Two Amazing Days (10pm Thursday July 28, 2011)

10pm Thursday July 28, 2011

¡Feliz Día de Patría! Today was Peruvian Independence day. What does that mean? Constant parties and fireworks for the last week; not the nice colorful fireworks, but rather the fireworks that are loud and annoying when you’re trying to teach a Hebrew class in the evening and you keep getting interrupted.

The last two days were particularly adventurous and active.  Yesterday (Wednesday) I along with Miguel, a member of the community, one of his friends, and 6 random French and Belgian women decided to hike up to the peak of Sierra San Cristobal, where a chapel and giant white cross stand.  On the Day of Virgin Mary, there is a Huanuqueñan tradition to make a pilgrimage to this particular peak.  At the peak they light candles for the Virgin Mary and have all sorts of festivities at the peak including dances, festive food, and food sacrifices to Pachamama.

It was much more strenuous than the hike I had done alone, because when I had hiked alone, I didn’t want to do anything too risky. But with 8 people, we had enough water, food and phones in case of an emergency. Nonetheless, it wasn’t particularly reassuring to see several tombs of pilgrims who had died hiking on the way up.  It took 2.5 hours on the way up, and 1.5 on the way down. I’m not sure my feet have ever been this callused. I also applied sunscreen every half hour, and somehow was able to get badly sunburned. Nonetheless, the views from the top and the photo op with the cross were just spectacular. 

 

The Chapel and Cross of San Cristobal on the mountain peak

 

Me on an altar on the peak

Self Explanatory
 

Today (Thursday), Rolo, Carmen and I traveled 3 hours north into the forest to the National Park of Tingo Maria. Until today I had never been inside a cave, but the main attraction in Tingo Maria is the Cueva de la Lechuza (Cave of the Owl), so today made it my first.  Bats, owls, giant harmless spiders, and tourists could all be found inside the cave.  We also visited the Cave of the Turkey and a dilapidated zoo that had awkward cages for the animals that didn’t even attempt to simulate their own habitat.  I couldn’t help but crack up upon seeing the leopard sitting on a wooden table eating meat, with a wooden chair on the left.

Cueva de la Lechuza (Cave of the Owl)

 Rolo and I in  the  Cueva de la Lechuza (Cave of the Owl)

National Forest of Tingo Maria

Shacharit- 3 siddurim, 8 people, oy vey! (9am Monday July 25, 2011)

Today was the 2^nd straight day with morning services.  With 1 Artscroll siddur (Nusakh Sefarad) and 2 siddurs with Spanish, Hebrew, and transliterated Hebrew (1 hard copy and 1 computerized version), we somehow figured out how to hold services for 8 people. It involved me running back and forth and finding the correct pages, because each siddur was published by a different company and had different pagination.  It also involved people taking turns putting on tefillin. In a community that has 30 tallits and somehow belongs to both the Reform and Renewal Jewish movements, I decided for egalitarian and pedagogical purposes today to show the 2 women how to put on a tallit. And due to lack of siddur resources, everyone had to sit close together to share. The donning of the tallit on the women this morning, created some frustration from the community leader, who explained to me that women don’t count in their minyan and therefore shouldn’t wear the tallit.  Women also usually sit in the back during the Huanuco Friday night services.  It is later explained to me that this “male chauvinism” is probably not derived from Judaism, but is rather a cultural custom of Huanuco  Apparently at parties in Huanuco, men and women shmooze separately, and thus this male-female separation is ingrained in the people Huanuco. Carmen suspects that this male-female separation was another cultural concept that the Jews brought to Huanuco several hundred years ago (like the haircut at 3 years old), but I have my qualms with these assumptions as there’s no actual proof for the correlation of these claims.

The difficulty for me is that I view everything in terms of the Jewish communities that we have in America. It’s interesting that here in Huanuco, the way I practice and preach have to be completely different. Sometimes this cognitive dissonance is difficult and I’d never feel alright teaching something in America like I’m doing here in Peru, but here the circumstances are so different here. At the end of the day, I respect the community’s desire to be a semi-egalitarian Reform/Renewal Jewish community and I’m here to help them be the best of what they want to be.

Peruvian Ruins: Kotosh (11pm Sunday July 24, 2011)

I saw my first in a series of many ancient Peruvian ruins today.  Kotosh was the first temple in the Americas, dating back to 1800 BCE. All that is left are a few short parts of walls that together made up the temple.  To the layman, it  basically looks like any other ruined ancient stone wall.  After seeing the few ruins, Willie, Rolo, and I set off to scale the mountain overlooking Kotosh, in search for caves in which the people who lived in the times of Kotosh had inhabited.  We climbed halfway up the mountain, but we decided to turn back because of the immense midday heat.

I’m planning on visiting important Incan ruins over the next month, which will be much more close to my heart than Kotosh.  In my Archeology of the Incas course, we focused on the Incan period (1200-1532), rather than more ancient Peruvian archeology like Kotosh. I’ll actually understand more of the context for the archeology and architecture of the forthcoming ruins.

1) Huanuco Pampa, the well-known Incan administrative enclave (a 4 hour drive from Huanuco)

2) Pachacamac, ruins of a sacred city and holy place of pilgrimage (near Lima)

3) Machu Picchu, no comment

4) Saksaywamán, a sexy women, JK. It’s actually another Cusco Incan holy site.

5) Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun in Cusco that the Spaniards decided to convert into a Church. Thanks Spaniards.

Interesting Shabbes Customs (11pm Saturday July 23, 2011)

11pm Saturday July 23, 2011

This Shabbes, we almost had a minyan for Friday night services. Had we counted women, 12 year old boys, and men who haven’t yet converted, we would have had 10.  Friday night dinners are very interesting compared to what I’m used to in the US, both in terms of food and conversation.  Here in Huanuco, lunch is a giant meal, so for dinner we eat “lonche,” a light dinner.  Friday night is usually tasty crème of asparagus soup with bread rolls.  More interesting is the minhag (tradition) at the Friday night table, essentially based around crude jokes.  Instead of the zemiros and divrei torah that I’m accustomed to, the community leader Juan says it’s their way of Oneg Shabbes. I don't complain; I sit at the table smiling at my quasi understanding of the jokes, while the rest of the community is cracking up. Citing that there aren’t enough pictures of the community doing Jewish things, this Shabbes turned into a photo shoot. I explained to them that I don’t use cameras during Shabbes, but they could do whatever they felt necessary.

 I found out about a peculiar tradition that many non-Jews in the Huanuco area follow.  Kids don’t get their hair cut for their first few years.  At the age of 3, there is a special ceremony where the parents cut their hair.   Irwin explains to me that when the first Jews came to Peru in the 16^th  and 17^th century, they brought this tradition, and somehow it caught on until this day.

Kisses and Hugs around the World (4:30pm Friday July 22, 2011)

4:30pm Friday July 22, 2011

For a less touchy (pun intended) subject, I’ve been noticing how different regional greeting customs (kissing, hugs...) interact with Judaism as I’ve traveled this summer.

In Spain, greetings were very impersonal from what I had expected Europe to be.  I also didn’t interact with any Spaniards that would have required hugging or kissing. 

In London, I was able to experience both an upper-class B’nei Akiva Orthodox Shabbes and a more lower middle-class Orthodox Shabbes. In terms of greetings, the upper-class Orthodox Shabbes was what you’d expect. Men shook hands; men and women didn’t touch (due to shomer negiah). I was invited to a “lower middle-class” Orthodox Shabbes meal, which was more interesting. I assumed that the family was shomer negiah, so I shook the hand of the husband and the little boys. Upon leaving, the mother leaned in toward me and she caught me by surprise by doing the European kiss on both cheeks with me. I played along as not to offend anyone.

It’s weird coming from the Penn OCP (Orthodox Community at Penn) where guys and girls are so hands off in terms of touchiness of greetings. Within the OCP, I try not to hug or touch most of the girls, assuming shomer negiahness. This assumption has gotten me out of some uncomfortable situations.

In Gibraltar, a society which was interestingly a mix of the uptightness of Britain with the relaxed nature of Spain, the Jewish community was essentially Sephardic Ultra-Orthodox, so men shook hands and didn’t really much interact with women.

I have nothing interesting to say about Turkey or Amsterdam in terms of greetings, so I’ll jump to Huanuco, Peru.  This has been the most interesting by far in terms of greetings.  This society is very touchy-feely. The second you meet someone, its expected of you to perform a physical greeting. The minute a woman (whether I’ve ever met her or not) enters the door, I know it’s expected of me to kiss her on her right cheek. When a man enters, I have to stand up an shake his hand.  Even more interesting is the fact that people I see every day, the women I teach Hebrew to, expected to kiss on the cheek every day.  It just seems superfluous; for example, when you’re at university and living with your friends, you don’t hug or shake hands with your friends every day. When you leave for summer break or if G-d forbid, someone’s father passed away, then you hug or shake hands. Or if you are on a business meeting, then you shake hands.

If you tell all of your friends that you love them, the word love depreciates in value.  What does love mean anymore? What do you tell your significant other? 

Git Shabbes.

Virus, Job, Home?

4:30pm Thursday July 21, 2011

I’ve been sick all day with some nasty stomach virus. I’ve been bedridden for most of the day–it’s not been fun. Of course, the remedy to any sickness in Peru is some Coca tea (tea made out of those coca leaves that I once mentioned).  Thank G-d I’m on the verge of feeling better.

The timing of this virus is interesting. I’ve been reading the Book of Job in Spanish over the last two days and we see Job patience and piety were tried by undeserved misfortunes, and who, in spite of his bitter lamentations, remained confident in the goodness and justice of God. May the distinction be made between Job and me. I’m not comparing my suffering to his at all, but nonetheless this sick day has given me plenty of time to think about life and watch most of the second season of Srugim, the Israeli TV show.  Those two things aren’t completely unrelated.

Over the last few weeks, and especially today, I’ve been thinking about what home means.  I’m at this awkward place in my life, where for the last 3 years I really haven’t established a home in a single place.

The breakdown of my last 3 years:

School Year 2009-10 months at home in Chelsea, NYC finishing high school

Summer 2009-2 months at Ramah Nyack

School Year 2010- 9 months in Jerusalem at Yeshiva

Summer 2010-2 months at Ramah Nyack

School Year 2011- 8 months at Penn

Summer 2011- 2 months in Europe (Spain, London, Istanbul, Amsterdam)

Summer 2011- 2 months in Peru

Conclusion: 10 months NYC, 9 months Jerusalem, 8 months Penn, 8 months Other

Every time I’m getting settled in a particular setting, I move on. I was just getting settled down at Penn and the summer vacation came out of nowhere. That’s my way of saying that from the depths of Peru that I really miss Penn.

