We´ve been living in Peru for almost a month now, and in addition to throwing rocks at dogs and manipulating an electric shower, Kelsey and I have had to learn to ignore a variety of compliments when walking around town.
To be totally fair, I don´t think it requires a whole lot to get whistled at in Peru. Today I was wearing the dirty clothes I taught in, a raincoat, and sneakers, but from the comments I got on the street I might as well have been hanging out in a bikini. As I said, it doesn´t take much.
The problem is that Kelsey´s height and my hair are pretty uncommon here. Even Peruvian men rarely reach more than 5´10, so Jarrard, let alone Kelsey, are pretty much considered freaks of nature. Our host mom finds Kelsey really useful for reaching high shelves in the kitchen.
And in Ollanta, hair only comes in one color: black. The kids in my fifth grade class were convinced I dyed my hair. I explained that no, in the United States hair comes in many different colors. They then asked if Kelsey dyed her hair. I´m not sure they understood.
So we´ve gotten used to ignoring whistles from strange men and deflecting awkwardly constructed English sentences saying something to the effect of ¨Beautiful lady. Where you from?¨ Most of them mean well, and unless they´re drunk we don´t think much of it.
We´d been told that it´s considered really indecent for girls to wear shorts here, and it´s true that you never see any female wearing anything above the knee, except for the confused-looking tourist. We thought this is because it´s so cold here, and this might be true. But I also think it´s because the Peruvian men would absolutely not even know what to do with themselves.
The funniest experience we had was in Cusco. The three of us were walking in one of the shopping districts and there was a man handing out fliers for something. He´d clearly been passing out the papers on autopilot, and started to hand us one, when he did a double take and actually started freaking out. It was the most enthusiastic ¨BEAUTIFUL LADY¨ I´d heard yet. I thought he was going to fall over. Kelsey and I started laughing hysterically, which didn´t seem to be the reaction he´d been looking for.
It seems to be more culturally acceptable to hang out on street corners and whistle at girls than it is at home. It´s particularly bad when we go to places where tourists don´t usually frequent. We discovered we were very popular at the futbol game among fans in the bleachers. Jarrard wants to join the Ollanta soccer team and play goalie. We think they´ll let him join if we promise to attend games.
Postcards From Peru 