima. We spent only two days together but when we parted I promised (threatened) to pay her a visit the next time I was in northern Peru. Five months later I finally made good on it. By the time I arrived she was nearing the end of her 6 month volunteer stint with the Inca Wasi center. I’m not sure exactly what her role was when she first signed up, but these days she was a teacher, administrator, child psychiatrist, den mother and disciplinarian. There are over 40 children in the program, ages 6 to 17, and when I arrived there were only 3 full time volunteers, one of whom was leaving that week. It was obvious that they needed all the help they could get. Without much hesitation I volunteered to stay on for a month, and even though they traditionally require a minimum commitment of 3 months, without much hesitation they accepted.

The children in the program are all chosen based upon need, so as you can imagine these are the poorest of the poor. Many are multiple-child, single parent households earning less than 200 Soles (60 dollars) a month. Every single one is a special needs case in one way or another.payday loans One of my students is often sleepy and listless because he stays up at night working to help raise income for his family. Another might soon be pulled from the center permanently because at the age of 12 she is now old enough to work a full time job earning 4 Soles a day (roughly a dollar and thirty cents) to help feed her siblings. A third has attempted suicide multiple times and another prefers to sleep on the streets rather than return to a household where he is physically abused.

The average day at the center is fairly well structured, though we all know that dealing with groups of children is always organized chaos. Every day we offer the children a balanced lunch and a snack. The portions are often bigger than their heads but we insist that they finish every bite because for some of them this is the only food they will eat until tomorrow. Their families are all too poor to afford luxuries like toothbrushes and toothpaste, so we provide them with both and make sure they brush their teeth twice while they are at the center, once after lunch and again after their snack. Like every town high in the Andes, the temperature of Cajamarca can drop precipitously at night. Practically all of the children have cracked skin on their hands or faces from exposure to the elements through inadequate housing, so we give them a little skin cream before they leave for the day. As for activities, we offer them help with the standard school curriculum: math, language, history and science. English lessons are even on the menu, and we mix things up with arts and crafts, computer lessons, and sports. To focus some of their aggressions I set up a punching bag in the main area. My reward has been several excruciating right crosses into the only sensitive area accessible to a 10 year old.

I went into this with the best of intentions, willing to help out a friend and pitch in where I saw a need, but the truth is that I had my doubts. How much of an impact would I possibly make? I am not a trained child psychologist or a behavioral therapist. I can’t begin to personally address many of the problems that these children are dealing with. I’m not a trained educator either. Heck I’m not even a decent Spanish speaker – half the time I can’t understand what the kids are saying to me. The jobs I perform are in-line with my “qualifications” - cleaning up messes, corralling wayward children, preparing snacks, breaking up horseplay that is getting out of hand, giving piggy-back rides and helping out with homework. This may sound insignificant, the truth is that it did at first to me. Still, for most of these kids the center is one of the few positive influences in their lives. If nothing else I am helping to create a stable environment where they can feel safe and a loving community in which they can learn and grow. And yes my role is menial, but even so I know now that it is an important one, and I am proud to have it.

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Adios Ecuador, next stop Chile / My Ugly Mug III

Posted on January 9th, 2012 in Uncategorized by Jeremy Kaye

I’ve gotten a mixed reception here in Ecuador. On the one hand, I went swimming with playful sea lions in the Galapagos, hiked the rim of the stunning Lake Quilotoa and attended a wonderful local wedding. But I also got mugged, was unceremoniously cut out of the staring role in a documentary, and managed to cripple a friend playing soccer. Lately a persistent voice in the back of my head has been telling me that its time to move on.

The time has come. The time has come. The time is now.
Just go. Go. Go! I don’t care how.

You can go by foot. You can go by cow.
Jeremy D. Kaye will you please go now!

