During my first days at the Hogar, I thought I would never survive five weeks; the days were incredibly long, and there were so very, very many children. But it has come to feel like a home away from home, and our five weeks went by like no time at all. I'll try to put down some of my strongest memories from my time there, knowing that I will be back to visit for a weekend or two or three during the rest of my year.
During the week we usually help the little kids get bathed and dressed in the morning, go into Lima with them to their appointments if needed, or else hang out at the house helping with their lessons or playing. I, however, always enjoyed Saturdays most because it was market day. On a typical Saturday morning I get up at 6:45 or 7 to be downstairs by the time the kids finish breakfast at 7:30. (Wake-up call: the sound of Tony yelling from downstairs for the kids to finish their breakfast ("Angela! Avanza!"). Some of them just sit there staring at their food until barked at, which I do not understand.) Coming down from my room, I never make it past the second-floor landing, because there are little boys with leg problems sitting in chairs by the nurses' station who call out to you to bathe them, take them downstairs, or brush their teeth, all at once. It's both exhausting and hilarious to be greeted every morning with "Senorita, pichi!" or "Catalina! Catalina! Tu me banas!" I've gotten good at saying "No, I can't right now," if I'm too tired to deal with it that morning, but most of the time I kind of like it--it wakes you up kind of like a cold shower, which I am also learning to appreciate. I prefer to get the morning chaos out of the way before breakfast so that my eating won't be rushed with requests to go upstairs and brush teeth, etc.
At 9:30 or 10 on Saturday mornings we would go to the market. Dr. Tony drives one of the 15-passenger combis that are ubiquitous in Peru, with the volunteers, one of the cooks, Tony's friend Frank who is like a grandfather to all the kids, and usually one of the boys as well. The highway goes in between two chains of mountains that are nothing but stark, bare, gray-brown rock, but in the valley there are trees, houses, flowers, a river. The weather for the most part was sunny and relatively clear in Chaclacayo. We went to three different markets because Tony's favorite places to shop for vegetables (including 48 kilograms of potatoes every week), fruits, and meat are in three different places. Frank (Tio Fransicso to the kids) always bought a mano of tiny, sweet bananas and gave one to everybody. Among all the delicious food that we had at the Hogar, I think the fresh, sweet mangos we bought at that fruit market were my absolute favorite. On our last day at the market, Catherine and I bought a Peruvian cookbook, so now we're going to learn things like ceviche, papa a la huancaina, chicha morada... yum!
Later on we would take the kids to the park after lunch. I haven't yet managed to inform all of Peru that their custom of throwing water at women in February is disrespectful and unacceptable, but we did manage to have some great water fights among ourselves at the park (shh, don't tell Dr. Tony.) My friend John, a volunteer from Ireland and one of the nicest people I've met here, went and bought one of the boys a water gun, at which point we female volunteers taught the girls that the proper response to such a thing is not to scream and run, but to run at them all at once and take away the water gun! It was hilarious, especially since they kept giving the water gun to the blind kid, Jose Luis, or Arlis, who's in a wheelchair. I like Carnevales much better when it's among friends and/or when the people who have the most water are blind or immobile.
One of the most intense parts of our stay for me was being with some of the young women in the house, Anita and Marleney, when they were in pain at different times. Just before we left, Marleney had an operation which I didn't entirely understand, but which left her lying in her bed groaning in pain for hours even after they gave her painkillers. I had nothing to do but sit beside her and hold her hand. I sang songs that my mom used to sing to me as a baby, and then we prayed the Rosary together with some of the younger girls who were standing nearby in concern. Marleney was in too much pain to even pray along at some points, but later she thanked me for staying with her and taking care of her. It was a difficult but deeply touching experience to be there with my friend even though I felt I couldn't do much to help her. I did, however, go find Tony and ask for more painkiller for her, which seemed to work wonders in a few hours. When she felt better, we sat around chatting the same way we usually do in the mornings when she helps the cooks clean the little stones out of the rice before it's cooked.
