Peru

I take a taxi with 3 people in the morning on the way to work.  Crisitina, 26, from Lima (she teaches pre-K English); Suzanne from London, 24, (she teaches 2^nd grade English); Lawrence, 47, (he teaches 6^th grade English).  Cristina is a hard-core chic from Lima who puts up with no shit from this “little” people in Cusco.  When I had a problem with my landlord she came to the rescue and literally fought with the man right in front of me.  However, she has a special talent whereas by the end of the conversation they were laughing and hugging one another.  Super hard-core!  Suzanne is a bitter, British omni-potent pain in the ass who I love.  She hates the kids, hates the school (or at least complains about it all the time) but deep down she wants to love these kids and do good for them.  But I don’t remember hearing one sentence come out of her mouth that had a hint of positivity and enjoyment.  She also came right before the start of school so she had no time to acclimate to the environment here and she has been deathly ill in be for the past 5 days, missing school and sending the “head hanchos” chasing after substitute teachers.  Out little Suzanne is causing much stress for the school, but I think its good for them.  And then there is Lawrence.  Lawrence is  a Jew boy married to a totally un-Jewish woman with 2 kids.  They came to Cusco because his wife is an anthropologist and got a job here.  He decided to teach because he was bored and taught for 7 years back home.  He is probably the most hilarious man I have ever met.

Anyway, the three of us every morning hop in a taxi  = 551515 (that’s the number) and well, we have become known amongst the 1515’s as being the most harassing, annoying, difficult passengers.  None of the 1515’s want to pick us up and the other teachers from the school (who carpool through the same cab company) are constantly hearing stories about our escapades from the other drivers while at the same time being thanked for being cooperative.  By now, they know us and when we get in the car, they just start yelling at us.  Well, not at us, at Cristina.  She is always the first one in and the one who speaks fluent Spanish so she is the one who gets the brunt of it while Lawrence, in his very adorable broken but pretty damn good Spanish is always trying to make friends with the taxis since we do have another 5 months to go.

Anyway, every morning the taxi gets paid 9 soles (2.2 each which is less than a dollar) and has to make 4 different stops for each one of us.  Then he has to drive about 25 minutes.  And then, on the way, we always ask him to make at least one if not 2-3 stops.  We have to buy food in the morning for the school day since there is none near where we work and there is no cafeteria.  And, half the time we need more money for the combi (mini-bus) home.  So we have to stop at an ATM.  One day, we got to the school (which is at the top of a hill and really difficult for these shit machines to hike up) when we realized Lawrence, Suzann,a Cristina or myself did not have ANY money on us.  I guess we just assumed the other would spot us.  We started hysterical laughing because we KNEW this driver would want to rip our heads off.  And that he did, with good reason.  He started screaming and yelling and there was nothing we could do because all of us idiots we just sitting there like.. DUH.  The best part was that when we spoke about it later we all said how we would NEVER get in a taxi or even go anywhere in our hometowns without money, its UNHEARD of.  But we are in Cusco, everything is different here.  Anyway, by later that day we heard all sorts of exaggerated and amazing stories from the other teachers who took other taxis who relayed a version of this story.

But, the best part of these taxis is that they were really made a golf-cart type cars to transport Japanese in between different building for major corporations (that’s my bit of fact). And then Cuscenians took them and decided, “hey! They are cheap, small and get the job done”  And then they put this dinky, tiny, crappy, plastic-like cheap car in the streets of Cuzco and it has become one of the most dangerous driving situations I have ever been in, and I have been in a lot.  It is worse than mopeds, rickshaws, etc. because you have the false sense of security because you are surrounded on all sides by walls.

This brings me to the title of this post.  “This is the day we’re gonna die”  Every morning, at least 3-4 times, the taxi almost directly crashes and explodes with a truck, a parked car in the middle of the road, 7 cars that decide to run a red light at the same time, oncoming traffic while coming out of the parking lot of one of our tiendas (stores), or falls into a manhole that has been open for 3 weeks, runs into a mound of dirt that appeared out of nowhere or really just the lamp post while he is busy screaming at Cristina.  And, every time this happens Lawrence and I immediately sing, “This is the day we’re gonna die, gonna die, gonna die.  This is the day we’re gonna die so early in the morning”  (I don’t remember the song that it tunes with, but it’s our morning ritual).  And then we discuss how amazing it would be to die on the way to small shitty school in the backwoods of Peru where nobody knows us and if they find us they would just politely step over us as they continue along their way.

And now we have a new term we use as “Oh Fuck”.  Another teacher, Australian, 68, Betty came just the other week and squeezed into a car with us (that was the first and last time for that).  She left her husband for a year to do this.  Anyway, she was talking about her shanks pony to the store the other day and Lawrence and I at the same time said “WOAH.. WHAT????” and she sais “shanks pony” and we were like.. what in the WOLD does that mean.  Supposedly it means “walking” in Australian.  So now when we are about to hit something or smash our brains out we scream “SHANKS PONY” and then sing our merry tune for all to hear.