I’ve spent a little over two months in Ecuador and even though it is one of the smallest countries in South America (with a population of only 13 million, there are almost as many people squeezed into New York City) it is one of the most diverse in the world. This mega-diversity is due to the fact that it sits on the Tropic of Cancer, right smack in the middle of a convergence between El Niño – the warm, humid current from the north - and the Humbolt- a cold, dry oceanic current from the south. The natural diversity is rivaled only by the diversity of the people. In a space of less than a day’s drive you find investment bankers in Guayaquil, Afro-Ecuadorian gold-panners in the Playa de Oro, and rainforest tribes in the Amazon who still shun all contact with the outside world. In fact I haven’t yet explored whole swaths of the country including the most of The Orient, the Lowlands and the North and South Coast, but damn that voice:

You can go on stilts.
You can go by fish.
You can go in a Crunk-Car
If you wish.

If you wish
You may go
By lion’s tail.
Or stamp yourself
And go by mail.

Jeremy D. Kaye
Don’t you know
The time has come
To go, go, GO!

My next stop is Chile, but to get there I’ll have to cross the length of Peru – for the third time. To help break up the trip I think I will be spending a bit of time in the north, exploring some of the less visited archaeological points of interest and trekking about the Cordillera Blanca which is reported to have the best high-altitude hiking outside of the Himalayas. I’ll have to move quickly – I’m scheduled to meet a friend in El Calafate, Argentina on the 14th of November, and that is a LONG way down.

I don’t care.
You can go By bike.
You can go On a Zike-Bike
If you like.

If you like You can go
In an old blue shoe.
Just go, go, GO!
Please do, do, do, DO!

Jeremy D. Kaye
I don’t care how.

Jeremy D. Kaye
Will you please
GO NOW!

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Here I am, in all my photogenic glory-

Trying on an Inti-Rami mask at the Otavalo market:

Freezing my butt off at the top of the TeleferiQo, 4100 meters above sea level:

Displaying the rip in my pants up in the bell tower of the Basilica del Voto Nacional in Quito:

Badly missing the cactus target while using a traditional blow gun:

Motoring up the Rio Napo in the Reserva Limoncocha:

Hoping my travel insurance covers cave-ins inside the old gold mines of Zaruma:

Having a high opinion of myself after scaling the hills of the Parque Nacional Podocarpus:

Pointing out the most ridiculous museum exhibit ever – 2 sticks tied together in the shape of a cross – Museo del Banco Central “Pumapungo” in Cuenca:

I believe I can fly – Laguna Quilotoa:

Enjoying the beauty of the Galapagos Islands (the beaches weren’t bad either):

You might like going in a Zumble-Zay.
You can go by balloon . . .
Or broomstick.
Or You can go by camel
In a bureau drawer.
You can go by bumble-boat
. . . or jet.
I don’t care how you go. Just get!

Jeremy D. Kaye!
I don’t care how.

Jeremy D Kaye
Will you please GO NOW!

I said GO And GO I meant . . .

The time had come
So . . . Jeremy WENT.

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Heading Home & Year in Photos

Posted on February 11th, 2009 in Uncategorized by Jeremy Kaye

I started this trip on the 1st of February in 2008 and here we are, a little more than a full year later and I am heading back home. I had planned to stay out until at least March, hiking in Torres del Paine with a friend and attending Carnival in the party capital of the world, Rio de Janeiro, but the real world is calling and there are some pots you can’t afford to leave on the back burner. Funny thing is, I arrived home in much the same way I arrived at the places I’ve been visiting: no where to sleep (there is a renter in my apartment until March), no way to contact anyone locally (I don’t have a cell phone anymore), and struggling with a giant backpack on public transportation. It’s odd to feel like a visitor in your own home town, but that’s the sense I had this afternoon. What finally draws you back, more so than the familiar sights, sounds and smells, are all the little unremarkable details that you used to take for granted. Like sturdy Q-tips. I haven’t cleaned my ears with a quality Q-tip in over 12 months. And the availability of ground pepper at all meals. This was a luxury no where to be found down south. It was only after a good ear cleaning and a plate of scrambled eggs with pepper that it finally dawned on me. I was home.

