Welcome to the Jungle

18 months ago, when I first decided to live in South America, my two travel goals were to visit Buenos Aires and the Galapagos Islands. This was before I realized how expensive both would be to visit, even from Peru. (Tourism to major destinations in South America is still somewhat of a luxury item, reserved for businessmen and foreigners.) What has turned out to be a lot more cost-effective, and adventurous, has been travel within Peru. Peru has lots of beaches, mountains, and ruins to visit, often with a smaller, cheaper tourist industry and more local flavor.

My friend Karen, a science teacher from New York, and I had first researched going to the Galapagos, but decided a tour of the Amazon would be far cheaper and just as packed with exotic animals. A Peruvian friend from the jungle told me I had to try this itinerary: a 16-hour bus (or 2 plane rides) to Tarapoto, followed by a van to Yurimaguas, where we could take a boat down the river for 2-3 days to Iquitos, and fly back from there. With images of The Motorcycle Diaries dancing through my brain, I decided to take Karen along with me on this voyage, and her friend Julie who also jumped at the opportunity.

There was only one catch. The jungle is a fun, but slightly lawless, place. In Peru it is almost seen as a separate country from the mountains and the coast, where most of the population and formal institutions are concentrated. In the jungle the gov't is nearly absent, illegal trade abounds, and "selvaticos" (people from the jungle) approach life with a casualness that borders on carelessness. (Case in point: everybody in the jungle rides motorcycles, but no one wears helmets or protective gear because "it's too hot".) So I asked my friend Lenin, a native of Moyobamba and a selvatico who's been living in Trujillo for the past 5 years, to come with us as our tour guide and bodyguard to keep us from getting ourselves completely lost or in trouble. He promised us a "Peruvian-style" tour, cheap and "a real adventure".

It would take too long to detail everything that happened, but it became an unforgettable trip. Over the next week we found ourselves without hot water, being eaten up by mosquitos, in close quarters with wild animals (and illegal animal products), being nearly swindled, riding to the airport in a "mototaxi" in such pouring rain that our luggage took a day and a half to dry, so coated in DEET and sunscreen that touching my camera made some of the button labels melt off, once covered in mud, usually covered in sweat, and on a few occasions in danger of landslides, piranha-infested waters, and generally unpredictable jungle conditions. However, we also saw pink dolphins, a wet sloth in our boat, an entire floating neighborhood right on the Amazon, and perhaps most memorably, an entire way of life that still exists in the Peruvian jungle (villagers paddling dugout canoes to market, workers carrying cargo barefoot with loads on their backs held in place by a strap across their foreheads, children swimming in the river as if it were their backyard).

Traveling "off the beaten track", especially in towns like Yurimaguas, is more than just "adventure travel" to me, especially after living in Peru for a year and befriending so many who are from the mountains and the jungle. The interior of the country is where lifestyles have changed the slowest, where the American fast food chains and Chilean department stores of Lima (and now Trujillo) have not yet replaced the village market or the street vendor. My friend Lenin told us ghost stories from the jungle and pointed out the woven palm roofs which reminded him of his grandmother's house, and we were transported to a completely different time and culture – one so exotic to a New Yorker, yet so palpable on this trip.

I can honestly say that the trip we made was a little too risky for me to recommend to any other American friends – and I'm somewhat relieved, because I know that the day the jungle becomes readily accessible and "safe" for tourists, it will have lost its distinctive charm. The jungle has actually undergone and survived one "cultural invasion" in the past, when the Spaniards pursued the Incas deep into the jungles to stamp them out, and both eventually intermingled with the population, forming cities and leaving behind a legacy of Spanish and Quechua speakers. I wonder if, fifty years from now, Lenin's grandchildren will still be able to swim in the rivers under a vibrant jungle canopy... or if they'll be living in sprawling cities doing deals on Wall Street instead.

Trip to the Peruvian Amazon

A few highlights from my recent trip to the birthplace of the Amazon River:

Navigating a jungle marsh...



Traditional way of calling for help in the jungle...



Freshwater dolphin sightings...






More to come on my trip in a future post...

Report on our Trip to Ica, Peru

Finally got to head down south again, and see the results of our project for ourselves! I think when I look back on my year in Peru, this earthquake relief effort will be rank as one of the projects I'm proudest of. Here's my official report on what we did last week.

