Sorry for the delay in posting these blogs. There is good and bad in writing these blogs well after the fact.
The bad: I am removed for the moment. I am not writing from the point of view of “as it happens”. Now my thoughts are different from before. I don’t remember some things, and with time I am interpreting what has happened.
The good: One of the struggles of a trip like this is the struggle of how to integrate all the experiences and learns into who I am. By coming back to these stories now to write them, it is giving me opportunity to take real pause and re-examine what I experienced and how I can integrate it into my world view.
ELVIS AND MY MOTHER
Sometimes change happens in our lives where we make real growth. Where we feel like completely different people, but because of the nature of the change is so small there is no way the rest of the world could understand.
I saw one of those moments in Peru, where someone over came something that to the outside world would look little or nothing, but was a huge thing.
Wednesday Thursday, and Friday nights mass is said at one of three barrio chapels. As we were walking to mass on of these nights, my mother and I were talking to Elvis. (Yes, that is his real name. No, it is not that Elvis.) Elvis works for the parish and is a great guy. He was so happy the first time we saw him that I had remembered his name.
I was explaining to my mother how hard Elvis was working on his English. My mother volunteers at an ESL program and she immediately said, “Great! Let’s practice right now.”
For the remainder of the walk to mass my mother made him speak English. “Tell me about your family…Tell me about the work you do…”
Once we got to the chapel we took our seats and Elvis off to help the lectors get ready. A few moments later Elvis came over to my mother and pointed out where his family was sitting (wife and three kids).
In a moment my mother jumped to her feet and said, “Introduce me. I want to sit with them for mass.”
And off my mother went.
It may not seem like a bid thing.
It was a BIG thing.
To see her confidence and comfort.
So far from home
With people she didn’t know.
In a language she doesn’t speak.
Sometimes small steps are signs of big change.
THE BURDEN OF THE TRANSLATORS
My Spanish isn’t very good.
Really it is bad.
I can survive as a tourist.
I can get a cab, order food, find a bathroom, and make a hotel reservation.
But not much more than that.
There were three people in our group who speak better Spanish than I do. And it was a good thing we had them with us. It made everything so much easier for us.
But being a translator carried a burden the rest of the group didn’t see.
One member of our group, Kim, speaks great Spanish. She studied in Spain in college and now works in a place where the whole staff speaks Spanish.
She was our life savor.
We spent three days in homes doing work. There were many times our translator was called upon to help us understand what was needed and to communicate what we going to do.
The locals quickly figured who understood and they would talk Kim all the time.
A conversation would go like this:
Gene: Ask them what we are supposed to do.
Kim: [in Spanish "what do we need to do]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Local: [Spanish Spanish Spanish]
Kim: [Spanish Spanish Spanish], OK
Kim: We need to put a wall here, dig a hole…
What the rest of the group didn’t understand is the local wasn’t just telling Kim where to put the walls we were building. They were also pointing out the bed that need to be replaced, the sewer system that was having problems, and the kitchen that didn’t have a stove.
None of those needs were ever translated for the group. Kim only shared the pertinent information. We only got the information we need for work.
Because of these we were insolated from some of the needs.
Not Kim. She was asked over and over again for basic needs.
I can’t image how much harder it was for her to be asked again and again.
CEMETERY OF THE POOR
One of our stops in town was the cemetery of the poor. This was land that the city allowed anyone to be buried in for free. It was a sandy dune on the edge of town down wind from the iron factory (which is producing that lovely orange cloud).
The only cost is for the gravedigger who meets the family at the plot with the body. He doesn’t start digging until the body is there because the ground is all sand. If he starts digging too soon all the sand falls in on his whole.
The tombstones are to pieces of driftwood nailed together. Which over time break down in the sea breeze.
ART
Not all of Chimbote is like the neighborhood we were in. Not all of Peru is like Chimbote. It is not all poverty.
We encountered two very cool artiest (in tangential ways) while in Peru.
On the bus there was a short video about the Peruvian band Novalima. They play an afro-peruvian style. I love it. You can find then on iTunes.
In a very funky clothing store in Lima there was an exhibit of a local artist Javier Amos Cucho. I bought two of his painting and my mother bought one at criminally low prices.