And so we come to the end

Our last few weeks in Peru went really quickly. We finished our artisan stories and photos, sent them to the appropriate clients, and saved them in a place we hoped Yannina and Christina would remember to access when looking for stories. We finalized our last few “how to do this specific computer task” documents and sent them a massive email about where to find all of the items we’d worked on, all now in one folder on Christina’s computer. 

The staff of Manos Amigas took us out for a goodbye lunch at everyone’s favorite place - La Pollera, where else?! - which was really kind and unexpected. 

From left: us, Mamita (Yannina & Roberto's mom), Yannina, Maria Esther (one of the quality control/packers), Mario, Giuseppe, Roberto, Christina, and Sheila (the other quality control/packer). The only person missing is Dieuwe.

On the whole, as positive of an experience as we had, as helpful and non-difficult as we tried to be, and as much as Yannina appreciated our work and Manos Amigas liked us as a family, I don’t think we changed their minds about volunteers and how difficult they can be to work with. Not all organizations are equipped to handle volunteers, of course, nor do they have to be, but I wish we had been so fabulous and essential to them to have changed their outlook on volunteers.

We tried to be pretty deliberate about fitting in some of our favorite things before we left, but of course, you never end up doing everything you mean to do. Time just runs out. And so, after 18 flights, 2 overnight bus trips, approximately one million city bus rides within Lima, 40 artisan visits, one earthquake actually felt (among the dozens that happened), countless cheap, delicious and intensely strong El Pan de la Chola cappucinos, and 25 different places where we ranked pisco sours on our extremely scientific rating system, our time in South America came to an end.

In some ways, it’s nice to be home. For as busy and frantic a street as we lived on in Lima, we practically live in the country by comparison here. A car drives by and all of us neighbors look out our respective windows to see who it could possibly be. I like hearing the owls hoot overnight. As I type this, I can see a gorgeous pileated woodpecker peck away at the redbud tree just outside our window. I really like being able to go to the library and check out books! We are so fortunate to have wonderful friends here. I’m glad that we all now can wear functioning seatbelts when we are in a car, I don’t have to dig toilet paper out of my backpack when we are using a bathroom not at our apartment, and that we don’t have to pay to use public bathrooms. Drinking water straight from the tap is pretty fabulous, and so are water fountains, one of Simon’s new fascinations.

But otherwise... coming home has been hard. Starting with the bluster and belligerence and swagger of the US airport employees didn’t help. It was harder than I expected to leave behind the things I loved about Lima (like living in Spanish, walking one block to our local mercado every day for fresh fruits and vegetables, riding the bus anywhere and everywhere, having some time every day that I could work) and adjust to needing to get in the car for absolutely everything and becoming Simon’s primary caregiver again. While our time in Peru wasn’t all fun and relaxation, we have both commented on how hard it is here to not to get really tense and rushed while driving, always late for something. I much preferred just being on a bus or in Gustavo’s taxi.

I suppose part of my adjustment in returning stems from my uncertainty about what my future looks like. For about ten years, we’d discussed our dream of living abroad. And so much of the last few years was filled with our plans for the sabbatical, making it happen, living the experience. Now it’s over. Sam knew exactly what he was returning to - running Global Gifts - and is really excited about that. I knew that I would spend several weeks or months starting to find my way around an Indianapolis I don’t know well, the Latino Indianapolis, trying to figure out what the organizations are that serve the Latino population here and, at the same time, trying to figure out what sort of role I could carve out for myself within that community. I want to keep improving my Spanish, and I want Simon to keep his. But what does that look like? Hopefully I’ll have some answers in several months.

I feel like I’m in a speeding car, staring in the rearview mirror, panicking as I watch Lima quickly recede into the distance. I’m not ready to be done with it, I’m not ready to move on from it. I know my thoughts about our year there will morph as time passes. But this is where I am, now.

However, I’m happy to say that I am the only one with transition issues. Sam is pumped to be back and really excited to return to Global Gifts, full of energy and new ideas. He officially goes back to work full-time tomorrow, although he’s been happily going to meetings, working part-time, and generally getting back into the swing of things for several weeks now. Simon has started preschool one morning a week at a co-op close to our house, and he loves it. He still talks about Dieuwe and Giuseppe often, and the kids even Skyped one afternoon, a funny five minutes of making faces to each other on the computer.

Simon has also spent a lot of time catching up with old loves (like his bike helmet. Not the bike, mind you, just the helmet.) and started up new affairs (like “driving”). He heard me say “Hallelujah!” in response to a friend saying she was coming over, and that has quickly become a favorite word of his. He likes to exclaim it in the funniest and most random of situations, like when I get him second helpings, when he’s allowed to help grind the coffee, when he realizes he gets to go to Sunday school or preschool. “Hallelujah!”

The bike helmet is always a great fashion accessory.

The helmet adds flair to a harmonica/giant ball bounce session. 

Just in case Simon falls off of Sam's lap, we know don't have to worry about his head!

Behind the wheel, obsessed with the hazard lights

Simon has easily solved the problem of not being able to see out the window while "driving".

A perfect example of the difference in our living situations - in Lima, in never rained and if it did, we wouldn't have anywhere to go puddle jumping. Plus, the ick factor of the black pollution in the puddles would have given us pause. Here, it poured one morning. Simon pulled on his new boots from Lucy and spent a ton of time getting thoroughly soaked!

Such concentration!

