01.24.06
america de sur
Hey everyone, I hope that you are all doing well in all your sites, I love reading all of yall’s blogs and hearing updates about how everything is going for each of you.
I can’t believe that our year is already half way over, but, Chulucanas has definitely become my home throughout these previous five months. Here’s a little synopsis of what’s been going on with me in Chulu…
My community and I spent the first month living at the bishop’s house, the second month with a peruvian family, and we didn’t actually move in all together until Novemeber. As I thought I would, I have definitely learned a great deal living within a commuity setting in a new and foreign environment. Every day, I am thankful for having them here to learn from them and to share this experience with them.
We don’t really have a set job or schedule, because that would just not be Peruvian. As a community, we have been building stoves for families who were chosen to recieve the cocina mejorada. We’ll hopefully build 24 stoves in Chulucanas, but the hardest part is choosing the families who will recieve them. All of these families are poor, so it makes it difficult to choose the poorest of the poor when each of them are in need of a better and healthier environment. The next part is to teach them that this stove can give them and their family a longer and safer life. The family is being forced to change their culture of cooking on the groud to using the stove that we’ve built for them, and many times it’s easier for them to revert back to thier comfort zone.
We ususally build the cocinas 2 or 3 days a week, and then Katie and I have been working with the Mercy Sisters with women in some of the rural areas on the outskirts of Chulucanas. The four of us, Katie, myself, and two other Marist Volunteers , give a speech based on self-esteem once a week to 20 women. The talks are based in order to help raise their self-esteem, because these women are so shy and timid. We want to give them a positive sense of their own self identity, and the talks are on a very basic level. For example, the first week we talked about our own individual likes and dislikes, and one of the women said that she liked ironing. She then said that it’s not about liking or disliking things, but they are forced to work every single day so it’s just things that have to get done. Any ways, we are just trying to teach them that it’s okay for them to like something that their friends or husband doesn’t like, which is a new ound idea for many of them.
For a third project, I have just began working at this organization for abused women and children. I’ve only been there for two days so far, but I was thrown right into the swing of things. There is a lot of legal stuff involved with, as far as getting both parents to help support the child. I’m sure it’s difficult in any country, but the difference here is that they are fighting for money that neither of them have. Another difference is that there is not much justice in the law, the police can easily be persuaded either way with a small bribe. So, we try and work out some of the problems between the mom and the dad in order for what is best for the child. It is a challenge for me though when they are both yelling at each other in fast spanish and using a lot of slang, and then they both look at me with a blank look of how I can fix their situation. Let’s just say that it’s a learning experience for all of us.
Allright, that’s a little about my time here so far, and I look forward to reading about the rest of yall’s lives as well. Thanks,
Ellen Donohue - Peru