Mocosas

"¡Profesora! ¡Profesora! ¡Profesora! ¡Profesora!"  I don't know how elementary school teachers make it through their careers without investing in heavy sedatives for their students.  Angie and I recently started working with a younger group of girls, aged 10-12, in the afternoons.  They are darling, but they are snot-nosed little brats with enough energy to power the city of San Francisco.  I might have to buy myself some aspirin.  And them?  Valium.

I miss the mountains, but in the evenings I am too tired to go meet mountaineers and make plans.  The weather's been bad here anyway--cloudy, windy, and snowy in the mountains.  Guess I have to be pleased with rock climbing on weekends.

What is the matter with the stars!?

Diana's wake was a mixed bag.  Children ran around the coffin, screaming and giggling while adults sat in silence.  The tradition for the wake is that the priest gives a sermon, then the family serves coffee with sugar and soda crackers.  Then everyone sits around telling jokes until odd hours of the morning.  Diana was never baptized and whispered concerns circulated that her soul would be stuck in purgatory forever.  People blamed the parents for being irresponsible.  Before the wake could really get going -- before the priest could give his terrible speech -- the parents had to frantically search for a godmother to do a retroactive baptism.  To me and Angie, it seemed absurd that the family had to worry about all that.

Diana's family is very poor and death is expensive.  Another concern that rumbled was whether or not her family would be able to afford to bury her.

After the wake, Angie and I got dinner at our favorite restaurant.  As we reflected on Diana's death and the wake, Angie's purse slid off her chair into the fingers of some unknown culprit.  Among other things, her purse housed a copy of the keys to our apartment.  Since Huaraz is small and we stick out, it would not be very hard for someone to follow us home and let themselves in at their convenience, treating themselves to all of our belongings.  I am standing guard at home while Angie is out to find the locksmith.  We are getting the lock changed.

RIP Diana

Diana, 12 años

[For English, please use google translate]  Acabo de recibir las malas noticias... nuestra alumna la pequeña Dianita falleció ayer.  No había ningun síntoma.  Durante el día estaba jugando, corriendo, gritando como siempre.  Se despertó en la noche tosando sangre y con sangre corriendo de la nariz.  La llevaron al hospital y murió en diez minutos.  Vamos a despedirnos esta tarde al velorio.

Las otras chicas vuelven de las vacaciones el lunes.  El miércoles empezamos de nuevo con los talleres.  Con las chicas vamos a escribir cartas a Diana para hacer una compilación para su familia.  Se que esto no es el costumbre aquí, pero pienso que su familia y su hermana Talia (quien también es nuestra alumna) apreciarán el gesto.

Dianita era la más pequeñíta.  Tenía 12 años y no crecía.  Siempre era la más lenta comiendo y muchas veces no acababa su comida.  Le dolía algo cuando comía.  La causa de la muerte todavía no se sabe, pero según los médicos, sus pulmones eran demasiado chiquititos.  Hubiera pasado esta muerte en los EEUU o en Europa... o aún en Lima?

Aunque era tan pequeñita y tan jovencita, de carácter era una de las más fuerte.  Siempre participaba mucho, leyendo sus obras a las otras chicas.  Siempre estaba feliz y le daba mucha atención a su trabajo.  A veces se quedaba tarde porque quería seguir escribiendo.  Era un corazón con patas.  Era ella quién le preguntó a Angie si había comido ratones alguna vez -- la Diana sí, aunque no le gustaba.  Lo que ha escrito en nuestros talleres quedará como testigo a su vida.

Aquí hay un poema que escribió ella (también publicado en nuestro sitio web):

La pesecita

Yo soy como una pesecita
que nada debajo del mar,
y no soy como la estrella del mar
que para pegada en la roca.

Yo soy como
la araña que
sube y baja y
no soy como el
grillo que canta
y no deja dormir.

Yo soy como la pulguita y
no como la jirafa
que no ve nada
solo ve arriba.



[ENGLISH] The Little Fish

I am like a little fish
that swims below the sea,
and I am not like the starfish
that doesn’t move, sticking to the rocks.

I am like
the spider that
goes up and down and
I am not like the cricket
that sings
and doesn’t let you sleep.

I am like a little flea
not like a giraffe
that can’t see anything
only looking above.

