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Published: February 25th 2009
Hello all
So firstly, I´d just like to draw attention to the title. How good is that?! Came up with it all by myself. I think it sums up what I´ve been doing since my last entry pretty well!
So on Thursday last week I got to go with Rosa on the first day of the Pregnant Girls´Project. Slightly mixed feelings about it now, given how unorganised the run up to it was and what we actually did on the day. We seemed to spend most of our time on the bus to be honest. Rosa is, from what I can gather, something of an all round Social Assistant type person. I think she is involved with the local authorities, but does actually work for Bruce as well. She seems to know everyone and everything that is going on in Trujillo. So I was quite excited to start with, she said we would be going to Las Delicias (which is another barrio much like Nuevo Jerusalem) to get a list of pregnant teenagers from the medical centre there, and if we had time to go and visit them and tell them a bit about what we´re offering. But firstly
we were going to visit a girl who she already knew about. We arrived at her house after a very long and bumby bus journey which seemed to take us further and further into the desert along the seafront, and then walked for a while among milions of sand flies. When we arrived at her house they were very hospitable and brought out chairs for us to sit on. The girl eventually came out and she was very pregnant, and Rosa was saying this might be something of a problem because the project was initially for those no more than 5 months in. However, all the girls we found were about 8 months in, and even though they wouldn´t be able to complete the whole course they might at least learn something valuable which could help them, so I think Rosa´s going to push for the rules to be bended slightly. So Rosa told her that we´d be running afternoon sessions in the school that we have in Las Delicias. We´ll be running classes in bag and jewellery making so that they can sell them and earn at least something of a living, and that they´ll be able to tak
to a nurse and there´ll be discussons on various things about responsibility etc. The girl was 17, living with her mother, and her "partner" had beaten her up and then left when he found out she was pregnant. The next girl we went to see was someone who the first girl told us about, and she was in a very similar situation, though she was 16. Neither of seemed incredibly enthusiastic but I´m reasonably sure they´d both go if the classes run.
Rosa then took me to the medical centre where we got the list of girls in the area who are under 18 and pregnant, roughly 7 of them. She kept saying we´ll come back tomorrow and look for them, and I didn´t really feel as though I could ask her why we couldn´t just do it then, so I didn´t, but it was only about 10 o´clock at that time. So then we caught 2 buses to get us to Alto Trujillo, another barrio, where she told me we would be doing the same thing. But we went straight to our school there, where one of the women who works for Bruce named Charro was helping people
register their children for real school which starts next week. They had a huge long talk about one woman who couldn´t find her papers and so was having trouble registering for school, and basically it transpired that we were going to have to find her and ask for the papers. Rosa was being slightly odd, and kept asking me what I thought we should do, whether we should do this now or come back tomorrow when it wouldn´t be so hot. (?) Was starting to think she´s a bit weird. Anyway, eventually we found this woman and there was lots of talk and confusion about how much to pay for 2 children to enroll and papers etc. All the while I was thinking, what does this actually have to do with pregnant girls? And why does it matter what the price is anyway if Bruce is going to pay it for you? So at the end of all that I was still quite confused, and we just went back to the centre.
The next day Mathilde basically had the same experience as I had in the Pregnant Girls project, and at our meeting with Bruce on Friday he actually
said that Rosa was a bit corrupt! He said he wanted there to always be a volunteer with her when she´s doing this because she has been known to just not go where was supposed to or to take a person´s money for enrolling their children and then just spend it herself, though apparantly she is very good at her job (?) Why he continues to employ her I have no idea! Everyone finds it a bit odd. So I´m not sure how the project will proceed, but like most things here it will probably take quite a while to get set up and several tries before it´s actually effective.
Basically you can´t enroll for school if you can´t provide papers for the children such as a birth certificate. However, lots of children here dont have birth certificates, because they are born at home because their parents dont have insurance and so they cant afford to go to the hospital. Its all a vicous circle.
