Monday, June 27, 2011

Amigos de Volkswagon Peru

Yesterday Milagros and her husband Jose Carlos invited me to attend a "desfile de sapos" in Ayacucho. When I first arrived in Peru I would have said what in the world is a sapo? After having been in Peru for ten months I know that a SAPO is a frog or what the Peruvians call the Volkswagon Beetle (car). In Peru the Sapo is king. They are everywhere. My host family said because they are affordable. They said you can secure one for about 2,000 USD.



So Milagros and Jose Carlos have a beige sapo. I kept calling it the SAPO de ORO or the Gold one but Jose told me that when they got it, it was certified as "the Sapo Beige".

Sunday morning we all gathered at a local park with some others. They were actually a Sapo Club called the Amigos de Volkswagon Peru or the Friends of the Volkswagon, Peru. Pretty official with stickers and other paraphanalia and even little flags for their SAPOS. Oh! If you see a SAPO you are supposed to say SAPO! and lean over and pinch the person next to you. They couldn't get on board with the "punch buggie!!" So there were about 15 SAPOs in our parade and we made our rounds all over Ayacucho. Leading the pack was a 1968 model volkswagon, and we all followed doing a three toot horn salute...one calls and the others are to answer. I rode along with Roberto in his red SAPO. After the parade Milagros invited me, along with Sara and Kelsey (two other volunteers) to her house for lunch.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Cosecha de Papas in Remiapata





On Saturday morning, at 4 a.m. I met Celia´s (my host mom) brothers and sisters; Luz, Carlos, Irma, and Armando at the southern microbus terminal in Ayacucho. We were headed for the chakra or countryside also known as Remiapata. Celia and Paco were unable to travel with us because, well now we know, Isabel was going to make her triumphant appearance (birth) Saturday night. The road to Remiapata, which is south of Ayacucho, is a combination of paved, dirt, and rock roads. Many of these roads, especially the one directly in Remiapata, have been slightly washed out becasue of the rainy season, and never repaired. So for two and half hours we rode all crammed into a microbus to Remiapata. We traveled through some places I have been before; Condorcocha and Huarapite, and then approximately 2 Km beyond Huarapite is a little grove of trees overlooking a valley, and that is Remiapata. We got out of the bus and unloaded an unsightly amount of bags in front of the house, and then we waited. Mama Milchora peaked out and waved. It was sort of like the signal invite ¨Yes, welcome.¨ All around our feet pranced the dogs Paca, Pica Flor, and Wendy first barking like ¨Hey who are you? and then prancing with delight like ¨Welcome to our house!¨ ¨


I didn´t know this at first, but all the bags were a sort of ¨campo exchange¨ kind of like bartering. Mama Milchora, Celia´s mom, does not sell any of her potatoes, meat, or cheese. When the kids come from the city they bring things like pasta, sugar, rice, and fruit and they leave it with Mama Milchora in Remiapata. She in turn fills their bags to return to Ayacucho with potaotes, homemade Andean cheese, fresh milk, herbs, and meat of a cow or sheep. This is how the campo works. The honest trading to get what you do not have or need. It really sort of helps illustrate a form of partnership too; what can we do better together, than apart.





So when we arrived there were these fabulous smells coming from the rustic little kitchen house. I (of all things short) had to crouch down to get in the door. It is customary in the campo to have a hearty breakfast before going out to the chakra to harvest potatoes. Mama Milchora had prepared a breakfast of boiled fava beans and corn, hard boiled eggs, potatoes and fresh Andean cheese. Be sure not to fill up on all that, because those were breakfast appetizers. Next, was the hearty occa (like a cross between an apple and potato) soup and camomille tea made from the real flowers picked out back. I am not so sure how one is supposed to work after eating all that. I was tired and weighed down, the rest were raring to go. They kept saying ¨Eat up, Lisa.¨ Armando and Carlos headed out to the Chakra early, Irma and Luz headed to where the sheep were. Mama Milchora and I stayed at the house to milk cows and have her teach me how to make fresh Andean cheese (a.k.a fresh but unpasturized). Milchora had Sally and Brunsa the cows milked in no time flat, and brought the milk to the kitchen where she dumped in a little smidgen of her ¨cultures¨from a plastic pitcher hanging on the wall. She put the top back on the milk bucket and we waited. Milchora makes a molded cheese using woven straw straps and a bowl for the mold, as well as hand hewn patties of cheese. I ate more than my share of this cheese this weekend. It is fresh, salty-after its bath, and cold even though never refrigerated (Huh!?).


