This year
my 24th birthday and Easter combined in one weekend. Friday night I went out with Simone and we socialized with two American women and their brichero friend at the Irish Pub, and then we went to another pub and a club. You will forgive me if I'm discouraged by the men I met during the night: 1) the brichero with the Americans, 2) the nameless guy I froze and convinced to leave in 10 seconds in the club, 3) the perverted architect from Arequipa who's obviously met lots of easy gringas and whom I would have punched in the face if it didn't disgust me to touch him, and 4) the artist/writer who just opened a gallery in San Blas and was interesting to talk to till he decided to hit on me and the conversation became so boring I went home.
That night I slept about 2 hours, because Nico and his friends woke up at 6:30 and involved the whole house in their awakeness.
my 24th birthday and Easter combined in one weekend. Friday night I went out with Simone and we socialized with two American women and their brichero friend at the Irish Pub, and then we went to another pub and a club. You will forgive me if I'm discouraged by the men I met during the night: 1) the brichero with the Americans, 2) the nameless guy I froze and convinced to leave in 10 seconds in the club, 3) the perverted architect from Arequipa who's obviously met lots of easy gringas and whom I would have punched in the face if it didn't disgust me to touch him, and 4) the artist/writer who just opened a gallery in San Blas and was interesting to talk to till he decided to hit on me and the conversation became so boring I went home.My birthday was a weird and uneventful day, made of cleaning, walking around local markets where they sell whole pigs and donkey heads, lunch at home and sleeping the whole afternoon to recover from the night before. In the evening Simone and I went to dinner with the two American women to this place they loved (for mysterious reasons): we had sandwiches and got sick.
On Easter Sunday I went to church at the cathedral: the tackiness of the interiors of the churches in Cusco is really something! Statues of bleeding suffering saints, dressed in velvet and golden 15th-century-Spain outfits, massive gold and silver altarpieces and dark painting of martyr saints, all topped by the priest screaming from the altar a Medieval-style sermon. The most disturbing thing, to me, was the military procession, complete with soldiers in uniforms and machine-guns, bands, slogans and firecrackers, right in front of the cathedral during the Easter service.
Overall I find the religion here quite idolatrous: like most uneducated people they have an admirably strong faith, but based more on the adoration of saints and the belief in
all sorts of miracles and apparitions. I bought a cross made of tweeds and berries, but most importantly with lots of garlic attached to it to keep away the evil eye. We also threw red petal from the balcony at statues of Jesus and the Vergin Mary in procession: the flowers represent the blood of Christ and they are the same that were used for some Inca ritual of sacrifice. Of course any religion can be interpreted and practiced at different levels by different people, and there are always people who accept dogmas and others who question everything, but you will understand, in the midst of all this pagan-ness, my disappointment at the lack of Easter eggs!
On Easter Sunday I went to church at the cathedral: the tackiness of the interiors of the churches in Cusco is really something! Statues of bleeding suffering saints, dressed in velvet and golden 15th-century-Spain outfits, massive gold and silver altarpieces and dark painting of martyr saints, all topped by the priest screaming from the altar a Medieval-style sermon. The most disturbing thing, to me, was the military procession, complete with soldiers in uniforms and machine-guns, bands, slogans and firecrackers, right in front of the cathedral during the Easter service.Overall I find the religion here quite idolatrous: like most uneducated people they have an admirably strong faith, but based more on the adoration of saints and the belief in
all sorts of miracles and apparitions. I bought a cross made of tweeds and berries, but most importantly with lots of garlic attached to it to keep away the evil eye. We also threw red petal from the balcony at statues of Jesus and the Vergin Mary in procession: the flowers represent the blood of Christ and they are the same that were used for some Inca ritual of sacrifice. Of course any religion can be interpreted and practiced at different levels by different people, and there are always people who accept dogmas and others who question everything, but you will understand, in the midst of all this pagan-ness, my disappointment at the lack of Easter eggs!
You should hear me speak Italian, my Italian is so good that only my greataunt Alba and a few other originally perceptive people can detect the American accent which I have lost even in English. Only when you start talking to me about italian music, TV, or places in Turin it comes out that I'm faking it! Or so seem to think all the Italians I've met in the past couple years.On one side it freak me out to think that, for no apparent reason other than my mother's genes, I have turned myself into the cultural hybrid which is a foreigner everywhere, especially in my own country. On the other hand I have reached the intolerance of the over-exposed: different cultures are so interesting and fascinating...till you have to deal with them. (Just think of how hard it is to deal with people from your own culture...). I've become the kind of person who is forever grateful for the places non-places, where western-style multiculturalism is the pervasive culture.
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