Vallunaraju... Portal of Dreams, Icy Mountain

Icicles on Vallunaraju

Two years after the initial ascent with Justine and our guide, I revisited the mountain Vallunaraju. It feels like I've gone back to the birth canal of my passion to show it that, this time, I could deliver myself alone to the bright light of summit sunrise. In Quechua, valluna means portal of dreams, and raju refers to icy mountains.  They couldn't have named it better -- it was this mountain that got me started.

I went by myself, thinking I would find other people at the camp, thinking I could follow their headlamps should I get lost.  But I got to camp and found myself very, very much alone in my original dream portal, affronting Patagonia-speed winds without a Patagonia-style tent. I spent an hour setting up camp, moving a dozen twenty pound stones inside my tent to keep it in place.

I went to bed thinking I wouldn't climb the mountain – the winds were too strong, the sky too dark, and I too alone. The wind blew the sides of the tent into my face, and the sounds of the glacier cracking into the frozen lake scared me. I thought a big piece would fall off and send an icy tidal wave my way. I put in my earplugs—my one defense against high winds and cracking ice—and set my alarm for one in the morning, just in case.

One in the morning came, and I slept in late, not getting out of the tent until three. The wind calmed down and there were shooting stars. It was time to go up the mountain. I jammed my ice axe in to the frozen wall and was surprised to find that I could just as easily do this alone (despite the broken compass in my head, as my friend Michel would say of my sense of direction).

I walked alone in silence, picking my way safely around the crevasses. A while later I ran into a group of three, whose headlamps suddenly appeared from the other side of the mountain. We intersected and went up to the summit together. My one mistake was leaving too early. I got to the summit 20 minutes before the sun rose and did star jumps to warm up (reminiscent of frigid mornings and frigid nights back at Oberlin!). But then the wind was too strong and I had to squat down on the summit to not be blown over. Saw the sun rise, got back to camp at seven. All in today morning's work!

The real adventure was getting to Valluna. Angie and I have been talking about the anecdotal value of our experiences, and this one counts! The taxi encountered unexpected construction closing the road to Valluna, but in Peru, everything can be resolved. The construction workers flattened a mountain of dirt from the middle of the road so we could drive over it. The car got stuck, hovering six feet in the air. The construction workers got behind the bumper and pushed us over. My taxi driver Zózimo spent the rest of the time teaching me what he finds to be the most useful phrases in Quechua (Siki ta mutzai / Kiss my ass), telling me that in Peru it is okay for men to have multiple women, and recounting how a snakebite left him impotent.

Ishinca, Huayhuash

Ishinca:  5,530meters, 18,143 feet.

Bernardo from Brazil, following up Ishinca

At the summit-- yum! tastes good!

 My friend Mihnea from the Churup climb gave me wise words of advice.  He told me that I should go on some easier mountains, but be the deciding force in the group.  While I am technically capable of following more experienced friends on difficult mountains, I will gain more valuable experience through being the person to make the calls on a climb.  I took this opportunity on Ishinca, and guided three inexperienced friends up this very easy mountain.  One friend turned around at the base of the glacier, feeling altitude sickness after the steep hike up from camp.  The other two made it up with me, though they struggled with their crampons.  I enjoyed offering advice on different ways to step as the snow changed texture and steepness.  I enjoyed even more when my climbing partners said my advice made a huge difference for them!      They were happy to get up -- one was so happy he gave me a hug that nearly knocked the wind of out of me.  

Huayhuash

The school where we work is on vacation for three weeks, so Angie and I took advantage to go on an "8-12 day trek" that only took us seven days.  Okay, since it was vacation, we took it easy and hired an arriero (donkey driver) who took our gear with his donkeys.  This is the standard way to do things around here.  The trek circles the epic Cordillera Huayhuash, which is the setting of Joe Simpson's heroic account in "Touching the Void," and where all the mountains are hard to climb.  The views were beautiful, though the anecdotal value of our adventure is perhaps pretty low (nothing too crazy happened).  

Perhaps the best story is about the time that our arriero, Monsueto, was telling us a tale about a Spanish guy who spoke "like you guys, more or less decent Spanish."  The Spanish guy spoke Spanish?  What a surprise.

A community in the Huayhuash

Flying over Paso San Antonio