Peru

10 Parades and 1 Peaceful Protest in Cusco

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(An old post that never got published while I was in Cusco)

As the work team from Dearborn and North Carolina headed off to Machu Picchu today, Billy and I ventured out of Urubamba (where we are working at the Casa Girasoles home) and into Cusco for a slow and relaxing day.

Before I continue, it is important to know that the month of June is a big party month in the city and surrounding area of Cusco. Cusco, which means navel, in Quechua, is rich in Inca history since it was at the center of the Incan Empire, which stretched from southern Peru through northern Ecuador.

In Incan politics, the empire was ruled by the emperor, who according to Incan religion, was a direct descendant of their god, Inti, the Sun, and was also worshiped as a divine being. At the height of the Incan empire,  the emperor’s name was Pachacútec. Pachacútec and and Incans worshiped their gods of the Sun, Moon, Rainbow, Mountains, Mother Earth, etc.

To celebrate Incan tradition and their rich heritage, every year on June 24th, the Cusqueñas (people from Cusco) hold huge festivals in and around the city. The biggest of these festivals is called Inti Raymi, which is supposed to take place Thursday.

The festival is supposed to take place this Thursday, but possible protests and a region-dehabilitating strike might take place on the same day. For the past two weeks people in the surrounding areas of Cusco have been on strike and protesting the Peruvian government and President Alan Garcia’s decision to build a dam in the area of Canchis. By building this dam, the Peruvian government would be reclaiming land from it’s people and taking a loan from the Japanese government to pay for construction. The Peruvian campesinos (people from the country) that live in the area of Canchis are not particularly thrilled to be losing their land and water supply, and therefore have been protesting the decision – including protesting in the Plaza de Armas of Cusco today.

In addition to the very large peaceful protest that occured in the Plaza de Armas, Billy and I also saw 10 different parades taking place in Cusco today. Not only were there at least 10 different parades, they were all over the city. Each parade stopped traffic and pedestrians that were in its way and followed their own path. One of the particularly memorable parades had men and little boys dressed up as bears/gorillas (it was hard to tell which animal it was) dancing around women who had on very colorful dresses. We’re not quite sure what they represented, but it was quite entertaining!

Two Days in Lima

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After returning from Iquitos with a Scottish school group from Kyle Academy, I have two days of freedom in Lima before returning to the airport to pick up some friendly faces from Dearborn.

While most of Peru is considered by foreigners to be rustic, rough, underdeveloped, or any other adjective that is along those lines, it is very easy in the city of Lima to live an “American” lifestyle.

For my two days in Lima, I was able to stay by myself at the apartment of the General Director of the entire Scripture Union organization, which is located in Miraflores.

I feel pretty comfortable walking around Lima and the rest of Peru, but in Miraflores, I feel like I’m back in Dearborn. I don’t stand out as much since this is where many other foreigners live. Not only is Miraflores a nice and beautiful city, it’s fairly quiet, whereas the city of Lima has a lot of noise pollution – lots of car horns all the time.

Since I had two free days in Miraflores, I indulged in a little “American living” and went to the movies last night, walked around the neighborhood where the apartment is located, went to a delicious restaurant that is comparable to Au Bon Pain or a Panera, and even killed some time at the local Starbucks catching up on emails and updating this website.

I even managed to see quite a few Coach handbags being carried around in Miraflores – a few fake but most of them real.

Amazon Hope 2

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Amazon Hope 2, originally uploaded by katherinebruder.

One of Scripture Union’s six programs in Peru is a medical mission, mostly based at a clinic in Belén, which is the slum neighborhood of Iquitos. In addition to the clinic, SU operates two medical boats, the Amazon Hope 1 and Amazon Hope 2, which are exclusively funded by the Vine Trust, a non-profit organization located in Edinburgh, Scotland.

For three weeks a month, the boats travel up and down the tributaries of the Amazon River where they treat people in the villages along the rivers with minor medical and dental care. The ship is staffed by Peruvian and foreign medical teams from the US and UK that spend 7-10 days living, eating and working on the boat.

