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.