08.21.07
Posted in AV 2007 International at 3:25 pm by elizabeth.droggitis
Living in a foreign country with both a foreign language and culture creates an at times challenging environment, one that I am confronted with daily in Peru. Whether it is trying to become accustomed to living as a women in a fairly overt machismo society or struggling to express myself not only accurately, but eloquently in a language that I am still learning, Chulucanas continues to present me with this challenge — one that while I try to accept with the best of attitudes, is taxing nonetheless. I am often frustrated when walking down the street, I am accompanied by a string of whistles or comments that I receive for the sole reason that I am woman, and I am endlessly annoyed when my Spanish, which was my college major and a subject that I have devoted over 8 years of my life to, still doesn’t seem to be improving. However, it takes one look at the lustradores, or shoe shiners, in the plaza who more times than not are shoeless and often dirty children who instead of going to school, work morning and night to get by; or at the poor farmers who come down from the mountains to sell their crops in the market to realize that although I struggle, I really don’t have it so bad. It’s okay that I used the wrong form of the verb hacer when I was explaining this weeks English homework to my students; on the other hand, it is definitely not okay that the lustrador children have to sacrifice their education to support themselves as well as their families.
However, while the situation of many Peruvians is often times heartbreaking, through the truly amazing hearts and spirits of these people, I have found it easy to find the “positive” amidst all the “negative”. For example, if there is one thing that I have come to learn and admire about many Peruvians I have met, especially of those in the most desperate of circumstances, it is that they are some of the most selfless, generous people that I have ever come in contact with. I recall a visit to a caserio of Chulucanas called Inmaculada Concepcion, or Immaculate Conception. A visiting group of American high schoolers had come to Chulucanas for a week-long service trip and we, the Augustinian Volunteers, helped organize the construction of a park in the neighborhood. On our first morning in Inmaculada Concepcion, we were visiting the caserio with the students to get them acquainted with both the town and people for whom they were building the park when an old lady invited us into her home to rest from the ever-hot Chulucanas sun. She asked us to please come in, that she couldn’t offer us anything but a chair and her company, but that she wanted to make us feel welcome in her neighborhood and thank us for our efforts. Her kindness to us that day, and that of so many Peruvians I have met along the way, is something that I will never forget. They never hesitate to offer you anything and everything that they have, even if it is just a chair to rest in for 5 minutes.
The selflessness I am describing is particularly evident in these few days following the massive earthquake that struck Peru. While thankfully Chulucanas was not hit, towns in the south of the country have been completed destroyed and are in desperate need of aid. All this week in the plaza of Chulucanas, there has been a donation table for those effected by the earthquake. Everyday I see people walk to the plaza, many of whom are in need themselves, dropping off bags of clothes or food — anything they can offer without hesitation of what they themselves might be lacking. This spirit of generosity I have experienced thus far in Peru is truly inspiring to witness. While it may seem to be a simple lesson to have learned, I have learned it nonetheless and by example, have tried and will continue to try to be more giving of myself.
In my initiation as an Augustinian Volunteer, I stated that while I was coming to Peru to volunteer, that I wanted to in turn learn and gain understanding from my experiences. While I am far from having totally grasped the immensity that has been my adventure in Chulucanas, I am definitely learning daily — whether it be coping with my frustrations or witnessing acts of compassion. I am grateful to the Augustinian Volunteers for this experience and am looking forward to continuing this learning process in my last months in Chulucanas.
Elizabeth Droggitis
Chulucanas, Peru
Permalink
08.16.07
Posted in AV 2007 International at 5:56 am by jakeweiler
I work in a fortress, in South Africa. When I arrived here last January, builders were putting the finishing touches on the stand-alone room which, although plain looking, was specially designed to repel burglars. The walls and ceiling are thick cement slabs, reinforced with steel rods at unusually tight intervals. The door is designed for a bank vault and requires two 6-inch long skeleton keys to unlock it. The idea for this architectural behemoth was hatched last year when my volunteer predecessors set up a handful of donated computers in the library of St. Leo Primary School, located in a semi-rural Zulu community. Just four days later it was discovered that nearly all of the computers had been stolen. But Fr. Eddie Hattrick, O.S.A.,who until recently was overseeing the Augustinian Friars’ “mission” at St. Leo School and Church, was not deterred in his belief that computer skills can make a huge impact on the life of a black South African child from the townships. So he raised the money to build a computer room that could be secure in the midst of nation that is anything but secure. Despite all kinds of delays–including a vault door that refused entry even to us–we were able to finalize the furnishing of the room just in time for Fr. Eddie’s farewell celebration. After 48 years as a missionary in Japan and South Africa, he has gone home. We miss him dearly.I can’t deny that such a facility, now furnished with a dozen computers, is something of an anachronism at a school where some children still have no shoes. I wish sometimes that the money invested in the computer room would have been used instead to better feed the kids whose only meal each day is the rice and beans the is served at school. Although the absurdity is maddening, my reservations about the rightness of a computer training program in the midst of such elemental need have all but melted away. After a few months of operation, I have seen not only the joy and pride that computer class offers the kids but also the great potential. Whereas these students’ parents and grandparents are most employable if they speak English, this new generation might have a leg up if they can navigate around a computer screen. And since very few South African blacks are computer literate, even the most basic knowledge will, hypothetically, make my students–about 120 in total–the technological leaders of their communities. That’s an exhilarating prospect.
