The Real Cusco – Mother’s day and warm Coka Cola

I wrote this post while still in Cusco, but due to traveling and other distractions wasn't able to post it up in a timely manner. Just needed that disclaimer because I feel a bit removed from Cusco now, and I completed a part of the post now, so it may not have everything I originally intended. Anyway, here's the post...

A few weeks ago, I was invited by my friend Esperanza to a celebration for Mother’s Day put on by her children’s school. Mother’s day is more commercial and way more consumerist than how we experience it in North Am. I would say Mother’s day receives the type of attention that Valentine’s day does (in the stores etc) back in the northern continent. So, pretty much every school puts on a huge show for mom’s on mother’s day. I got invited to such a show, which took place at Garcilosa stadium, in the Real Cusco, and part I hadn’t yet been to, away from the crowds, away from the women in traditional clothing selling you earrings, and away from the llamas that are usually shoved into any tourists’ arms for a photo op. When I got there Esperanza came running out to meet me, children in tow, to drag me to the back hall where the show would be. I was ushered by her son , Omar, to the back of the ‘auditorium’ and found a place among Esperanza’s friends and their brightly dressed children, and some dogs, to watch the show. The show itself was hugely entertaining, with children of all ages performing everything to choreographed Reggaeton to dancing to MJ. MJ is huge here. I think MJ is huge in every country more so than we would ever admit back home. Esperanza’s daughter, Luciana, was the star of the Reggaeton show, in her itty bitty bikini and jewelled stickers through her hair. As I watched the show, I took in my surroundings. I was in a stuffy room with seats, some broken, windows broken, but a pretty enough stage and surrounded by, what I would call, the better off people of Cusco, since this was organized by a private school.  As I watched my friend run around trying to gather her kids to get them into their next crazy costume, the same friend who had given me advice about everything from where to buy lotion for cheap to travel tips, the friend I had grown so strongly attached to in just 2 months, the friend who had been so concerned when I was sick and slightly angry at me for not drinking warm coka cola as she recommended (which, apparently, is the remedy Peruvians swear by for relieving a stomach upset), the friend who had reciprocally grown so attached to me that she asked me to be her son’s godmother, as I studied my friend from afar and thought about all this, I realized, this is what I’ll miss the most when I leave. The Real Cusco, which had seeped into my heart somehow and now was such an imprinted part of me, as cheesy as that sounds, that I cried when I left for the loss of it all. And it made me wonder what else I would have felt, what more I could have felt, if I had stayed longer than my measly two months. It made me realize in a very real way, how attached someone who lived here for 2 years, and contributed to the community daily, would have been, and how hard leaving to go back ‘home’ might be. I guess that’s what I think of now when I meet someone who has comfortably settled into life here, away from the conveniences they’ve grown up with, but surrounded by love. I understand a little bit more, what they have here, an attachment that is seldom felt elsewhere.