Their houses were just the same as everyone elses I´ve seen who lives in the barrios. Walls are made of bricks which are made from the sand, rooves are usually bits of straw
woven into sheets or corregated iron, and in the houses themselves there is very very litte. Many of them are literally just a floor with a few things scattered round on the floor, othes have a table and chairs and many actually have a TV which I find very strange. I´m still not sure where they get any money and food from. I think lots of them keep chicken and ducks and have some vegetables growing, but lots of them do have some money because they can afford to buy pencils for their childen and other things. I imagine their dads have a job somewhere, but lots of them dont have any male presence at all in the house. And acccording to Rosa, there just aren´t very many jobs here, and what little jobs there are certainly dont go to women. So what Bruce found in lots of cases was obviously where the children were having to work to provide essential income for the families, so they just could´nt go to school. That´s why Bruce set up the Micro finance project Arriba Ya, which aims to help local women to set up their own businesses together so that the children
can go to school. A lot of the time I find myself blaming the incredibly "machista" attitude they have here still for many of the problems. The men still think its ok to abuse people and things which are weaker than them, and its horrible to see it come through in lots of the litte of boys at school. Like most developing countries animals are more of a pest than anything else, but quite often you see the children kicking the dogs and just generally mistreating them. Its a wonder they never get bitten. I can´t remember which clever person said it, though Miss Chow will probably set me right, that you can judge a society by how they treat their animals. Even if you dont particularly agree with that, you can agree that its not good to practice the attitude of mistreating anything.
On Friday afternoon I visited Chan Chan with Lorenzo and Fumi. Chan Chan was once he largest adobe sand city thing in the world! It was built by the Chimus so between 900 and 1450 ad, and its absolutely huge. There are 9 palaces, but at the momet you can only see 1 of these
because there isn´t a huge amount invested in the restoration and conservaton of these places. Only the important people lived in here, and so obviously where the normal people lived has been eroded over time and basically no longer exists. The Chimus worshipped the moon and sea, and recognised that these were linked with the menstrual cycle. The pond that you can see in the pictures was for ceremonies when it was a full moon, and they had lots of alters for human sacrifices all over the place. When the Incas came from Cuzco, it took them 10 years to defeat the Chimu, and they only did it in the end because they cut off their water supply so they gave in!
At the weekend we had dinner at a very nice Sushi restaurant, where I tried Sushi for the time, and liked it very much! The owner seemed to like us quite a lot, since he spent the whole meal speaking to us and gave us some free fried ice cream as a dessert! The next day Mathilde and I went to Huaca de la Luna which is a Moche ruin nearby, so it was built between like
500 and 800 ad I think. This was absolutely fantastic. We took a combi to get there, which is an experience in itsef. Combis are basically minivans which try to pack in as many people as possible for the ride, and costs pennies. For a 15-20 minute bus ride it was about 40p. We turned off the main road down a little mud track in between some houses and ended up in this oasis more or less. For miles and miles this part of Peru is just dusty desert so to find a river and some greenery is very exciting! When we got to the site we managed to wiggle our way into paying just 6 soles for our entrance and a guide by saying we were students but didn´t have our card with us 😊 The Moche worshipped one God and I can´t remember what his name was but he is the face you can see in the reliefs in all the photos. It looks like a huge pyramid because they used to build a layer of the building, spend hours carving and painting the walls, use it as a temple and then when the governer/person in charge died
they woud cover that whole layer over in bricks which again they had to spend ages making, and build a new layer exactly the same above that one! To start a-fresh or something. Sounds like a lot of work to me! But it does mean that all the colours have been preserved over time because they weren´t exposed to the elements so in that way it´s absolutely amazing. And on the outside each layer is decorated with the same image over and over again like a bird or a spider or something, and each of them represents something. There are actually 2 temples on that site, and loads of stuff in betwen the two that is only being excavated just now, which they think was used for food and stuff. Unfortunately, Huaca el Sol (the other one) isn´t being conserved in the same way simply due to insufficient funds. I was told that the reason they´re called Huaca del Sol y de la Luna is completely arbitrary; when the people who first discovered it found it, they decided to call it that because they only knew about the Inca people, and knew that they worshipped the sun, so they called
it "temple of the sun" and the other one "temple of the moon" because appparantly the moon looks really mystical above the mountain right next to the temple (?) Anyway, that was definitely worth a visit. We went to have dinner in one the restaurants nearby because we thought it looked really nice, unfortunately they hardly had any food, there were flies everywhere, the music was too loud and the food they eventually did bring us was quite gross. Never mind, we did get to see some traditional Peruvian Marinera dancing which was nice.