I am typing this from my parents’ house, the home I grew up in. Walking through the familiar rooms, I realize how homesick I have been recently for family and friends and the comforts of home. But now that I’m back, a part of me wants to get back out there immediately. I haven’t even exhausted all of South America yet – you’ll find no stamps in my passport for Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana - and there’s an awfully big world out there across either ocean waiting for me as well. As I type this, it occurs to me that I’m not quite sure which life I really want. After taking care of things, with health and wealth permitting, I may just decide that back on the road is where I belong. For now, I am looking forward to seeing everyone again and resuming an ordinary routine back home. Without employment of course, my allergy to suits and punching clocks has not changed one bit.

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I’ve seen some pretty amazing things over the past year. Here is a Best Of so that people don’t have to troll through all my vacation photos. Going to try to not repeat any pictures posted elsewhere on the site but some deserve a second life.

BEST OF WILDLIFE

Happiest pig alive, outside of Baños, Ecuador:

Bald dogs with mohawks outside the ruins of Chan Chan, Peru rock:

Donkeys. I’ve seen these lovable beasts of burden everywhere down here from country fields to city freeways. Here are 2 of my favorites. One of these guys is a working class schlub and the other is a rock star. Can you tell the difference?

Whales are amazing. You know that they’re big, you apprehend the abstract concept of bigness, but it doesn’t really dawn on you until a “baby” breaches a few feet away from your ship:

Say hello to the the Vibora moth. There is a popular legend in Central and South America that once bitten by a Vibora, the victim is certain to die within the hour unless they have sexual intercourse. In reality, it is harmless and a bite will cause nothing more than a minor skin irritation. I’m sure the guy who first tried to use that line on some girl never imagined it would catch on like it did:

I don’t care who you are, everyone, everyone loves penguins:

Gentoo penguins build nests of up top 3000 stones and then spend the rest of their time stealing these stones from each other:

Ecstatic display by a pair of reunited Gentoos:

A cute Adelie makes his move:

Good natured primates make the top of any list. Below is a Capuchin we met in a zoo in Samaipata, Bolivia who later turned pickpocket. Guess he deserved to be behind bars after all:

And of course the coolest Howler on the planet:

Mine as well embrace the sterotype and give them bananas:

I love Capabaras. Largest rodents in the world. They always have a stunned expression on their faces, like children lost in a department store.

Gallapogas Giant Tortoises, a miracle of nature:

Honorable mention goes to the Anaconda – a gentle and misunderstood snake who gets dragged out of his muck every day and showcased to tourists on the pampas tours in north Bolivia:

The other honorable mention goes to ants. From the Bullet Ant, who’s as big as a peanut with a bite so painful it feels as if you’ve been shot, all the way down to your average leafcutters. I’ve seen this kind of thing on television, an ant highway, but when you’re in the Amazon and see this inexhaustible line of these industrious buggers doing their grunt work for hours on end you come away with a new appreciation for them:

BEST OF SIGNS

Signs Signs Everywhere there’s signs, blocking up the scenery Breaking up my mind, do this Don’t do that Can’t you read the sign?

Sign at the start of the Nariz del Diablo train tracks in Riobamba, Ecuador. I love how the sign lists the 4 things you will find 104 kilometers down at the other end of the tracks: food, hotel, transportation, and of course, Satan.

Self-explanatory and thankfully obsolete:

An unpleasant reminder of the past. Mines of Cerro Rico outside of Potosi, Bolivia:

Sign in a little village outside of Cajamarca, Peru. First prize is a goat. Second is a sheep. Third is a surprise. I can’t even imagine . . . .

Key to the lockers at the museum in Ushuaia, Argentina. It’s just so damn threatening I love it. Lose this key and you will have problems. Believe it, punk!