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 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
