Tag Archives: police

Adventures in Peru – Day 1

Posted on by
Reply

Hi all! I took my very first “big-kid” vacation recently. I spent from May 27th to June 5th in Peru exploring ruins, meeting the locals and the llamas, and traversing the Amazon! This vacation was possible due to my dad’s eldest sister (my Auntie) who has promised all of her nieces and nephews that when they graduate from high school and college, she will do a trip with them anywhere in the world as long as you pay for your own transportation (and souvenirs).

If you’re wondering why Peru, it’s more like why not. I was not looking for a vacation to sit back and drink on some beach. I can do that at home, thanks. I was looking for adventure and something very different than where I’m from. More than that, I wanted inspiring landscapes. I hiked up breathtaking mountains that went into the cloud forest and ended in ancient Incan ruins. I stepped, suspended, across the canopy of the Amazon rain forest and paddled close to the Amazonian river beds.

I tried to take as many pictures as possible and jot down some thoughts and experiences in between adventures with my new familia. Honestly, there wasn’t much time. We were always doing, resting, eating, or on our way to our next destination.

May 27th I traveled from Boston, MA; to Miami, FL; and finally to Lima, Peru. I met with Auntie in Miami and we flew to Lima together.

I noticed a very big change in air quality after touching down in Lima and Auntie complained that her eyes felt very red. We’d been sneezing and coughing and she figured that this was because of the bad air on the plane. While waiting for our baggage, a Peruvian woman overheard us talking and said it was the pollution. She explained she had permanent eye problems due to the air quality, which she said was caused by coal mining (the word mining escaped her for a moment while speaking in English). Looking online post trip, it does sound like Lima’s air pollution issue is pretty well known and has more to do with vehicle fuel emissions, but is due to a host of factors. I notice I’m a tad stuffed up the first day visiting New York City, so I was pretty sneezy in Lima.

A sign let us know who to follow to a van to drive us to the Miraflores neighborhood.

Lima is littered with cell phone billboard advertisements. Stray dogs wander the streets in a surprising number, taring into garbage left out for pickup. Police cars watch over the city everywhere. On the way to Hotel Antigua Miraflores I counted stray dogs and police cars, seeing which would come out as the victor in population. Our driver mentioned that Miraflores was one hundred percent secure. By the time we reached the hotel, the number of police cars were in the lead, but the dogs overtook them very quickly as the trip progressed.

The hotel was very fancy, but missing window screens which are apparently not something used in all cultures. We had a big room on the top floor. The top floor was unexpectedly in the open air. One moment we were in a hotel going up stairs, the next we were on an outside patio with doors to various rooms. We were in the far corner. The room had three beds, one king and two twins. The wooden furniture seemed antique, dark stained and elegant. There was jewelry on sale in the lobby and a small open air courtyard on the first floor with a fountain and a flowering citrus tree. Large terracotta vessels dot every bit of landscape. Two computers with desks allowed internet access, but as someone who has a job spent using computers, I wanted to spend my vacation off them.

We didn’t get settled in until about two in the morning since our flight had been delayed. We were set to meet in the lobby at nine-thirty in the morning. We were hungry before bed but too tired to care. I ate my last Cliff bar to make sure I could sleep.

Spring Means

Posted on by
Reply

spring
Spring means change, but is also means a world of difference depending where in the world you are. When I lived in Maine, Spring had an uncertain start. You weren’t sure which window of warmth was ‘just another thaw’ and which one brought the final beginning. The top crust of the ice and snow would begin to melt. In false starts it refreezes that evening, making all the world a perilous sheet of ice- Winter’s way of giving us his swan song and saying he’d take us with him if he could. Each day is warm enough to chip at the almost perma-frost. The ice becomes a makeshift river, extra slick trickling down into still frozen grounds. Miniature lakes are made, and then finally, for which Mainers name their season, mud envelops the earth. The Spring rains add until the ground can hold no more.

Up north, I’m sure they’re enjoying Mudseason. Spring cleaning is ironic until the water finds some home in the air or beneath the ground.

Here in Southern Massachusetts, Spring is equally moody in her arrival. She brings us a cycle of days: rain, sun, cold, warm, rain, sun, cold… until finally, she decides to settle down for good. One day, when the snow has vanished and the yard is sprouting crocuses, you finally feel it is okay to open the windows.

I don’t like Spring very much, but this window, when I fist open my windows to breathe fresh air after being stuffed into indoors for so long, is my favorite. There is a window of time where the birds are barely beginning to wake up, and only a few may chirp in the morning. Besides the ladybugs who decided to hibernate in the cave of my apartment, the insects and arachnids are still safely skeptical and out of sight. Things are still very still and everything smells slightly of rain. The rivers and waterfalls make the bridges lively places to sit and stare and breathe it in, all coming down.

I feel the urge to walk about at night. Still and silent small towns that are finally enough to keep me warm as I explore my mind and the world. No one is out, not even a stray teen. It’s too early for mosquitoes. Nothing is open. Police are too busy patrolling the roads to take notice. To be the only thing moving…

All the worries of life will stay, but I will grace them with an asterisk* that if I were employed at this moment, I would likely be missing these moments. It doesn’t comfort everything, but it settles me a bit…

…into the season of spring.

