How Much Pepto Is Too Much Pepto?

This is the game I'm playing today. Waging bets on what would make me feel best. 

I think skipping out on food for the next while is the best option. 

...

I ate a Clif bar for lunch, my stomach has been churning that good ole Peruvian churn but I'm yet to fall too ill for school. 

Before lunch we had class on enforced disappearance and transitional justice... the whole thing was like a dream coming true. Call me a nerd, it was beautiful to have minds sitting around a table discussing how to most effectively and properly transition to a period of justice, and what that justice may look like considering the cultural and historical context of the region. 

After lunch we boarded our small bus for Chincheros where we visited the old abandoned town. It's was fascinating to see how time just stopped in the town and how over the years it has collapsed and deteriorated. The roof is gone from most of the buildings and some doors remain locked such as the church. The church still supports bells in it's towers and between the crack of the two front doors you can see in to see furniture, crosses and even religious statues. 

Life existed there in a time that now feels so distant. The town has been reconstructed and resettled by the same name just upward of the hill. Only two of the old town's inhabitants now live in the new town. Everyone else has left. It wasn't all that long ago and yet without the populous of people to tell the stories of living in the old town it feels so ancient when in reality it is far from. Peru and it's people have changed so much in the last 40 years, the world has changed so much in the last 40 years. Time passes and some things change while others do not. It's fascinating. 

We stopped in the new town on our way up and spoke with a few community members about the past and their experiences. Culture and language and history and people, they're fascinating. I'm learning so much and yet I'm not sure any of this will hit me until after the fact. It makes me so interested in the fields I already love. It makes me want to study every subject area that would allow me to help, to make a difference, to make a change. While I have various considerations for what studies might be the most productive for me next, I must say it's anthropology that got me here and anthropology that I'm sure will always have my heart. 

I took photos today, and have been this week, and it makes me feel alive again. The pressure and the competition of school beat the joy out of it for me, but feeling as if I'm taking images just because I think they are beautiful and worthy and knowing I never have to show a soul or be judged by them, it makes me infinitely happy. On the flip side of that same joy though is the insurmountable joy I feel when I know my photos are serving someone else, when I know they can contribute to a greater good or a greater joy than I could ever imagine. Having a camera as an extension of my eyes and beyond all else an extension of my memory, not to mention, hopefully, the memories of others as well, has been one of the greatest gifts I've ever experienced in this lifetime. 

I'm happy here. I'm happy here in Hualla. I don't feel good, to be perfectly honest I don't like the food and I'm freezing cold. I haven't showered because I can't stand the thought of a cold shower, I'm hungry/never want to eat again, flies buzz loudly everywhere, kitchens and homes reek of meat that makes me gag; and yet, I'm happy here.  I'm learning, I'm experiencing, I'm living. I'm out of breath and fearful of sunburn daily, but I'm so, so alive. To be a witness to this planet is just the most wild thing. Even day dreaming, travel hopeful, 11-year-old me couldn't have dreamt of all that I've done and seen. 

I just want to learn more, I want to be smarter, I want to know, and share knowledge and care and be with people who care and are good people and I just want to live a life full of rich and powerful experiences and knowledge. 

During one of our breaks I was talking with another student of my field school on the roof of our hotel. She mentioned what gentle people they are and how she can't imagine such terror reigning on this land and these people. I instantly though of Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil, just following my thought she said it reminds of this article by Hannah Arendt about the Banality of Evil. She is a highly experienced, educated, and qualified human rights lawyer, I can't lie about how intelligent I felt in that moment to know exactly to what she was referencing. It makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing, it makes me feel like I'm surrounded by my kind of people, the people who care about things like the Banality of Evil. I may feel lost in life at this ripe age of 23 but somehow I found myself in Hualla, Peru with people who know things I'm dying to know, and have studied and practiced the things that fascinate me most in this world. 

I really hate to be so embarrassingly cliche on here but to be perfectly honest I'm just feeling exceptionally blessed. 

22/06/17