San Antonio

This Monday, I didn’t seem to have much thrilling work to do at the Language Center for the university, when the department’s lawyer walked in.  I’d met her before and gone to her home and she asked me if I’d accompany her on a campaign.  After getting permission to leave work, I had a much more interesting evening!  Charrito (as she is nick-named) is campaigning for governor of Chiclayo.  We went to San Antonio, one of Chiclayo’s pueblo jovenes (meaning a slum that sprang up nearly overnight when a group of people invaded the land and settled and are trying to develop in the area).  The area is extremely poor.  We distributed 1-2 kg of rice to each of the family’s who had come and lined up to receive rice.  Of course there had to be many photos.  The event lasted about 2 hours and then we departed to head a little higher up into the cerros (rocky mountain-like areas) to visit a home.  There we found a teenage girl who had stepped on a nail earlier in the day.  The infected nail (likely tetanus) had caused her foot to swell and produced a horrible blister where it had penetrated and she could no longer walk.  We also visited a neighbor woman with 5 children under the age of 14, whose husband had abandoned her.  They were living in a one-room adobe home and the mother suffering from what seemed to be cancer (based on a large tumor on her head) and a problem with her kidneys is on her deathbed.  We greeted her and the children and gave them some rice as well.  Then we returned to the first home to take the girl to Mercedes Hospital in Chiclayo.  Unfortunately she didn’t have insurance, personal documents or any means of paying for a tetanus vaccine so the hospital did not want to treat her.  The lawyer and I went to several people and finally got a social worker to help clear up the situation.  The girl was asked to return the next morning and the hospital was to get a tetanus vaccine (since they don’t keep that on hand).  It was quite the evening and was nearly midnight by the time I made it home.  Encountering such situations really make you appreciate all the blessings you have.  

Calara

I love going to the countryside and getting to spend time in fresh air, listening to the sounds of the breeze rustling the trees, donkeys hee-hawing; tasting fruits plucked fresh from the trees like guava, plums, passion fruit, bananas and pomegranates; smelling and touching the dirt in the fields when walking across them or digging.  It gives me a sense of peace and home away from the honking cars and mototaxis, endless piles of trash and sidewalks and barricades buildings of Chiclayo. 

This last week, I got to return to Calara, where CIPDES is working on the asparagus project by helping to provide the local farmers with supplies and knowledge.  The drip-irrigation system is being constructed entirely of plastic PVC pipes and thin tubes.  CIPDES provides engineers who offer guidance, while the local farmers are expected to provide most of the labor: digging the trenches for the pipe, carrying the pipes, sawing the pipes to the right size, using sandpaper or files to rough them up and gluing the pieces themselves.  In this way, they must have an investment in their own systems as well as are learning how it works so that if they need to make any repairs in the future, they are capable of doing so.

Several times each hour, I saw a donkey pulling a cart either loaded with harvested goods or passengers.  It’s ironic sometimes to think about this entirely different world.  Back home I think of little girls giggling as they play with their dolls or paint each others’ fingernails or play t-ball/soft-ball.  Here they are laugh together as they drive donkey-drawn buggies or help their younger siblings bathe in the water spewed from a cracked irrigation pipe.  Two little boys (probably about 8 years old) had a ball as they got to play with the elbows and other connecting pieces for the irrigation system making towers and spy-glasses while their fathers dug trenches.   Another interesting sight was seeing several men work together to lift a mototaxi and pass it over the trench across the road so that the passengers could continue on their journey.  (Mototaxis resemble Tuktuks).   

As much as I enjoy it, there are awkward moments.  When lunch time came around, I was served a pile of rice with an entire roasted guinea pig piled on top.  The guinea pig, known as cuy here, lay on its back staring up at me with its mouth open.  I had to kindly thank the Señora, but request that she bring me an empty plate upon which I put the rodent and returned it to the kitchen.  The four men at the table all devoured their critters and rice.  What a day. 

It is a beautiful area and I feel blessed to be able to go there surrounded by rocky mountains (cerros) on all sides in the middle of what will soon be an oasis in the desert.

