My Peruvian Spy Apron

Once upon a time, my older son went to Peru.

He was invited by a professor from UCSC who went down most summers to study pottery. Ancient pottery. So down he flew. He saw some very unusual things, like:

He tried to describe them, but words could not do them justice.”Dancing soda cans”?

They tried making pottery at high altitudes like the little Peruvians might have been done in ancient times gone by:

At least they got a good fire going. The pottery tended to crumble.

Here is his pot he made, before firing.

And everywhere he went he would notice the chicks:

and the swirling ladies:

He liked buying food at the small local market:

And at the bigger bazaars:

One thing he noticed was the lovely all-encompassing aprons that would envelop the women working their stands. So he brought one home to his mummy, who always wears aprons. (Ever since she discovered how well they kept her clothes clean, provided nice pockets for things like eggs and cell phones and another excuse to  ‘accessorize”.)

                                                              This came all the way from Peru!

Now these aprons tell me something about the women down there:

They trust no one!

Notice the front 3 pockets? One in the middle and the 2 side ones for your hands? What you dont see is the multitude of inside zippered pockets. The one inside above the waistband, to hold change? It keeps it close to your heart. And what you cannot see is the pockets inside the pockets inside the pockets!

Here is the inside bodice pocket

Here is the “inner” pocket inside the middle front pocket….

And what you cannot see, what I did not shoot a picture of, is the inner pocket inside of this one! Also zippered. So by the time a thief  grabbed aunt Jimena’s apron off its hook, went through all the pockets, unzipping them all, to steal her precious hard earned Sol, someone would have found out their villainous deed and whacked them upside the head with a gourd! Or a clay pot.

Let us not forget the hidden pocket tucked up under the waistband!

In total I have found 7 pockets in this apron. The waistband one I just found this morning, while writing this post! (And I have had it over a year now!)

These Peruvians know their pockets! Their aprons can beat the heck out of any American aprons for secure pockets. Next time I go flying somewhere I can skip the carry on case and just stick everything I need somewhere in this apron. Toothbrush and paste here, magazines and pens there, emergency lipstick and underwear, a deck of cards, Ipad, phone, a box of pizza, popcorn,  baby chicks…

I suspect the little Peruvian women at these bazaars are not as chubby as they may initially seem, but are simply bulging with paraphernalia in all their multitudinous pockets.

Here are a few more of the more interesting photos he took while there:

What color skirt would his girlfriend want?

The pictures Phillip took with his simple point and shoot of the Andes and Machu Pichu were stunning. Unfortunately I do not have them on my computer. I looked at the blog he started in 2012 as part of this whole Peruvian assignment, but there are only a couple of photos included and I think a total of 3 posts. Sheesh!

His biggest story was the one about the dead body found on the plane on their way back so they had to make an emergency landing in Guadalajara. He had made it from Lima to Mexico City with no one dying. (I may have posted on that one before.)

In a nutshell:

This is why he was not at the airport when we went to LAX to pick him up that night. Instead, just as we had the big glowing letters of the airport in our sights, we get a phone call from someone I never heard of saying she was calling on behalf of Phillip and that they had been delayed.  Seems some old fossil died on the plane, or was brought on dead, I guess that was the whole conundrum, was he dead before or after? Who can we blame this on? In the meantime, by the time the authorities cleared them to go it was just after midnight and “Signor, we do not allow planes to leave after midnight”. So they stuck them all in a hotel with no bottled water, flew them back to Mexico City the next day and then put them on a flight back to LAX.

That is one story he will never forget. A great one for the grandkids some day. “Tell us the one about the dead body on the plane grandpa!”

Thank you Phil, for the apron. I will cherish it always.

Love

L

ps, want to watch them march along? (Turn the sound down, it’s awful.)

Oh wait, the tin can guys:

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