The day before we left the Hogar was the birthday party for Terri. Terri is a missionary who felt called to sell everything she had in her home in Belgium and come to Latin America to work with the poor. She is a wonderful presence in the house--the kids call her Mama Teresa, and she is always very peaceful, joyful, and down-to-earth in the midst of all the chaos. The kids put on a musical show (Jose Antonio on the zamponia (pan pipes) and Jose Luis on the cajon (box-drum) playing traditional Andean music!) and a fashion show for her in the afternoon, and there was dancing and cake and ice cream on the patio. Then in the evening, all the volunteers, nurses, Tony, Frank, Terri, and the teachers went over to one of the teachers' house for a very authentically Peruvian party. We had baked chicken with aji sauce and salad for dinner, and then the teacher's husband played his trumpet (he used to be in a salsa band in Las Vegas) and their grandson played the drums, and everybody danced salsa and merengue. The younger teacher, Jenny, and her son did a dance to the trumpet music that involved white hankerchiefs and twirling and audience clapping. Victor and John ended up dancing in circles of women because they were the only guys around besides Tony and Frank, who didn't dance much (but even Tony got up and danced a little!). What an incredible way to end our stay. In the middle of all the fun and music I liked translating between the English-speaking volunteers and the Spanish-speaking nurses; Frank, who likes speech-making, kept making me his translator so that everybody would know what he was saying to Terri. All the volunteers chipped in to buy a nice bracelet for Terri, who was always our contact person whenever we needed anything in the house.
And so the day of our departure arrived... and it was discovered that all the girls in the house had head lice, and so did we. So the morning we were supposed to leave, Catherine and I treated our hair and started picking out the nits while we waited for the taxi (with the help of some leftover cake and ice cream to get us through). Back home in Delicias, we had to wash all our clothes in hot water, which means dumping boiling water from the stove onto buckets of soapy laundry, then wringing it out later and hanging it to dry... fun times. Now, after many nights of us combing through each other's hair, the little critters seem to be gone, knock on wood. I'm calling it part of the authentic Peruvian experience. We hope to go back and visit the Hogar soon, because we both miss the kids--but I'll be sure to put my hair up and wear a hat when I do.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Tourism in Lima
Two weeks ago, a few of us volunteers took the weekend off to be touristy in Lima. What a great way to relax! We stayed in this great little hostel in Barranco called The Point, which I would recommend to everybody. It is right across the street from the cliffs that overlook the ocean and very clean, with a garden patio, hammocks, ping pong, a kitchen, and an in-house bar with cheap drinks. We took a colectivo into Lima and got there in time for lunch, which we had at a delightful little restaurant just down the street. I had been in Peru for a month and this was my first meal in a restaurant, and wow! I had the best fish I've ever had in my life, cooked with tomatoes and onions and rice in a delicious sauce. They also brought us a free appetizer of ceviche, a typical Peruvian dish of seafood covered in lime sauce, onion, garlic, and other wonderful things. You can get it with just fish or with fish pieces along with shrimp, scallops, etc. None of it is cooked, which is why we had to wait to get it in a good restaurant--but it is delicious!! We also had chicha, a purple drink made from some type of corn with apple slivers and lime juice, which is awesome. The day was sunny and beautiful and we walked along the coast of Barranco up to Miraflores, the rich, touristy section of Lima. The coast is amazing because it is all high cliffs overlooking a thin strip of beach, and at the top there are footpaths going along among trees and gardens with beautiful flowers. I told the others that I didn't care about living in a poor area of Lima if I could just come walk along the coast looking out at the Pacific every week! Sadly, everyone has been telling us that Lima is covered with fog for the entire winter... so we were very lucky to have that weekend be so beautiful.
Wandering around Miraflores, we came to a plaza with a huge sign that said Dia del Pisco Sour. They have a whole weekend celebration of their national drink! I couldn't believe it. There was music set up in the plaza and a pavilion with lots of different vendors of pisco (a liquor made from grapes) and pisco sour (a mixed drink involving egg whites, syrup, and other good things.) We got lots of free samples and then I bought a little glass of the best kind. Farther down that street was a whole strip of painters selling their art, much of which was gorgeous. I'm saving my shopping for later in the year, however.