When Milchora and I had gathered some rations for lunch (i.e. the rest of the breakfast appetizers (favas, potatoes, and cheese) as well as some fruit and a liter of lemon lime soda we headed across the valley to the chakra or land where she cultivated potatoes. We were lead by the dogs and the cattle (remember Sally and Brunsa - they gotta eat). The cattle hung out on the outskirts of the potato field munching while we (the 6 of us) harvested the rest of the potatoes and occa that were still in the ground below the already harvested fava plants. The sun was horid and beat down all day. It was quite warm. That was just an inkling of the temps that were coming as the sun went down. We took a mid day break for a snack of favas, cheese, sprite, and potatoes. I sort of wanted to wash my hands, and while looking at them, Mama Milchora said ¨We do not wash our hands out here, we all came from the dust and that is how we will return!¨ How biblical. I was only slightly enthused, but hungry so I ate. When we had finished collecting all the potatoes and occa, we had to get the bags back across the valley without tractor or truck. I was hoping the cattle would help, but they were not interested. So 100 lb sacks were loaded on backs and away we went.


I went back to the house and Luz and Milchora set to work making a hearty soup of veggies and milk. NICE. It had already started to cool off, but that was only the begining. It gets frigid this time of year in the Andes, when the sun goes down. After supper we all sat around talking while seated on the log bench in the kitchen and realized it was time to get some sleep. Beds or Andean sleeping bags in Remiapata are sheep skins on the floor with multiple blankets on top, plus many layers of clothing. I was snug as a bug in a rug! It was soooo cold outside of my little sheep skin cacoon I had built. We all slept in one room, like a big Andean slumber party. Sheep skin rugs everywhere, and no bathroom...only nature.


Sunday morning I awoke to Armando, Luz, and Irma slaughtering a sheep the girls had brought back. EVERY part of that sheep would be put to use this day in Remiapata. Lunch/Brunch was going to be more potatoes but also caldo de cordero or sheep meat soup, sangracita(potatoes and blood and something else mixed and boiled), and chicharrone de tripe or fried sheep intestine. Not bad. Very conventional in the Andes. The skin and the legs of lamb were laid out in the sun. The legs would later find their way into each of our bags to take home. After the slaughter Armando poked his head in the kitchen and said¨Did you hear? Celia gave birth last night. It is a girl.¨ So we all passed the cell phone around the yard. I wasn´t in Ayacucho for Izzy´s arrival, but I was in the next place cooler...Remiapata.


So that is Remiapata. I know there is much more to this colorful landscape, but this is only my first trip. There are about 12 families that live there. There is a cemetery which is where Celia´s father is buried. He was one of the ¨disappeared¨from the internal conflict or violence of the 80s and 90s. He disappeared about 26years ago. His remains were found in communal grave two years ago. Luz, the youngest child at 27, told me that she was only one when he disappeared or was kidnapped. She never knew him or never had the chance to know him.


It was time for lunch, but it was also time to go. Armando had secured a ride for atleast two of us in a truck, the rest would end up waiting a few hours. So Mama Milchora put a lump of sheep meat from the soup in my hand and said ¨You gotta eat!¨So walking up the driveway I was gnawing on a sheep shank. We got to the truck and whatta you know? The driver was Wilber. I know Wilber, and he recognized me, from Paz y Esperanza. Wilber is the President of the Victims Association in Huarapite, whom we worked closely with to support them in the Sepillio Digno back in April. The truck was loaded with potaotes headed for Ayacucho, but there was room for two more and our stuff. So away we went. It only took us an hour and half to get home to Ayacucho. It took two and half to get to Remiapata. No comment.









Thursday, June 9, 2011

Some Quechua Words

I have been living in a Quechua speaking region for almost 10 months now. I have mentioned this language and its people alot in my blog entries so I thought I would give you a little glimpse into this language. The Quechua speaking people are the indigenous people of Peru, and distant decendants of the Inca. First, I am NO WHERE fluent enough to carry on a full conversation, but I understand alot more than I speak.

1. Quechua is generally a spoken or an oral language. It is not usually written down. That makes it even more challenging because you have to pay close attention to pronunciation.
2. The mamás (what the women call one another) are endeared to me and so proud when I can remember what they taught me the week before.
3. There is NO ¨O¨ sound in Quechua. It is usually replaced by an ¨u or oo¨sound. Like Franco the little boy that lives in my house is actually Francu or Francucha, instead of Franco.
4. When there is not a Quechua word for something, generally the spanish is used. That happens alot in the church, both Catholic and Protestant because one was brought by Spain the other by North Americans and Dutch Missionaries, no Quechua there.
5. Quechua is regional. So even within Peru, there are probably three or more dialects and vocabularies. For instance Cusco versus Ayacucho.
Also Quechua culture is practiced and the language is spoken in Ecuador and Bolivia.