We hope to return again to Peru, this time just as visitors, of course. We’ve even tossed around the idea of leading a tour to Peru in a couple of years. It would probably be a mix of visiting different parts of Lima and artisan workshops, then probably going to Cuzco for a coffee tour through one of Equal Exchange’s suppliers and then on to Machu Picchu. Let me know via email if you are interested; we can decide if it’s a viable idea based on the response.

And so the year of magical traveling has come to its end. While I’m sure our year would have been amazing no matter where we had ended up, I feel so fortunate to have spent it in Peru. It has truly been a magical year! I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do it, from the Global Gifts board and staff giving Sam the time to do it, to Manos Amigas opening their doors and families to us.

Thank you for being part of this year, too! It has been such fun to write this blog and share random experiences with everyone. Thanks especially for sticking with me through the long and longer posts - I genuinely meant to keep them short but somehow I always found there was so much to say.

I ran out of time to tell various stories that stayed in my head, wanting to be recorded but other stories took precedence. So I’ll leave you with a medley of images instead.

In Piura, we were staying at a crappy and slightly sketchy hotel with a shared bathroom for the four rooms on our floor. In the middle of the night, someone stole the lone light bulb in the bathroom.

In Lima, our trash was picked up not once every night but TWICE! If you missed the 10 pm-ish pick up, you could put it out again for another pickup around 3 or 4 a.m. But if you put it out too early - before 7 pm or after the second pickup - you were subject to a fine.

Our Santa Cruz neighbors were pretty invisible and unknown to us until they - random people, I thought - started commenting on Simon as we would pass on the street or at the mercado. “I work in that building over there. I see him pass by every day. He’s getting so big!” Little kids I thought I had never seen before (and vice versa) would stop me on the malecón and say, “Is that Simon?” Surprised, I’d say yes, how did you know? “I see him all the time!”

The cobradores, the guys (occasionally a woman) who collected bus fares, helped direct traffic via hand signals out the window, and generally acted as the bus driver’s assistant, are on their feet for 12 hours a day. They hustle back and forth on packed buses, making change, remembering who has gotten on the bus through both the front and back doors in the last 10 minutes and who still needs to pay. And for all that, they make just 30 soles per day, the rough equivalent of $12 or $13. That is what a 30 minute taxi ride to the Lima airport costs!

In northern Peru, the Conga mine protests have forced delays in an extremely controversial mining project since December. The project has finally been put on indefinite hold. I resented reading in the Wall Street Journal that the protesters were characterized as radical and extremist but I suppose that is to be expected in a newspaper focused on business interests. I don’t think any Peruvian wants or expects the mining industry to completely cease in Peru, but this specific project has so much local and indigenous opposition that I am glad for them that it is on hold.

We were always so out of place that we were therefore not able to use that as a reason to not go to an event or do an activity. For example, we trekked to Lima centro to attend an event billed as an urban street arts festival. There was lots of skateboarding, hip hop, beatboxing, breakdancing, spray paint/graffitti art, etc. It was a lot of fun and we were glad we went. While I would like to think I would go to the same event in Indy, I know my uneasiness at being too obviously out of place would tend to keep me away.

As we walked on a busy street near the square in Arequipa, we passed a group of three young men standing on a corner. I glanced at them briefly as we walked by, saw that the man in the middle was wearing a hospital mask and was being supported by his friends, and then read the sign hanging from his neck. “I have leukemia. Please help me pay for my treatments.” My heart leapt into my throat. That could have been my brother. How could he have stood outside, even held up by friends, in this cold? I shuddered, remembering how much pain Jared was in and couldn't fathom how truly awful it would have been for him had he needed to stand and beg on a corner. The three were a portrait of misery. Was the beggar really a cancer patient or was he simply playing to our sympathy to earn money? I decided I didn’t care and that I’d prefer to err on the side of giving money to someone who didn’t need it than to ignore someone who so desperately did. We turned around and walked back to the corner. They were gone. We walked around for a bit, trying to see if we could spot them on a new corner, but we never saw them again. I assume they were chased off for begging in a popular tourist area.

There were so many stories there, there was so much to learn about and describe. We’ve just scratched the surface during our year there. Now we start the next adventure, this one formed by our life here, finding stories and enjoying exploring Indianapolis with new eyes.

¡Vaya con Dios!

Artisanal anecdotes

During our visit to Fredy’s workshop in dust-choked Ate, he tells us of growing up in the jungle and coming to Lima at age 13. He takes us up to his roof, where he and his wife are slowly building their living space, room by room. I look out at the dust, hovering above the valley and making everything brown, the bleak mountains in the distance, the other buildings with rebar sticking every which way. I think what a gorgeous place he had to leave in the jungle and what he has here, now. As I’m getting increasingly depressed, Fredy gestures out to the same view I’ve been contemplating. “Look at this,” he says. “It’s so beautiful.”

I ask one ceramicist whether he thought his 7-year-old daughter would follow in his footsteps. “I think parents always want their kids to be interested in what they do, but they also want them to be happy and have a better life. We work every day, from around 6:30 in the morning until 10 or 11 at night. We work Saturdays, Sundays, holidays. I don’t want my daughter to work like that.”

Alvina is on her fourth visit to Manos Amigas, attempting to deliver a jewelry order. Each time, Christina carefully checks over each piece and soon has a pile of jewelry that Alvina will need to correct and bring back yet again. After she leaves, Christina, exasperated, says, “She has glasses! She needs to wear them! She is just too ashamed of them, so she doesn’t even see the scratches I’m pointing out to her! Maybe she would learn to wear them after I keep rejecting the order!” On her next visit, Christina asks Alvina to wear her glasses while they review her order together. It works.

