Life seems to work just like the water. It immediately takes the shape of the object where it is spilled. The liver of that life does not worry about the “could-be” unless pushed to it. The idea of “difficulties” seems to come from the knowledge of different situations, and that is something more present in the visitors than in the residents. Difficulties seem also to take shape only as time goes by and that is what you perceive by looking at these young faces. Moments after these pictures were taken, the ball of the children fell to the water. The kids wearing the jerseys of Messi, Suarez and Cristiano started screaming about their elemental instrument for playing. The couple of hours that we spent walking along or across the canal, that any of our belongings fell to the water felt like the worst thing that could happen in the world. It was a brown and dense water, slowly passing full of floating rubbish and with a subtle stink. On top of that, all the articles read and all the videos watched about the pollution of the rivers and channels of the city surrounded our heads and dramatized any interaction with the body and the soul of this water. However, the falling of the ball for the children did not appear to represent any trace of a disgrace. It was almost a part of their game. As quotidian as throwing the ball down the mountain and running after it with enthusiasm. The easiest way to retrieve the ball would have been to get it from the boat that follows the rope, but the boat had just moved to take us from one side to the other and it would not go back on time to get the ball: the ball was already moving with the current. But I heard Eduardo exclaim “Look! the kids have their own little instruments!” The kids had started disputing some bamboo sticks in order to hit the ball, possibly trying to bring it closer to the edge where some wooden stairs could be climbed down (as the kid on the left of the picture that in a matter of seconds went down to get its sandal that had also fallen to the water). Between the struggle for the sticks and the playfulness of the intent they did not manage to get the ball any closer and the current was almost taking it around that small dock where the kids had crowded together. That is when they took from who knows where a larger stick that had a rounded net on its end and handed it to one of the little girls. It was her that, between the cheers of the children, with amazing skill managed to give a couple of hits first to the water and then to the ball until it became within reach. She grabbed the ball with the net and threw it again to the dock and immediately Messi, Suarez and Cristiano kicked it to the sunken sidewalk along the canal and resumed their soccer match. When we were about to restart walking, I wondered what would have happened if the girl had not managed to grab the ball. It appeared to have been very close to slip away. Despite the naturality with which the kids interacted with the water it did not seem something usual to jump to the canal and swim. And the area of the city where we were did not seem to be one where a new ball could be easily afforded. But I looked downstream and I saw a couple of hundred meters away another dock and another rope connecting both sides of the canal. I thought that if the girl had not grabbed the ball, the kids would have immediately run to the next dock. Even though there is not a sidewalk that goes uniformly along the canal between the two docks, since it is interrupted by sporadic groups of houses that reach the edge of the water, the kids would have easily gone through the labyrinthic alleyways over which we had gotten lost when walking on the other side. There is fewer to fear about the canal than I thought. The body and soul of the water are certainly an additional player in the game of these kids. And all the things I have narrated were only 25 seconds of the everyday life of this neighborhood.