So a little Quechua taste....
pucca - red bathroom - Ispakuna Wasi (literally the house in which urinate)
cuchi- pig Imaynayam Kachkani- How are you?
Imaynaym - what? Sutimi Lisa - My name is Lisa
wasi - house cachipa - queso or cheese
wawa - baby yumpay - mucho or alot
Imaynaym Sutiki - What is your name?
warmi - woman warmi kuna - women suma warmi - good looking woman
qari - man qari kuna - men
pisiwanquanyachu - nadie me faltera or I shall not be in want (Psalm 23)
Dios Taytayllay - God, the Father
Hamwe - come here

What happens at a Paz Y Esperanza GAM session?










So all year I have been accompanying the Mental Health Team from the regional office of Paz y Esperanza to the rural communities in the countryside around Ayacucho. While there we work with groups of women (and sometimes men) who have been affected in someway by the violence and internal armed conflict. Many people have asked me what we do in those groups. They are meant to provide a safe space for the affected people to learn about links in physical and mental health, support one anotherand walk in solidarity, process grief and feelings, as well as build a support network that will continue after we leave.
I thought I would give you all a glimpse into what one of these sessions looks like. First is location. In Loricocha we have been meeting at Mamá Rosalinda´s house, and in Cangari they have a community building up near the Catholic Church. Next is language. Most of the people victimized by both the Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path) and the Military´s counter insurgency where Quechua speaking people, therefore most of the people in our groups are Quechua speaking. Some of them speak both Quechua and Castellano or Spanish. Bye the way the spanish spoken in Peru is not Castillian Spanish, but they call it Castellano for giggles. The team utilizes Quechua though because for most of our groups this is their native tongue.
So this is what the fourth of eight sessions looks like. First there is a welcome and check-in to share feelings and what they have been doing and what has been happening in the community done by Milagros or Yudy as we gather in a circle. Then there is some sort of dynamica or icebreaker. Perúvians love a good icebreaker. The Cangari folks love to dance around.
Next, while in the circle, Yudy, Milagros or I will talk about negative feelings and that sometimes we have these. That negative feelings, like sadness, resentment, furiosity, and anger are part of our being human. We then open up the circle for the women and men to share some of their negative feelings and if they want to (usually they do) when they have felt these. The sharing is usually followed by some exploratory reflection.
Next, we bring out the newest PyE Team members, the titteres or puppets,and let the people give them names. There is Suzanna and Omar the people puppets, and Patricio and Como tú the Puppy Puppets. Yudy, Milagros, and I then put on a socio-drama for the group using the puppets. The basic theme is Omar and Suzanna (the people puppets) are fighting. Patrick the puppy wants to separate them, make them stop. He asks other puppets he meets along the way for help with this difficult situation, but everyone is too busy. ¨I need to eat, I am too skinny, their fight is not my problem anyway!¨ There are alot of Good Samaratain tie ins here to the previous session. Omar and Susanna´s fight grows so outrageous and physical that they fall into a fire that an older person is cooking on in the kitchen and the house goes up in flames, Omar, Susanna, and the older person parish. Patricio the Puppy explains, the next day, to his puppet friends that he asked for help, that he carried water back and forth all night to put out the flames. It is at this point that all the puppets want to help, and offer food, and their hands to help with the accompaniament and burial. Patricio closes out his narration by explaining ¨The mourners saw that we all suffer for not being supportive in difficult moments we all have to live at some point.¨
Then Milagros leads a group reflection. There is a reflection and exploration process after just about each component of the worshops or sessions. This makes things more than fun and games, but a place to begin processing feelings and memories. A place to start in moving from being a victim to a survivor of atrocities and events that happened 27 years ago. Some of the questions that guide this reflection of the puppet socio-drama are ¨What happened in the story?, Where did solidarity and support exist in this story?, and How can you help en a case of pain, suffering like what happened in this story?
The focus is confronting difficult situations, expressing feelings, and gauging solidarity and support within the group. This is important because we have 8 sessions together and then the group is to continue meeting on their own, utilizing the support and care skills they already had and the ones we explored together. The PyE Mental Health team does bi-annual follow-up visits with these groups.
To close out the session we engage in a group ritual. Each member writes down or illustrates their negative feelings or things they have holding inside on a small card. Then outside a small fire is lit, and as they leave they place their card on the fire as a symbolic way of expressing but also relieving some of their negative feelings, symbolizing leaving these feelings, and starting a new stage of life. Milagros, Yudy, and I accompany this ritual with words of hope, about mood, and to lift self esteem, but also about the feeling to work through this stage and leave it behind, inorder to begin a new one.


