Still in Cusco. For some reason I walked down to the plaza de armas (not the real name) to try and find an Internet cafe with wifi. After several attempts at several different restaurants I started seeing the same people. You walk by, say hello and sometimes strike up a conversation if you are looking for something. After they have tried to help you and you still show up it gets kinda funny. The English in the square is excellent, but I like practicing my Spanish when I can. After a time you figure out they like practicing their English, French, or Japanese. It is whatever gets thrown at them really. It's their lively hood. Still, some of them appreciate the attempt. Most of the square is geared towards selling you something. They will sell you a shoe shine, the opportunity to take picture of women dressed in traditional clothing and a baby lamb, random textiles, an Incan massage that is curiously propositioned at night only, and vibrantly colored art. The shoe shine kids tend to be annoying, the massage girls illegal in the states, and the art kids funny. The hosts hang outside the restaurants and pull in whomever they can for a cut of the bill. This makes them particularly veracious. I was in the middle of getting mauled by a mixture of three when I made a sort of contact with a host at a restaurant. An American group walked by that caught his eye and he attempted contact. He wasn't too pushy or rude, but the a particular American girl felt the courage of her group course through her veins and she snapped at him. After the host turned away I apologized to him for the tourists of my country. The result: Instant friendship. The crowd of salesmen dispersed quickly and we chatted for about 20 minutes and his insights became genuine while his manner slackened from the ridged back of someone working hard to pull in affluent clientèle. After we broke off with a Peruvian handshake , fist and elbow bump, I started to walk away. I was instantly overtaken by a pair of art kids. I responded by saying “no, gracias,” as a couple days in the city have taught me, but this too was different. They had apparently been watching me while I talked to the host and they asked me what I was after. I told them a meal with spice and some internet. They were ignorant of the latter but more than happy to show me to the former. For a short time I let these two show me through a couple of narrow streets and I thought I might actually get a chance to use my knives. In reality though they showed me to a Mexican restaurant. The information was not without a catch because they asked if I would pay for a taco for each of them. The exchange rate for US to Sole is 3 to 1 and they had taken me to a fairly well priced place where a taco cost about 2 dollars US. I agreed. The conversation was a mixture of English, Spanish, French, Japanese< and Quechua. It was genuine and open. We asked about how each came to where they are currently and what they planned to do. They were cousins, the younger was 16 the elder 24. They sold art and confessed that none of the many salesmen were the artists. I had guessed this, but they told me there were only two real artists. The elder was going to tour guide school but worried that the government was going to make it a college only enterprise. This was a concern because his Los Angeles living grandfather was paying for his schooling in Cuzco which was not college and previously valid. The Younger had grown up in a small village in Peru and was currently learning Spanish and English because he only spoke Quechua. I learned that the shoeshine crew promise the price is at a sole but afterwards tell you it is a special brush and jack the price to 40 sole. They spoke a lot about the history that they knew, the places they had been, and told many tricks of the city. They were concerned that I was carrying a bag so late and gave me their number just in case I ran into problems, invited me to a soccer game they were playing, offered me an in on touring, and were very free with my anthropological inquiries. They liked the fact that I worked with bones and that I was helping them learn about their own people. In the end they told me the story about the plaza, which I knew, but told me that the local people call it the plaza of tears. They told me the Quechua name, which I forgot, and gave me another Peruvian handshake-fist-elbow-bump and pointed to the best internet cafe they knew. I enjoyed myself today. This must be how cultural anthropologists fell when they start their field work.
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