Home away from home

I remember the afternoon so vividly, I’m not even sure why. I think for me it was the moment I felt I had truly become a local in this strange new city that I now called home.

The plastic cup is passed to me again. The man to my left pours the beer. It had been another hot Sunday and this time of year there is barely any wind during the day. I scull the cup of warm beer and flick the dregs out. I pass the cup to my right, and pour the beer for him, its tradition. Even this late no one needs to change out of their playing clothes. The sun has just set behind the mountains and the concrete court is still warm. We sit on the street up above and look down through the haze onto the bustling suburbs below.

Friendly street soccer sounds like a pleasant afternoon but at 3400m, Cuzco has you gasping for air from the get go. And with my broken Spanish it possible “friendly” had been misinterpreted. This was the 4th time I had played soccer with this group and taken part in the post match tradition. Someone pulls another warm Pilsen longneck from the crate, bought from the tienda on the corner, a house with what always appears to be an entire supermarket squeezed in the front room. I had been living in Cuzco for 2 months by now and considered myself pretty much a local even if I didn’t look it. I get the old combie vans converted into buses, to and from home. I walk home up the hill, past the half built or half demolished houses I can never tell which. Past the craters in the road, and past the tiendas to my host mothers house. With its little iron gate off to the side, and the broken glass on top of the fence.

The cup is passed to me and filled ¾ full as usual. We play soccer on a patch of concrete the size of a basketball court with two tiny goals at either end. It’s a 5 a side game with teams and players changed every 10 minutes, and played with a lot of local rules. Needless to say I’m not the first pick. Watching the dusty, hazy sunset behind this large chaotic city seems peaceful now, and when my friend Kicke says we are going out into town, it would be rude of me to say no.

We finish the crate of warm beers, change, pile 12 people into 2 tiny taxis and head down the dirt road into the dusty fog of lights, sounds, half built buildings, old churches, grass paddocks and wild dogs. It’s hard to understand Cuzco, it’s a clash of new and old, rich and poor, backpackers and locals. But for me at that moment I felt I understood the city and that I belonged.