This has all got me to thinking about my own computer-related history, how my personal privilege has come not only in the form of decent shoes and three meals daily but also in the form of an education that has generally kept pace with technological advancements of the first world. As “smart boards” and WiFi hot zones are becoming the rage back in the US, many South African schools - particularly those that cater to blacks - aren’t even wired for electricity. It’s frankly scary to think that as our world becomes increasingly computerized information and ideas will become proportionately inaccessible to those without computer literacy. And since information is the cornerstone of socioeconomic success, computer illiteracy has suddenly become a cause of poverty and not just a symptom of it. The gap between rich and poor is widening. Fast. And one day soon it may become altogether impossible to leap from one side to the other. That’s why teaching computers to kids at St. Leo Primary unexpectedly seems like such an important thing to do, especially before the rift between “us” (those who have access to this web post of mine) and “them” (those who do not) becomes irreconcilable.
When the kids at St. Leo are confounded by the computers before them, I’m amused to recall that not so long ago I too was mashing keys, fumbling with the mouse, and smearing the screen with my dirty fingers. I suppose that I’ve come a long way since then. My students are learning so fast and so avidly that I’m beginning to believe that maybe they can go a long way too. Perhaps even farther.
Jake Weiler
South Africa
Permalink
08.09.07
Posted in AV 2007 International at 3:04 pm by mauramoa
The beauty of a place lies in its people. Not in its surroundings.
This past evening, in a caserio high in the Andes mountains of Peru, in a little adobe house on the side of a dirt road, I found myself sitting around a table full of my Peruvian friends conversing, laughing and freezing (because in the mountains it can get quite cold). In a borrowed hand made dark blue poncho, sipping a hot natural drink native to the region to keep warm, gathered a group no larger than 8, of all generations. In the dimly lit room we shared our thoughts, our experiences and our desires for the future. And when it was my turn to share, in my broken spanish, I talked about the most important thing that I have learned while in Peru..a lesson that I will never, ever cease to forget. All people, in Peru, in Africa, in the U.S, in China, from a young girl in the poorest, most forlorn patch of poverty striken land in the world, to an old man, reflecting comfortably on his long life in his heated home in the folds of a developed nation. These people, nosostros, we are all the same.
Before I left for Peru in January, I got asked on a number of occasions why I was going. My answer was quick, and honest, but certaintly not revolutionary. I said simply “I don’t know yet. But I know I want to”. Some people looked at me as though I was crazy, others with a glean of regret in their eye, and still others congratulating me, as if this one year trek to South America was an impossible feat. The truth is, it is none of the above. It is merely life. Yes, life in a different language and culture, but life nonetheless.
My drive to work on Monday’s is unlike most of my peers. I pile into a small, old, white taxi which we pick up at the edge of the market along with a number of other passengers, all heading to Morropan, a town about one hour away from Chulucanas. Packed in like sardines, the driver heads out of Chulucanas, often times blasting cumbia, the Peruvian country music so popular here in the north, and tapping his hands along with the latin rythm. On our way to Santa Rita, where the Augustinian Volunteers teach English to the primary school, we pass some of the most beautiful landscapes that I have ever seen. On the verge of where the desert meets the more fertile and green Andes mountains, we whip around in the little car until we reach our destination, passing hundreds of little adobe houses, cows, goat, farms and banana trees along the way.
Once in the school, we set out teaching school full of of 30 children per classroom,without books, without paper, and often times without the full attention of the students we teach. Some students go home to loving families, others to single mothers whose father is searching desperately elsewhere for work. Some children go home to unstable homes, and uncertain futures. Others go home and work along side their elders, preparing food, cleaning the house and then watching some television when they are done. It is challenging, to say the least. But as in any challenge, the blessing lies in our ability to try. And although I am sure that none of my students know much more than “hello” and “good afternoon” in English, we certaintly have fun trying.
Poverty certaintly exists here. There is no denying the hungry faces and lack of good medical attention. There is no way to avoid a male dominated society, no way to change a government that doesn´t have the funds to fix itself. This is the kind of poverty that is so closely associated with developing nations, the exterior poverty that manifests itself in the minds of people from more developed nations; not only because people from developed nations live in standards unheard of here, but because developed nations have forgotten that it is possible to survive without such standards.
This type of poverty, the exterior poverty that afflicts so many in Chulucanas and the country of Peru is a poverty that I will never know intimately and can only observe from afar. At first I said it isn’t fair that some live in such a way and I in such a completely different way. But then I looked deeper into the lives of the people I have met here I realize that exterior poverty does not impede that which is on the interior of the beautiful people here. In a school without books, we find ways to teach using other methods. In a town without a regular trash service, we find ways to recyle. In a region greatly lacking in water resourses, we find ways to conserve. In a place where very few government supports exist for the poor, we find ways to irk out a living. Most importantly we find ways to love. To pray. To dream. To live.
And I say we, because I am not talking only of the poor people in Peru. I am talking about all of us. Every last person in this world. Because, it is true, we are all the same.
Maura Murphy
Chulucanas, Peru
Permalink