Since I spent my year in Israel, I’ve been trying to figure out what place Israel will play in my life. While I was living in Israel, I had no doubt in my mind that Israel would be a place my family and I visit every few years as American Jewish tourists.  But absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Seeing these Jews from Huanuco wishing they could even just visit Israel for a day, makes me realize what a blessing it is that as an American Jew it’s so easy to make aliyah. But then again, aliyah would be nearly impossible for me as a family member of the epitome of American Ashkenazi Yiddish.  Nonetheless, every time I watch Srugim a part of me wishes I could be a part of that young Jerusalem crowd of olim.

Some of my friends know that when talking about what home means, my go-to idea that I mention is In the Heights, my favorite Broadway musical in which the main character, Usnavi, struggles to figure out whether home is the mostly-Hispanic neighborhood of Washington Heights where he grew up or the Dominican Republic.  Throughout the whole musical he wants to move out of the poverty of Washington Heights and make “aliyah” to the Domincan Republic. SPOILER ALERT: In the end, Usnavi decides to stay in the Heights, realizing that he both belongs there and can make a difference there. 

In other news, the Hebrew classes are going really well. 

A Peruvian Fast Day (17th of Tammuz=Tuesday July 19, 2011)

9:30pm Tuesday July 19, 2011

Today was the Fast of the 17th of Tammuz. Not too difficult of a fast because I could wake up at 5am, eat an avocado and some bread, and manage until the breaking of the fast at 6:30pm.

It was the first time that the bar mitzvah boy “fasted.”  He fasted all the way until the afternoon and then decided that he would eat two oranges because the hunger was getting to him. I explained to him how my youngest sister who is not yet Bat Mitzvah fasts by eating no sweets during the day, and only eating enough to sustain her. Rolo liked this method of fasting.  He tell me that after his Bar Mitzvah, he'll try to fast for the for the whole day.

Today I put on tefillin with Rolo for the first time, and I soon realized how difficult it is to explain how one should wrap the arm tefillin.  I clearly was able to do my own, but then when I tried with Rolo’s, I kept on messing up. Soon I confused myself to the point of not being able to wrap my own on my arm. Nonetheless, the idea of tefillin really spoke to them, especially the explanation of tefillin as a marriage contract with Hashem.

 Rolo and I with our tefillin

My fifth blog entry before I had a blog (Wednesday 9:30am July 13, 2011)

Wednesday 9:30am July 13, 2011

It’s really interesting for me to see how Christian Peruvian society is. Every restaurant, taxi, and house seems to have images of Jesus, crosses, and virgins.  There are dozens of churches in Huánuco, and especially a lot of Mormon ones, which seems random.  The idea that before the year 1532 when Pizarro conquered Peru, the natives were more or less all Incan in their religious habits. Their religion was the opposite of Christianity–a mummy cult religion, sacrifices of children and llamas, and essentially polytheism with the Sun, Moon and Thunder.  The Christians came and destroyed and looted all of the Incan holy sites, building churches over them, like the holy Incan temple in Cuzco.  Then to fast-forward 500 years and see Peru as a haven of Catholicism where everyone (sans the few Jews in Peru) is obsessed with Jesus is so interesting.  What also fascinates me is the religious syncretism in Peru. Much of the now-evangelized population still participates in certain Inca festivals, in addition to all of the Christian holidays.  Many of them still essentially live “Incan lives” in remote mountains far from society in ayllus (small collective communities similar to a kibbutz) and maintain their traditions of chewing coca leaves, brewing chicha, and belief of Pachamama (mother earth.) Nonetheless, they are devout Catholics. I guess one could argue both that the evangelization worked fantastically (look at 99% of Peru), or that it failed because the native population’s Incan traditions weren’t completely erased.

 

Today, Rolo’s grandma, Carmen, and I went around the city seeing the little there is to see in Huánuco.  There are several old churches, the earliest dating from ~1560.  From one place to another, we took these “mototaxis” (like a combination of a motorcycle 2 seats in the back) that cost 1 Peruvian sol (35 cents) to and from any point in the city.  We toured some of the old churches, visited the soccer stadium and an old pre-Incan ruin near center city.  I also had an interesting experience getting a Peruvian haircut. 4 dollars for a full haircut plus wash.  At one point, he seemed to be putting some weird oil or cream on parts of my head. The next thing I know, the hairdresser basically has a razor blade to my neck and starts shaving in that manner. I’m pretty sure that’s not particularly halachically permissible. Whoops! It was an interesting experience because it seemed pretty primitive.

My fourth blog entry before I had a blog (Monday 11:30pm July 11, 2011)

Monday 11:30pm July 11, 2011

I decide that I’m going to keep a separate list of what I do all day every day, so that these full blog entries can be more profound and interesting and less of “I did this. I did that.”

In the last two or so days, the community has really fallen in love with learning to read Hebrew. It’s like a game, a puzzle that they need to decipher. Shanti has told me that when he reads the Hebrew words from our learning material, he feels a connection with something greater, more so than when he reads the Hebrew words written in Spanish transliteration.  The plasticity of the brain changes in regard to learning languages at ~13 years of age. I can really see this in terms of how the community learns; the two children, Rolo and Derek, are able to read at a more advanced level than the older people.

