Living at 9,000 ft, I rarely need to crane my neck to enjoy some of the more beautiful distractions of the Andes. As I walk out of the hostel and make my way for the Casa Hogar, there's enough life around to lure my eyes away from thoughts of home or the day ahead. The streets all slope sharply to the left, as Los Gorionnes is perched on a high point in the valley where Ayacucho lies. Still, piles of stone cling to their place, peppered with garbage and stray dogs looking for scraps. Sometimes these piles are carefully disassembled and reassembled into a compound wall, which retains a remarkable amount of order given the stones´ lack of geometry--a throwback to Inca expertise? On top of them lies either a collection of broken bottles glued in place or a heap of dirt sprouting cacti, which hang over the wall like a line of hands awaiting a marathoner.
More than half of the buildings here--none more than 3 stories--are unfinished. Steel rods jut like wiry tufts of hair from the four corners. Often, clothes are found hanging from these in the morning sun. Most facades retain their original cement grey or red brick, though there is the occasional freckle of bright color. Spanish tiles, seemingly older than the houses they cover, crack and fade.
My taxi bounced and jolted my way toward the Casa on my first night in Ayacucho. As we turned off the principal concrete road onto the undulating terrain of Carmen Alto, I felt some comfort; this place felt more like Guinea than any other since I had left West Africa. It still does. In the morning I'm able to sleep through the same comical cackles of malnourished chickens and morning vendors (although one young entrepreneurial bread seller still gets me with his old-school bike horn). A couple new additions are the pigs and the dogs. Yes, outside of the Muslim world people eat pigs. Big ones. If I go up on the roof to wash my clothes, I can look down on the adjacent pen and see a handful of piglets jockeying for feeding position as their mom lounges. My favorite is the big papa on the way to the Casa. He's a beast. I can't take my eyes off him. One of these days he'll actually move. Smaller pigs are always shuffling around the neighborhood as they munch grass and weeds sprouting up from the new rains. Their bellies are distended. They're healthy, and so are the dogs.
Healthy dogs are active dogs. Healthy, active dogs. Without domestication. With buddies. This morning I was enthralled by an old woman who, having removed her two characteristic long braids, was washing her back-length black hair on the side of the street (just beyond Papa Grande). As I watched her carefully letting the water trickle off into her small row of plants, I finally turned to investigate the footsteps behind me. A young golden mutt was just trotting along, content to have something to follow. At this time of day he's as harmless as any other moving piece in the archaic life of Carmen Alto. At night his territorial tendencies will kick in a little stronger. The other day I saw a pack of three small, pug-looking things with underbites nearly kill another dog of the same size. Striated ribs showing his malnourishment, the dog was probably going to die soon from malnourishment anyway. Regardless, it was hard to watch. When they funnel into teams, the dogs can get aggressive toward people, though bending over to pick up a rock is usually enough to keep them at bay.
...ok, I have to pause and comment because a sheep just jumped into the internet cafe, took a look at me, and bolted...but not before freaking fellow volunteer Julie out with a very human-sounding "maaaaaiggh!!"...
Adherence to tradition is another welcome sight. The petite women in traditional alpaca or lamb's wool sweaters and knee-length skirts are the norm of the older generation. Always, always on her back is a black and flourescent striped cloth, wrapped just so to carry a bundle of veggies or a grandchild. The brown leather bombin hats are apparently a holdover from the early 20th century railroad industry in Peru, but it's done little to shield her face from the mountain sun, which by day's end seems to do more damage than anything I encountered in Africa. The kids are adorable. They hang off their mothers' backs, wearing colorful little gorritos. Life here is a travel advertisement. I remember flipping through the images in my Lonely Planet Peru, marveling at the shots. Here in Ayacucho I feel like everywhere I turn is a sight oozing with traditional imagery.
Still there's distraction. As I mentioned, Carmen Alto ("alto" = high) sits high in the bowl. The best way to describe it is to say we're hanging onto the side of a tongue. The neighborhood juts out into the valley below, so we're pleasantly surrounded by mountains on all sides, even behind us. That said, the view is absolutely spectacular. Ayacucho's Andes are not the toothed and jagged peaks conjured up by Touching the Void adventurers, but they're still hard and intimidating, so large they always feel an arm's length away. Cumulus clouds hang out at eye level. It's easy to lose oneself for minutes at a time in the rising, constantly reshaping columns. They're pure as tapioca. Later in the day they bravely creep in over the valley. Sunlight streaks through like a set of rolling spotlights. This is my favorite time of day, because parts of the city I´d never noticed are trhust into focus. Last week a mountain behind Carmen Alto was brightly lit, a whole slope of earth-toned houses puffing out their chests.
And then in rolls afternoon. More and more we're growing accustomed to the predictability of the rainy season (Dec - Mar). It doesn't take a sixth sense to forecast a storm when an infantry of gray clouds comes climbing over the far peaks. They hang in waylay for a while. Then, slowly, thin grey sleeves unroll from scattered rips in the distance. The air grows humid and cold and begins tearing down the streets. Dry dust starts looking for eyes.
The rain is cold and serious. This is nothing like I found in Guinea, with naked kids jumping into puddles and my host family members awaiting their turn in the outdoor shower stall. Old ladies click their canes along at double time for cover. Dogs crawl under cars. By this point the volunteers working with the disabled "Lupes" have carried them back to their room, surely closing the door behind. There are some characteristic flashes and cracks to make a Midwesterner feel welcome, but an Andes rain is predominantly a morose one--more "November" than "July".
Rarely does a storm last more than a couple hours. Late last week, however, one continued through the evening. Guinea flashbacks rushed to me as I hopped over huge divots in the road turned into the rivers. By morning Carmen Alto was back to its boisterous self. The boy with the bike horn ran ahead of me, a basket of bread on his back, as I made my way to the volunteer house for breakfast. It was my day off. Emily, Mal, and I were joining a Peruvian friend named Luis Angel on a short trip to Huanta. On our way into the city, the #8 bus abruptly turned from its normal path past the market. Confused, we hopped off about two blocks away from the market and made our way down the hill. The reason for the change was soon very obvious. Ayacucho had been rocked by flooding. Mounds of mud filled many of the streets. Cars were literally mangled. In front of the market, a crowd had gathered in front of a rickshaw-style moto taxi that had been smashed. The crowd's size was due either to the wrecked vehicle's proximity to the usual market bustle or to the fact that they were pulling someone from it. Rather than fight through the onlookers for an answer, we decided to walk on. The power of the floods was present everywhere. Bulldozers mixed with manual laborers to push piles of earth off of bridges. Police tape blocked entire avenues while officials sorted out the mess.
Fellow volunteers who lived in the center of town recounted their struggle through narrow streets as water rushed past their shins; they had started home only a half hour after the storm began. By the following morning the powerful flash flood had subsided, but not before stealing eleven lives in its fury. The papers have certainly told the stories of all these individuals, though the only one I've heard was the story of two young girls caught by surprise as a wall of mud careened down a street in their direction. One of the girls pushed her best friend to safety. Tragically, she couldn't save herself.
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