A week of doing nothing that provided some interesting experiences

Well, since I didn't have any work this past week, I had a lot of free time. Overall it was a little bit boring, but Hannah and I were able to do some interesting sight-seeing type things here in Huancayo. We went to the Plaza de Armas, or the main square, on Monday, as well as a pretty interesting artisan's market. On Tuesday we also went to the local zoo, which was a little depressing to be honest. I don't think the animals were too happy; they had some pretty sub-par living conditions. Wednesday and Thursday didn't offer much activity, but I did find a track that I can run on just a few blocks from my house - hopefully I can take advantage of the altitude and get in shape here.

It wasn't until Friday that I had definitely the most interesting experience so far in my time in Hyo., and one of the most interesting in all my time in Perú. My host dad informed me that he was going to take me to Cochas, a small village on the outskirts of Hyo., on Friday afternoon. Since I didn't have anything to do, I eagerly joined. I was especially enthusiastic because he told me that we might do a little hiking up in the mountains...something I haven't done enough of so far here.

So, we got on a micro-bus and headed up towards the foothills of the mountains just beyond our house. It probably took half an hour or so, but we arrived in Cochas Chicas (which means small Cochas, guess there's also a big Cochas further down the road), which is a quaint mountain community. Here's a picture of me standing in the main road of Cochas Chicas:

So, before we starting our little hike, my host dad took me to a friend's house, somebody that he knows through church. I didn't really know what to expect, I don't usually, but when I got there, I realized that this old guy has a little shop where he make guitars and other instruments. The guy was really nice, and pretty funny, and we spent a little while chatting about his guitars and what not. This is me and the guy, and one of his guitars:

This guy, I wish I remembered his name, also carves masks out of wood, which are pretty cool. My host dad took this picture of me posing with one of the masks:

So, anyway, after chatting with this guy for a while, we headed out, and went onwards with our hike. I didn't realize it, but we were actually going to hike up to a small peak that overlooks Hyo. and also has a large cross on top of it. I had seen the cross from below in the city, so I was pretty excited to go check it out. Apparently this spot is a pretty popular place for tourists to go to during Holy Week, kind of like a pilgramage. I was a little disappointed by the paved path, but the view at the top was worth it. After a short hike, we reached the top where we were greeted by this great view of Hyo.:

So, we were at the top enjoying the view, when we heard a voice on a loudspeaker from Cochas behind us. We turned and listend for a bit, but I couldn't really make out what was being said as the Spanish was a little jarbled due to the loudspeaker. But, my host dad summarized what was being said for me and it went a little something like this, ¨There was some theft taking place in the village earlier, we caught the theive, and now we're going to give him his punishment. Everyone meet in the field in the center of town.¨

¨Wait a minute, what?¨I thought. ¨What exactly are they going to do to this guy?¨ I asked my dad, and he wasn't exactly sure, but he said that they might give the guy some lashings or something. At that point, I was pretty intruiged, and as I looked down below sure enough, people were starting to gather in the field. So, my host dad and I started the trek back down so we could watch this event. Here is a picture of the crowd from above during our walk down:

When we got down to the crowd, there were several people in the circle, one guy, who I assumed to be the theif becuase he didn't look to happy, some town elders, and six police officers from Hyo. When we got there the police officers and the elders were discussing what exactly to do with the captured criminal. One police officer began talking loudly, saying that they could take him to the city and keep him there. But as he said that, there was an outrage from the crowd, obviously they didn't want that. My host dad explained that sometimes when the police take criminals from small communities, the crminals just bribe the police to let them go. So then it was a town elder's turn to talk. He began talking about how the village has their own customs, traditions and rules. At that point I saw one guy holding what looked like a wound-up whip behind his back - I guess that was the tradition that the town elder was talking about. For about 10 or 15 more minutes the police and the elders bantered back and forth, with lots of input from the 200 or so people forming a circle around them.

Finally it was decided, the thief would receive three lashings. This police looked a little bit concerned, but seemed to be mostly worried about keeping the crowd in check - ¨Take his shirt off!!¨ a few observers were shouting. So, the thief got down on his knees, and one of the town elders grabbed the whip and unwound it. I couldn't quite believe that I was going to watch this take place. But the elder didn't get right to the deed, first he began giving a lecture. He lectured the young man about the mistake he had made and how he needed to be careful with his life. He also took the opportunity to tell the children of the crowd to take this man as an example - they didn't want to end up like them, did they? After a bit of lecturing, he wound up and gave the first lashing. Then a bit more lecturing, another lashing, some final words, and the final lashing. To be honest, the lashing didn't look particularly hard, but I'm sure they still hurt. A few crowds people were shouting for them to be harder. Nonetheless, seeing this rural village take justice into their own hands was a really interesting experience. It showed me first hand how strong-willed many Peruvians really are.

By the way, if any of you are wondering why there aren't any other pictures to correspond to this story, I was the only 'gringo' in the crowd and didn't want to stick out even more by taking pictures. And I didn't know how they'd all react if I did - I surely didn't want to be the next person in the center of the circle.

So, that was my most interesting experience of last week. This weekend my host family also did a bit of hiking, and today we went to a really cool big open air market in downtown Hyo. It was kind of like the Shipshawana flea market, if any of you are familiar with that, but even bigger. And they were selling baby chickens 3 for 1 sol, a sol by the way is worth about 30 cents US.

Tomorrow is a big day for me, I'll finally be starting work. I will be working in a comedor, or community kitchen, in an area of town called San Martin. As far as I know I will be working alongside Hannah, and we'll be helping a little bit with food and what not, but our main work will be teaching some basic English classes to young kids. To be honest, I'm somewhat nervous for that - we don't have any supplies and neither of us have taught like this before. But, teaching English is my major, so I am pretty excited about it. As soon as I have some good stories from work, I'll be back with another post.