certification

Thursday 14.7.2016

I’m still sick.  Pro-tip: take probiotics before leaving the States.  Our religious belief in hyper-sterilazation may make us feel better about eating those disgusting burgers, but it impedes the American immune system when exposed to the Real World.

I’m bitter.  Being sick sucks.

Molly and I spent the day together.  A fellow traveler told us about a “cat park” where dozens of stray felines congregate daily.  Molly is obsessed with the animals so we found the park and spent a good three hours taking pictures and eating local fig-drizzled sweets intermittently.  But first, we found a book store, and added three excellent works to our collection (which will undoubtedly be used as sources of the thesis).

The first two are 1491 and 1493, both by Charles C. Mann.  The books describe in great detail modern academic debates around the lifestyles of Native Americans before and after Colombus’ arrival.  I’m reading 1491 now and it reads like a novel; the book is organized to refute notions of emptiness in the Western Hemisphere before colonization, an assumption which modern archaeology has all but buried but which popular opinion preserves to assuage guilt over the ensuing genocide of these profoundly ancient and complex civilizations.  Mann presents both aspects of many debates with great detail, and reading about the ancient Incans while traveling by bus into Cusco will undoubtedly have a chilli affect.

The third is Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano.  This book is an epic compilation of Latin America’s cultural, social, and environmental rape since the onset of European settlers.  While attention is given to the blatantly exploitive nature of Spanish, Portugese, and British imperialism, the author frames modern intervention by the United States in a context that is impossible to disassociate from historical oppression.  I have already read the book (thanks to a very close, politically minded Mexican-American friend of mine) but have been left lying awake at night considering it’s implications.  Molly had to have it.

Armed with new literature, our next few weeks will gain that much more insight.  Always bring a book.