Arequipa: Homestay, Spanish Lessons and Mundo del Alpaca

I´ve been in Arequipa for four days now, staying in the family home of the director of a Spanish Language school for foreigners here in Arequipa.  It feels great to be in the same place for a longer length of time and great to be living with a family.  I never really settled into really spending time with my host families when I lived in Spain and during my Peace Corps Training in Tanzania, but it seems to be so much easier this time around to let go of that American need to do things on their own terms and schedule.  When I am not doing my four hours of language courses in the afternoon, I spend most of my time with my Señora, Lucy, and her househelper/cook, Marcela.  Maybe it`s just that I have found the perfect family for me to spend time with because most of the time we spend together……. knitting.  Yep, that is right.  Everyone in my homestay family is obsessed with knitting.  Perfect!

Yesterday, Lucy and her cousin took me to Mundo del Alpaca, which is a (more modern) store of alpaca products  that also acts as a museum and export center.  It was pretty awesome to see both Alpacas and LLamas, their wool after it has been shaved off, and the process that it goes through to become yarn.  They also had some weavers from the Cuzco area, doing demonstrations of traditional weaving.  The colors are amazing!  And you know I can´t avoid talking about it….. the patterns, well, there MUST be at least a bit of math involved!  Finally, we spoiled ourselves by spending almost a full hour in the stock room, where I saw where they gather wool that I see both at Michaels, and smaller independent yarn stores packed up and ready for export.

 

SORRY THE PICTURES SEEM TO BE OUT OF ORDER AND BIT OF A MESS!  AT THIS POINT, WITH LIMITED TIME ON THE COMPUTER, I AM JUST HAPPY TO GET THEM UPLOADED!

🙂

We also went to the market in order to buy Lucy some new knitting needles, so I could show her how to make gloves.  The store than sold the knitting needles is around the corner from the big market below, but it was too interesting a place not to show you. The best way I can describe it is that is was something like that big market in Tanzania, but much more organized and cleaner!

More pictures: Nazca lines, Nazca pottery and food .

Finally found an internet cafe with a bit faster connection speeds.. and I have figured out how to enter a slide show.  It is all a learning experience!

 

Here are some of the other pictures I was going to put into the other post.  Mostly examples of geometric designs being used in the Nazca pottery.  I am not quite sure what I will do with them yet, but I personally find them interesting.

Also, there are pictures of food!  As you can see, I have been eating really well!  Lots and lots of fish though…

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Currently, I am in Arequipa, doing some private classes in Spanish and staying with a homestay family.  Even though, it has only been one day, it has been really nice to stay and live with people who actually live here, instead of a hostel.

More to come!

Ms. Bruck

Nasca Lines 2 trapezoid shapes

Nasca Lines 2 trapezoid shapes a video by jessicabruck on Flickr.

Nasca Lines 1

Nasca Lines 1 a video by jessicabruck on Flickr.

Nazca Lines- Mystery, Archaeology and Geometry

Warning:  I took many pictures, but few are uploading due to slow internet speeds.  I will do my best to upload, but am trying to link to other people’s websites (and pictures and videos)  in order to give you a better idea of what I am talking about until I get my own loaded.

Pictures taken from a scale model of the Nasca Lines in the Nasca Lines Hotel, Nazca, Peru

I really like the little town of Nazca, in desert plateau on the Southern Coast of Peru.  I was first interested in coming here when I came across this website five years ago when I was looking for other things to link math to.  No one knows exactly why the Nazca lines were made, though there are many theories.  There seems to be three main theories: they marked how to find water; they marked some type of calendar, with lines pointing in the direction of the sunset on the Winter and Summer soltices; and the animorphic shapes represent constellations in the sky.

Take a glimpse here for a quick peek at what I’m talking about.