*****

The team in front of a house with roofing provided by SBP.

On Thursday, February 7, a group representing the Misión Reformada en el Perú joined Sociedad Biblica Peruana on their eleventh voyage to the south, to deliver aid to the victims of the August 15 earthquake. The group from MRP consisted of Missionary Bill Bradford, Pastor and Administrator Jaime Avellaneda, Lawson Konvalinka of our Microfinance program, and Clara Lee in Communications. The group from SBP included project manager Manuel Ortiz, María Chamán, Fiorella Pomareda, and Sonia León from MISIUR.

The Misión Reformada en el Perú (MRP) is based in Trujillo, in the north of Peru. We had sent out a call for help to our supporters in the United States shortly after the earthquake, and Pastor Jaime Avellaneda had made two previous trips to the earthquake zone, but the mission was located too far away to execute an aid project. Therefore we decided to support Sociedad Biblica's project to bring aid to the rural regions of Castrovirreyna in Huancavelica, and the areas surrounding Ica. This was our first opportunity to join SBP on one of their voyages to see the impact that the project was having.

We left Lima around 5am in two rented 4x4 pickup trucks and drove south along the Panamericana Highway, passing more and more piles of rubble and empty lots where buildings had fallen down. It appeared that some cleanup had taken place, and water, roads and electricity all seemed to be back to normal, but not much reconstruction had actually been accomplished. We finally arrived in the town of San Jose de los Molinos outside of Ica around 10am. Here Manuel Ortiz, SBP's project manager, convened with the local authorities before we headed on to Galagarza, a farming community under the jurisdiction of San Jose de los Molinos.

The community consisted of a number of shelters made of woven straw mats and plastic sheets, held together by wooden poles. There were a few conspicuous new brick buildings, unfinished, which had been built by an NGO but were still lacking roofs. The residents told us our calaminas (corrugated metal roofing material) were an answer to prayer!

After a word of greeting and encouragement from Manuel and Fiorella Pomareda (also of SBP), we began to unload the truck and register the aid recipients. Each family had pre-registered with the municipal government to receive 30 square meters of calaminas, as well as a Bible and one blanket per child. Now they had to line up and sign the registry before receiving a ticket to claim their aid at the truck.

It was near midday, and the sun was blazing hot as the young men hired with the truck hauled nearly 1500 pieces of sheet metal and heavy bundles of blankets out for distribution. The team from MRP and SBP helped distribute Bibles, blankets and nails and took pictures of each recipient as an additional record-keeping measure. Most of the residents claiming their aid were women with children, some of them elderly; most of the men in the community were out working. There was also a crowd of children, teenagers and stray dogs gathered to watch the excitement.


After nearly five hours of distribution, we enjoyed some fresh watermelon and packed up the truck. Over 100 families had received roofing. As we gathered in a local bodega to eat a lunch prepared for us, about ten women filed in to thank us for bringing help. They particularly thanked us for the Bibles, and expressed their excitement at being able to read the word of God for themselves for the first time. Throughout the trip we were struck by the people's openness and desire for Bibles and Christian teaching. Perhaps the earthquake, with both the suffering and the aid that had followed, had opened their hearts to their need for God and for answers beyond this life.

Afterwards we visited a few more communities, some of them possibilities for future aid trips, before spending the night in Ica and heading back to Lima the next day. After seeing so much destruction, and so many people reduced to living in straw huts, we felt newly moved by the need there, as well as greatly encouraged by the organization, transparency, and foresight of Sociedad Biblica's project. To date nearly 900 families have received roofing, blankets and Bibles, many of them in time for the season of heavy rains. We thank God for this project, and for the honor of being a small part of His plan to restore the lives of the campesinos of Southern Peru.

Contrast the sheltering capabilities of a typical straw-and-plastic house...

...with a new sheet-metal roof.

Fun for No Money

I've commented in a previous blog entry that everything Americans do for fun costs money. In New York, for example, people hang out at restaurants, theaters and bars. (This is actually more of a necessity than an extravagance; they usually don't have the time to cook, the space to host in their crash-pad apartments, or live too far out in the outer boroughs, Jersey or Long Island, and end up "commuting" to social functions in Manhattan.)