At Jacinto’s workshop, I have to use the bathroom. Sam, who had visited the facilities at another artisan’s home earlier, whispers, “It will just be a hole in the ground; be prepared.” I ask Jacinto’s wife where los servicios are. She exchanges a worried look with her adult daughter, but walks me out of the workshop, out to the back of their home. She moves a couple of tubs of clothes soaking in laundry water, and points up the sand hill: Just up there.

I trudge up the hill and see a toilet set directly into the sand with reed mats encircling it for a measure of privacy. I move the mat serving as a door and turn around. The deep blue ocean, sunlit and sparkling on this strangely sunny and clear winter day, is what I see when I look out over rows and rows of homes just like Jacinto’s, shacks without running water, with reeds mats as roofs. The calm, beautiful sea is such a contrast to the difficult life they lead.

Silvia hands me a pair of earrings as a goodbye gift. “I am so sorry that these are not fair trade, but I wanted to give you something,” she said. I look at the sticker on the velvety bag and read that it is from Creaciones Ymelda. This happens to be from Ymelda Diaz, the one artisan who works with Manos Amigas AND has her own puesto in Inca Market. There are literally a couple thousand of these puestos in different mercados lining the same street in Miraflores, and Silvia just happened to go to the one tiny puesto that could be called (but is not advertised as) fair trade. Fate? Chance? Luck? We are both delighted by the coincidence.

While Ymelda lives in Ventanilla and has her ceramic workshop there, she sells a variety of merchandise at her puesto in Miraflores. She works in her taller producing windchimes in the morning, then makes the two-and-a-half hour trip to Miraflores on “2-3 buses, depending which ones come first,” to get to Inca Market to sell in all afternoon and evening. Her dream is to own a car.

We visited Daniel Novoa’s workshop twice, once in November and again in March. (You can see pictures of Daniel in my post about the November visit with Yannina and one of her Italian clients as well as in my dad’s post about my parents’ trip to Peru.) He is young - just turned 33 last month - and is incredibly entrepreneurial. He took a class on starting your own business, wrote a business plan, and learned how to create and maintain a web presence. His first child was born in May. In July, orders were slow so he was working in construction. A friend asked to use his kiln to fire several pieces, not an unusual request. His girlfriend called him several hours later in a panic. Their friend had left something flammable on top of the kiln, which caught on fire and burned his entire workshop down.

Yannina found out several weeks later, when Daniel, ever the entrepreneur, called to ask if she’d buy a ticket to a dinner he and his girlfriend were holding to raise money to rebuild the workshop. After seeing the damage firsthand, Yannina is currently working on securing a bigger loan for Daniel through several client donations.

A large percentage of the artisans want to handle exporting themselves but very few appear to have the capacity to navigate the complexities of international commerce and shipping, let alone the business acumen to market their products and manage client relationships.

Some of Manos Amigas’ artisans brought their products in well before the due date, or right on time, with few or minor corrections needed. But more often Manos Amigas was left hanging until the last minute, wondering whether artisans would bring their orders in on time (and then, when they had not been delivered, Yannina would spend days calling and attempting to reach artisans who were suddenly not answering her phone calls). And often, when an order arrived and Manos Amigas did quality control by inspecting each item, they would find product imperfections (where several products might need to be redone or touched up) or design errors (where the whole order would need to be fixed or redone completely). 

We saw this happen so consistently, with a lot of stress on Manos Amigas’ end regarding getting the products to their client on time that Sam and I privately thought physically checking on the order’s status during the production process would be beneficial. Another organization which we respect checks four times on their artisans’ progress and accordingly have fewer surprises. Manos Amigas isn’t staffed for that, though, and they aren’t really set up to work with volunteers. And realistically, visiting the artisans could easily be a full time job. We were exhausted by the travel and pollution with doing an average of one day of visits per week; imagine the exhaustion daily visits would produce.

Zenaida is so outrageously late with an order that Yannina, normally patient in the face of insanity, loses her patience. Zenaida swears she’ll have the order in on Monday the 13th, several months late and after a dozen similar promises. “Monday the 13th?” Yannina asks. “Of what year?” Zenaida doesn’t show up on Monday, surprising no one.

When she does show up, not only is it six weeks after Monday the 13th, but she arrives at 10 pm. My response would have been to go to sleep and deal with the order the next day. It was months late, after all! Yannina stayed up all night, packing the order for shipment.

A window into another world

Our final artisan visits were in Ventanilla, far on the northern side of Lima. Ventanilla is a relatively young district, formed in 1969 initially to relieve overpopulated areas in downtown Lima and nearby Callao. Apparently Ventanilla was attractive a couple hundred years ago to pirates off of the coast of Lima who could see that there were a number of caves and grottoes in various rock formations nearby, and they thought those would be good places to hide their treasures. The concentration of rock “windows” from their ocean viewpoint led them to name the district after “little windows” = ventanilla. Later, people were attracted by the lore accompanying the buried treasure, wondering if they could find anything. In summertime it is said to be a popular place to go to the beach, handling up to 40,000 people at once.