When most people find out about the lines, they notice the animorphic shapes.  Actually, the geometric shapes are MUCH larger than the animorphic shapes.  Here are just a few of the things that I learned last night at a small presentation at the Maria Reiche planetarium in the Nazca Lines Hotel:

• The lines were formed by the Nazca people 100-600 A.D by removing the rocks from the desert basin, leaving just the fine dirt below exposed.
• With the exception of the Monkey, all shapes are made from one single line that never crosses itself.
• 30% of the the large geometric shapes (triangles, trapezoids, and rectangles) are known to point to the source of water, an extremely valuable resource in the desert.
• The lines that point to the sources of water are actually perpendicular to the Rio Grande.
• Other sets of lines are perfectly parallel  sources that come down from the mountains.
• The lines reach up to 480 meters long in some cases.
• It is believed that at times Nazca gather on the lines for ceremonies and at other times, they would walk and follow the lines until it lead them to sources of water.

I took at flight over the lines this morning and it was pretty spectacular!  Unfortunately, my video did not turn out amazing, but I tried to share what I have with you in the posts above.  I hope it works!

 

Ms. Bruck

Quipus, walkabouts and food…

My hostel is an old mansion in the old part of Lima,  right across from a big church.  I woke up to rain, and when I stepped outside my room door, peacocks and turtles!  That´s right.  I guess I forgot to mention that most of the rooms on the highest floor of the hostel open up onto a rooftop deck that´s really quite beautiful.  It´s full of plants and the morning critters I mentioned above.

I spent most of today at the History and Archeology Musem gaining some background knowledge about Peru, the Nazcas and Incas before  I would eventually continue on to places around the country that these cultures are known for.

Children in Parade in Lima

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QUIPUS:  These collections of cords tied to together with further knots tied in them were one of the things I was most excited to learn about when I wrote my Fund for Teachers grant that enabled me to go on this trip.  They are the Incan (and I learned today, newly thought to be also Pre-Incan) system of keeping numerical records.

 

 

This was really cool to see.  What was even more exciting was being able to go to the library there at the museum, explain that I wanted to learn more about Quipus  (How were they used?  Could I learn how to read one?) and be allowed to check out book there at the library to learn more about them and take notes.

The images below (from one of the books- you are allowed to take photographs, but with the flash) helps to explain how to “read” a single cord:

Each level is a different place value, starting with the bottoms, with ones, tens, hundreds, etc.

It was so neat to be able to go into the archeological library in another country to be able to look something up that I was interested in and be able to understand it better!

I looked at three books while in the library.  The first two were the newest books, published as recently as 2005.  Both were in Spanish.  It was a pretty awesome feeling to know that my Spanish is already good enough to be able to follow technical text (which I somehow think to be a bit easier than conversational text as there are many many cognates to help one along).  The third book was written in English and publish in 1927, nearer to when the Quipus were first discovered.  It was interesting as many of the conclusions drawn in the earlier book, written by an American were in direct contradiction to current thinking, written by Peruvians.  I think that Ill take the more current text.  The earlier book stated that there were no mathematical function to the Quipus and that the different colored cords had no special meaning.  Current thinking is that in addition to record keeping, the Quipus could be used to perform calculations, much like an abacus.  There were also examples of different colored cords having meaning for things such as soldiers (red), gold (yellow), silver (white), and corn.

Food:  Being as this first post is already incredibly long and pictures are taking quite some time to upload, the only thing that I am going to say is that I am not starving as many who worried about the fact that I do not eat meat thought I might do.  🙂 I even came across a purely vegetarian restaurant near my hotel this evening. 

Cheers!

Ms. Bruck

Packed and ready to go…. (just barely)

Wooo Hooo!  I’ve managed to squeeze everything that I’m going to need for the next month of travel into my smaller (40 Liter) backpacking backpack and a day pack.  I think that I’ve packed less than I did for the two weeks I just spent with my family in California.  I know for sure it’s less than some of you students packed for the wilderness trip as freshman!  It was no easy feat, considering the following:

1. It’s winter in Peru right now.  The whole northern vs. southern hemisphere seasonal flipflop threw me for a loop when I stopped to think about it.  This means that there are lots of warm (and bulkier) layers of clothes and a jacket, hat, gloves, etc. in that pack.

