Almost 2 Months

So, I am sure everyone at BC has seen this already, but I am posting it here because it is literally la verdad!

http://www.backupcollege.com/

(dang, it used to link to Notre Dame, still close, but not as funny)

GO EAGLES!

After a long week, tonight I am headed up to Huaráz, Peru with 15 people or so from my house and our soccer rivalry house Casa Roja. It is a beautiful, small city in northern Peru in the Callejón (Alley) de Huaylas known as the Switzerland of the South, because it sits in a valley between two beautiful Andean ranges, the Cordillera Blanca (which hosts Peru's largest peak at 22.2 thousand feet), and the Cordillera Negra. We will take an 8 hour bus ride overnight Friday and Sunday night to be back by Monday morning.

Lima has been okay lately, I really think if I hadn't been sick the whole time I've been in Peru, I would be more active/enjoying it a lot more. I really HATE my immune system right now, and the fact I do not know how to cook probably hasn't helped. The bike has also proven to be one of the worst decisions I have made, as it is impossible to ride it on the sidewalks, and to ride it on the streets is a death wish here. I've already hurt myself because of the excessive amounts of curbs I have to go up and down, but the other day I crashed into a man who stepped right in front of me in the street to get into a taxi (hailing a taxi and getting in can take less than 5 seconds here, you don't see it coming). I also went to a really good live music bar in Barranco twice this week called La Noche, once with Taylor Morton, on his way through Lima back to the States (we saw an Amazonian art/music presentation), and last night with some roommates. It feels like a classy, small hipster club in Central Square, only better, with cool wooden architecture and an awesome balcony.

Anyway, I am still motivated for the second half of my time here to really try to get to know more of the city and the people here outside of my bubble, because so far I haven't been too successful with it. I guess I could motivate myself by planning to write some articles, or consider it as potential thesis material. I have a few things lined up to volunteer with for the rest of my time here, so that should help a bit. I have a growing interest in the politics about Lima's pueblos jóvenes, and I really want to learn more about them. Many were established as organized land invasions where a migrant group of 100 families or so would settle unused lots in the outlying areas of Lima, and the government was very hesitant to evict them in the insecure environment of the Sendero Luminoso war, which would have fed people right into the palm of the said paramilitaries. Since then, many of these have grown into slums with hundreds of thousands of people.

One little adventure I had recently was a shoe shopping quest. My only outdoors/active shoes I brought were totally falling apart after a few games of soccer, so I went to find some cheap shoes on my tight budget. I first went to Polvos Azules, a popular commercial center in Central Lima with massive amounts of counterfeited, well produced CDs and DVDs. I found lots of shoes from 30-40 dollars which may/may not have been fakes, but seemed to be good quality. Ignorantly, I proceeded further to a market called El Hueco, in a more crowded, sketchy area. You walk down into "the hole," and there is aisle after aisle of crowded vendors mostly selling fake brand name shoes in this curiously dark, black lighted shopping environment. I guess the point is so you can't see too well what you are buying. Well, I got some Fadidas for about 12 dollars, and one week later they are falling apart! I should have known they would with how thin they are...I'll put a picture of them up sometime. I guess I may have to go back and get some more expensive fake shoes that will actually last. Here are some pictures of my shoe shopping day in central Lima:

Soccer Stadium

 

Peru's Supreme Court/Judicial Branch

 

old theatre

 

Parque Universitario, where hundreds of people were watching old couples dance cumbia in the ampitheatre (this seems to be happening everywhere in parks on Sunday)

 

 

I walked past this child selling candy right outside the park twice in a few hours.

 

Paracas National Reserve/Ballestas Islands

See previous post for first part of my trip. This post is mostly just photos from my tour of the Paracas Peninsula and the Ballestas Islands. It would have been much more beautiful if it wasn't such a foggy day, but I guess it's kind of a cool effect.

Paracas peninsula, where General San Martin began his liberation of Peru

The Candelabra of the Andes, a geoglyph with unknown origins. One hypothesis is it is a jimson weed, which ancient Peruvians might have obtained in California and used this as a return landmark, as there is a similar one drawn on a rock in California.

 

 

 Ballestas Islands

 

Pingüinos closest to the ecuator

 

some lovebirds (I can't remember what they were called) and pelicans

 

more lovebirds

 

The black and white masses on the island are the different types of birds, ahhh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

whoa.

Ica

Beautiful view near my house, now that I am finally starting to see some sunlight!

Hey everyone, so I still don't have those pictures from my trip to Huaycan I wanted to share so I'll just post about my last weekend's trip to Ica/Paracas. I am planning to head out to Huaycan this afternoon again so I'll post about it at some point. Anyway, I decided I needed a break from the nonstop noise and stimulation that Lima can provide, so I hopped on a bus on Thursday the 8th to Ica, Peru. I am slowly getting a bigger picture of this country. There are small, well insulated parts of Lima where you can see the benefits of Peru's development, but much of the rest of the country seems to be largely stagnant. Though I still need to see more than just coastal Peru, it seems like the biggest source of income outside of Lima is through tourism, which can only do so much in the busy parts of the year. It's overwhelming how saturated the market is with people informally trying to sell you something in buses or on the streets. That and the country's taxis/mototaxis, even that is such an informal economy that anyone can get a sticker for their car and compete with others to give the lowest price to passengers. Anyway, the bus ride was only a nice 5 hours, and I passed a lot of interesting sights.

Bus ride to Ica

I made it by 6 pm and took a cab to the Laguna Huacachina, a little resort 5 kms away from Ica featured on the back of the 50 soles bill. It is a beautiful little desert oasis.