Yesterday I visited the Medical Clinic that Maurice helps out at because I heard the Scottish ladies were going to donate some medical supplies to the centre and I wanted to come along. Basically the centre hasn´t been sent any new stuff for about 4 months, and the doctors haven´t been paid in that time either. Maurice was telling us about how they had to wash out this boy´s cut on his head with tap water because they just dont have clean water left, and they had to give someone an anesthetic with a really big needle which is very painful. They have things that
they dont have to use very often but the everyday stuff they´re just completely out of like ibruprofen and water, and sometimes the doctor will prescribe something, the patient will go to collect it and be told they dont have it so they have to go backwards and forwards several times to find something that might be remotely ok and that they actually have in stock. So I went with them because they had a donation to buy some medical supplies, and we went to the centre to drop them off. They showed us around and it was very interesting. They have about 3 buildings, but the only one that the government actually provided was big enough for a waiting room, one emergency room and one consulting room. The other parts of the centre were all built thanks to donations. The obstetrics and gynecological unit all looks actually quite good and clean, but I suppose it really has to be. And while I was commenting about how relatively well kitted out this bit seemed to be Maurice told me that actually lots of the things looked good but were broken or empty. The main consulting room is just a desk
and a weighing machine, and their filing system was just a room full of sheets of paper in cardboard boxes. Afer we´d given them all the stuff we brought they were all very grateful and took photos with us, then they offfered to take us out for a soda which was nice of them. Then Maurice and I went to buy a "balon de gas" which basically makes this machine work which detects TB and also gives people who have TB ther medecine. This bottle of gas was stolen recently and so no one has been able to get their medicine for the past few weeks, so they were really grateful for that as well.
The medical system here is very similar to America´s, so people can get free treatment so long as they have insurance. Obviously this in itself causes lots of problems because people can´t afford to buy insurance, and then when something happens to them they can´t afford the treatment either. But even when they have insurance, there are loads of restrictions. For instance you can have only 2 visits to the doctor per month per family, so families have to choose between who to send
to the doctor all the time. All the vaccinations are free up until 2 years of age if you have insurance, but after that you have to pay. Which is ridiculous because many vaccinations are ineffective if you dont get them topped up.
So this is my last week with these children, and I will be sad to say goodbye. I must say however that my new found respect for teachers is growing everyday! I really don´t know how you do it everyday mum. Just the morning is enough for me! All at once about 3 people want a "borrador!!", someone else says they don´t know how to write the word "uno", someone else has been pushed over by Mario, another person has lost their "lapiz" and someone else is sitting there blowng a whistle. And people used to say I had amazing patience working in the kids department at Jones!
So next week these kids will go back to real school, and we´ll have a week break in between starting the actual school for children who haven´t been to real school yet. In that week we´ll be doing loads of different things I think, there´s a stray
dog project which I might get involved in, I might go to the medical clinic with Maurice again because that mainly involves paperwork and taking blood pressure (dont worry I wont be let loose on anyone who actually needs help), helping move the furniture to the new centre because we´re moving to an extension of Bruce´s house nearby to have a higher status because we´ll be near all he English teaching establishments so hopefully we´ll get some more students, and maybe the Pregnant Girls Project again.
Yesterday was, as I´m sure you all know, Pancake day. So we had a pancake competition in the evening, and I´m pretty sure the one with dolce leche (like banoffee toffee), chocolate chip ice cream, bananas and chocolate chips was the best thing I´ve ever tasted! Much fun was had by all.
Today the Scottish ladies left, which was quite sad because they were really nice and it was good to have adults to talk to. It does mean however that Kara and I are going to take over their coversation classes in the evening, which I´m very excited about! I think it´ll be really good fun. I popped in to be
introduced to them yesterday, and they all seem very nice. There are 5 boys all between 20 and 30, all wanting to do slightly different things, but all wanting to get out of Peru. Lots of them want to work on cruise boats, hence why they´re taking the English classes. Our first lesson is later on this evening, so I´ll let you know how it goes in the next lengthy installment!
I´m pretty sure that´s everything, and even if it isn´t I should probably shut up now anyway!
Los of love to everyone
Cons
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The Ryan
non-member comment
This comment has no title, for I dare not even attempt to trump Connie's
Rosa is totally an agent. I'm 101% certain that there's a 50% likelihood that she's definitely (and I mean 100-per-trucking-cent definitely) a secret agent. That's why she knows everyone, that's why she knows everything, that's why she was talking in code ("Shall we come back tomorrow when it isn't too hot" - translates, according to the spy translator, as "Run, it's the feds."), and that's why she's still employed - because she's damn good at her job, despite her mild flaws. Like 007. But less surrounded by theme music. Or something. Anyway, it continues to sound amazing!! Good luck with the classes!!