Finally, the session is closed out with each member checking in about how they are feeling. Then each member comes forward and makes a knot on the quipu signifying their attendance at this session. A quipu is an ancient Incan counting tool...a length of rope and various knots were used as a means of counting things like crops. It is much like a rope abicus.
Then we all share a communal meal that both the people and the PyE Team has brought elements of.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Visiting Florinda´s House

As a part of my week traveling with the San Gabriel Team I was pared up with Andrea and Betsy, who will be helping to train the local ¨Teachers¨who will then train the rest of the people utilizing the water from the water system. It sort of reminds me of the each one teach one method.
In order to get a better grasp on what they did and did not need to teach Andrea and Betsy, along with the local pastors, arranged a couple of home visits so they could see how the local people utilize water in their homes and where it comes from (as in a well, a spring, city water, etc.). It was really cool to be a part of this.
I wanted to comment on our visit in Huanta to Mama Florinda´s house. It is a bit of a ride from the center of town where the church is. Galmiel took us in his mototaxi. Mama Florinda lives on her parents land. She was an only child. It is a grove of avacado, granadia, and nispero trees set back off a dirt road, behind a sort of rickety wire gate. As you ¨shimmy¨up the incline and pass the gate BOOM you are met by trees bearing avacadoes as far as you can see.
Florinda´s daughter was there and met us halfway in. Apparently we caught them by surprise (darn it!) Florinda was off to the side by the water spicket washing and combing her hair. They were not so sure about letting us in because they didn´t have anything to offer us to eat. Everywhere you go in Perú people want to offer you something to eat or drink, how hospitable. Pastor Eber reassured them that we had just eaten and food was unessecary. So we passed on. Later, a bag of Granadias was brought out. They have a semi hard shell, about baseball size. You crack it open and under the pulp (like an orange) are these seeds covered with an amazing GOO. I would consider GOO in this case to be a technical term. You eat the wonderful GOO and seeds together. YUM..SLURP!
So we were probably there for about thirty minutes when the tension started to ease. It just happened. Florinda talked about their water coming from a sping up the mountain. Collectively they treat it with clorox. It arrives to the crops once a month through a system of canals on a roatoing basis, and through pipes up to an outdoor faucet all the time. That is the family´s communal fuacet. They collect water their for cooking, wash and bathe, as well as brush their teeth and wash clothing there as well. This is over to the sideyard, about 30 yards from the house, right next to the Cuy (guinea pig) dormitory.
Up at the house is where Florinda had set out some chairs and we sat and talked. While we were inside the house one of us, it may have been me, asked about the young man whose picture hung on the wall in prominence. Florinda´s daughter hung her head and said that is my brother, her only son. ¨He died 2 weeks ago in an accident.¨ Apparently, the young man had been traveling in a car back home. It was foggy, and the road was obscured. They got out to see what the visibility was, and apparently a large boulder fell ontop of him crushing him. That has left his mom Florinda, and her daughter to tend the land and provide. They are still greiving as well.
There were moments of greatness in this visit to see first hand the way that the people use water, and to just be present with Florinda and her daughter who is in her 30´s. Florinda´s daughter, a single woman, has just adopted a beautiful little girl who was abandoned and had no food or place to go. This family does not have a whole lot to work with themselves, but their door was open to those who had even less. Florinda sent us back to Cristo Rey church with a bag of granadina´s to share with the group.
At church the next day some women during the time of tithes and offerings knelt at the front and placed bags of fruits and vegetables as their offering. Mama Florinda was one of them.
The next day, while eating dinner, Pastor Eber told us that Florinda was SO proud to have had us visit her home. He said she glowed as she told her neighbors and tapped her chest saying ¨Yes, my new friends came to visit MY house.¨ Pastor Eber felt that our visit and the church accompanying her during this time of grieving over son continues to help a woman who has only been a Christian for a month or so to feel loved, supported, and vauled as a human being. I couldn´t agree more