Many of Ventanilla’s current residents either arrived as part of land invasions (a group of homeless families squat on an undeveloped or undesirable piece of land, hoping that eventually the government will include them in city planning with services such as water, sewers, and electricity) or were moved here by the government to relieve crowding in other districts. (And, in fact, a week after we visited, I read in the news about a violent confrontation between squatters and police in yet another undeveloped place in Ventanilla - land invasions are not just a part of “old” history but very much part of the present.)

By this point in our artisan visits, Simon had clearly communicated to us that two hours on a bus flying and screeching and bumping through traffic, followed by a long-ish artisan visit, plus two more hours for the return, was unacceptable. The fact that he was also getting carsick with some frequency on the buses made us rethink our strategy. We realized that we just weren’t going to be able to visit all of the artisans we’d intended to interview due to the distances involved, and decided to hire a taxi for our last few days of visits. Gustavo, a friend of Manos Amigas, had quickly become our go-to taxi driver when we needed airport drop-offs or pick-ups. He readily agreed to transport us around the outskirts of Lima for an hourly rate. 

One of the reasons we liked Gustavo over any other driver was that he drove pretty slowly and cautiously, given crazy Peruvian traffic. Everyone else we’ve driven with tended to ride the accelerator, then slam on the brakes, over and over and over. (See Simon, carsick, above.) Add free-for-all turn “lanes” (if you don’t want to wait in the line to turn left, then just dart out in traffic and create your own lane), mix in buses, combis, and cars careening between lanes at will and you have a recipe for stressful driving. Except it all seemed to work just fine; I saw the results of just one accident during our year in Lima. But Gustavo did all of the above much more slowly and cautiously, and Simon did well as a result.

I was really thankful that we drove with Gustavo to Ventanilla, since the traffic, impossibly, was crazier than we had ever experienced. After we passed the airport, mayhem broke loose. Apparently the highway was being ripped out and redone without traffic being stopped or redirected in any way. So this meant that six lanes of traffic flowed in various directions, not always on a surface intended for driving and not always flowing in a direction you’d expect. We narrowly missed encounters with semis and dump trucks. Two brave souls were driving on their motorized bicycle cart, their cart stacked with fresh vegetables, weaving between semis, buses, and cars like ours. Drivers created shoulders where I didn’t realize there was space. Sam said, “This is Lima traffic on steroids!” It took us over two hours to maneuver through this mayhem and get to Ventanilla. How long would it have taken us on a bus? I’m not sure we ever would have made it!

While Gustavo is a cautious driver by comparison, he definitely drives Lima-style. Here we are nonchalantly cutting in front of a semi. 

We drove parallel to the ocean, passing mile after mile of giant container yards, with thousands of containers ready to be loaded onto ships. Later we passed the funky rock formations that drew the pirates’ attention. Eventually we arrived in Ventanilla, which at that point looked like many other districts, which is to say, crowded, paved, full of businesses and mototaxis. It didn’t appear impoverished at first glance. Gustavo asked around for directions to our artisans’ neighborhood, and we drove still further north, but much closer to the ocean now. We drove up, up, up the giant sand dune, seeing the ocean on one side and the increasing poverty on the other.

Our first visit was to Mario Nolasco. I’d actually interviewed Mario months before, in the Manos Amigas office, before we’d embarked on artisan visits. He’d come to the office to deliver a muestra, a product sample, and Yannina asked me to interview him before he left. Since I had my interview notes, we just needed photographs of his workshop to complete his materials. While I’m glad we visited him, in hindsight that was a long way to travel just for a few dozen photographs! Mario was proud to have us visit, though. He told us that we were just his third set of visitors in five years: Yannina had checked out his space when she was doing her due diligence before they started working together; another Manos Amigas volunteer had come to interview him 3 years ago, and now us.

I was really impressed with Mario’s workshop. He is young, just 24 years old, and has an immaculately kept workshop that he’s built by himself. Compare some pictures from 2009, with ours from 2012; the changes he’s effected since then are striking.

2009: interior of Mario's workshop

2009: sign on his door with his address & advertising that he does ceramics in the style of Ayacucho, his hometown

2009: exterior of his workshop/home

2012: interior of workshop

2012: entrance to workshop. I love the artful iron lettering of his workshop name, Moya Wasi, which is Quechua for House of Seeds. I also love that he has a tree! His place is nicer and more carefully tended to than some places in our neighborhood.

If you look closely, you can see that the arrow points to "Moya Wasi" spelled out with pebbles. This is the entrance to the workshop.

Mario with some of his products

The second oldest of eight children, Mario comes from a line of artisans. His parents couldn’t afford to buy him toys, but there was always ample clay around. Mario would create his toys out of clay and his father would later fire them in the kiln along with his items for sale.

His opportunity to come to Lima came when an artisan asked his older brother if he’d help him out at his workshop for several months. Mario’s brother wasn’t interested, but 18-year-old Mario was. He had never been to Lima before. “I’m from the jungle. I only knew places with lots of plants and animals. I had heard lots of stories of the big city, the ocean, the cars, and the buildings.”

June is wintertime in Lima, and Mario wasn’t used to the cold. “I didn’t like the weather at all and didn’t plan to stay.” But after his month of work was over with and Mario was making plans to return to Ayacucho, another artisan asked him if he would work with him until December. Mario agreed. Once December rolled around, Mario had slowly gotten accustomed to Lima. The artisan offered to pay for Mario to return to Ayacucho and spend Christmas and the New Year with his family, if Mario would agree to work with him for the next year.

By that point, Mario decided that if he was going to spend this much time in Lima, he might as well open up his own workshop too. He had friends who knew of available land in Ventanilla for his future workshop. “But it was just sand; there wasn’t an existing structure to build onto.” Mario spent 2007 working at two workshops, his friend’s and laying the groundwork for his own. He’d work for one week for his friend, followed by a week working on his own workshop.

Since his land was just sand, his weeks in his workshop were spent sinking posts in the ground and building walls with thin wood. He used woven mats for his roof. As Lima is a desert, it rarely rains, so woven reed mats were sufficient as well as typical of his neighbors’ homes as well. But they are not very strong or permanent. “I lived in the workshop too, of course. You have to guard your stuff. People would say, ‘finish your floor; how can you work with a sand floor?’ But, if your pottery piece falls off of the table and onto the sand, it doesn’t break. If you have a floor, it does. And if you are painting it and it falls into the sand, even though the sand sticks to the paint as if it were glue, you can just rinse it off and start again.”

He strengthened his workshop in 2010. Mario now has a cement floor, reinforced and painted walls, a stronger roof. His home is now in back.

This hallway runs from the back of Mario's workshop, past his living quarters, and out to the bathroom.

The door to Mario's bathroom

As we found out on our way there, the time involved in getting to and from Ventanilla is significant. I asked him how long it takes him to get to Manos Amigas. “I spend three hours in a bus to get to Manos Amigas on time. If I have to bring a big order in, I take a taxi, which would normally take less time, but right now there is construction on both roads in and out of Ventanilla, so it’s about the same amount of time.”

Due to the distances involved, he always makes sure that he has scheduled different days for merchandise to be due and transported to his clients, so that he doesn’t have to trek to more than one place in one day. On the day we visited, for example, Mario’s brother left Ventanilla at 4 a.m. to take an order to a client in Lurín, far on the southern edge of Lima. He arrived at 7 a.m. Because of the normally heavy and insane traffic which is Lima, I can only imagine how long it would have taken him to get to Lurín if he had waited to leave at a more normal hour of 8 or 10 a.m.

Mario’s main plans for the future are to keep growing his business, of course, and to obtain the title of his land. “The government has the title. I am working on getting the title, but it will take time. You have to keep asking for it.” Getting the title to the land is tricky in areas where land invasions have been frequent and the government has relocated people. Back in the office, I asked Christina about Mario’s quest for the title and whether he’d actually ever get it. She told me that it was possible, but that only the people who keep asking for it and are persistent - over years - are the ones who eventually are granted them. I hope Mario is one of the lucky ones.

Mario sticks in my mind. I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps it’s because he was the first artisan I interviewed. Perhaps it’s because he is so young. Perhaps it’s because he is trying so earnestly to be successful in a tough market, doing something (and doing it well) that so many others do too. (Product plug: Global Gifts is currently selling one of his products, a tealight for $16.) Perhaps it is because he is doing the absolute best he can in a poor area, taking such care with the appearance and upkeep of his workshop in an area where few can or do pay attention to those details.

After talking with Mario, we walked down about 12 shacks until we arrived at Jacinto’s home/workshop. 

The building next to Mario's

The view of Ventanilla and the ocean from Mario's workshop

At first I was surprised by their proximity - Ventanilla is huge! - but later I found out that Mario introduced his neighbor to Yannina, thinking that perhaps he would be a good fit for Manos Amigas.

Jacinto is from Huancayo and produces mates burilados, carved gourds. He and his wife, Vasilia, both learned to make mates from their parents. Each has been working since they were 7 or 8 years old. This was a common story we heard from the mates artisans who are over 40 years old: they all were working, some of them full time, by age 8. 

Jacinto welcomes us to his workshop

Simon, as usual, finds friends to play in the dirt and sand with

Jacinto and Vasilia have five children ranging in age from 16 to 27. They moved to Lima in 1998 for better work opportunities and lived in Villa El Salvador, on Lima’s far south side. But in 2000, the Peruvian government moved him and 10,000 others from Villa El Salvador to Ventanilla.

When they arrived, there was nothing but sand. There were no existing structures, no services. “They moved us in giant trucks. We slept in the sand with plastic and cardboard boxes for protection. Not many people stuck it out. Life was rough. There was no water, no electricity, no access to transportation, no nothing.” While they have electricity now, 12 years later, they still do not have water. “They promised us that we would have water by 2008. But administrations change and don’t always fulfill previous promises.”

I can’t imagine living so far from the heart of Lima, without any access to transportation, let alone water and shelter. I suppose that is an example of how desperate they and others were for a home. While Jacinto and his family have obviously come far from the days when they slept in sand, they still have a hard life. They must bring in water for everything: washing clothes, dishes, drinking, cooking. Sand is everywhere. As we talked, a dusting of sand blew down on my notes from crevices in the roof.

Jacinto outside of their workshop/home. They have come a long way from sleeping in sand, covered by plastic.

After we finished our interviews, we thanked everyone and piled back into Gustavo’s car, bracing ourselves for the ride back home. Slowly our scenery changed from ocean and shacks to dusty construction and planes, to frantic streets with everyone jockeying for position, back to Miraflores where parapentes were sailing above the ocean and among the high rises. Parks, filled with greenery in this desert, are pretty much everywhere in Miraflores. During the week, many of those parks are filled with niñeras, nannies, and their charges. While not all of the niñeras are from places as far away as Ventanilla, few are from Miraflores.

What a contrast. On the ride back, I kept thinking about what people like Mario, Jacinto, and the niñeras think when they trek in from their neighborhoods and arrive in the relative luxury of Miraflores and see the wealth everywhere. The luck of having green parks and playgrounds patrolled by security officers, safe places to play outside, the ocean as a backdrop for daily activities: that felt luxurious after days on buses seeing the rest of Lima. As such, Miraflores can be such a contrast to the rest of Lima, and a lot of the expats who live there wouldn’t dare set foot in many of those areas. I remember being that afraid, so I can’t fault them, but I am also thankful I got past my fear.

Once, when we were driving with Yannina through a dusty district far past Lima’s downtown, she commented, “We [in Miraflores] have the ocean. What do they have here? Dust.” So many different worlds, all in the same city.

What would Louise Erdrich write?

One of my favorite authors is Louise Erdrich. I first read one of her novels as part of a Native American Literature class in college. I liked the book for several reasons: it was told from the perspective of a number of different characters, it had overlapping stories (so that you read about various events from the different, and sometimes contradictory, perspectives of several people), and it jumped backwards and forwards in time, somewhat randomly.

Then I read another one of her novels and loved learning captivating (occasionally shocking!) backstory on certain memorable, if not lovable, characters. As she tends to center her narratives on the Native Americans and German immigrants living in a small, fictional town in North Dakota, the same characters and extended families tend to pop up again and again throughout different books. Two years ago, I reread all of her fiction in an effort to get a handle on certain narratives as they changed through books and characters’ perspectives. It made me realize again just how masterful of a storyteller she is.

One of the main things I appreciate about her writing is her ability to take a seemingly unremarkable occasion, or life, and make it fascinating. She easily spins a narrative that helps me empathize with occasionally unsympathetic characters or people I wouldn’t notice otherwise. 

I have thought about Louise Erdrich a number of times during our year here, mostly on two themes. The first is regarding the artisan stories we write. 

Everyone has a story, whether or not it’s shared, and Louise Erdrich can make any story fascinating. While the stories Sam and I write share a bit about an artisan’s life, they certainly aren’t something you would want to curl up on the couch with and read all afternoon. As I sift through random pieces of information about artisans, I frequently wonder what kind of captivating story Louise Erdrich would build from them. Here are some examples. (Some names have been changed.) 

In addition to being a silversmith, Juan is a lawyer specializing in family law.

Pablo is pretty successful based on the number of orders he receives, and yet still lives in a shack without running water or electricity. His wife tells Manos Amigas to only give her the payments and advances, since her husband has a gambling problem. While that strategy worked for some time, her husband now shows up frequently, alone, asking for payments due.

Noemi grew up in her father’s ceramics workshop and now has her own workshop. She sells jellos in the mercado when retablo orders are slow, and also studies cosmetology.

Antonio drives a mototaxi to supplement his work in ceramics.


Jacinto lived in Villa El Salvador, far on the south side of Lima. In 2000, he and 10,000 others were moved by the government to Ventanilla, far on the north side of Lima. When the government trucks dropped them off, he was stunned to see their new home: nothing but sand. No buildings, no structures, no nothing. He, his wife, and their five children slept in the sand, with only plastic and cardboard for protection.

Rosa makes stuffed vicuñas and llamas. She has had absolutely nothing several times, the first time being when her husband sold their house without telling her and kept all of the proceeds. She left him to go to Lima, where she would have more opportunities to support her and her nine children. They left with only the clothes on their backs. The second time was when an earthquake caused a neighbor’s home to fall onto her home, which collapsed. While she and her kids went for medical treatment, everything they owned was stolen. Now, 30 years later, she is a successful and elegant businesswoman. To make ends meet, she has a small storefront where she sells water, sodas, snacks, copies, phone calls, and her family's artesanía, and she also sells typical Peruvian food at a nearby kiosk.

When Melquiades was interviewed several years ago and was asked about his birth year, he responded, “1953 in reality, but 1959 is what is listed on my birth certificate.”

Hugo has been in jail for the last 10 years and his sentence is for five more, but that hasn’t slowed his pottery business. His wife brings him the clay and other raw materials. He’s built a workshop inside the jail, complete with employees: he has trained other inmates to help him. He even has a kiln. 


The second reason Louise Erdrich has been on my mind is because of how she portrays the sometimes contradictory perspectives of events in her characters’ lives. It makes me wonder about the nature of truth when I try to figure out what is “true” in any given situation.


Such as: occasionally we have heard people share parts of their lives that, based on someone else’s account, cannot be true. But yet, it must be true, since it’s their own story. 


For example, Alejandro and Emilio are brothers. Emilio is the eldest of four, Alejandro the youngest. We interviewed them, each in his own workshop, and each told us how their father had died when they were very young, that their mother had remarried three months later and left them and their siblings to fend for themselves, and Emilio then had to leave school and work to support himself and his three siblings.


But their stories differ on their ages when their father died. Emilio says he was 13 or 14, and that Alejandro was 6. Alejandro told us that he was 3 when his father died and Emilio was 12 when he had to start supporting the family.


Both are true, since each of them is allowed to have their own story, right? But they can’t both be factually correct. Does it matter? I don’t think it does, although I was initially worried when I thought of Manos Amigas clients who might read both Emilio and Alejandro’s stories and wonder at our fact-checking ability. 