36 hours: 5 buses, 2 boats, 1 airplane and very little sleep

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In the past 36 hours, I used almost every form of transportation possible in Peru. Short of riding a train, I traveled down from the Casa Girasoles Kusi home nearby Yungay/Huaraz, to Lima and then up to Iquitos to the Casa Girasoles Puerto Alegria home – all in 36 hours.

The long day started Saturday morning in Kusi. My Scottish team, which was a school group from Kyle Academy in Ayr, Scotland, spent Saturday morning making hundreds of adobe bricks and preparing to depart Kusi later that day. Midday, they broke from working to participate in the traditional Pachamanca meal that ends each week with work teams. Pachamanca is a delicious meal that is cooked in the ground. The fire starts at 4am the morning of the meal and food prepared and wrapped in banana leaves are dropped into the pit to cook on the hot coals for 1 hour. The pachamanca is traditionally followed by the Peruvian vs. American/Scottish soccer game, where Peru always wins.

Around 5pm, we boarded two combis (which are Peruvian minivan taxis) to head down to Yungay, to meet our bus fletado (private bus, like a Greyhound), which would drive through the night and take us directly to the Lima airport for us to meet our 4am flight to Iquitos. Typically the trip between Yungay and Lima takes 8 or 9 hours, depending on how many stops you make and how fast the driver takes on the winding mountainous roads.

Miraculously, it only took 7 hours for us to descend from the Andes into Callao and the Lima airport. This meant we arrived at the airport at a prompt midnight, four hours before our flight was supposed to depart! Thankfully there was no line at the LAN counters and we were able to check our belongings without much hassle. By 12:30 we headed upstairs to the restaurants and stores. All that was left to do was wait for our 4:35am flight.

We proceeded downstairs to the domestic departure waiting room, where we were told that there was bad weather (which means extreme rain) in Iquitos and the flight would be delayed 1 hour. After 20 minutes, the flight was delayed yet again for another hour. Surprisingly the team of students was unusually upbeat and having a grand time talking back and forth, watching One Tree Hill (apparently it’s quite popular among some of them), and playing mind/card tricks with their teachers.

We finally made it out of Lima around 6:30 in the morning, two hours after our original flying time. You would think that after this ordeal we would have easy travels the rest of the way to Puerto Alegria.

Not quite.

Once we arrived in Iquitos, we met an English couple that would accompany us during the day in Iquitos and few days at the Casa Girasoles home in Puerto Alegria. Our first stop in Iquitos was to drive 1.5 hours to the port of Nauta, where we would meet up with a Scottish medical work team that was heading out on the Amazon Hope 2 for ten days. One of SU’s six ministries is a medical mission, which takes place primarily at a clinic in Belen (the slum neighborhood of Iquitos), and on two boats the organization owns, the Amazon Hope 1 and Amazon Hope 2.

Before we even reached Nauta, the bus that we were traveling on managed to overheat – from a mixture of the long distance, extreme heat in Iquitos, many hills we climbed, and old machinery – causing us to switch buses and join the medical team that was traveling ahead of us. Finally, we made it to Nauta.

The boat, which has capacity for the 10 medical volunteers, a staff of Peruvian doctors, and ship crew, departed Nauta and took us on a 45-minute journey down the river. The scenery was beautiful, and seemed very exciting to travel down one of the Amazon tributaries for ten days.

After Nauta, we returned to Iquitos (in a bus that didn’t overheat) to have lunch at the traditional Ari’s Burgers – one of the only gringo (a name for a white person, non-Peruvian) friendly restaurants in Iquitos. By this time we were all exhausted, hungry, and hot from the hot and humid weather. A cold water and frozen lemonade were desperately needed.

Following Ari’s we re-boarded the bus to take us to the port where we would meet the boat owned by Puerto Alegria. From this port, we made the 45-minute journey down the River Itaya to the Casa Girasoles home in Puerto Alegria.

36 hours with 1 plane, 5 buses, 2 boats and we finally made it.

Push!

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Pushing the Combi, originally uploaded by katherinebruder.

Sometimes Angel’s van needs a little help getting started, so the boys at the Casa Girasoles Kusi give a hand and push the van.

In this case, only the youngest and smallest boys were around to help. Despite their size, they managed to get the van going in no time.

It was quite funny to watch them help out their viejo (old man, but in this case it’s a term of endearment), Angel.