by Micah
At the beginning of June, when Alisha and I were preparing for our trip to Ica and Arequipa, Alisha was getting some luggage out of the top compartment of our closet (which is built into the wall in our bedroom). Since only luggage and other things that we don’t use very often were being stored there, we hadn’t opened that top compartment for a while. So we were unpleasantly surprised to discover that everything was covered with mold, serious amounts of mold. Since then, we’ve been keeping both the upper and lower compartments of the closet open let them air out. This piece of information is crucial to the story that follows.
On Tuesday night, Alisha was awoken by a series of loud noises in our room: a box of pens and pencils being knocked over, scratching sounds, and the like. I, a heavy sleeper, didn’t notice a thing, but Alisha simply couldn’t get back to sleep because of the incessant noises. In her sleep-deprived state, she imagined that some large animal had invaded our room and her slumber. After several hours of anxiety, she woke me up, so I started hearing the sounds as well. It honestly sounded like there were multiple rats in our room, which is an unnerving thought at 4:00 am. Alisha spent about 30 minutes panning the room with a flashlight, but we couldn’t catch a glimpse of our little friend. Alisha couldn’t take it anymore, so she decided to go to the living room and try to get some sleep. I stayed in our room trying to locate what I assumed to be a rat. After a while, I heard some plastic bags rustling, and I suddenly remember that we had several plastic bags stored in the top compartment of our closet, which was open. So I jumped out of bed, turned the light on, and stealthily approach the closet. I rustled one of the bags with my hand, and it rustled back, so I knew the rat was in there. I shut the closet doors, turned out the light, and climbed back into bed to listen for more rat sounds, just in case the one I trapped in the closet had brought friends. Fortunately, the only sounds I heard came from the closet’s upper compartment.
We couldn’t deal with the rat right away because we had some work to do Wednesday morning, but when we were finished, we went back to the house. María, a family friend who happens to be an expert rat killer, was there. So the three of us went to our room to exterminate the rat. Well, it wasn’t nearly as simple as we all thought it would be. I’ll spare you the gory details, but you should know that it took 30 minutes, several small wooden boards, a broom, and iron rod, a broken television antenna, and an umbrella (wielded by Alisha, who was screaming and jumping up and down on the bed for the duration of the ordeal) to eliminate this ferocious beast of a rat, who, by the way, measured about seven inches in length (without the tail!) and had a vertical jump of at least four inches. We’re still traumatized, and we don’t know if even time will heal our wounds, but at least we’re sleeping well.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Peruvian Good Reads
By Alisha & Micah
Work has kept us relatively busy, but there are always rainy days, time spent waiting for meetings to start, and generally more time to read for pleasure than we have ever experienced before. While we both enjoy reading, Micah is an avid reader and up to this point has read over 60 books. Our host sister loves joking with Micah about how much he reads and has coined the phrase, “Sácate la nariz de los libros y goza de la vida.” (Meaning: Get your nose out of those books and enjoy life).
We thought it would be interesting to review some of our favorite books written about Peru or by Peruvian authors.
Alisha’s Top 3
The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics
By Orin Starn (Editor), Ivan Degregori (Author), Robin Kirk (Author)
This book is an excellent collection of articles, short stories, poems, and photographs that provide the reader with an overview of the diverse history in Peru. I found it especially interesting because of our time spent living in Peru. One of the articles focused on the region where we live and the development of a community justice program (rondas campesinas) that continues today. While it may help to know a bit of background information about Peru, I think that anyone interested in Peru or planning to travel to Peru would enjoy this book. Peru is so much more than Machu Picchu and other popular tourist destinations and this book can provide the context for curious travelers who really want to understand Peru in context while visiting.
War by Candlelight
By Daniel Alarcón
This collection of short stories by Peruvian born author Daniel Alarcón, left me intrigued and wanting to read more by works by this up and coming author. Alarcón (who writes in English) was raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and later returned to Peru to live in one of the poorest parts of Lima while studying on a Fulbright scholarship. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of Lima and the story “City of Clowns,” which first appeared in the New Yorker Magazine.
Lost City Radio
By Daniel Alarcón
I just finished reading this book, and I enjoyed it immensely. Written by the same author as War by Candlelight, this is Alarcón's first novel. The story is based in a fictional country (the closely resembles Peru) following a war. The main character, Norma, hosts a popular radio show that helps reunite family members separated by the war. While she provides the voice that calms and reunites the nation, she is tormented by the disappearance of her husband. Norma then meets an orphan, Victor, who may hold the clues she needs to understand what happened to her husband and what role he might have played in the war.