Yo tenía unos 15 o 16 años, estaba en quinto de secundaria y por las tardes iba a tomar clases a una academia preuniversitaria que nos preparaba para ingresar a la Universidad San Antonio Abad del Cusco, la UNSAAC. Como el local principal de la plaza San Francisco simplemente había rebalsado, las clases nos las daban en unos salones del local de la Calle Q’era, al frente de ese restaurant de salteñas bolivianas, unas cuevas en las que dudo que alguna vez hubiera habido una inspección de Defensa Civil. Pero fue en esa academia que por primera vez entré en contacto con una serie de mundos que en mi anticuado colegio eran sencillamente extraños y hasta subversivos. Ahí leí por primera vez con atención adicta las ideas de los filósofos presocráticos y estudié primero de memoria y luego por placer el arché de cada uno de ellos. Ahí tuve un profesor al que le decían “Rafito”, popularísimo entre las chicas, que no solo nos enseñó, sino que escenificó la lucha de Héctor y Aquiles, blandiendo la espada imaginaria al mejor estilo de Obi Wan Kenobi. Ahí descubrí una cierta habilidad desconocida por el álgebra, la geometría y la matemática en general, quedándome desde esa época esa espina clavada que solo me sacaría metiéndome a estudiar economía tanto tiempo después. Mientras que en el colegio me decomisaban los libros que me llevaba para leer, fue en la academia que leí ansiosamente Redoble por Rancas, la Casa Verde, el Quijote, el Túnel y cuántos otros. Ni qué decir que ahí también salí por primera vez de esa atmósfera militarizada de un colegio de varones y conocí a mis primeras novias, tres de las cuales casi me avergüenzo de decir que en algún momento estuvieron sentadas en una misma clase. Entre tantas otras cosas quizás la más importante fue que por primera vez en mi vida vi una correlación entre el esfuerzo y los resultados, y lo vi deliberadamente graficado en esos rankings de notas semanales, propios de esas academias, quizás humillantes para los peores, ciertamente endiosantes para los mejores. Y fue en ese mundo que tuvimos un profesor de lenguaje que rondaba lo surreal –quizás solo comparable con el profesor de lenguaje del colegio, que en realidad dedicaba más su tiempo a ser cantante principal de un grupo de rock local llamado Latina Funky Rosa–. El profesor de la academia era un tipo alto y corpulento, de barba crecida y cabello largo, que venía a la clase con unas botas estruendosas y cubierto con un poncho de lana negro, una facha que me hacía pensar en una suerte de vaquero andino. Su nombre era John David y en su clase nos contaba no sé qué clase de cuentos requeridos por el currículo de la academia o que se le habían presentado en su vida alegre de la semana pasada, mientras se movía como sigilosamente por el hacinado salón, para luego irse en el intermedio de las seis de la tarde a tomarse unas cervezas al frente con los alumnos más inspirados. Fue él, de quien luego me enteré que era un conocido brichero cusqueño, un dibujante creador del personaje “Blac Poncho” y que hasta tenía un documental de Roberto de la Puente llamado “el Q’uchiwato Maldito”; fue él el que un día en la clase nos dijo: “¿Saben cuál es una buena forma de que aprendan más vocabulario? Prendan la tele uno de estos días y pongan el canal 4 –que es el canal en el que en Cusco se transmitía el canal del Estado–, y vean el programa de Marco Aurelio Denegri. Media hora escuchando al viejito y por lo menos una palabra nueva van a aprender”.

One of the great friends I did here in the last months. I ended up not having enough space for taking some clothes to my trip and also, I ended up forgetting that I would have to leave somewhere this white artifact I bought for taking clothes to the laundry. My flight departs in a couple of hours. I will leave it in my desk and will ask Daniel to pick it up and take it to his home for a couple of weeks. I really hate asking favors but he took one second to say sure and to tell me not to worry.

How great was that? It turned out to be possible to return books in a different library from where you took them. If I am not the person in my school who has borrowed the most books from so many of the seventy- something libraries of the university, I at least must be in the podium. It took me 3 trips to take them all to the library for return. I am glad that my trips were within my building.

I have seen the map of China millions of times, I have even read about the rivers and what they represent for the geography of the country. However, I still con not appropriate that space in my mind. Visiting the places is so important for that. I totally have to do that China Trek at the end of the year.

Is it normal to have such a big merchandising store of the university as the coop? Rhetorical question.

You are walking around the building and suddenly you find a UFO that someone is trying to hide. And it is not the first time.

Cuando pienso en oportunidades, debería pensar en esta visita al campus de HBS. Parece haber estado ahí durante todos esos momentos, pero es usualmente difícil saber. Creo que las palabras necesarias para la conversación las puse pero quizás no toda la determinación. Es el problema de ser tan exigente.

One of things I did this semester I am most proud of was having played with the Dudley World Music Ensemble. Meeting some friends, learning from some music geniuses, trying a new instrument, helping arrange a Peruvian song and that feeling of satisfaction after playing, leaving behind the minutes of fear of screwing the song.

I really struggle with the tendency of Latin-Americans to mingle together sometimes excluding the chance to find amazing new ideas or experiences in people from different parts of the world. But I have to admit that I was certainly fortunate to have had in this year an amazing group of Peruvian friends in the school (a group so rarely large, by the way, if you consider not only the population of Peru, but also the level of the education in the country). It will be sad not to see half of them around the building next building.