Darlings, last week two momentous events happened - first of all, I discovered the hidden underbelly of artistic Cusco and secondly, the men of Peru finally realized that I really was irresistible (well, OK, one of them succumbed to my ample womanly charms...)
The week began with me basking in reflected glory. My gauche 19-year-old English study-buddy was replaced by a jazz singer from the Phillipines, who is now living in the USA. Being girlies, we did not actually specify ages, but I got the feeling she was a lot closer to 40 than my previous fellow student. We got on really well in lessons and then she announced that she was going to give a charity concert in Cusco. At first, the whole thing sounded fairly low key, but like Topsy, it just growed, and eventually her face was on posters all around the town and she was having to miss classes to give interviews to the local TV channel. OK, it was only reflected glory, but I enjoyed my 15 minutes of surrogate fame.
The other big event of the week was Sunday - Mother's Day here and pretty much every else in the world apart from England. The first warning signals appeared fairly early on - adverts for concerts, bull fights - all the usual stuff that mothers enjoy. Then came a new breed of loiterer outside the 101 schools which lie on my path to lessons every day; now it was not just a case of women selling boiled potatoes and hard-boiled egg to the poor unfortunates who had missed their breakfasts that morning - we had hordes of eager salesmen offering truly hideous quasi-Catholic "darling Mama" engravings of angels, roses and slightly constipated Madonnas. The cards were equally hideous - all roses and corny verses - while the flower sellers were out in force here as they are in every country where guilty children try to make good a year's neglect on one day.
Thankfully, my family is not really into pink, fluffy greetings, so I was whisked off to a chicha party round at the house of a friend of Palmyra who is an artist. I love the way that wherever you go in the world, "alternative" society has a reassuring predictability. We finally turned up at a metal gate on a busy street and when someone finally opened it, we were ushered in to a shambolic courtyard, which opened onto another mini-courtyard and what can only be described as a shed, where our host doled out chicha from a huge barrel and his friends, all sporting colourful Peruvian knitwear, proceeded to smoke, chat and "make music" on the assorted drums and samponas littered around the place in the midst of some rather exotic candles and garish artwork.
Amidst all the earnest young men, who were promoting a quaintly anachronistic week of art and social struggle, was one particular artist with black hair cascading down to his waist and a face that looked as though it was hewn from Andean rock. Needless to say, he was the first specimen of Peruvian manhood to appreciate my charms. Resistance was not difficult, but thankfully this is a man with a great sense of humour (as well as designing T-shirts for the more discerning tourist, he spends the rest of his time touring around with a children's puppet show about an ear of corn who wants to fly - trust me, the kids love it), so he took rejection very much in his stride and I am happy to report that he has now taken me under his wing and he is doing wonders for my Spanish as he speaks no English at all.
I suppose the moral of this story is when you travel, make sure you only attract men who don't do it for you. Hope that makes it as "thought of the day" on some self-help calendar somewhere...