As it got dark, we walked a lot through the city and took a bus to the center, where we saw two famous plazas, and in between them a street full of crowds, clothing and cell phone stores, and questionable-looking food places--Norky's, for example, looked like Boston Market but greasier. One of the plazas had an amazing cathedral that must have been from the 16th or 17th century, huge, dark and cavernous inside, with beautiful statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary lit up in the chapels and covered in gold adornments. I've been noticing that lots of the statues of the crucified Jesus that I see here are more graphically realistic than the ones in the US. In the Delicias church, for example, there is a model of Jesus crucified and lying in what looks like a glass coffin, bleeding and wounded--very arresting, and it's literally not far removed from the people, because they walk by on their way out of church and lay a hand on the glass to pray. In contrast, here in the suburb of Chaclacayo there is a mural on the church wall of different scenes from Jesus's passion, but no blood anywhere in the picture--the images are more stylized and Jesus himself looks almost as healthy as the people hurting him, so that the whole thing has an air of sadness rather than violence. The contrasting images remind me very powerfully of the difference in the lives of the rich and the poor and what they have to deal with. The residents of Chaclacayo are saddened by the suffering in the world, but it's the people of Delicias who really want a god who bleeds and dies, who can relate to their suffering. I'm sure I don't even understand this now as fully as I will later; I don't know if I can ever truly understand it, coming from my comfortable background; but I can tell it's there.
Anyway, that night in Lima we went out with a group of gringos from the hostel to a dancing place. The live music was very cool, but I came back early at 3 am to go to bed and get a good sleep. The next day we wandered around some more after a comfortable morning sleeping in at the hostel and then came back. I'm looking forward to trying more typical Peruvian foods in the future--Catherine and I have bought a Peruvian cookbook for when we go back to Lima and have to take turns cooking for the house.
Llama count: still zip.
Wandering around Miraflores, we came to a plaza with a huge sign that said Dia del Pisco Sour. They have a whole weekend celebration of their national drink! I couldn't believe it. There was music set up in the plaza and a pavilion with lots of different vendors of pisco (a liquor made from grapes) and pisco sour (a mixed drink involving egg whites, syrup, and other good things.) We got lots of free samples and then I bought a little glass of the best kind. Farther down that street was a whole strip of painters selling their art, much of which was gorgeous. I'm saving my shopping for later in the year, however.
As it got dark, we walked a lot through the city and took a bus to the center, where we saw two famous plazas, and in between them a street full of crowds, clothing and cell phone stores, and questionable-looking food places--Norky's, for example, looked like Boston Market but greasier. One of the plazas had an amazing cathedral that must have been from the 16th or 17th century, huge, dark and cavernous inside, with beautiful statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary lit up in the chapels and covered in gold adornments. I've been noticing that lots of the statues of the crucified Jesus that I see here are more graphically realistic than the ones in the US. In the Delicias church, for example, there is a model of Jesus crucified and lying in what looks like a glass coffin, bleeding and wounded--very arresting, and it's literally not far removed from the people, because they walk by on their way out of church and lay a hand on the glass to pray. In contrast, here in the suburb of Chaclacayo there is a mural on the church wall of different scenes from Jesus's passion, but no blood anywhere in the picture--the images are more stylized and Jesus himself looks almost as healthy as the people hurting him, so that the whole thing has an air of sadness rather than violence. The contrasting images remind me very powerfully of the difference in the lives of the rich and the poor and what they have to deal with. The residents of Chaclacayo are saddened by the suffering in the world, but it's the people of Delicias who really want a god who bleeds and dies, who can relate to their suffering. I'm sure I don't even understand this now as fully as I will later; I don't know if I can ever truly understand it, coming from my comfortable background; but I can tell it's there.
Anyway, that night in Lima we went out with a group of gringos from the hostel to a dancing place. The live music was very cool, but I came back early at 3 am to go to bed and get a good sleep. The next day we wandered around some more after a comfortable morning sleeping in at the hostel and then came back. I'm looking forward to trying more typical Peruvian foods in the future--Catherine and I have bought a Peruvian cookbook for when we go back to Lima and have to take turns cooking for the house.
Llama count: still zip.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Carnivales
Disclaimer: Carnivales is clearly one of those things they warned us about in our program orientation, where the customs in another county seem downright WRONG to you, but perfectly normal to the people here... so read the following with a grain of culture-shock salt. All I can recod is my own expeience; perhaps later on I will come to undestand this better, but there are certain aspects of it that I hope I never come to approve of.
So February in Peru is the time of Carnivales, something that was probably originally related to Mardi Gras but has now become totally different. Instead of one day, it's the whole month, and instead of any celebrations that I can see, the custom is for young people to throw water at random passersby on the streets, especially on Sundays, especially off the main roads where they can wander around in groups waiting for potential targets. Water balloons, buckets of water, hoses, and water guns are all included. Now I don't mind a water fight between friends, especially since it's summer and hot, but to me there are several things very wrong with this little custom.
1. It can be dangerous. Kids throw water balloons at passing buses and cars, and Dr. Tony says he has known them to shatter the windows. And water balloons thrown at people on the streets can hurt. (See story below.)
2. It is disrespectful. In Lima, the throwing can include paint as well as water; here in the suburbs it is a little calmer, and they stick with grass clippings in their buckets of water. Not to mention the fact that they do it to complete strangers who may not want to be soaked!
3. It is a battle of the sexes. Boys soak girls and girls soak boys; when we took the kids to the park for the first time in February, some of the male volunteers were very sternly lectued by the boys for being traitors and thowing balloons at them instead of the girls. Now this is not a bad thing when there are plenty of boys and girls all throwing water at each other, like when we all go to the park together from the house. But what happens in practice is that groups of boys roam the streets targeting girls to soak. Last week, Catherine and I were coming back from the Intenet cafe in the evening and we decided to take the back road through the pretty, quiet suburban neighborhood... or so we thought. We didn't even notice that there were eight or ten teenage guys nearby until we had passed them, and suddenly they yelled, Now! Let's go! and ran toward us with water balloons and buckets. One of them came up three feet behind me and pegged me straight in the butt with a baloon. I couldn't believe it. They tossed a bucket of water and grass clippings all over us, which Catherine got most of, and there were balloons exploding eveywhere around us. We didn't want to scream and run, but we basically had nothing else to do. These were not little kids; they were young men in their late teens, ten of them, laughing and soaking us as we stuggled to comprehend the situation and remember our Spanish curse words and failed at both. We half-ran away and quickly turned back to the main road, where we have not had problems so far.
It was kind of a scary feeling because we were really helpless, but I was more ouraged than afraid. It was not a water fight because we had no water; it would not have been fair even if we had had water because they were ten young men and we are two women. It was absolutely sexual harrassment because he hit me in the butt with the balloon. But what really set me off was how the kids laughed at it when we got back. Incensed, I told my story about how they attacked us ten to two and hit me in the behind, and one of the boys said, Oh yeah, the girls always hope the water doesn't get them here! and pointed to his chest. I don't have time right now to go into how this mentality really really scares me. Suffice it to say that it shows how the machismo of this culture, the objectifying of women, goes waaay deeper than I'd thought, and you'll never convince me that this water-throwing is unconnected to the early sexualizing of young Latina girls and the issues with respect for women here. The kids try to tell me that it's a two-sided battle and that girls throw water too, but you don't see groups of girls roaming the streets and hitting solitary boys in the crotch with water balloons. That's all I'll say. I was ranting angrily about it all night, but the kids were all laughing, and what troubles me is that I don't know if I can make them see why it's a problem.
