'Tambo: Life in an Andean VillagePerhaps the best way to sharpen one's power's of observation is to be a stranger in a strange land. Julia Meyerson was one such stranger during a year in the village of 'Tambo, Peru, where her husband was conducting anthropological fieldwork. Though sometimes overwhelmed by the differences between Quechua and North American culture, she still sought eagerly to understand the lifeways of 'Tambo and to find her place in the village. Her vivid observations, recorded in this field journal, admirably follow Henry James's advice: "Try to be one of the people upon whom nothing is lost." With an artist's eye, Meyerson records the daily life of 'Tambo—the cycles of planting and harvest, the round of religious and cultural festivals, her tentative beginnings of friendship and understanding with the Tambinos. The journal charts her progress from tolerated outsider to accepted friend as she and her husband learn and earn, the roles of daughter and son in their adopted family. With its wealth of ethnographic detail, especially concerning the lives of Andean women, 'Tambo will have great value for students of Latin American anthropology. In addition, scholars preparing to do fieldwork anywhere will find it a realistic account of both the hardships and the rewards of such study. |
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... wanted us to bring for them from Cusco , Baltazar offered us new plans for today , Saturday , his trip to Cusco to ... wanted to accomplish - all of the corre- spondence , getting our clothes washed , restocking our supplies , and buy ...
... wanted to , in frustration at the injustice , the sense of violation , and times I have simply wanted to pack up and go home , all the way home . We understand of course , rationally , the mechanics of the reaction to difference and ...
... wanted to go to the faena : I wanted to take food to my husband and wanted to be there when he pre- sented his papers . He explained this to Teresa and Juana , and they spoke to each other in Quechua too rapid for me to understand . I ...