the things i haven't bought
i realized yesterday that in the past year i have only purchased 5 items of clothing.
1 pair of jeans
1 skirt
1 pair of shorts
1 pair of shoes
1 dress
as satisfied as i felt after coming to this realization, i was also quite surprised: i achieved a feat i never even set out to accomplish, and felt quite proud of myself for doing so.
according to the environmental protection agency,
the average american gets rid of 68 pounds of clothing every year, and on this front, you can definitely count me in. i have gotten rid of more clothes than i can remember this year - donating to local charities, giving some to friends or family and throwing the rest away. and you wouldn't believe how much stuff i still have in my closet. piles of t-shirts and jeans and sweaters that i rarely even wear, but am determine to use until they can be used no longer.
this new mentality is, for better or for worse, in great part due to my husband. he is thrifty, to put it kindly. he wears every article of clothing he owns until they have holes and/or no longer fit, and then he goes to the tailor and has them repaired, continuing to use them at least twice as long. in a developing country this is much more economical than it might be in the united states (simple shoe repair here in lima costs less than $1 and simple tailoring costs less than $3), but it's a practice that not only saves money, but also the earth's resources.
"Although 10 million tons of unwanted duds per year puts pressure on U.S. landfills, it's the origin of the clothes that does the greatest harm. Production of synthetic fabric consumes petroleum, blows out greenhouse gases and spews wastewater bearing organic solvents, heavy metals and poisonous dyes and fiber treatments."i want to buy fewer things.
the average household spent $,1760 on clothes in 2007. i spent less than $100.
clothes are just the beginning. another way i've used and reused what i already have is through
www.bookmooch.com. this is an amazing, free website that allows you to trade books with other members. a) sign up b) add books you want to give away (you will earn 0.1 point for every book added and 1.0 points for every book of yours requested) c) request books you want to read (one book costs 1.0 point and you receive 0.1 point for acknowledging when you recieve the book). the only cost to you is the cost of shipping the book, which is $2.38 for anything under 1 pound sent "Media Mail."
needless to say, i still buy plenty of things and have more stuff than i need, but i'm glad announce that my spending has greatly decreased in the last 12 months, thanks to all the things i haven't bought.
midway
having passed the halfway point of my two years in lima, i'm already looking forward to what's next as i cherish all that i love and bid good riddance to all that i hate.
(some of) all that i love:my apartmentit is oh, so very lovely and i can't imagine that whatever comes next will be any better. beautiful wood floors and an entire wall of windows looking over swaying trees in our practically personal park. amazing.
the foodi love it and i can't get enough of it. where else in the world am i going to be within walking distance of some of the best restaurants in the country? i'm 5 minutes away from pollo a la brasa, causa, ceviche, sushi, anticucho, conchas a la parmesana and so many plates i haven't even tried yet that i'm sure i'd love.
domestic travel
there's basically no end to it and i've yet to be disappointed. peru has so much more to offer other than machu picchu, my favorites being iquitos, islas ballestas, hucachina and puno.
the mccono
50 cents for the perfect little answer to any sweet tooth's craving, and you can find one of nearly every corner! (see "american chains" under "all that i hate")
(some of) all that i hate:my kitchenby far the worst part of our apartment, perhaps mostly because we don't have a dishwasher! two years without a dishwasher is two years too long, but aside from this i will not be missing our cavernous, grey, cold, hallway of a kitchen.
garuathe foggy mist that covers the city for half the year. aside from making one feel groggy and depressed almost everyday it also seems to induce a constant mild cold (runny nose, sore throat, you know the deal).
american chains
i kinda left the country to get away from mcdonald's, chili's, tgifridays, papa john's, dunkin donuts, kfc, pizza hut and subway, only to come here and be within walking distance of all of them. american capitalism at its best?
what peruvians like to use instead of pavement or grass
i don't know what to call it, but it goes at the top of my list of things i hate most about peru. instead of paving an area or leaving it au natural, they like to put in these cement t's that when laid together make for these square holes that aren't quite big enough to completely step into, but neither are they comfortable to walk on top of. they are everywhere and they make my life as a pedestrian more than annoying.
jerusalem 2010 here we come!
places i spent the night in 2008
lincoln, ne
omaha, ne
washington, dc
las vegas, nv
cincinatti, oh
san juan, puerto rico
vieques, puerto rico
barranquita, puerto rico
la parguera, puerto rico
boston, ma
montreal, canada
mexico city, mexico
queretaro, mexico
lima, peru
puerto maldonado, peru
mancora, peru
beijing, china
shanghai, china
seoul, south korea
sokcho, south korea
arequipa, peru
iquitos, peru
cusco, peru
it seems i've come full circle since october. no longer am i turning my nose up at christmas decorations and music in stores more than two months before the holiday, but instead i find my heart aching for the christmas season i've always known: winter.
this will be my first christmas outside of the united states; more importantly, it will be my first christmas south of the equator.
during college i spent a summer in argentina, and while i found it odd to spend the months of june, july and august wearing sweaters and scarves, it was a bit easier to handle knowing i'd still catch a few days of sun and humidity upon my return to nebraska. christmas in peru is a different story altogether. i will not wear one scarf during the month of december (apart from fashion's sake); i will not see one snowflake (aside from the fake ones hanging in every store window); nor will i hear one ringing salvation army bell (but will take great pleasure in imagining my mom and sister ringer those bells outside of the hy-vee on cass st. as they did this year).
