Noone Said Anything About Climbing a Mountain - Lomas de Carabayllo The JESHNI Project

On Saturday we met Nelson Figueroa at a local church and we took his Nissan pick up about an hour up the Pan-American Highway. This is the highway that runs south all the way to Chile and going north will take you all the way to Mexico, according to Nelson. I hoped we weren't going to try to find out. We stopped for a quick lunch at a roadside restaurant. Most restaurants in Peru have what they call Menus (pronounced menoos) which is a selction of meals (appetizer, entree, and drink) for around 4-5 dollars. Remember the entree always comes with both rice and potatoes or it is not Peru. Vegetables? Isn't a potato a vegetable? I know it isn't, but I digress...The restaruant served tipica Peruvian food. I had the lamb ribs...when I asked what it was they said it is the side and pointed to their ribs. When my plate came it was a huge hunk of bone and a little meat that looked like it should have been on Fred Flinstone's plate and not mine. It was good though. !Que Rica! (How tasty!)

Finally, we were back on the Pan-American highway and off to Lomas de Carabayllo. It is the desert at the foothills of the mountains. The mountains will come into play in a minute not to worry. Nelson stopped to pick up a bottle of Pepsi and some bread for a snack later. So on to Lomas...to describe it...desolation and poverty in a dust bowl. There is no electricity or running water. Nelson said that these big trucks bring water in and will sell it to the residents and it is not clean water, but it is all they have. We were passed by one of the big tanker trucks. Nelson said that they pay three times as many Soles ($$) for a portion of dirty water than he does for municipal water in Lima. Needless to say there are a lot of GI issues in Loma. To make money a lot of the men young and old travel to Lima looking for work. They ride a bus sometimes 2-2.5 hours one way, even though it only took us an hour by private car. The women and children work sorting garbage that comes from Lima and is dumped. They rumage through piles of human waste and debris with bare hands looking for things that can be recycled. It is dangerous for their health and well being, but it makes them money. They at most earn about a dollar a day.

I forgot to tell you who Nelson is. Nelson Figueroa works with a youth group in Lomas called the JESHNI project. He drives from Lima across the RIMAC river two or three times a week to spend time with this youth group that he has helped to create. They have a little center there where they do workshops on everything from self-esteem to environmental issues and sustainability which is Nelson's new passion. They also have been learning about and have created a radio station. Currently they are learning about the Bosque or desert forest that is toward the mountains. We learned a lot about it too, because Nelson, the youth, Rachel, James, and I made the trek up to the bosque which is an ecological preserve. There is a sign that says it is, but Nelson says it has not been made official. He said the mayor campaigned on it, but has fallen short. He said there are some 150 species of insects and critters that live here. There were two men with large sprayers strapped to their backs that said we were not allowed to go any further up the mountain. They asked us who we were, and Nelson stepped forward and said "No, who are you? This is a reserve. That, that poison you are spreading is going to kill what we are trying to protect." They went back to their work and let us pass, no harm.

Oh! This is where the side of a mountain comes in. We knew we were going to a forest preserve to "hang out" with Nelson and the youth, but no one said we had to trek up the side of mountain. AHHHH!! But we did, and we had fun. All in the name of building relationships. I got to know Nelson F., Luis, Jasmin, Eddie, and Joel a whole lot better. We even stopped to break bread (literally) and drink Pepsi together on the trail. Good times! I am glad Nelson works with these youth, and they seem to enjoy working with him. The work Nelson does with the JESHNI project is coordinated through RED the Joining Hands Network in Peru.