I have a few fascinating comments about the way that this community specifically, though I can generalize to most Latin American Jewish communities, learns Hebrew. In Spanish, there isn’t much of a difference in pronunciation between the letters b and v. The consonants in the words beber and vivir are more or less the same for native Spanish speakers.  Perhaps the b is more stressed than the v, but they still sound the same.  This poses a problem when teaching Hebrew, because in Hebrew there is a clear distinction between a bet and a vet, in addition to the vav (“U’vnei Yerushalayim” versus “B’nai Yisrael”, and then “V’ahavta”).  Here in Huánuco, they are pronounced U’bnei Yerushalayim, B’nai Yisrael, and then B’ahabta. Another subtlety is the difficulty for Latin Americans not to be able to pronounce certain sounds involving the gimel. In Spanish, the g can be pronounced as both the “g” in “dog” or like the “ch” in “Bach” in certain contexts.  For example, after an o, u, or a, the g is pronounced like the g in dog (ego, iglesia), whereas before an e or i (gemelos, girar), it changes to the “ch” sound in Bach. In the case of one of the men in Huánuco, I spent 5 minutes attempting to show him that the word spelled daled (with a patach beneath) then gimel is not pronounced Dach, but rather d ah g. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t because those sounds just can’t go together in Spanish, and therefore his mouth can’t make those sounds. The z sound of the zayin also poses an issue because Spanish doesn’t have a z sound like we do in Hebrew and English.  Thus, in Huánuco, they pronounce the z like an s (zahav as sahab.)

Another interesting experience takes place when I try to go out to find a place with internet-access in the center of town after dusk. I finally succeed, and it costs me 50 Peruvian cents (aka 18 USA cents) for half an hour.  But by no means is that the interesting part. My current house is a 15-minute walk from the center of town, and in a dirtier and more rural area of the city. The people living around me (sans the family with whom I live) are seemingly poorer and less well educated.  As I walk to town at night, I pass several groups of teenagers who, at the sight of a white person, actually start laughing.  I can’t help but smile, because it’s awkward otherwise.  One group of teenagers screamed “Tiburón!” (shark) and “Gringo!” (white person) at me. I want to add the fact that I am actually the only white person in the city of Huánuco.  I’m not joking; I haven’t seen another white person in the first 4 days of walking around. It’s the weirdest feeling to know that many of the people in the city you live in are making fun of you for being different and having white skin. I can’t help but think about the American South before the 1970s and how Blacks felt when they were called names and discriminated against by Whites.  Here in Huánuco, I’m told that stores will often try to charge me more because I am white.  So whenever I go to buy something, I am accompanied either by my host family or a member of the Jewish community (who look no different than other Peruvians) or I ask an impartial viewer if the price seems fair.

My third blog entry before I had a blog (5pm Friday July 8, 2011)

I’ve certainly never had a Shabbes like this one.  We arrive right at 7:30pm at the house of Sra. Carmen de Holzmann. 

 The street, Jirón Mayro, on which the Holzmann house is located

She and her grandson, Rolando (Rolo as a nickname), are waiting at the gate to their house, and greet me warmly with hugs. We enter the house and I see that a room has been prepared for me.  It’s very quaint and cute and I assume it’s much nicer than most of the other shacks I’ve seen around Huánuco. This house has electricity and lukewarm water to shower in.  They have a 1998 computer and no internet-access in the house.  Sra. Holzmann is proud that her deceased husband was the founder of the Peruvian Chamber Orchestra and was a composer who studied under the auspices of Benjamin Britten. They have many cassettes of classical music from her husband and from others like Mozart. The whole family is musical. Rolo plays flute, and Carmen sings in a Huanuqueñan choir.

We wait till 8:15pm to do Kabbalat Shabbat, once we give up on waiting for a minyan.  

 

The Holy Ark is covered with this beautiful embroidered sheet. (Notice that the Hebrew is backwards.)

Interestingly for a community that affiliates with the Reform/Renewal movement, they don’t count women in the minyan.

 

Juan and I lead the service together because if I do it alone, I wouldn’t know the melodies that the community knows, and I would just confuse them. 

Nonetheless, halfway through, Juan allows me to sing whatever melodies I choose. We go through the rest of Kabbalat Shabbat and then, for Maariv, it’s clear they really don’t have any idea what I’m doing. The problem is that they can’t read Hebrew and their siddurim are limited. Only certain parts have Spanish transliteration so they can read/sing along.

There are some interesting people that come to pray with us.  There is a man Miguel, who wants to become a Reform Rabbi; he received a pending scholarship to attend, but only once he can read and write the Hebrew alphabet. He joins us with his non-Jewish girlfriend, who seems open to converting to Judaism. There are very few Jewish women in the community. Most people intermarry or have their wives/girlfriends convert. There’s an old man named Santiago (nickname: Shanti) who is an active member in the community. He speaks very quickly and I often find it difficult to follow what he’s saying because of my lame Spanish vocabulary.  Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure he works with indigenous people because he’s always telling stories about their festivals and trying to make the point that ancient Israel’s society and the Incan society were very similar. He seems to have done research for a paper that claims that Hebrew and Quechua (the language of the Incas) are related, due to their similarities. I’m almost certain that the few similarities are coincidences, and in fact, I’ve asked linguists at Penn and they tell me its linguistically impossible, but I play along with Shanti’s hypothesis.  He also really likes talking about the similarities in Jewish and Incan cultures with their egalitarianism and the importance of family. A professor of the technology of agriculture, named Antonio, also comes. Then of course, Rolo, the almost-Bar-mitzvah and his grandma with whom I’m living, pray with us.  Also joining us is a 10-year old, Derek Bauer, whose father is the vice president of the community.

Rolo and Derek playing El Ahorcado, aka Hangman in Spanish.

After an abbreviated Maariv, we make Kiddush and Hamotzi.  Everyone reassures me that everything is “kosher” even though there isn’t a kosher symbol on the bottle. I trust them, though if I were ultra-orthodox, I wouldn’t. I’ve never felt like more of a foreigner than at dinner. Everyone is telling Spanish jokes and I actually have no idea what’s going on due to my tiredness and the fact that they use a lot of Peruvian slang, which frankly isn’t taught in American Spanish classes.  I just end up nodding my head a lot and saying, “Sí” whenever I think someone’s talking to me; that technique doesn’t work well. My mouth actually doesn’t want to speak Spanish; during dinner, I find myself trying to say one thing and I end up saying something totally different. For example, I try to say “I’m really tired”, but because I’m thinking in English I say, “Estoy triste”, as “tired” and “triste” both have a t-r.  It’s really embarrassing and I decide not to speak for the rest of the night because clearly I am really tired.

In the morning, we have Shacharit with 6 people, at which we sing a few songs from their transliterated siddur/shiron. “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” and “Am Yisrael Chai” are big hits. We can’t really do the Amidah because they only have it in Hebrew letters, so that’s no good.  I try to summarize Parshat Balak in Spanish, and they are as confused as I from the talking donkey incident.  

I explain that I don’t use public transportation or money or a telephone on Shabbat and they don’t really seem to understand, especially the kids. They want to go somewhere in the country with me by car, but I convince them we can do it on Sunday. Instead, we decide to walk into the center of the city to show me around. We walk 10 minutes towards the center of the city, across a river, until we find the Plaza Mayor, the main plaza, which is cute and has nice benches. It’s the nicest block in all of Huánuco. We head to a farmers market, which has a lot of indigenous ladies selling interesting produce that I’ve never seen.

Meals at the Holzmann house are great. They’re all made up of toast and weird Andean tubers and veggies that I’ve never heard of, like Kishu. It looks like a soft green cactus and tastes healthy. 

Chicha, sweet fermented corn beer is quite delicious.

At around 8pm, we make Havdalah and sing a few more songs from their book. I try to give a dvar-torah in Spanish about solitude as a blessing and a curse in relation to the Parshah, the Huánuco community, and the state of Israel.  They nod and seem to more or less understand. I really need to write out in transliteration some of the important prayers so we can institute Shacharit.

I am starting to feel comfortable as a “member of the family,” but it’s clear that my Spanish really better improve if I want to understand anything in the next month. I guess I’ll be spending my days, when the community is at work, reading my Spanish dictionary.

 


 

My second blog entry before I had a blog (5pm Friday July 8, 2011)

5pm Friday July 8, 2011

Today has been quite eventful, yet I have been on a bus since 9:30am.  This is perhaps the longest and most beautiful bus ride I’ve ever taken.

I woke up early and waited for Juan at the hotel.  His father is sick in the hospital with some gastrointestinal problems, so Juan stayed with him during the night. Due to this difficult experience, he arrives late to pick me up from my hotel, but I wait patiently, putting together a Spanish dvar-torah (speech) for the community, relating to the weekly Torah portion.

He arrives in a hurry and we hop into a taxi. There is no order on the highways near Lima. Cars travel slowly, behind the sluggardly truck, and there is often a gridlock of traffic. Juan is very popular with the Jews from Huánuco, and people from the community seem to keep calling him. Every time he greets them and tells them, “Ya estoy saliendo con el Chazzan desde Lima.”  (I’m leaving Lima with the Chazzan.) Whenever he says this, I can’t help but smile.

We get to the bus station on time and our bus leaves at 9:30am and of course gets stuck in the traffic as we leave Lima. The bus costs $12 one-way, compared to ~$80 one-way for a flight from Lima-Huánuco, and the bus is quite comfortable. All of the seats essentially become beds and there’s an equivalent to a flight attendant who serves you a free drink and bag of chips.

The ride is long, especially getting out of Lima. 

 

We climb the Western range of the Andes Mountains, which is a serpentine paved road with one lane in each direction.  Often times there are delays due to trucks that max out at 30 km per hour.  

As we climb the mountains, we nearly reach the top and snow can be seen in many of the peaks. The views are quite beautiful.  

The bus takes a lunch rest stop, at which I am able to act as translator for a few British tourists who speak but a few words of Spanish. Vegetarian food is difficult to find.  There’s fried guinea pig (cuy), chicken, and pork everywhere. So far, I’ve eaten plain white rice, a baked plantain, a tomato omelet, and some fresh fruit shakes.

The bus continues. We climb our way into the Central highlands of Peru, where the climate is cool and there are llamas all over. I hope we arrive to Huánuco before Shabbes. Due to delays, we will probably arrive at 7:30pm, an hour and a half after it should have.  The community brings in Shabbes at 7:30, although according to my Jewish calendar for Lima, Shabbes begins at ~6pm. Nonetheless I give the community of Huánuco the benefit of the doubt and hope Shabbes actually begins at 7:30pm. There’s nothing I can do anyway. I’ll be on the bus whether I like it or not due to traffic; the only thing I can do is minimize what I do that is not in the spirit of Shabbes once I’m off the bus. 

A Day in the Middle of Nowhere (Choquecancha to be precise)

9:30pm Sunday July 17, 2011

The way I’m spending my time in Peru is much more heymish (homey) than the way most other people do.  Most people come to Peru for Machu Picchu and Cusco and then leave.  By spending several weeks in this non-touristy area of Peru, I am having a more authentic Peruvian experience.

Today, for example, I went with my friend Willie (an indigenous Peruvian who grew up in the mountains and recently converted to Judaism) to his childhood home of Choquecancha in the sierra.  It was a very Latin American experience–he, two brothers, and I squished in the front seats of an old truck riding on an unpaved mountainous one-lane road for two hour. It felt like a scene out of a movie.  The only thing missing was smuggled drugs.

 The people in these remote villages often live without running water, elecricity, or refrigeration.  They live a simple life of waking up, farming, and going to bed.

This family raised cuy (guinea pigs) to eat and to sell, in order to make a living.

Willie and I then went on a hike in which he would show me everything awesome about living in the wilderness.  First, we found some coca leaves to chew. Coca leaves have been chewed for hundreds of years as a social tradition in Andean culture.  It helps you adjust to high altitudes, leaves your mouth numb temporarily (but isn’t dangerous), has some minerals, and is highly illegal to import to the USA, as it can be manufactured into cocaine.

 

Willie then showed me how to pick granadilla (passion fruit) from trees using bamboo-like sticks. These fruits were tangy and sweet – amazing.

In explaining why many of the less educated indigenous Peruvians of the mountains were scared of me, Willie told me the legend of Pishtaco. A long time ago, a white Spaniard came to the mountains and raped many women.  That incident spurred legends of white men taking advantage of the indigenous folk and eating them.  That’s the reason, according to Willie, that many of the poor inhabitants of the mountains are afraid to talk to me.

On the way back from the mountains, Willie’s brothers tell me that several of the indigenous families said that they wanted me to stay in their community as a “padrillo” (a stallion especially used for breeding).  The reason– they want my blue eyes, because, for indigenous Peruvians, blue eyes are a rarity and are sought after.  Essentially they wanted me to stay and mate with many women so their kids would have blue eyes. I have three things to say about that: 1) It seems like the complete opposite of the idea of Pishtaco so I’m confused. 2) I’m pretty sure blue eyes are genetically recessive so their kids almost certainly wouldn’t have blue eyes. and 3) No thank you.

 

The views during the hike back from Choquecancha were awe-inspiring.

Shabbes #2 in Huanuco

7:30am Sunday July 17, 2011

This Shabbes I felt much more comfortable. I was able actively participate in conversations and know more or less what was going on; I knew what to expect.  We had our Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv.  For Kabbalat Shabbat, my melodies (traditional Carlebach) are still mostly foreign to them, but they embrace the melodies and ask if I have recordings of them or whether I can write out sheet music with those melodies so that they can better learn them. After our Shabbat dinner, I introduce a new tradition of saying a blessing after a meal in the form of singing Bendigamos. Bendigamos is a hymn sung according to the custom of Spanish and Portuguese Jews.  I’ve only heard it song 3 times in my life–once at the New York Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, once at Neve Shalom in Istanbul, and the last time in the famous Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam.  Nonetheless, Bendigamos is a great alternative to Birkat Hamazon for this Huanuco community, because the song is in their vernacular and is much more concise than the normal Birkat Hamazon.  It’s clearly a hashkafic decision and not a halachic decision to introduce Bendigamos instead of Birkat Hamazon, but I think that this is a tradition, that in the long run will benefit the community more and keep more people connected to Judaism.

  

(Bendigamos al Altísimo,

Al Señor que nos crió,

Démosle agradecimiento

Por los bienes que nos dió.

Alabado sea su Santo Nombre,

Porque siempre nos apiadó.

Load al Señor que es bueno,

Que para siempre su merced.

...

Hodu Lashem ki tov,

Ki leolam jasdo.)

The community only has siddurim for Friday night, not Saturday Shacharit (Morning Service), so it is difficult to have a service Saturday morning without prayerbooks. We have a 6pm Mincha/Maariv/Havdalah, which is more like a group sing along plus Havdalah.  But I’m fine with that. After Havdalah we had a cute Melavah Malka (post-Shabbes party) with a cake that said “Communidad Judía” (Jewish community).  The idea of the Melaveh Malkah was also to continue teaching about the Jewish holidays while enjoying some sweet. I guess my thinking was similar to the old Jewish tradition involving honey and teaching. Parents teaching the Yiddish/Hebrew alphabet to their children would put honey on each letter so that their children would lick their fingers while learning to read and thus have a sweet association with learning. In our case, in place of honey we had cake; and in place of the alphabet, we learned about Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot.

"Jewish Community" Cake

After our quick class on Jewish holidays, I decided to teach a few individuals about berachot. While I was becoming more observant at Yeshivat Orayta, I remember that one of the things that really spoke to me was the idea of berachot–pausing for a second or two before eating– not necessarily even using the language dictated by the Sages, but perhaps using my vernacular, or even just meditating for a moment on the thought of gratefulness for having food.  Until last night, the only berachot that we’d been using for food were pri hagafen, hamotzi and she’hakol (for anything else). I didn’t want to overwhelm or confuse the community by having to explain hamotzi, pri ha’etz, pri ha’adamah, mezonot, shehakol.  I finally was able to find Spanish resources on berachot, thanks to Rabbi Juan Mejía, and so I decided that it was time, hoping that they would be as awed by the beauty of berachot over food as I am.