(I picked some of these guavas from atop CIPDES’s pickup, then climbed the tree to get more for the engineers). You don't eat the seeds...just the sweet white cotton-like flesh.

The Last Shall Be First

The dust billowed up behind the pickup and the hot wind battered us as we drove down the rough desert road somewhere beyond the Pan-American Highway south of Chiclayo.  With good humor, an engineer and aid worker for CIPDES (an NGO in Chiclayo) and I chatted and joked as we sat drenched in sweat jostling ever nearer to the asparagus fields in the southern part of the province.  CIPDES, partnered with Ayuda en Acción, works to create sustainable projects for community development in this area.  Through the generous donations of numerous Spaniards children are sponsored to help make these projects possible.  The money does not go directly to the family of that child; however, it is pooled with the money of other sponsored children in the community to create a fund for a sustainable project to improve the entire community.  CIPDES/Ayuda en Acción help to support projects for up to 10 years, upon which they leave the communities with the tools for sustainability to continue on their own.  Asparagus grown in the first community we visited is exported to the USA.  Other communities grow certain crops which are sold within Peru. 

After helping with a few drip irrigation issues, we continued on our way to a school in Ciudad Eten.  There the children were writing letters to their Spanish sponsors and  drawing pictures.  Each semester they send a letter and are given a theme to write about.  This time they were to write about their birthdays.   I was blessed to get to help facilitate the letter writing and to enjoy their laughter.  We then went to visit a public school that was built 8 years ago by these partnering organizations.  It is a model school, with a very unique design.  Finding a school in ruins in the area, CIPDES/Ayuda en Acción stepped in a supported the construction of this extremely well maintained building 8 years ago.  Each classroom is in the shape of a hexagon with windows on 5 of the sides.  This allows for ample light in the room and airflow, helping to reduce disease.   Unlike most school in the area, it has separate bathrooms for boys and girls with flowing water.  Excited about how far his school has come and still dreaming of the future, the humble principal murmured, “It has been difficult.  It is a process of growth which will take years, but I have a dream for these children, that someday the last shall be first.”

Children in Ciudad Eten writing letters to their Spaniard Amigos

        

Ayuda en Acción/ CIPDES Model School in 

Cascajales, Ciudad Eten, Chiclayo, Lambayeque, Peru

View of the surrounding community of Cascajales as taken 

from the upper level of one of the school's buildings

*CIPDES: Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Desarrollo Sostenible

(Center of Investigation and Promotion of Sustainable Development) 

so far...

Things are going much better than I’d imagined.  I’m staying extremely busy and trying to find connections so that I can do a volunteer project of interest with an NGO.  I’ve met numerous people, enjoyed icecream several times, gone out to the movies or a restaurant with some people I’ve met, successfully moved into an apartment, went swimming and got sunburned (of course...even with extremely protective sunscreen) have had no troubles communicating and have been mistaken on more than one occasion as a Peruvian.  How?  I’m not sure, but it was humorous.  My exact duties at the university are yet to be determined, but they are keeping me busy observing and critiquing English professors, editing English exams, and designing programs. It’s crazy to think that I’ve barely been in Chiclayo almost 2 weeks!

trying to survive the heat

Pueblo Joven (young town)

I went to a slum area on the outskirts of Chiclayo, to see a project that a few catholic women were doing.  They teach Sunday school and do other lessons for girls in that area.  It reminded me a lot of my time volunteering at the school in Villa El Salvador (in Lima 3 years ago), and I loved it!  

Despite enjoying it, I was bothered by some things that may be food for thought.  I think it is great to get to know other people and how they live and to serve others in any sort of capacity that you can.  That’s just a simple rule of generosity and kindness.  One woman who connected me to go see the area kept saying how when they first went there, they were “dying of fear” because it is so dangerous: poor people are dangerous and often violent.  She told me how thanks to her I could see that because she knows I’ve never seen poverty and I could never go to such a place on my own. 