When I read Louise Erdrich and she includes contradictory accounts like this, I love it since it adds complexity to the story. When I encounter it in real life I am not always as appreciative: I want to know the right answer! Yet the right answer is that there is no truth, perhaps. Or, as one of our fair trade friends said, “there are multiple truths.” I feel like one of the characters in The Matrix: “There is no spoon!”


Louise Erdrich: what a lovely, complicated, and intriguing guide through literature and life.

You have nothing to fear but a class of high school students (Celebrating World Fair Trade Day, part 2)

In March, Yannina told me she wanted to visit a class to celebrate World Fair Trade Day in May. “Kids are the ones who grow up to change things, so better we talk to them about fair trade than organize a march or something.” Sounded good to me. We discussed her ideas for a presentation to an elementary school class, confirmed that Sam and I would go with Yannina to present, that Sam and I would plan the presentation, but that we would all deliver it together and that we would have an artisan to demonstrate his or her craft and talk with the students.

I went with her to a school meeting to present our ideas to the administration and we left with two dates in May to present to the 5th grade. Since they weren’t keen on Simon coming along, Sam or I needed to stay behind each day. Therefore, Sam and Yannina were to do the first presentation on Thursday, in English, and Yannina and I would do the second one on Friday, in Spanish.

I worked on our presentation. One day, I was asking Yannina about different May dates we had held in our calendars for various Manos Amigas responsibilities. As she went through her calendar, she gasped. “Dios mio! I am scheduled to go to Lurín with a college group all day on the 25th, the same day that you and I are going to the high school. Ay! What should we do?”  I looked at her blankly, not really sure what I should say. I was pretty sure that “Let’s cancel it” wasn’t an appropriate response.

“High school?” I said. “I thought it was 5th grade.”
“Yes,” she said, “5th grade of high school.”

I didn’t quite get it. “How old are the students?” I asked. “10?”
“Oh, no! They’re 16 or 17.” She thought for a minute. “Christina can go with you.”

Based on the lack of communication at Manos Amigas, I wondered when and if Christina would find out about this. Probably the morning of, I thought. Ok, whatever. My new worry was that I was presenting to a class of high school students.

The next week, Yannina told me that Christina wouldn’t be able to go to the high school presentation with me. “What should we do?” she wondered. Argh! ¿Por qué? ¡Porque Perú!
A: “You are sure that I’ll have an artisan with me, though, right?” 
Y: “Yes! Yes! Of course! Rosa will come. I will call her right now.”

I wondered why she was asking the artisan that lived the farthest away – 2 hours by car – to come to the presentation, when there were far more that were closer and could speak to fair trade just as well.

But at this point I felt helpless. I was about to be set loose in front of a class of high school students who would mock my Spanish, or my clothes, or my hair, whatever – they are high school students! they are ruthless! I remember! – and I would have no official-fluent-Manos Amigas-kind-soul there to save me.

A: “What do I do if Rosa doesn’t show up on time?”
Y: “I will tell her to arrive to your apartment at 8:30, so she will be there by 8:45. Then you can take a taxi and get to the school on time.” Yannina seemed so confident that it would all work out that I figured it was worthless to try nail down details, phone numbers, backup meeting places, etc.

I tried not to worry that I was
1) DELIVERING A PRESENTATION,
2) TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS,
3) IN SPANISH, and
4) ALONE.

Any one of those by itself would be fear-inducing to me, let alone four of them together!

I prepared for the class, wrote out what I wanted to say, practiced, etc. In some ways I was excited to deliver a speech in Spanish. It was something I would be proud of myself for doing afterwards, but dreading right up until it ended.

And so it went. Sam and Yannina’s presentation went fine. Sam had adapted a presentation that one of his volunteers had designed for students, an activity where they were the artisans and had to buy materials, create a product, and sell it for a pretty low price. They didn’t end up having an artisan with them, but Sam’s activity was excellent enough that it didn’t matter. The teacher also didn’t pick them up from the office until 15 minutes into the class, so they didn’t have all of their time to present anyway!

I hadn’t planned to do Sam’s activity since I am not as fluent in the language of fair trade as he is, and I would have a hard time facilitating a conversation about the principles of fair trade (in English, let alone in Spanish) and how they related to their artisan activity. Instead, I was planning to split my presentation three ways: who Manos Amigas was/what they did; have the students present each of the 10 fair trade principles and I’d give an example of how Manos Amigas complied with each one; and the interview with Rosa.

On the morning of my class , I took a taxi to the school once Rosa hadn’t shown up. (I called Yannina every so often to see if I should keep waiting for Rosa or if I could leave yet, and each time she promised Rosa was “only 5 minutes away!”). I got to the school several minutes before the class started, thankfully met Rosa at the security desk, and went in.

In general, I am good about having a poker face while frightened, so while I was super nervous, I tried to be friendly and joke around with the students as I set up my presentation and attempted to involve them with questions, mostly met with silence. I went through my presentation, full of colorful pictures of the different products Manos Amigas sells, who the artisans are, to which countries Manos Amigas sells.

I had budgeted about 15 minutes for Rosa to deliver her presentation and explain more about her products, fair trade, etc, and had reviewed it with Yannina beforehand. I’m not sure Rosa knew, though. I had a number of questions to ask Rosa in case she was quiet, and had given her about six to answer as her presentation. But I didn’t have nearly enough questions prepared!

Rosa was mute. The class was mute. Even the teacher was mute! I had thought he was my ace in the hole, having provided him with questions to ask Rosa if the students didn’t have any of their own. “OK, great,” he said. “Thanks for giving me that.” But then he asked only one, despite my prodding. I kept asking questions, trying to pull more of her fascinating story out for the students, but I didn’t do a compelling enough job to get anyone talking. She showed the class two or three of the dozens of products she had brought, and they were impressed.