Hiking Alone in the Sierra San Cristobal

12:30pm Friday July 15, 2011

Today I decided to go hiking alone in the mountains without a map. It was a great idea.  At ~8am I left my house with rudimentary directions to the best hiking path. I had a half of an avocado, 2 little rolls of bread, and a bottle of water.  After about 20 minutes, I had reached the boondocks. There were a few isolated huts where shepherds and their families seemed to live. I kept on climbing up the mountain. There wasn’t much of a marked path so several times I almost slipped on some loose rocks and that wouldn’t have been fun–rolling down the mountain.  Thankfully I have good balance and never actually fall; I just almost fall and then catch myself.

There were these really large green crosses that clearly showed that these lands were Christian.

I kept climbing, and I passed a lot of cacti and some wild cows.

I also stumbled upon some really old Incan ruins that must have been houses.

Slowly but surely I reached the peak of the mountain. The view was awe-inspiring–seeing an otherwise mediocre city from 1,000 feet above, really puts it in its place. I could better understand its context within the sierra.

I jumped for joy upon reaching the peak.

Peruvian Zionists

 10:30pm Thursday July 14, 2011

Visiting Israel is something that most American Jews take for granted. I’ve probably spent 15 months of my life in Israel. American Jews also have free programs like Birthright, or highly subsidized Israel trips like those of Maimonidies, ZOA, or Hasbarah. We have direct flights to Israel from many major American cities.  All of this is very foreign to the Huanuco Jews.  They express their desire to go to Israel, asking about my visits-what its like, how special the Western Wall is. Yet, sadly because of the lack of Latin American counterparts of the programs that we Americans have at our disposal, my Huanuqueñan friends will probably never step foot in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

And it’s really not fair. A trip from Huanuco to Israel would include: 9 hour bus from Huanuco to Lima, an expensive flight to somewhere in Europe, and then a flight from there to Israel.  So probably all together maybe 24 hours of travel and more than $2500. The main issue really is the price tag-a trip to Israel just isn’t feasible unless there is some stipend, scholarship or subsidy; and neither the Huanuco community nor I know of anything to help Jews from third-world countries get to Israel.

Nonetheless, when I lead services here, I stress the importance of Israel in the lives of Jews worldwide.  We sing Yerushalyim shel Zahav and other songs, glancing at the large Israeli flag hanging in the living room of Señora Holzmann’s house, together hoping that someday Jews from all corners of the world will be able to  unite in Israel.

 

 

Carmen and Willie from Huanuco learn to read Hebrew so one day

they can speak read and speak Hebrew

  

Miguel, an aspiring HUC rabbinical student, needs to first learn to read

and write Hebrew before he can accept his scholarship

My first blog entry before I had a blog (11:45pm Thursday July 7, 2011)

11:45pm Thursday July 7, 2011

Today was a long day of traveling, in which I realized why it’s smart to leave 4 hours in between transferring flights, and why LaGuardia Airport is lame (it has a higher than normal percentage of late flights.)  My flight to Fort Lauderdale was 45 minutes late, but because of the 4 hours that I gave myself before my connecting flight to Lima, I was extremely relaxed.  There must have been a minyan of yarmulke-wearing men on that flight, which was weird for me after having traveled for the last 7 weeks in Europe, where, simply put, that wasn’t the case.

Great, my Spirit flight to Peru is supposed to be on time.  But, whom am I trying to kid?  It ended up leaving late, and then decided that because of turbulence somewhere over Peru, an additional 20 minutes would be needed. At least Spirit Airlines, the US budget airlines comparable to the European Ryanair, gives everyone extra legroom. Actually, that’s not the case. They charge you for just about everything – checking bags, carry-on bags, food, drink, and maybe even using the bathroom. So there’s actually 0 legroom – just picture me sitting uncomfortably with my legs stretched out into the aisle. And the distance between you and the seat in front of you is about 10 inches. My 12-inch MacBook didn’t fit on the tray; it was too large.  Nonetheless, that flight cost me a few hundred cheaper than any other flight. So I’ll take it.

We finally arrive to the Lima Jorge Chavez Airport and I start getting nervous because we’re supposed to land at 9:51pm and it’s 11:15pm on my watch. I hate to keep people waiting, and feared that the person who was supposed to pick me up from the airport would be in a bad mood at my tardiness.  Then I see a screen somewhere with the time and it seems to be 10:15pm, but that doesn’t really make much sense because NY (Eastern Standard Time) and Lima seem to be straight above and below each other; i.e., they should be in the same time zone. But I guess some clever Latin American person decided to make Lima an hour earlier than New York. Cool. I can stop worrying.

I get my luggage, and exit customs into that usually overwhelming area where people hold signs with your name on it and/or try to accost you because they are taxi drivers. There are 100’s of Peruvian-looking people with signs, and I don’t see the guy I’m looking for. I walk around and then decide to do the classic Daneel move – look for free internet on my iPod so I can message Juan Bravo, a young gynecological student from Huánuco, the community in which I’ll be living and teaching. I wait a few minutes and the free airport internet-move doesn’t work. I’m sure Juan will find me, and if not, I decide I’ll just sleep in the airport on a bench and wake up in the morning and figure out how to get to Huánuco.