2. I’m bringing a sleeping bag.  Part of my fellowship travels will include a 5 day long backpacking trip to Choquequirao, a lesser known (less tourist ridden) Inca ruin and lost city.  Since it’s going to be winter in Peru, I feel pretty strongly about bringing a sleeping bag that I know is going to keep me sufficiently warm at night.  Also, I’ll be taking a few long-distance overnight buses, which I heard get pretty cold at night.  It will be nice to have the sleeping bag for that as well.

3.  I’m also going to be in the desert to see the Nazca Lines and in much warmer places, so I had to make sure that I have at least a few clothing items for warmer weather as well.

I’ve decided not to bring the laptop computer, which will make posting on the blog a bit trickier, but it will make my overall experience much more enjoyable I think.  From past travels abroad, I’ve learned that bringing as few valuables as possible not only saves on the overall weight of my backpack, but also saves on worry and stress.  I think it will be fine as internet cafes are supposed to be fairly ubiquitous (at least in the slightly larger cities) in Peru.

Looking forward to my next post coming to you from within the country to Peru as my flight to Lima (Peru’s capital) takes off in less than four hours!

Ms. Bruck

Why is Ms. Bruck in Peru?

Basically, I wrote a grant.  I have been so fortunate to find many opportunities to travel in my life, almost non of which I have had to pay for directly.  Ever since a family friend shared with me pictures of their travels to Peru, and Machu Picchu in particular, when I was in high school, I have been determined to find an opportunity to go and explore Peru myself.  This past January, when I came across the application for Fund for Teachers, a grant that gives teachers the opportunity to explore and partake in learning experiences during the summer break, I knew it was a chance to fulfill my dream of going to Peru.

As a part of the grant, I am exploring several topics and questions to later be incorporated into my classroom and teaching in the fall.  To give you just a taste of the grant writing process and what to expect from my blog in the next month or so, here are the guiding questions I proposed I would explore while I am in Peru:

• Would the Incas have been as well known without their mathematical and engineering accomplishments?
• What are the implications of strong foundations in mathematical thinking for any society’s accomplishments?    
• How is it possible for a culture to dominate as the Incan Empire did without a written language and only a mathematical system?  
• What does geometry have to do with the integrity of the structural engineering of the Machu Picchu? 
• What are the geometric patterns of the Nazca lines?  Are these drawings really mathematical?
• What is the geometry of the patterns found in Peruvian textiles? 
• In present times, is there a connection between the patterns of the Nazca lines and those patterns found in the textiles of the Peruvian Highlands?
• What are the economic implications of the tourist industry in regards to Machu Picchu, textiles, and artisan craft products? 

That’s a lot questions!  And I only know that I will come up with more as I gain new experiences.

FOR MY STUDENTS:  What are some of questions that come to mind for you after what you have read thus far?  What else would you like me to learn about for you?

The larger and more bold a word, the more often it was used in my grant

Hello Validus students!

Hello Validus-

I know many of you already and I am looking forward to getting to know  all of you next year.  I will be your 10th grade math teacher next year, where it is our plan to have all students studying Geometry.  This is awesome as Geometry is my favorite topic in math!  I’m also extremely excited because even though I have been teaching Geometry for the past four years at Validus, I have an amazing opportunity to learn even more about the subject!  I will be travelling to Peru this summer where I will be conducting my very own Expedition, studying the connections between Pre-Columbian civilizations of Peru, Geometry, and their amazing engineering and mystical feats such as Machu Picchu,  and the Nazca Lines.  At Validus, we strive to teach curriculum through experience and deep connections.  I am so excited to be a student again, and eventually transfer that knowledge onto you, my students.

It is expected that you will read up and keep tabs on my discoveries throughout the summer.  I look forward to you asking me tough questions that will have a part in driving my own fieldwork in Peru.  Have a great Summer and comment away!

    While in Peru, I’ll be following the route below: