As the main idea of the volunteer project is cultural exchange,
Maria and I decided to take Simone to have a typical Peruvian breakfast. We went to the famous restaurant "Elmer", El Mercado (The Market), to eat caldo de cabeza and caldo de panza, i.e. a broth containing either a cow's stomach or a goat's head. Other options are with chicken of pork feet. I must admit it's not (yet) my favourite food, but I can eat it without cringing. Obviously the poor guy was horrified and took tons of pictures but didn't even taste the food.
Maria and I decided to take Simone to have a typical Peruvian breakfast. We went to the famous restaurant "Elmer", El Mercado (The Market), to eat caldo de cabeza and caldo de panza, i.e. a broth containing either a cow's stomach or a goat's head. Other options are with chicken of pork feet. I must admit it's not (yet) my favourite food, but I can eat it without cringing. Obviously the poor guy was horrified and took tons of pictures but didn't even taste the food.We then drove from Cusco to Huycho, the community where he is living and volunteering. 
While driving away from Cusco there is a view of the city and surrounding mountains which--to me--is gorgeous. So of course I froze when Simone said Cusco is built with no order and looks like a shanty town (un buon torinese abituato a una citta' perfettamente quadrata...). What is he going to think about Pilcopata, which actually does look like a slum, with most houses made of tin or wood and no paved roads at all? I was a bit worried, but today I talked on the phone with a friend who's worked in Africa twice, and she said to me: "It's his first experience, he's supposed to hate it! Or at least let his first week be hard, or he'll go back talking about all the virtues of poverty" (like so many people who clearly have never experienced it do!). She's right.
In a way he reminds me of myself the first time I arrived in Nicaragua, when I was 19 and absolutely shocked to realise that most people don't have their own bed, that in most houses there aren't enough chairs, or clothes, or food. Again I wander if I've become numb to poverty, because I think Simone's host family is well-off. The house is 2 floors and partly made
of bricks, they have a bathroom with shower and hot water, and a little shop attached to the house. They have pigs, chickens and cuys, and three kids in (extremely cheap) private schools... And part of the house is made of mud bricks, the two youngest kids share the same bed and the oldest daughter's bed has no mattress. They have few chairs so they have to sit on old wooden stools or cut tree trunks, the paint is coming off the walls and I'm absolutely not sure they actually use their bathroom (water is expensive). And the father can't work because of a horrible car accident he had a few months ago. I hope Simone will realise his help working in their house and fields is really useful.
While driving away from Cusco there is a view of the city and surrounding mountains which--to me--is gorgeous. So of course I froze when Simone said Cusco is built with no order and looks like a shanty town (un buon torinese abituato a una citta' perfettamente quadrata...). What is he going to think about Pilcopata, which actually does look like a slum, with most houses made of tin or wood and no paved roads at all? I was a bit worried, but today I talked on the phone with a friend who's worked in Africa twice, and she said to me: "It's his first experience, he's supposed to hate it! Or at least let his first week be hard, or he'll go back talking about all the virtues of poverty" (like so many people who clearly have never experienced it do!). She's right.In a way he reminds me of myself the first time I arrived in Nicaragua, when I was 19 and absolutely shocked to realise that most people don't have their own bed, that in most houses there aren't enough chairs, or clothes, or food. Again I wander if I've become numb to poverty, because I think Simone's host family is well-off. The house is 2 floors and partly made
of bricks, they have a bathroom with shower and hot water, and a little shop attached to the house. They have pigs, chickens and cuys, and three kids in (extremely cheap) private schools... And part of the house is made of mud bricks, the two youngest kids share the same bed and the oldest daughter's bed has no mattress. They have few chairs so they have to sit on old wooden stools or cut tree trunks, the paint is coming off the walls and I'm absolutely not sure they actually use their bathroom (water is expensive). And the father can't work because of a horrible car accident he had a few months ago. I hope Simone will realise his help working in their house and fields is really useful.When I was in Nicaragua everything shocked me, I had a journal where I used to write down everything, all the details I don't even notice now, about people's houses, jobs, clothes, habits. On the Friday of my first week of work at Las Hormiguitas, the crentre for children street vendors in Matagalpa, I walked a little girl home. As I walked on the dirt road up to her house I kept thinking "I don't think I'm ready for what I'm about to see", and I wasn't. I was shocked to see their house. A solid brick house with a patio, matresses to sleep on, a table and TV. What was so shocking to me about the woman living there with her 6 kids and one grandkid? Now I can't place my finger on it, nor I can explain why I started crying when a few days earlier I had seen one of her sons split my sandwich in half to share it with his brother. Those experiences marked me so deeply I still remember all the details after 4 years. So how come I thought nothing of Alicia's wooden house with 2 beds for 4 people in Pilcopata? Maybe I have developed a sort of sarcastic coping attitude, or I've simply realised I'm not gonna change the world, maybe my parents were right insisting I get my masters before dedicating my life to starving kids in Nicaragua. Does education bring detatchement?
Everything was new then, and I adapted incredibly well, so much that I ended up losing touch
with "my" reality, thinking I could live there for the rest of my life, showering out of a bucket and dating an illitterate guy who's job with the truck delivering water to houses doesn't even exist in my world. In the past 4 years I've changed enough to know that I am just about as spoiled as you can get, and I can do this kind of work because I live in a gorgeous house in the centre of Cusco with all conforts. I understand the reality surrounding me more than I did in Nicaragua (or in Tanzania--where I wondered around cluelessly for 3 months understanding absolutely nothing), and I have a better idea of what I want in my work and life. This keeps me from the dangers of bricheros or of wanting to live the life of the priest in the City of Joy, but for the same reasons it gets much more lonely than it did in Nicaragua.
Everything was new then, and I adapted incredibly well, so much that I ended up losing touch
with "my" reality, thinking I could live there for the rest of my life, showering out of a bucket and dating an illitterate guy who's job with the truck delivering water to houses doesn't even exist in my world. In the past 4 years I've changed enough to know that I am just about as spoiled as you can get, and I can do this kind of work because I live in a gorgeous house in the centre of Cusco with all conforts. I understand the reality surrounding me more than I did in Nicaragua (or in Tanzania--where I wondered around cluelessly for 3 months understanding absolutely nothing), and I have a better idea of what I want in my work and life. This keeps me from the dangers of bricheros or of wanting to live the life of the priest in the City of Joy, but for the same reasons it gets much more lonely than it did in Nicaragua. Tonight there is reason to celebrate...another organization responded and is interested in forming a partnership (that makes a total of 4, which if they work out would bring us lots of volunteers!), and the English version of our website is ready. Check it out (and let me know what you think)!
www.comunidades-unidas.org
www.comunidades-unidas.org
1 comment:
It's great you are able to trace your personal growth so clearly. It's great you were a young girl full of dreams and ideals and you became a young woman who understood her possibilities and what can be done. It's not cynism, it's just understanding. You can't help people sitting down with them and living the same life, you just change style and abdicate your origin. It can be good if you have lost yourself and don't know where you belong, then you can find another dimension but I think it only works for some people. The others, most of the people, are the children of their own place and time and their contribution can be important in the way different points of view are important in developing strategies and improvements. Indeed reality is how you perceive it, maybe there is no such thing as reality. If you understand this, and you understood it at a very young age, you have a powerful key to success and happiness, you can feel as a part of the universe and at peace with it.
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