Peruvians have some of the same hosting limitations, but don't have the financial resources to go out to eat whenever they want. Fortunately, when everybody's got limited cash, everyone has more incentive to get creative, and usually no one makes plans that cost more than about 5 soles ($1.75) without warning everyone in advance or finding ways to cover those who can't pay. Some examples of creative ways to have fun for little (or no) money:

• Take up a collection (pass the hat!) to split on a group meal, such as a pizza or a whole rotisserie chicken.
• Cook for everyone, and take up a collection afterward for the cost of the groceries (usually quite cheap. This is also, by the way, how most fundraisers here are done).
• A good old-fashioned game of fulbito (that's football/soccer, modified to play on a neighborhood basketball court).
  
• Stuff 6 people to a cab, or take public transportation, to the beach or other hangout (and bring lunch with you).
• Buy a bootleg karaoke DVD (~$1) and invite everyone over to your house to enjoy some classics of Latin pop, rock or reggaeton.
• Invite everyone over to your house for a party and play someone's bootleg MP3's, or throw a "pijamada" (a slumber party, which is surprisingly popular among adult women here, probably because it costs little or no money).

The classic example of fun for no money, however, is the Peruvian birthday party. I've been to a bunch of them, either for other American interns within the mission or for Peruvian friends from the local churches, and together they have caused me more culture shock than any wedding, church service, or other social function I can think of!

For one thing, they're often spontaneous, usually planned the day of. As in, "Hey, it's so-and-so's birthday, let's all go to so-and-so's house tonight, the more the merrier..." In New York you need to plan a month in advance if you want anyone to show up, and even so half your guest list will be working late or out of town. Also, Peruvian birthday parties start late and end even later (staying til midnight is traditional), and it's rude to leave early!

Second, almost none of the parties I've been to had gifts. It's simply not expected! Some people dress up a little, but many wear the same outfit you see them in every other day. Third, everyone always sits in a big circle. You walk in, greet every single person in the room with a handshake or a kiss on the cheek, and take a seat in one of the chairs lined up against the wall. You may try to make polite conversation with the people near you, or you may just talk across the room until whoever's serving as the emcee gets up, and the games begin.

The games, by the way, are the fullest expression of fun for no money. A game may involve anything from drawing an embarrassing task out of a hat (like getting down on one knee to "declare your love" to whoever the emcee feels like picking on that night), to "mind volleyball" where you call out people's names and they respond by calling out the next person's without missing a beat, to the "hueco", a physical game like musical chairs but more fun. One game involves borrowing two people's sweaters or neckties, and having a "race" to see when the second sweater (which each person must tie around their neck once, then pass it on) will catch up with the first sweater (which each person must double-knot and untie before passing it on, thereby traveling slower). Another game involves tossing a glove around the circle, to which the recipient responds, "Por qué me tiras el guante?" (Why did you throw me the glove?), to which the thrower must think of something clever to say which rhymes with glove, or "guante". (This game would be more fun if I knew Spanish well enough to be clever, or to understand others' clever remarks.)

The purpose of all of these games is not to win, but to punish whoever loses. It's called the "castigo". Whoever messes up their line, or gets caught with the balloon, or the two sweaters, or gets caught out of their seat during the "hueco" game, has to undergo some sort of public humiliation. If you're lucky, you'll get off with doing a little dance where you have to shake your tailfeather (or "colita"); if you're not you may end up blindfolded and undergoing a prank, or forced to leave the room while the emcee points to random people saying, "Do you want to marry him? How about him?" while you call out every insult and embarrassing reason you can think of, much to the delight of everyone in the room.

Obviously these games get very silly, and these parties in general are the polar opposite of the trendy dinner-and-drinks birthday parties that are popular in New York. I don't very much like getting "punished" in the ways described above, but I can also see how we New Yorkers or Westerners have become so image-conscious that we've lost the ability to be silly & embarrass ourselves in front of people (which it turns out is a very effective group-bonding mechanism). These parties also include everyone present from start to finish, instead of leaving guests on their own, to form cliques or choose who they want to talk to, often leaving out the rest.