That upset me.  Perhaps I am too trusting of others, but I’d rather live believing in the good of other people than seeing other people as problems and believing in my own superiority thinking that I have to fix all their problems for them.  There is a bit of greatness in every single person.   Being told that I know nothing of poverty or that I am incapable of learning about others without her help, stung like salt in a wound.  No, I didn’t grow up in poverty, but I have been exposed to it and I don’t believe that a person’s situation determines his/her behavior as good or bad.  Viewing children of poverty as victims to be pitied is the wrong way of looking at things.  They are living a different part of the human experience and are untapped potential as they may not have the recourses that we have had.  The skills and insights thay are gaining may be just what we need.  No, poverty is not beautiful—but it is reality for many beautiful people who value others more than material possessions.  It’s nothing to fear, but something that we can all work together to reduce to improve the quality of life for all. 

There is a time for everything under the sun, and sometimes that means not trying to teach the young town, but letting it teach you.  

A Real Bed

Finding a place to live can be an adventure… it definitely was for me.  I flew into Lima, where I stayed in a hotel for a few nights and then moved up to Chiclayo where I also spent my first two nights in a hotel.  A family with whom I stayed 3 years ago for a few weeks, offered to let me move in with them so I wouldn’t have to be in the hotel.  I took them up on the offer and stayed for quite some time. 

The search began.  Daily, I was walking up and down streets asking people if they had an apartment to rent or knew of someone who did.  Every time I saw a handwritten piece of paper on a building claiming it had a room or apartment or mini-apartment for rent, I inquired about it and looked at many of them and asked about prices and services. 

It was rediculous, some of the things that I encountered.  Rooms for rent (without windows!), a single room a bed could barely fit in with 1 shared bathroom (Did I mention their were only 14 members living in the house?), “apartments” but oh that means there are only two rooms…no bathroom or kitchen.  Most places forbid cooking and very few have any exterior place to hang wet laundry.  The list goes on.  It was quite the task and although I’m now living in an overly priced (and according to Peruvian standards: outlandishly priced) mini-apartment, I finally have a place.  Towards the beginning of the week, I moved from the couch in my friends’ sitting room, to having a place to put my suitcase and having a bed.  What a blessing! 

Despite the frustrations in the search and those that I still have (like supposedly having wifi in my apartment…which is part of the reason for my high rent price…but it never works!), I have been blessed by the kindness and generosity of many.  I didn’t have to purchase too much furniture.  I was loaned several things from different people and was able to buy a mattress in a market for the bed.  The first night it reminded me of my “timber mattress” from Kenya, but it’s really not that bad J  A man from the university who drives a pickup for work, came and collected all of my things and drove them to my mini-apartment, so I wouldn’t have to take a taxi. 

A real bed and my own space.  I may have to mop dust from the floors and everything else twice a day in this desert apartment and only have cold water, but at least I now live in a fairly calm part of the city and have a place to wash clothes and hang them.  Sweet home Chiclayo.

My whole place:

view of the park out the window

Women's Day

Friday was International Women’s Day.  It’s widely recognized and celebrated here.   From the start of the day to the end, women are treated.  As I walked into the bakery this morning, I and a few other women were served ahead of men, because we were to experience a “feliz dia.”  Hector, a friendly man who works for the university in Lambayeque, picked me and a few other professors up at our homes in Chiclayo, and ferried us to the neighboring city.  After doing administration work for a short while, we were called down to a large room on the first floor of the building where there was a ceremony.  It was beautiful.  Each of the women were given a rose and we were serenaded by a mariachi band as well as Andean flutists and the rest of their band.  Additionally we were served about ten different snacks, were given wine for a toast, and a man and woman performed a Marinera Norteña dance for us.  This type of dance is traditional to northern Peru and is a gorgeous, complicated, quick and graceful dance.  (If you’ve never seen it before, check out some videos on YouTube.)  In the afternoon, I came back to Chiclayo to work at the Language Centre (which also belongs to La Pedro (my university).  There in between work, we also had a ceremony, during which several of the same things occurred.  We got to listen to a non-machismo version of Cinderella…which was really funny, and to see a type of dance typical of the Andes.  We all danced a lot and took turns wearing the mariachi’s sombreros.  Fun day.