CAMPO PERU

CAMPO PERU

I was talking with a girl yesterday and she asked me,
“Gustarias ir ala campo?”

Alternatively, something like that, sort of complicated Spanish for me to write and explain, I think or am 90 percent, sure she was asking.

Would you like to go to the Farm?

The word Campo is translated literally as farm in Spanish or Castellano as they say here, however this is not so easy to translate.

Campo is farm, Campesino is male farmer, and when you put the A on the end as in Campesina, it is a female farmer.

On the other hand, Campesino can be translated as Countryman.

The problems arise here in central part of South America mostly from lower Colombia to maybe Chile, I am not sure it may very from country to country more than I can remember. However, the point is you have two major cultures.

1. Mestizos
2. Campesinos

Mestizos are the mix of local indigenous or maybe Indians and the Spanish that came here, so the mix of their babies.

Campesinos are the Quechua or the Incas maybe according to how you look it, this is the confusion.

I see…
Quechua
Inca
Campesinos

As the SAME

Therefore or however the locals will talk about the going to the Campo and not use the word Campesino or Quechua. They use the word Quechua to describe their language. This slicing and dicing of words is part of learning a language, it is very complicated and only by the way they use the word can you slowly or I can slowly comprehend the small variances of the language.

I am sad to say however that this changes also from region to region, location to location, normally when you jump a natural boundary like a mountain it will change the most, however for some reason it changes a lot at the borders of countries.

This change happens in the USA also, if you notice, the Appalachians Mountains separate the East Coast from the Midwest, and the language and pronunciations of English changes.

THE INVITATION TO GO TO THE FARM
She invited me to go the farm with her and visit with her family, this is a sign of friendship and honor in a way to be invited to here family. She is trying to be proper as a decent girl in South America, Mexico, or Central America will normally almost immediately invite you to meet her parents. It does not matter whether it is a friendship or whatever type of relation a good girl or boy normally will somehow arrange very quickly for you to encounter their family.

I am thinking I should go with to the country to meet her family, as this would be a great cultural experience, with zero interference or changes causes by tourism, a true meeting of Peruvian people that have not changed to adapts to the foreigners. Her family lives three hours from Cusco and this is perfect, I am sure it is far enough from Cusco to leave the Disneyland adaptation of Tourism of Cusco or Machu Picchu.

FAKED AUTHENTICITY
This is what I personally would label Cusco and Machu Picchu an on demand service of what the traveler wish to see, you can sit in a restaurant and they can play songs and dress in something and try to entertain as the Tourist desire and they can easily do.

Sadly they also believe that normal people in the western world are walking around with Dreads, Tattoos, and very wild clothing, they see such a high percentage of this type of dress they believe this is normal. Therefore, there is a reciprocal interchange of fake or non-authentic culture that then is adapted by the foreigners and the locals. Both copying something that to me is not even real and strange interchange and not taking of the best.

I am not sure how to call people sometimes from what many would call Indigenous. These are people and not any different from you, or me they are just dressing different sometimes, they bridge on having more of a tribal type community, however they are not tribal and do not adhere closely to any tribe. They often have clothing that designates from which village they come from, however all these labels make it difficult to stop the stereotypes and to allow them to be what they are, without me having a preconceived notion.