Some of Micah’s picks
La ciudad y los perros
By Mario Vargas Llosa
This is the first novel that was written by Peru’s most celebrated author. It tells the story of several students who attend a military high school for boys in Lima, which provides and harsh, violent, unforgiving, and morally ambiguous backdrop for adolescence. It is an important novel in Latin American (and world) literature, not only because it is a piercing meditation on power and the abuses thereof, but also for its innovative narrative techniques. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. For those of you interested in reading it in translation, you can find it under the title The Time of the Heroes. I’ve read several other novels by Vargas Llosa and have enjoyed them all.
Un mundo para Julius
By Alfredo Bryce Echenique
This is the first novel written by Peru’s second-most celebrated author (who I walked by in a neighborhood in Lima one day). It narrates a few years in the life of Julius, the youngest child of a very wealthy upper-class family in Lima during the 1950s. Julius is a curious, sensitive boy who would rather spend time with the army of household servants employed by his family than do anything else. In this novel that tells the story of a very wealthy family, we catch glimpses of the “other half” that give us the feeling that the world inhabited by Julius and his family is only very tenuously connect to the rest of the world’s reality. To me, this novel’s enchantment lies in the narrator’s tone, which strikes a perfect balance between sarcasm and tenderness. The English translation is called A World for Julius.
Un lugar llamado Oreja de Perro
By Iván Thays
Iván Thays is a young author from Lima, and this is his most recent novel. It uses the aftermath of the brutality of the Shining Path conflict (in this case, in a small town in Ayacuho, a place called Oreja de Perro) to tell the story of a journalist who is experiencing unimaginable personal losses. It is a very sad story that is told with a great deal of tenderness. Unfortunately, it has yet to be translated into English.
We thought it would be interesting to review some of our favorite books written about Peru or by Peruvian authors.
Alisha’s Top 3
The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics
By Orin Starn (Editor), Ivan Degregori (Author), Robin Kirk (Author)
This book is an excellent collection of articles, short stories, poems, and photographs that provide the reader with an overview of the diverse history in Peru. I found it especially interesting because of our time spent living in Peru. One of the articles focused on the region where we live and the development of a community justice program (rondas campesinas) that continues today. While it may help to know a bit of background information about Peru, I think that anyone interested in Peru or planning to travel to Peru would enjoy this book. Peru is so much more than Machu Picchu and other popular tourist destinations and this book can provide the context for curious travelers who really want to understand Peru in context while visiting.
War by CandlelightBy Daniel Alarcón
This collection of short stories by Peruvian born author Daniel Alarcón, left me intrigued and wanting to read more by works by this up and coming author. Alarcón (who writes in English) was raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and later returned to Peru to live in one of the poorest parts of Lima while studying on a Fulbright scholarship. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of Lima and the story “City of Clowns,” which first appeared in the New Yorker Magazine.
Lost City RadioBy Daniel Alarcón
I just finished reading this book, and I enjoyed it immensely. Written by the same author as War by Candlelight, this is Alarcón's first novel. The story is based in a fictional country (the closely resembles Peru) following a war. The main character, Norma, hosts a popular radio show that helps reunite family members separated by the war. While she provides the voice that calms and reunites the nation, she is tormented by the disappearance of her husband. Norma then meets an orphan, Victor, who may hold the clues she needs to understand what happened to her husband and what role he might have played in the war.
Some of Micah’s picks
La ciudad y los perrosBy Mario Vargas Llosa
This is the first novel that was written by Peru’s most celebrated author. It tells the story of several students who attend a military high school for boys in Lima, which provides and harsh, violent, unforgiving, and morally ambiguous backdrop for adolescence. It is an important novel in Latin American (and world) literature, not only because it is a piercing meditation on power and the abuses thereof, but also for its innovative narrative techniques. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. For those of you interested in reading it in translation, you can find it under the title The Time of the Heroes. I’ve read several other novels by Vargas Llosa and have enjoyed them all.
Un mundo para JuliusBy Alfredo Bryce Echenique
This is the first novel written by Peru’s second-most celebrated author (who I walked by in a neighborhood in Lima one day). It narrates a few years in the life of Julius, the youngest child of a very wealthy upper-class family in Lima during the 1950s. Julius is a curious, sensitive boy who would rather spend time with the army of household servants employed by his family than do anything else. In this novel that tells the story of a very wealthy family, we catch glimpses of the “other half” that give us the feeling that the world inhabited by Julius and his family is only very tenuously connect to the rest of the world’s reality. To me, this novel’s enchantment lies in the narrator’s tone, which strikes a perfect balance between sarcasm and tenderness. The English translation is called A World for Julius.
Un lugar llamado Oreja de PerroBy Iván Thays
Iván Thays is a young author from Lima, and this is his most recent novel. It uses the aftermath of the brutality of the Shining Path conflict (in this case, in a small town in Ayacuho, a place called Oreja de Perro) to tell the story of a journalist who is experiencing unimaginable personal losses. It is a very sad story that is told with a great deal of tenderness. Unfortunately, it has yet to be translated into English.
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