Scenes from Childhood

Posted on by
Reply

Westminster Street, Worcester MA I can’t sleep. Dada. Hiss. Moon in the window. My flower undies. Rocking yellow wicker. White soft sheets. Warm. Rocking. Yawn. Creak. Rocking chair.

The whiffle ball and bat are still in the car. They are brand new. I have to practice for when I’m older and can join the major leagues. I’m not even five yet, but Mom says it’s okay to go across the street to the car and get them. Mom gives me the keys. They’re in the back seat, so I have to unlock the door in the front because there’s no keyhole in the back. I can crawl in the back real easy, which is more fun and faster than unlocking the back door. I crawl back into the driver seat and decide to put my bat and ball in the passenger seat. I’m the driver. Vroom, vroom! I turn the wheel and peer over the dashboard. The wheel doesn’t move when the car is off, but I can pretend. I can see pretty good when I sit on my knees. Suddenly I’m not pretending. The trees are moving, and I’m going down the hill. I’m in so much trouble. I’m stopped and I don’t remember crashing into the tree. I’m in the yard again but Mom’s there and she’s screaming at me.

Meatloaf had five kittens. Then she had another four later. They seem kind of dirty to me and I think they need a bath. I asked the fishies if I could use their water. They don’t mind. There is a little light at the top of the tank so I can see the kitties swimming around. They’re having fun meowing and swimming around. Mom comes in and she’s mad. She’s drying the kitties and she won’t let me pet them, even though I asked. I said please.

You can run all the way from the kitchen, into the living room, into mom and dad’s room, and jump onto the bed. You can’t do it when mom’s sleeping during the day. You can’t do it when dad’s sleeping at night. But, when mom goes to work, then we can play roll ’em! Dada rolls and we fall down if we don’t jump over him. He also has the recking-ball lemon-squeezer. It’s really just his cast and his leg. He’ll squeeze us if he can catch us, but he never catches me. I’m too fast.

When you are watching television and you turn it off or change the channel, why isn’t it the same thing you were watching when you turn it back on? Why can you do that with the movies as Grouchy Grandma’s house?

Chris said that if I pick up all his baseball cards for him, then I get to keep them. He really doesn’t want to clean his room. So, I pick up every single card, even the ones under his bed which smells like pee. After I’m done, he laughs at me and takes the box of cards. I put my hands on my hips and tell him that he’d better give me them or I’ll call the police on him. He laughs. Dada walks into the doorway. He tells Chris to give me the cards. He tells Chris not to make deals he can’t keep. Don’t be an Indian-giver.

It’s in the middle of the night and I’m creeping out of my bedroom and into the kitchen. Dada is in the living room next door, so I can see a little. I crawl onto a chair and then the kitchen table. There’s almost a whole stick of butter in the dish. Midnight snack. I make it back to my bed undetected.

When Dada helps me change clothes, he tells me to lift up my arms so he can take my shirt off. Sometimes he doesn’t do it all the way and the shirt is stuck on my head. He tells me I have a nice hat.

We live in a triple decker which means there are people living upstairs. One of the people is boy older than me. He’s as old as my brother, but he’s not like my brother. He hates my brother and together we make fun of him. Sometimes though he plays with my brother instead and they make fun of me. They can both say the alphabet faster than me. They say that means that they’re smarter.

I’m playing pretty ponies and little people when my brother opens the door and farts. He closes the door and runs away laughing.

Every once in a great while my dad smokes a cigar. I don’t like the smell, especially when it gets in my room, but it’s funny when he puts it in the plastic Halloween pumpkin’s mouth. The pumpkin looks funny smoking.

On one side of the triple-decker there is a bank-in. It’s steep, with trees, but then gets flat again at the bottom. We’re not supposed to play there, but we do. We even have a fort. Chris doesn’t play fair, though. Chris only has fun if I’m not having any. He’s laughing in the bank-in. I’m at the top. I’m going to go tell mom and dad, but they won’t do anything. If I scare him so we won’t laugh at me again. I find a rock I can barely lift. I throw it next to him, down the bank-in. It’s heavy, but the slope helps. It hits his head. He falls down. He screams. I stand at the top of the bank-in. I just watch him scream. My parents come and take him, yell at me. No one believes that I didn’t mean to hit him.

We have a stone wall in the back running along the apartment. It is between the side of the yard where the swing set is and the side of the yard with the bank-in. The wall has a bit of ground at the top of it, then a fence that separates us from another apartment. Sometimes we climb up and sit there. Is being off the wall when you are on the wall and jump off? The jumping doesn’t last very long and it’s not very high up. I don’t get it.

Mom says that we are human beans. God is not a human bean, though. He is just a bean. I don’t think that makes sense. I think he’s kind of like a cloud that looks like the face of a man, the man in the moon. What do we have to do with beans? What kind of beans?

When Chris is mean to me I tell him I’m going to call the police on him. Sometimes he believes me and stops being mean. He doesn’t believe me this time, so I pick up the phone to call the police. I put it to my ear and a man’s voice says, “This is the police.” I scream and put down the phone. Dad comes in laughing. It was him on the other phone. I didn’t know you could do that.