"Everything Gains in Grandeur Every Day"

I’m a month in, today – 10/10 – and I’ve barely written at all as of yet. Life’s been in flux—I still find the language barrier incredibly difficult … not being able to express my thoughts or desires fully is a constant struggle.

That said, it has been one heck of a rush so far—lots and lots of new people, new foods, new customs. The weeks end just as they feel like they’re getting started, and my universe feels somehow crisp but altered: everything is exciting, but everything has been altered, so, so much. I miss my family and the people I love back home, and I try not to think of just how long it’ll be before I see everyone again.

Anyway, how about specifics, huh?

I’m on a combi as I write this, a commuter bus, of sorts, which take people back and forth along the Callaterra Central (the main highway between Lima and the town I’m living in, Chaclacayo). Me and a big group of Peace Corps “aspirants” (we haven’t been sworn in yet), are on our way to the Universidad Catolica, where we’re going to get some sort of tutorial on water pumps and improved water systems.

There are crumbling, dusty brick walls everywhere, rushing by outside my window … rebar sticks out of the top of everything – walls, homes – a sign that more building is expected. Another story will be built. Grafitti covers other walls … “Fujimori—Libertad” … burning trash here on the side of the road, smog and motor fumes hanging in the air.

Along the Callaterra Central, the dilapidated gas stations interrupt the crumbled brick every several blocks. Driving, here, is not something I ever hope to experience. Every combi whines its crazy honking whine, people sprint across the street (sacks of groceries held close), cars gun their engines, shooting for the tiniest of gaps.

Our combis, now, are racing each other—we gringos grinning wide-eyed through crusty windows, or looking bored, or maybe a little jittery, exchanging glances as we jockey past each other at intervals on this three-lane clusterfuck of a road.

Signs, signs, signs—Senor de Los Milagros, planos, copias, farmacia, lavanderia, mariachi’s—and a dog ripping into a bag of trash in a roadside pile. Policlinico, Banco Azteca, La Curacao. Even here, in the craziness of this traffic, a dude in his dirty white sedan is talking on his cell.

There are lots of open-air markets along this main highway—lots everywhere I’ve gone so far, really. You buy your meats, fruits, veggies and whatnot wholesale here … no Giant, no Safeway for that sort of thing. Well, not for my family’s income bracket, at least, and for a large mass of other Peruvians.

Things have changed oh-so-much in this one, beautiful year. The trick, I think, is going to be a reliance—a bear-hugging cling—to that kernel of wonder regarding each new morning, each new breath, each new sight. These days will be a memory soon—time will work its slight of hand, that much I know. What will remain, as always, will be impressions, notions of time well spent—or not—life lived in gulps or sips, taken with relish or with a grimace. Too short to grimace, I say.

Terraced houses on the hill now. Moto-taxis, clothes drying on grim, cluttered rooftops, and a big, pot-bellied, green-capped member of the policia. He’s got a dark, weather-lined face, and he’s wearing a scowl against the gritty wind, waving traffic on for no apparent reason. It’s creeping along, and not going anywhere fast. There’s a dude pissing on smoke-blackened wall. More burning trash: thick, dark, smoke pluming out and up.
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I’ve been reading this beautiful, beautiful book by Annie Dillard these past few weeks – “For the Time Being” – containing her reminiscings on a whole range of subjects … from sand to clouds to Talmudic scholars from centuries past. She included this quote a few chapters back:

“The more I work, the more I see things differently, that is, everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.”
- Giacometti

A few chapters before that, she included this one (both remind me of the wonder of all this vastness):

“Throughout my whole life, during every minute of it, the world has been gradually lighting up and blazing before my eyes until it has come to surround me, entirely lit up from within.”

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin