February 29, 2000
Well, it's kind of shocking, but it
will be six weeks tomorrow since I stepped on the plane. Time has
gone really fast in some senses, but in others it feels like WHEW, so
much has happened. I was thinking the other day, though, on the way
down from Pamparomas to Moro (a lovely road, appropriately titled "14
curves" - I'll leave the rest to your imagination) that I LOVE IT
HERE. The pace of life is... so different. At times fast, at times
slow (waiting for the bus for example...). But it has a totally
different flavour. Raw. Embrasive. Full of potatoes.
I just wanted to thank all of you
once again for your support for me being here. In prayers (keep them
coming), letters (some of you are amazing, others... I'm still
hoping), money (thank you SO MUCH ST.JOSEPH's Parish - you are truly
wonderful), friendship.
Sometimes I miss you guys so much I
can feel your arms around me hugging me. Other times (and you get a
lot of time to think when no one around you speaks your language) I
am nearly crying with laughter remembering some escapade or
other.
Well, three weeks up in the
mountains. Where to begin? The hilarious thing is that "the cold" up
in the mountains is like a Canadian spring time. So I'm in a long
sleeve shirt, and everyone else is in two sweaters and a winter
jacket! I must say that between Father David and I, they believe all
Canadians are crazily warm-blooded (warning to any Canadian's who
decide to visit me, you have quite the reputation to live up to!).
It does get a lot colder if you go
higher up. I started out in Pamparomas (the district capital), which
is at 2800 metres and that was fine, but then I went for 10 days to a
village at 3500 m to see what it is like to live in a village in
Peru.
For the first 7 days, we had
incredible sunshine (and this is supposedly the rainy season) - I
burnt my nose. Then it rained for a couple of afternoons, and the
whole family was huddled around the fire, waiting to go to bed.
Basically we'd eat, cook, or sleep. Me, the minimal hours sleeper,
was totally loving my 10-12 hour nights (and my sleeping bag
too).
It was quite something to live in the
village. A lot like africa in some ways, mud huts with thatched roofs
(but adobe lasts a lot longer than in Ghana, apparently up to 40 or
50 years), but really different in others. A lot more of a solitary,
secluded lifestyle. Everyone going their separate ways, to farm, or
to put sheep or burros to pasture, and not so much working together.
The first day I was there I went with
Senora to farm potatoes, and we left her 6 year old in charge of the
2 year old (taking the 8 and 4 year old with us). It was an
incredible family that I was living with. David told Natividad (the
father, about 30) that I wanted to see what it was really like, and
that I wanted to eat with them in the kitchen (they have this strange
custom of feeding guests alone in another room), and sleep on the
floor.
So I got to help cook (I have never
peeled so many potatoes in my life - EVERY MEAL), do laundry (there
are some whites I just can't get white), weed... Senora was great,
she was 26 and supposedly didn't speak much Spanish (it's almost pure
Quechua up there, some of the men speak Spanish, but most of the
women don't), but she actually understood a lot, and she has a
spectacular sense of humour.
And her kids were hilarious. The
youngest two would fall asleep while eating dinner, and then cry when
you took the bowl out of their hands, and we'd laugh and laugh... And
the one time I took a TINY bite of this hot pepper which they'd been
dipping into their soups, and WOW, MY MOUTH WAS ON FIRE, and Senora
laughed for half an hour. And one day we walked to this other
village, about 40 minutes away, and she had to carry back a huge sack
of rice, and I carried it back part of the way (they tie eveything on
their back, under one shoulder, over the other) - it was really neat
the way she'd let me (try to) help.
And the kids were great. Lots of
playing, tossing them in the air (they weigh NOTHING - it's the
mainly potatoes diet I think, the kids are all really short),
building houses and structures out of slate, making plastic bags into
hats or shoes... really simple, beautiful games. And I think the
reason I like playing with kids so much is that I'm on their level.
It doesn't matter that I can't speak, I still have actions and
smiles. It was a really interesting experience on the whole because I
understood so little of Quechua. When we went into the village in
Ghana, I already knew more of the language, and I think Quechua is
harder. Reallly hard to remember the words, they don't sound like any
word in any language that I know. Mix between German and Chinese. So
I felt like I was in a L'Arche home, as one of the core (disabled)
members. Only actions and smiles until Natividad came home, and then
I could speak Spanish.
And it was strange for me too that
the Quechua culture is quite reserved. I think part of the problem
was that with my short hair and pants (I soon changed to skirts) I
think the women thought I was a man (and apparently it's kind of a
no- no to talk to a man without your husband's permission); but in
any case it took a few days for people to even greet me. So it was
lonelier than I expected. Which shed a whole new light on my time
here. I came here expecting to go to some remote village and teach,
and this made me seriously question that on several counts. Language
factor first off, I need to learn Spanish fluently (although it is
going very well), and I don't know if there's enough people who speak
Spanish in the village to help me learn. And I think it could get
pretty lonely, being as it's such a solitary culture (the men do get
together in the evenings to play in their brass band - it's quite
funny how every village has one, but the women always stay home to
look after the kids).
So then I went for a week to hang
out/ help the agricultural engineers to see what they do (David
wanted me to work with them more than anything). Also quite the
week.
How to describe the engineers. You've
got Zosimo, a quiet, intensely honest, gentle slightly older engineer
who is the only other person with a driver's licence, but who is not
very confident in his driving skills (so you can guess who drove...
it's amazing what skills carry over from my past life.. I never would
have thought driving would be one of my most valued talents! That and
Microsoft Excel, thank you atmospheric science!); and then there's
Maneses, an intense, headstrong, (but good humoured) veterinarian
with whom I've already clashed (in a good way, or so David says); and
there was Maza (his contract is unfortunately over) this hilarious
civil engineer who is also quite cute (and can you tell Mel was
wondering if Monique's prediction was going to come true) but then I
found out he was unfortunately quite machista!
Quite the thing, how machista some of
the men can be. I can accept it more in the village, where we're
talking centuries of tradition, and little education. But when we
have guys who've been to university and are supposedly the most
educated of Peru!
Aiee! I had a short spaz at several
of them on Friday. You see we were giving a course on how to make
cheese in two different villages all week. There were several women
and one man (yet another engineer) who came to give the course, and
as well as me, there were four practicum students from a nearby
university. Well the first three days, the girls basically cooked and
missed the course entirely. So when the second course roles around
(and we've already commiserated on the quality of the men... the
reason why the 30 year old is determined to stay single) I decide
it's definitely time for the men to take their turn.
So I tell them this, and some of them
don't want to cook ("don't know how....") so I tell them point blank
they have no choice, and then tell a couple people in charge that the
men need encouragement... at the end of the day, they helped. Course
I had to arm wrestle Maza to do it (and I WON!!! It was hysterically
funny. On the tailgate of the truck, with all the kids of the village
watching!)
But all in all it was a good week.
Made good friends with all the people giving the cheese course.
Everyone is incredibly friendly here. All inviting me to visit them
in their houses in the various cities. It was amazing how welcomed I
felt. We had a dance party the night before they all left in the
office (pulled out David's ghettoblaster, pushed back the table), and
it was hilarious.
There are several differnet reagional
dances, all very cloppy (from the knee down) - you can never tell
who's going to be an amazing dancer. It could be the 40 year old
chubby engineer. And they kept on telling me to dance with him, or
with him, he's still wearing his jacket... And yet I never felt like
I was being made fun of, just encouraged. It was hilarious the police
commisioner came in, and I went up to him "Shami shea" (come man!)
Everyone was rolling on the floor, and the poor guy looked quite
shocked!
And I've kind of decided what I'm
going to do! it started froma realization I had when I first came
here and went on a walk by myself that the people who I most wanted
to talk to, and felt the least threatened by, were the women. So
although it's going to be tough, because of language difficulties, I
am going to try to work with the various groups on the various
projects they are doing with the women.
It fits in with the engineers work
(the social aspect), and with Caritas (the development branch of the
Catholic Church). I met the Caritas worker on the cheese course. We
really got along, and she's doing follow up on the cheese course, and
then a course on women's reproductive and sexual rights, and then on
violence against women (a HUGE TOPIC in Peru right now). So we'll see
how it all works out.
I imagine I'll be a little bit at a
loss at first, but then too busy to speak later on! The cool thing is
that I get my own project and get to design my own schedule a bit;
and there are no women really working in the area so I think there is
a need there. For the first while at least...we'll see how it
goes.
Sad news too. Lucho, the Peruvian
priest who works with David (they are a hilarious pair) is getting
moved to a tiny place for very political reasons (mainly because he
spoke out against the huge propaganda campaign of Fujimori to get
re-elected... and it's working too, I was shocked in the mountains
how all the campesinos are totally behind Fujimori).
To top it off, he's getting sent
there with a seminarian (who doesn't get any living allowance at all)
on $50 a month! Two people on $50! I mean even if this is Peru, you
can't eat on that. (Don't worry, we won't let him starve). Justice
sometimes seems very far away.
Anyway, this e-mail is getting quite
long enough, even for once every three weeks. It's quite funny really
that I have to make a 2 hour trip (one way) to get to the
phone/e-mail. I hope you all feel really lucky as you read this at
home or school!
Thank you to all who have wrote me
letters. I have a request, or actually a couple. Some very blessed
person sent me a chocolate bar and made my WEEK, and so I discovered
that if something is in an envelope, it'll come in the mailbox, and I
won't have to go through the 2.5 hour customs run around (they make
you go halfway across the city for a signature and come back), so if
any of you are feeling particularly benevolent, I would LOVE SOME
GOOD CHOCOLATE!!!
The other thing I would love is some
tapes of relatively modern music. I don't really care what of, just
something later than early to mid-80's lovesongs! Aiee... I feel like
I'm in gr. 6! Although no Dave Matthew's Band! Oh yeah, and when I'm
down at the coast, there's an oven, and although I haven't located
baking powder I'm still hopeful... So if any of you have good cake or
bread recipes and could e-mail them to me (banana bread in
particular)...
The food is pretty good actually,
although I do miss Canadian cooking. There are hardly any vegetables
to speak of in the mountains, and then someone found someone who was
growing lettuce and carrots, and told the kids to bring me some. They
brought me like 20 heads of lettuce and 3 kg of carrots!
YIKES!
Anyways,
Love you all lots,
Big hug
Please write
Mel