I soon see a little young Peruvian man with a white patterned knitted kippah. I get some serious Peruvian hugs and greetings from Juan, the leader of the community in Huánuco, whom I had never met in person.  I soon learn Juan doesn’t disappoint.  The Peruvians take reciprocity (an ancient Inca ideology) very seriously – because I have come from 1000s of miles away to help the community, they will do whatever they can to make me comfortable and happy. Juan wants to get me dinner even though I’m not hungry; I explain that due to Kashrut, I won’t eat meat and certain dairy that isn’t kosher.  He understands and tells me he is a shochet (ritual slaughterer) in Huánuco. His friend Ricardo drives us to a place that specializes in fruit juices and shakes.  I’m intrigued by Ricardo, who seems to be Jewish and know Rabbi Tarlow (the rabbi from Texas who visits Huánuco once a year and helps convert and teach the community), but simultaneously has a cross hanging in the car he’s driving. I didn’t muster up the courage to ask, but I’ll find out tomorrow. I assume it’s some form of religious syncretism between Christianity and Judaism that many people may hang crosses or pictures of Jesus, perhaps to fit into Peruvian society. For dinner, we get my favorite – batidos (fresh fruit milkshakes). I try a Lúcuma shake. Most of those tropical fruits taste the same to me. But nonetheless for 5 soles, I’m super satisfied. 

 

Juan and I get an authentic Peruvian breakfast in Lima – plantains, white rice, and an egg

While in the car, Juan is under the impression that I am a chazzan (a Jewish cantor). I’m not really sure where he got that. Maybe once on Skype, I had mentioned that I like singing and that I can lead certain prayer services. From that, I guess he assumed that I am basically a professional chazzan. It’s probably funny how many misunderstandings he and I have based on his lack of English and my mediocre Spanish. While with him, I perhaps understand what he’s saying 70% of the time and the other 30%, I just nod and then subtly change the topic. In the next 7 weeks, hopefully my Spanish will improve. I correct Juan, and explain that I have no training in chazzanut, but that I can try to be Chazzan for them. He explains to me that the whole community refers to me as “Chazzan”. That will be my nickname that everyone calls me and he reassures me that I should play along with this, because that way I will get much more respect from the community.  With the title of Chazzan, he tells me, I can set rules and regulations and actually accomplish stuff, whereas if I were just Daneel, the 19 year old from New York, people would give me less attention.

While on the way to my hotel for the night, some guy affiliated with the Huánuco community calls Juan’s cell phone and asks to talk to me. I have no idea who this guy is when I’m given the phone and Ari from Tarapoto (a city that has a smaller but affiliated Jewish community to that of Huánuco) starts speaking in Spanish and saying how excited he is to hear my voice and how amazing it is that the Chazzan has arrived.  I then space out for the next few minutes because there’s bad reception, I’m just tired from the flights, and I have no context in which to place this Ari guy. Also, he was speaking Spanish really quickly and my listening comprehension is worse than my speaking; basically, I just said random things that a Chazzan would say – I mentioned something about Lecha Dodi and he seemed to be overjoyed.  I quickly mentioned that I’m jetlagged and tired and Ari expressed how excited he is to meet me.

Ricardo and Juan bring me to a nice 2-star hotel named Lido Hotel, which is somewhere in Luzmila, Lima. I had told Juan that I could just stay with him in his family’s apartment in Lima; that way the community didn’t have to pay for me to stay in a hotel, but he insisted and said that Lido Hotel is the only place Rabbi Tarlow will stay in Lima.

Tomorrow morning Juan will show up at my hotel room and we will depart to Huánuco, on an 8:30am bus from Lima. He says we should be in Huánuco by 6pm, so that’s one long bus ride.  In Huánuco, they begin Shabbes, or as I’m to call it in Peru, Shabbat, around 7:30pm in the winter (July in Peru is considered winter.)

I really have no idea what to expect from the community, besides it being particularly tight-knit. That’s one thing I’ve noticed from this summer’s world travels; places with fewer Jews really stick together and show more achdut (Jewish unity), even if they are ideologically different kinds of Jews. I feel like the Huánuco community of 40 Jews will be very familial in a city of 75,000 in remote Peru.

Juan tells me that I’m staying in a special guest room with the Holzmann family in Huánuco. Rolando, the child whom I will be teaching for his Bar Mitzvah, lives with his grandmother, Sra. Holzmann. I believe his mother passed away several years ago and I didn’t catch Juan’s explanation for Rolando’s father. The community synagogue is in the Holzmann house.  The community is installing internet-access at the Holzmann’s in order for me not to go to internet-cafés at odd hours of the night to check my email.

Juan also tells me that I shouldn’t pay to fly back from Huánuco to Lima on August 3^rd, with LC Busre, for which I had an unpaid reservation. He said he would take the bus with me from Huánuco to Lima, which would save us both so much money, and that he’ll be my personal tour guide of Lima and show me all of the special un-touristy things.

After these first few hours in Peru, with the amount of hospitality I’ve sensed, and the Jewish community of Huánuco’s excitement to have me living there and teaching them, I can foresee how phenomenal the next month and a half will be.