'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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... Teresa's sheep there ; their daughters pasture them in the broad pampa around the community , and Baltazar and Teresa go once in a while to check on them . Teresa served us breakfast and an early lunch before they left ; from then on ...
... Teresa bought from her some onions and carrots and a few handfuls of small dried silvery gray fish called ch'ini challwa . Another young woman came a little later , and Teresa invited her in and gave her a bowl of soup and they talked .
... Teresa and I cooked a meal , plentiful but not elaborate , and instead of cooking meat , she made fresh cheese from ... Teresa had done much of the preparation the night before ; they left at six , with a big skin bag full of chicha and ...