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Published: August 14th 2008
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My travels thus far...
I spent my first two weeks here at a language school in Cusco (1); then I flew to Lima where I've been preparing for my project for the past 5 weeks (2); I took a holiday in Trujillo/Huanchaco at the end of July (3); and came back to Lima (4); I visited Tumbes for 3 days to get some things set up for my project there, but came back to Lima and will be returning to Tumbes on Aug. 24th. Monday, July 28th, is el Día de Independencia in Peru which basically means that the world stops and no one works for four whole days (kinda like 4th of July in the States). Some friends and I decided to spend our 4 days of liberation in a small beach town called Huanchaco (about a 10 hour bus ride north of Lima). The first two days we spent just hanging out at the beach (which is one of my favorite things to do at the fault of my mother ). The first day we really wanted to go swimming in the ocean despite the frigid temperature (of the water and the air), but we went for it anyways. I also went surfing for the very first time in my life, which is hard to believe considering that I grew up in Va Beach. Surprisingly, I was able to get up a few times!! Just for the experience, we decided to go to a bullfight. The bullfight was really brutal…if you’ve never seen one, the idea is to see how long it takes before the bull dies. Although I kinda knew this before I went, I guess I thought that it would be
more of a fair fight, and that if the bull gave a good fight then he would live. No, I was completely wrong! If the bull gets a good fight, then his ‘reward’ is to have a faster death (Madhavi, you would've hated this experience). It was pretty sad actually, and although I’m glad that I went to see it, we left halfway through because it was really hard to watch an animal slowly die purely for entertainment purposes. We also visited Trujillo, a small city about 20 minutes from Huanchaco, which is famous for its colonial architecture and its nearby adobe ruins from the Moche civilization. Every new place amazes me as to how much history is here!
I have also included some pictures of where I’ve been working the past few weeks (these aren’t the best pictures in the world, but I was trying to take them discretely). San Juan de Miraflores is a shanty town in Lima. There are many shanty towns around Lima, and they are mostly a overflow of the city’s population, and are generally very poor underdeveloped areas (Just a little factoid…75% of Peru’s population lives in an urban area, and generally the
Caballitos de Negeros
Huanchaco is famous for these fishing boats...they actually still use them today! resources in the cities are not sufficient for all of the people living there). In this part of San Juan de Miraflores, many people do not have water in their homes…most people have a pilón on their street which is basically just a shared spicket for everyone on the block. Also, water is available from these pilónes for only certain hours of the day. There are sections of this area that do not even have pilónes available, so these people receive water from tanker trucks which sell water at a very high cost. Most people have electricity, although some do not. I’ve been shadowing field workers who visit households in this community and measure the weight and height of babies to monitor growth and nutrition. I wanted to show these pictures to give you some perspective on the situation of the poor in Lima. Like any city, there are extremes here from the rich to the poor, except here it is to the power of 50.
One last thing…currently I am wrapping up all my preparations to actually (finally) start my project. My stay here in Lima has only been temporary and I will be moving in a week
and a half to Tumbes, Peru which is in the north of Peru bordering Ecuador (it is about a 20 hour bus ride or 2.5 hour plane ride from Lima). Tumbes is where I will be doing my project and spending most of my time while here in Peru. It is very different from where I’m staying now, which is basically a fancy pantsy part of the city where there are 3 Starbucks within a 10 minute walking distance and a Golf Country Club across the street (which costs $10,000 per year to join--yikes!). To my surprise, I've actually become quite fond of Lima (despite the constant greyness and zero sunshine)...I've met a lot of really great people here, and although I'm not much of a city person, I will miss the entertaining crowds and equally entertaining 1.5 hour 'combi' (tiny buses) rides to work. Driving here is always an adventure (although sometimes a very scary one--which actually convinced me recently to actually purchase emergency evacuation insurance, just in case). Tumbes is a small beach town (that is warm!!) and is actually quite beautiful. But the city is isolated and there is not much there…so there will be some adjusting
on my part, but I’m excited to move to my next place to fall in love with!
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Mom
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beach
I wish I could be at the beach with you.