Living Waters for the World Coming to a Maynay and Cristo Rey Near You

I spent the last week of May traveling with a team of Americans from San Gabriel Presbytery (California). It was 6 pastors and 3 lay people. They are representing the NGO Living Waters for the World and I am happy to say have signed covenants with both Cristo Rey Presbyterian Church in Huanta and the nearby community of Maynay to work together to install water purification systems and do the approriate hygiene and water use education, again TOGETHER being the key word.
It is sort of exciting. I know that the people of both communities are excited.
So Cyndie, Rob, Roger, Sam, Betsy, Andrea, and Wendy arrived in Ayacucho on Thursday morning along with the ever fabulous Rusty and Sara (PCUSA mission coworkers) who have built relationships in the Ayacucho region already and help to guide groups and teams coming to the area as well. Relationship facilitators, among other things, that is what they are.
Rusty made a comment, and helped me again put into words the way that Presbyterians do mission...yes, we do it in partnership, yes we work to not create dependency, but to empower the individuals and communities to identify and harness their resources and be self sustaining. ¨What can we do better together, than we can do apart,¨ Rusty said. It has given me something to chew and reflect on.
The folks from San Gabriel invited me along to do some basic translating and accompany them because I too have built relationships in the Ayacucho area with the people of Cristo Rey, Maynay, Emanuel-Cuchipampa, and especially the Synod leaders Agripino and Juan Quispe. We did a little of the tourist thing, a little historical absorbtion at the Museum of Memory, and a little shopping at an alabaster workshop, and the ceramics barrio of Quinua. Then it was down to business. Water talk over trout and potato dinners, fraternization and relationship building with laughter over pork chunks and chuno. A week that started out with a lot of trepidation and agnst on the part of the travelers from San Gabriel who REALLY want to see a system installed, and with similar pressure from back home, slowly disipated into the realization that this trip was neccessary for multiple reasons: 1) to build trust and confidence in the midst of relationship 2) as much as could be done via email was, but there is something to a face to face meeting 3) allowing the team members to know the people, and the people of Cristo Rey and Maynay to know the team BEFORE installing pipes and doing education together, which is weighty stuff.
There was time for serious nuts and bolts discussion, much needed reflection and debreifing at night among the group of travelers, but also a lot of jokes and laughter and getting to know one another (Peruvians and Americans) amongst meals, worship services, and even volleyball games with the pastor playing in his dress clothes and another Peruvian dude serving backwards. All of which was a priviledge to witness.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Ollanta Humala, Peru's New Presidente Elect

Yesterday Peruvians, in Peru, but also all over the world via their embassies went to the polls for a "segunda vuelta" or a run off for the Presidency. Who would it be? Ollanta Humala, holding fast to the campo and his father's Ayacuchano roots, but living and hailing from Lima or Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of one of the most corrupt-human rights abusing Presidents (Alberto) in recent past. Back in April the field was narrowed down to these two. Lately, Keiko seemed to be saying I will continue all of the social programs (giveaways to the campo to appease them) that my father began. Paving roads, giving uniforms and shoes to school children, constructing houses, but nothing to change their situation. Nice huh? Too bad the elder Fujimori used them to disguise his embezellment and human rights abuses. I am not just blowing smoke, Alberto Fujimori sits in jail serving sentences for human rights violations and corruption. Keiko says, if elected, she will not use her Presidential power to pardon and release her father and his croanies like Montesinoes. Funny the country is split on who loves and who hates the man as well as his daugher. Fujimoistas they call themselves. That trickled right down to his Harvard educated daughter, Keiko.
Ollanta Humala, a more leftist candidate, whom the Peruvian news media is skeptical of. They say we have never had a leftist President before. So we will wait and see....he is a former military man, and has some big money backing his campaign from Hugo Chavez and as of late Brasil who he seems to be loving up on. Ollanta wants to return Peru to Peru, by slowing down the invasion of foreign investors and businesses coming into and exploiting Peru, its people, and natural resources (especially mineral wealth). That has Chile in a bit of a raugh, because heck alot of Peru is Chilean. He speaks of freedom of expression and democracy (I thought they already had that, maybe not I can give some examples). Some say his wife is even more educated and might make an even better candidate than he.
Nonetheless yesterday at the polls, and it was a close one, Ollanta Humala was elected the next President of Peru. He will take office on July 28th which is Independence Day and will govern for the next 5 years.
Alot of people are waiting to see what will happen and what will be done during Ollanta's Administration, but the Fujimoristas are not going away...their are a lot of them hanging out in Congress.