Anyway... rant over for now. The next day in the park, I got out a lot of my anger by pegging one of the more obnoxious boys in the house with a balloon--while he was running, too. It was very satisfying. Especially because he hit me first with two balloons and then sprayed me and the other girls with the hose, after I told him I wasn't playing. To their credit, John and Victor, the American volunteers, were very suppotive in equalizing the playing field a bit among the kids and chasing down the more troublesome boys so that the girls could have a chance at hitting them. Sheesh.
So February in Peru is the time of Carnivales, something that was probably originally related to Mardi Gras but has now become totally different. Instead of one day, it's the whole month, and instead of any celebrations that I can see, the custom is for young people to throw water at random passersby on the streets, especially on Sundays, especially off the main roads where they can wander around in groups waiting for potential targets. Water balloons, buckets of water, hoses, and water guns are all included. Now I don't mind a water fight between friends, especially since it's summer and hot, but to me there are several things very wrong with this little custom.
1. It can be dangerous. Kids throw water balloons at passing buses and cars, and Dr. Tony says he has known them to shatter the windows. And water balloons thrown at people on the streets can hurt. (See story below.)
2. It is disrespectful. In Lima, the throwing can include paint as well as water; here in the suburbs it is a little calmer, and they stick with grass clippings in their buckets of water. Not to mention the fact that they do it to complete strangers who may not want to be soaked!
3. It is a battle of the sexes. Boys soak girls and girls soak boys; when we took the kids to the park for the first time in February, some of the male volunteers were very sternly lectued by the boys for being traitors and thowing balloons at them instead of the girls. Now this is not a bad thing when there are plenty of boys and girls all throwing water at each other, like when we all go to the park together from the house. But what happens in practice is that groups of boys roam the streets targeting girls to soak. Last week, Catherine and I were coming back from the Intenet cafe in the evening and we decided to take the back road through the pretty, quiet suburban neighborhood... or so we thought. We didn't even notice that there were eight or ten teenage guys nearby until we had passed them, and suddenly they yelled, Now! Let's go! and ran toward us with water balloons and buckets. One of them came up three feet behind me and pegged me straight in the butt with a baloon. I couldn't believe it. They tossed a bucket of water and grass clippings all over us, which Catherine got most of, and there were balloons exploding eveywhere around us. We didn't want to scream and run, but we basically had nothing else to do. These were not little kids; they were young men in their late teens, ten of them, laughing and soaking us as we stuggled to comprehend the situation and remember our Spanish curse words and failed at both. We half-ran away and quickly turned back to the main road, where we have not had problems so far.
It was kind of a scary feeling because we were really helpless, but I was more ouraged than afraid. It was not a water fight because we had no water; it would not have been fair even if we had had water because they were ten young men and we are two women. It was absolutely sexual harrassment because he hit me in the butt with the balloon. But what really set me off was how the kids laughed at it when we got back. Incensed, I told my story about how they attacked us ten to two and hit me in the behind, and one of the boys said, Oh yeah, the girls always hope the water doesn't get them here! and pointed to his chest. I don't have time right now to go into how this mentality really really scares me. Suffice it to say that it shows how the machismo of this culture, the objectifying of women, goes waaay deeper than I'd thought, and you'll never convince me that this water-throwing is unconnected to the early sexualizing of young Latina girls and the issues with respect for women here. The kids try to tell me that it's a two-sided battle and that girls throw water too, but you don't see groups of girls roaming the streets and hitting solitary boys in the crotch with water balloons. That's all I'll say. I was ranting angrily about it all night, but the kids were all laughing, and what troubles me is that I don't know if I can make them see why it's a problem.
Anyway... rant over for now. The next day in the park, I got out a lot of my anger by pegging one of the more obnoxious boys in the house with a balloon--while he was running, too. It was very satisfying. Especially because he hit me first with two balloons and then sprayed me and the other girls with the hose, after I told him I wasn't playing. To their credit, John and Victor, the American volunteers, were very suppotive in equalizing the playing field a bit among the kids and chasing down the more troublesome boys so that the girls could have a chance at hitting them. Sheesh.
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