Among the other embarrassing birthday traditions here are the "huevo" - cracking a raw egg on the birthday boy or girl's head - and the "mordida", making the birthday boy or girl take a bite out of the cake after blowing out the candles, and while in mid-bite, partially shoving it in their face. Cruel, or all in good fun? It all depends on how self-conscious, and individualistic vs. group-oriented, you are.

A final aspect of these parties is the speech-making. Toward the end of the party, everyone goes around in a circle sharing some personal sentiments about the birthday boy or girl. Sometimes these are pretty contrived, but sometimes they are truly touching or sweet.

At the end of the day, despite the risk of getting "punished" or feeling lost in the midst of all the chatter and joking in Spanish, I find myself looking forward to these social gatherings, and I often leave feeling a little closer to my group of friends here in Peru, and only a few soles poorer.


***Note: Since posting this blog, I have been told that the games described above are a feature of evangelical churches in Peru, not Peruvians in general, and that the custom of silly group activities may have been imported by Baptist missionaries! This is intriguing, because the Korean churches I grew up in also played silly games, which were not typical of Korean culture in general - might this also be the work of foreign missionaries? If anybody finds out, let me know...

Fun with Spanish

Two of my favorite words in Spanish are picar (to bite) and rico (rich), because they can be used in all kinds of colorful ways. Some examples (feel free to comment if I've got these wrong, or if you've got more):

1. "picar":

¡Se pica el ceviche!
This ceviche is tart/spicy! (The related picante is the word for spicy.)

Pica los tomates.
Chop up the tomatoes.

Me pica la piel.
My skin itches.

Las piedras pican mis pies.
These rocks are sharp (literally, "they're biting my feet").

Se pica el mar.
The sea is getting rough.

"Los Picapiedras"
The Flintstones!

2. "rico":

Que rica la comida.
This food is delicious.

Que rico vestido.
What a gorgeous dress.

¡Que rico tu bebé!
What an adorable baby!

Que rica la siesta.
That nap felt so good.

I know we have some versatile words in English, but the Spanish language in general strikes me as more malleable and playful. People here make jokes using puns all the time. I think the Brits have the same custom, but we Americans not so much.

Report on Earthquake Reconstruction Project, Five Months Later


(photos courtesy of Manuel Ortiz, earthquake project manager for SBP)

For those of you who remember Peru Mission's earthquake relief fund, following the earthquake which struck Southern Peru on August 15, there is progress to report. After our initial $1,000 aid run to Chincha (see my entry of August 28), we contacted various organizations within Peru whom we considered trustworthy to see what types of long-term reconstruction projects we could partner on. (There have unfortunately been many news reports of looting or hoarding donations, or of aid never reaching the affected regions, which I can only imagine are typical of disasters in less-developed countries with largely informal economies.)

We decided to join a coalition headed by the United Bible Society in Peru (Sociedad Biblica Peruana, or SBP for short), which hired a professional constructor within the church named Manuel Ortiz to scope out and complete an aid project. They decided to work in Huancavelica, a rural part of the mountains inland from the epicenter in Ica, which was much more difficult to access than the coastal cities of Chincha and Pisco and had consequently received much less attention and aid.

Peru Mission has raised just over $25,000 to date in our earthquake relief fund, and so far has spent about half that money on the project described in Manuel's report below, focusing on roofing material, blankets and Bibles. In the next few months we will spend the other half with SBP on expanding this project to other villages and/or follow-up trips to these 758 families.

Why roofing material? As far as I can tell, despite lavish promises from the government to provide everyone with a new home, even the cheapest pre-fabricated housing materials are prohibitively expensive to deliver to thousands of poor families. (How many Katrina victims are still without their own home?) So many of the poor have made the only practical choice within their means: rebuilding their own houses out of the same adobe that collapsed the first time around. With the rainy season rapidly approaching in the mountains, there's really no other option. The sheet-metal roofing which they are now receiving is a cost-effective way to make a marked improvement over their previous homes. Blankets and Bibles have also been distributed, and aid given to the local churches so that they can provide much-needed emotional and spiritual resources to the communities as well.

Our mission's administrator Pastor Jaime Avellaneda and I have remained in close touch with SBP, partly because we've been in Lima the most often. I've met with Manuel Ortiz in Lima at SBP's offices, got copies of his photos (see above), and personally seen the registries where each family has signed (or left a fingerprint) to show the receipt of their roofing materials and blankets. I've even been invited to join several of these mountain trips, which I've declined so far due to my health not being 100%. All in all I've been very impressed with their management of the project, and have learned that when it comes to foreign aid in a high-corruption context, it helps to have contacts through the local church or some other trustworthy body, the ability to follow-up, and meticulous documentation of everything that's taken place.

Below are translated portions of Manuel's latest report, sent on Dec. 28.

****

REPORT ON THE 8TH & 9TH TRIPS TO THE EMERGENCY ZONE OF ICA
SAN JOSE DE LOS MOLINOS
Dec. 28, 2007

Summary of families assisted:

• Tantara (Castrovirreyna, Huancavelica) = 222 Families; 27 Elderly or Disabled
• Chupamarca (Castrovirreyna, Huancavelica) = 165 Families; 28 Elderly or Disabled
• Ticrapo (Castrovirreyna, Huancavelica) = 265 Families; 53 Elderly or Disabled
• San José de los Molinos (ICA) = 171 Families, 26 Elderly or Disabled

In total we’ve assisted 758 Families and 119 elderly or disabled. We’ve exceeded our goal, thanks to our God!

Materials Delivered:

• Bibles (“Dios Habla Hoy”) = 760
• Devotionals (“Dios es nuestro Refugio y Fortaleza”) = 2,850
• Sheet metal roofing = 8,712 units (3 x 0.80 square meters each)
• Nails for metal roofing (2.5") = 501 Kgs.
• Heavyweight blankets, double bed size = 2,140

General objective:

It is important to note what has transpired during the two months since our first trip. During this time we have completed nine journeys total. The first three were for delivering humanitarian aid (food, blankets), after which the Peruvian Bible Society and the John Calvin Presbytery of Lima decided upon the project objective: to assist 500 families, delivering to each one 30 square meters of sheet metal roofing for their roofs, plus blankets, Bibles and devotionals.

The main objective has now been completed. We express our gratitude to our God for accompanying us in all of these journeys and for giving us the opportunity to serve and bring words of comfort and support to the families affected by the earthquake, in the following areas of Huancavelica (a rural mountainous region in southern Peru) and Ica: Tantará, Chupamarca and Ticrapo; and San José de los Molinos.

Report on the [Latest] Trip to los Molinos:

• Departure: Saturday Dec. 22, 2007, 05:00 pm.
• Return: Sunday Dec. 23, 2007, 11.00 pm
• Distance covered: 795 Kms

Trip objective:

• To deliver 13 pieces of sheet metal to each family affected by the earthquake, who are registered with the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní
• To deliver thick blankets for the cold to each family affected by the earthquake, according to the number of children registered in the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní
• To deliver Bibles and devotionals to each person affected by the earthquake, as well as schoolteachers and local authorities in the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní
• To make contact with the villages of the district which have not yet received aid, and to verify if other people affected by the earthquake have not been helped with their most urgent needs.

Narrative:

As mentioned in the above paragraphs, after a trip to verify and confirm the situation in the towns of San José de los Molinos, we coordinated with the mayor to deliver sheet metal, blankets, Bibles and devotionals to the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní.

The team left for Ica on Saturday Dec. 22 and stopped overnight before making the climb to Los Molinos early on Sunday Dec. 23, so that as arranged with the authorities, the affected families would be waiting at 10am. Before arriving in Casa Blanca and Huamaní, we had a meeting with Mayor Felix Escobar and the Deputy Mayor and his advisors, to draft a statement of our presence.

Our first point of delivery of the sheet metal, blankets, Bibles & devotionals was in Casa Blanca, where all of the houses were destroyed by the earthquake. We delivered items to 91 families; we also delivered 30 pieces of sheet metal and 10 Bibles to the local Assemblies of God church.

The following destination was Huamani, another town where the adobe houses had collapsed. We delivered items to 106 affected families. In this town we could not aid the local Catholic church [with roofing] because part of its structure had been knocked down.