having also spent my first thanksgiving outside of the united states/south of the equator this year, i discovered the great practicality of such a feast occurring in november. when one thinks of thanksgiving dinner images of freshly baked pies and a perfectly browned turkey and steaming mashed potatoes come to mind. these are all perfect dishes for cooking when it's blustery outside and one desires comfort and warmth and using an oven for two days straight accomplishes just that. making the same meal when it's already sunny and warm outside just doesn't seem quite right. what's the point of cooking a turkey all day just to open every window in the house and still sweat upon entering the kitchen? when the fourth thursday of november came this year all i wanted to do was drink iced lemonade and snack on some fresh fruits or a light salad; my body just doesn't desire such heavy eating during the warm months. similarly, those warm smells the christmas season usually begets (vanilla and cinnamon and cocoa bean) just aren't quite right for a limeñen christmas. i crave citrus and cotton and flowers. this week we attended a christmas carol ceremony at a church in our neighborhood that offers services in english and as i looked at the lighted advent candles and listened to the choir singing "ring christmas bells," i enjoyed the deliberate wafting of fragrant begonias throughout the sanctuary: a wonderful marriage of what's familiar and what's new.
so when my family arrives in lima on december 22 you can bet your bottom dollar we'll be cooking up all the fixings yet again come christmas day, perhaps we'll just come up with a way to employ our new grill this time. even though we don't have a christmas tree (they sell them here, but the smallest one runs a little over $100...) or many decorations (just one, actually), and even though we'll probably be spending our days surfing and walking through parks and relaxing in the hammock in the warm afternoon sun, i'm becomming accustomed to the south side of the equator, and more and more am learning how to integrate the old with the new.
christmas in lima 2008: 11 days and counting...
a weekend in the altiplano
friday
10pm: arrive in arequipa (elevation 7,740 ft) and immediately go to the plaza de armas. admire the cathedral, which spans an entire block and is considered one of peru's most unusual and famous colonial cathedrals and the general ambiance of a true latin american plaza.
saturday
10am: spend the morning walking through every nook and cranny of santa catalina monastery, which covers an entire square block, where it's easy to imagine how 450 nuns once spent entire lives in seclusion and prayer.
9pm: after a day spent walking through the city, we treat ourselves to a morrocan hookah bar followed by a dinner of grass-fed beef and ostrich (while wearing bibs!) in order to prepare ourselves for the upcoming two-day adventure to the world's second deepest canyon.
sunday
1am: we board an overnight bus traveling from arequipa to cabanaconde (elevation 11,810 ft) where we will disembark and begin our 24-hour journey into and out of colca canyon.
7am: our guide, remy, leads us outside of the small town of cabanaconde to the mouth of the canyon where he points out even smaller towns (consisting of 5 families or fewer) on the other side of the canyon that are a 3-day hike away.
8am: remy informs us of our last patch of shade until the bottom of the canyon. we drink our fill of water and assure ourselves of our endurance before rounding the corner to the 3-hour descent.
8:30am: face and arms begin to burn as i attempt to make some sort of shade contraption out of my scarf.
9am: contacts begin bothering me as this is the arid time of year in the canyon and it is very, very dusty...causes depth perception difficulty.
9:30am: notice pain in my knees every time i step down, which is every step i'm taking since the path is winding back and forth down the side of the canyon.
10am: begin wondering if i am cut out for this kind of hiking: 16 kilometers dowhill before dinner followed by 8 hours of rest followed by 9 kilometers uphill all after a night of bad sleep on a bus.
11am: reach the river.
11:30am: nap while remy prepares lunch.
1pm: walk along the river at more or less zero incline.
1:10pm: begin ascent and decide i am most definitely not cut-out for this kind of hiking.
3pm: after crying off and on for two hours while continually telling myself i couldn't continue and contemplating spending the rest of my life at the bottom of colca canyon, we come upon the prettiest vista of the hike, an hour within our overnight camp.
4pm: arrive at "el oasis" and immediately go to sleep.
6pm: am awoken by jj to eat a bowl of soup before collapsing of exhaustion.
monday
2am: awake to begin 5 mile/4 hour hike to the canyon's rim.
2:30am
mount the answer to all of my prayers and my salvation after a day of extraordinary pain and exhaustion: la mula.
6:30am: reach the mouth of the canyon and explode into hysterics at the ridiculousness of what we've just done.
it's beginning to look a lot like...fall...right?
i was at the grocery store
briefly today and had the great luck of happening upon a holiday display.
i'm not talking about a "holiday display" consisting of cotton spider webs draping through the aisles and brightly colored pumpkins waiting to be carved and bags upon bags upon bags of individually wrapped candies.
i'm not even talking about a "holiday display" of
cornucopias and pilgrims and scarecrows and dried stalks of corn.
i'm talking about
thee holiday display. the holiday display of all holiday displays.
i'm talking about fake fir trees and aromatic cans of "winter forest" and holly wreaths and chubby corncob-piped snowmen and stockings and stripes of red and white and pointy-eared elves and baby
jesus in his manger, and the only difference of this holiday display from every other holiday display
i've ever seen in my entire life is that 1. all
paraphernalia said "
feliz navidad" as opposed to "merry
christmas" and 2. there i was, looking upon it before
i'd even decided upon my
halloween costume.
i was always under the assumption that the united states was the great
consumerist country that supported
christmas primarily for this reason, and in order to make it the most financially successful holiday of all debuted the latest holiday products earlier and earlier in the "season" with each passing year. but here i am, in
lima peru, on the other side of the equator, anticipating the arrival of spring with each sunny day while my heart so greatly desires to enjoy the changing of the leaves and the freshness of the air of autumn i am so accustomed to in
october, just happening upon a holiday display in the local supermarket. i envy those who don't have to see a red-nosed reindeer for another month at least, 6 weeks if you're lucky, while you go about wearing your knitted sweaters and smelling of campfire and eating caramel apples and absorbing all that is golden, burnt orange and cranberry.
i'll be here, crossing my fingers for the day i can stop wearing a coat and scarf while deciding upon the final touches of my
halloween ensemble.