Laguna Huacachina

Sandboarding

Desert in Ica

Friday morning, I caught a cab to go explore the city of Ica. He was fixing it when I made the deal, so I figured a low price wouldn't be bad, since it practically stalled the whole way up the hill out of the oasis. It turned out the driver Cristian happened to be a sneaky guy who, upon getting me to the Plaza de Armas, started telling me how dangerous it was to walk a various number of blocks in different directions from the plaza. So he said he would drive me over to the town's beloved church of Luren before letting me go. It hosted the patron Señor de Luren, a moreno Christ statue, until a 7.9 earthquake that destroyed 30% of the city in August 2007 left it in ruins. It survived and is kept in another convent. Now, according to the story of the statue, it has survived being dumped overboard to save the boat on its way from Spain, a fire in 1918, and this earthquake. The story goes that the patron gained a large following as it was provided for a chapel in Ica by the Spanish founder of the region, who upon regretting the damages done, had made a hospital for the indigenous people. The parade for the saint happens annually, tomorrow.

Iglesia Señor de Luren, destroyed by August 2007 earthquake

 Before quake

Procession on 3rd Monday of October 

After that, he took me to see the statue, and before I knew it, he was taking me on a wild tour around Ica, without us ever agreeing on a price per hour or anything. But he had some interesting commentaries about Ica, an overall very impoverished city whose people seemed to have a really depressed, downtrodden attitude. Next, he started to tell me about stories of the witches (brujas) of Ica, some evil, some good, and  there is a specific neighborhood called Cachiche where they used to congregate. When I got out of the cab I was stormed by children who wanted to tell the story, and Cristian chose the lucky one who would get the tip.

Tour guide Cristian and my child guide to Las Brujas de Cachiche

Bruja statue

Church in Cachiche

Ica

I finished my tour at a bodega, where they produce wine and pisco, Peru's national drink. It originates from this part of Peru.

Bodega Vista Alegre, 152 year old wine and pisco producer

Ica

I'll continue in another post about Paracas/Ballestas Islands.

La Sierra

Wow, this is one of the most amazing documentaries I have ever seen. It is about a community in Medellin involved in the Colombian conflict, focusing on the lives of several members and family members of one of the "paramilitary" Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia groups. It is really interesting to me because it relates closely to the work done at the center I work for. But I think it is just a really powerful, informative, and provocative documentary in every aspect. Watch it!




Link to Full Movie on You Tube, Part 1

Anyway, I just wanted to share that. I will make a post about my visit to Huaycan soon.

Hello all, I'm sitting at work here and can't focus so I guess I'll write a little entry. Work has been so far so good still, except they don't really have enough for Talitha (the other public security intern) and I to work on. We have been working on a project thoroughly researching firearms prevalence and use in Latin American schools, in order to prepare a preliminary report on the issue and what countries have done to combat it. It is really interesting because everyone has the impression that only the US has that problem, however, it really exists a lot down here, just in a really different sense. More in the sense that they are often in an insecure environment and have guns to protect themselves on their way home from school or use them to get their way with other kids. Anyway, it's also really depressing, and I can't sit and research incidents and policies on this issue for more than 2 hours a day without being tired of it. What I'm slowly starting to learn is that I think I need a job in which I can interact with people...and not just in terms of a partner who I can do research with. I'm also excited for them to actually get us involved in more than just research...and I think we'll get to sit in on our center's training courses for public security sectors of Peru on the illicit trafficking of firearms in November.

Fortunately, I start tomorrow volunteering, and will go every weekend I am available, in the community of Huaycán, a pueblo joven in Ate-Vitarte. Here is a nice little article that briefly mentions it. I am really looking forward to teaching English and interacting with some children there! It will take me about an hour and a half on two separate combis, but yes, it's still in Lima metropolitano.

Maybe it will give me something to bring my mind present to the here and now in Peru. Unfortunately, after moving from Arizona and feeling detached from my friendships there, and then further being away from everyone I know down here, I feel like I would be a lot happier somewhere in a more supportive environment. I am here absolutely on my own and living and working mostly with people a bit older than me, but I didn't do the best job finding connections with other students to hang out with here, and it definitely makes me a bit lonely. That in combination with my total detachment from Lima itself and my bubble life in the places I live/work (Miraflores/San Isidro, a very, very small part of the vast expanse of Lima), it's easy to say I'm really excited for tomorrow. Anyway, I don't want to complain anymore, but I guess I'm in a lot of ways really looking forward to Chile, where I'll be in a university environment and also more directed and supported for meaningful interaction with the locals and the society. Unfortunately it's kind of dangerous to seek that out here when I am in an office in the entirety of the daylight hours.

And besides everything else, including all the learning potential there is when you enter a society that is so different than what you know, either way I simply just don't really like Lima. It is a disorganized, dirty mess with a decent amount of really rich people and tons of really poor people. It makes you numb to poverty because if you gave your money to everyone trying to sell portable toothbrushes on the buses, you would be broke. It is a typical modern third world megacity that within the last 70 years has undergone absurdly rapid population growth while trying to develop in the wake of the world's economic powers. As some business and wealth moves in, the few at the top see most of the benefits, and immigrants flood the metropolitan area because of marginal opportunity increase, making it impossible to distribute resources to so many people. Some pueblos jóvenes developed in a more organized manner, and their quality of life is now higher, but none have realistic opportunity to easily develop on their own, as the money and education continues to flow to the preset power structures. I hear Universidad de Lima costs 2000 US a month, which sets out a small group who have the ability to attend, and yes, most of them are much whiter than those at the limited public institutions.

Anyway, my frustration is all because this was a really last-minute judgment, but hey, through all the bad and hard times here, I know I'll come out of it at least having learned a few things. We'll just have to wait and see. I just really need to try my best to bring myself to the here and now to get the most out of it I can, including my job, because right now, the fact that it's hard has really made my mind drift back home.