Conclusions:

Assignment completed. As you can see in this report, we’ve surpassed our objective of assisting 500 affected families, and we give thanks to our Creator for having been so generous as to assist more than 758 families, and for having watched over our travels to different parts of the Andes over difficult or dangerous roads.

We also give thanks to our God and Father for providing people, directly or indirectly, who’ve collaborated in this project with their donations, time, and prayers.

Glory be to our God!

Faithfully Yours,

Juan Manuel Ortiz Guzmán
PROYECTO DE EMERGENCIA
Sociedad Biblica Peruana, A.C.

Thoughts on Coming Home

I am currently wrapping up a three-week "furlough", as we refer to trips back to the States, and have found being back home both comfortingly familiar and oddly strange. It's as if I'm slipping easily back into old ways, but seeing them with new eyes, now that I have something completely different to compare them with.

Here are some of my most honest first impressions upon coming home and spending time in both Houston and New York:

• I find myself gawking like any immigrant at how clean, shiny, glistening & modern everything looks: roads, cars, buildings, the electronic gadgets that are literally everywhere...
• It's striking how many different ethnicities there are, and also distinct styles or subcultures. In Peru most people dress pretty simply; here you have everything from gangster chic, to baggy & grungy, to stylish and professional. (I remember this struck me in Santiago also - there seems to be much greater emphasis on and variety in fashion in a developed country.)
• Americans (or estadounidenses to be more precise) keep to themselves and don't interact with strangers much, particularly people of other races and classes. In contrast, Peruvians don't interact much across class lines, but absolutely love talking to foreigners. (I am also newly aware of the Latino immigrant community, who are everywhere, mostly in service positions.)
• The infrastructure here is amazing: transportation, communication, & technology are all available, efficient, easy, relatively safe & cheap! And the indoor heating, safe-to-drink tap water and 24/7 hot running water truly make me feel much less likely to get sick or have health problems (which of course means people get more work done and take less time off - one of the subtle ways that a rich society can keep perpetuating its own success).
• The negative side of wealth: it isolates. How can you have a sense of community when everyone drives around in their own car, has their own house or condo, and spends their spare time shopping, watching TV & surfing their hi-speed Internet? Especially after living in a more traditional society, this strikes me as really unnatural.
• Marketing and commercialization are literally everywhere. So are legal disclaimers. As my friend Andrew reminds me, the US would not be the biggest economy in the world if it wasn't also selling and marketing all kinds of unnecessary products!
• On a related note, nearly all enjoyment here requires spending money. No wonder making money is such a national obsession, and saving so painful, and debt so common! I hope, when I move back to the States, to do more activities with my friends that cost no money; good old activities which are now probably considered nerdy, like conversation, book clubs, or board games.
  
• The food... It is so convenient, yet so unnatural. How bizarre that most of what we buy at the supermarket has traveled long distances, uses preservatives or hormones, and comes in wasteful packaging. I realize that Americans are willing to pay a premium on convenience and on exotic goods, and that globalization, specialization, and corporate farming (and subsidies) make food a lot cheaper, but at some point the old-fashioned village market, where farmers & traders bring their fresh, natural, local wares to sell to their neighbors, just makes more sense and seems less... well, odd!
• Beauty & image - way more emphasized here. In Peru a much broader range of women are considered good-looking. It appears that more developed countries do get more self-conscious about image. I listened almost in shock as some of my most beautiful friends ticked off worries about their appearance.
• Despite the increasing diversity of the US, especially in the urban areas, we are still very much a country of Anglo heritage. People are definitely more tactful/repressed, or can't speak as frankly or jokingly on as wide a range of subjects, as Peruvians.
• Elevator music is everywhere. One of the most tangible differences for me between the US & Peru is the kind of music you hear in places like cabs, stores & people's homes. Goodbye cumbia, chicha, salsa & Latin dancehall - hello canned jazz!

Over all, I have a newfound appreciation for the immigrant experience - both the rich culture & community they leave behind, and the strong pull of economic opportunity in the US. Who wouldn't want their kids to be safer, have better education, and be almost guaranteed a job if they work hard? At the same time I can see how much is lost in the process of becoming American, and how culture shock, language barriers, and raising children who don't understand you can become a lifelong (and lonely) part of the immigrant experience.