But their favorite part of the presentation by far was when Rosa answered a cell phone call while I was asking her a question.

And so, when we had 10 silent minutes to go, I thanked the class and we left. The class gave us a round of applause, which echoed down the hall and stairway as we slowly walked out. I felt so bad that Rosa had traveled so far, bringing lots of samples, but with so little actual interaction with the students.

On my bus ride home, I thought through several things I could have done differently. I’ll make those changes for my next high school presentation… which will be never!

Celebrating World Fair Trade Day, part 1

Yannina decided that Manos Amigas would celebrate World Fair Trade Day (the second Saturday in May) in two ways. The first was to rent a booth (with the rest of the Peruvian members of the WFTO) at a downtown small-business fair to distribute flyers and talk about fair trade with passersby. The second was to visit a school to talk about fair trade. That gets its own separate post, later this week.

The booth space at the fair was theirs for four days, and each of the seven Peruvian WFTO member organizations drew lots for the time it needed to staff the booth. Yannina asked us to cover Manos Amigas’ time, the first day from 9-2. It was obvious Yannina was super stressed with getting orders filled and packed, and we were happy to help provide her with much-desired time in the office.

As with everything else, it was pretty haphazardly “organized” but came together at the last minute. At 5 pm the day before, Yannina wondered out loud if we should distribute anything about Manos Amigas. She finally decided we should give out Christina’s business cards, but we needed to remember to correct the email address on the cards before distributing them.

She also gave us a giant stuffed llama to display (each organization had agreed to bring a large, eye-catching object to draw in people), and as we were leaving really early the next morning to set up, we got to take the llama home with us overnight.

Simon loved having the llama in our apartment, gave it many hugs and pats, and asked if the llama could be part of storytime before bed. Sam acquiesced. He even read them one of Simon’s favorites, Is Your Mama a Llama? The llama listened attentively.

The next morning, we got to take a taxi since the giant llama wouldn’t travel well on a bus. We’d probably have to pay its fare, too!

We got to the booth much later than expected, but it didn’t matter. While we thought we were the only ones staffing the WFTD booth, there were seven other people from four other organizations, slowly putting their organizations’ materials up. We had only the llama to contribute to the setup, and everyone was content to work alone to put their materials out, so we played around until the booth was finished at noon, 3 hours after it was supposed to open.

Right next to our booth was a little gathering space, and when a seemingly random dance show preceding a public health presentation started up, we were among the riveted watchers.

The finished booth, at noon

One of the booth walls. The other organizations brought beautiful photos and materials displaying their work.

The flyering was great, though. We talked to probably 50 people between 12-2 and distributed Christina’s business cards. At 1:30 one of the organizations arrived with some brochures we could hand out, which were excellent, except that Manos Amigas’ email address had a typo. Oh well.

What I was particularly surprised by was how many of the people we talked to were artisans themselves. How can I be part of fair trade, they would ask. We would give them the brochure, which included all the contact information for all seven members, and tell them to bring product samples to each one, after calling. 

Sam kept Simon asleep during part of our shift. Fermín, one of my favorite artisans, period, stopped by the booth for awhile as he is a member of APTEC, a member of the WFTO.

I am curious to know if they - potential producers - were the intended target audience for the flyering, or if the group had wanted to reach potential consumers of fair trade instead. Regardless, hopefully each organization is ready for the onslaught of people who may call now, looking for ways to sell their products.

A shining path to terror

A question we routinely ask during our artisan interviews is where the artisans are from, and, as it’s most often outside of Lima, why they moved here. The answer most frequently given is, “because of the terrorism”. Their answers don’t go much farther than that. I usually don’t press them for more info, not wanting to be rude or pry, but I often wondered what that meant. Their answer was abstract, until we went to the 6th floor of the Museo de la Nación.


Between 1980 and 2000, the Shining Path, or Sendero Luminoso, took over towns and entire regions of Peru, killing and “disappearing” people indiscriminately in their quest to abolish the governmental structure and institute something akin to anarchy. Peru had long been governed by the military, but the first democratically elected government had just taken power in 1980. This new government was loathe to send in the army to quell the senderistas, concerned that granting the military this authority would reempower it.


Several years into the conflict, the government finally couldn’t justify ignoring the senderistas any longer and sent in the military. Unfortunately, the military didn’t act differently than the senderistas, racking up massacres, rapes and disappearances of their own.


No one could trust anyone else – perhaps you were really a senderista out to intimidate or kill them, for whatever reason. If someone was from the government militia, that was zero guarantee that they were there to help. In fact, you could almost count on the opposite.


Complicating matters was another guerrilla group, the MRTA (the Tupac Amarú Revolutionary Movement). Although they appear to have acted on a much smaller scale and took responsibility for their actions, they were nonetheless responsible for bombings, taking hostages, and raids. (Now that I have read more about the MRTA’s takeover of the Japanese embassy in 1996-7, I wonder if one of my favorite novels, Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, is based on that experience. There are so many factual similarities. If you are looking for an excellent and beautifully written book to read this summer, pick up Bel Canto!)


As the violence picked up and casualties mounted in the early 1980s, families started sending their children to live with relatives in Lima, or relocating the whole family here. This gave Lima another in what had been a series of population explosions, and was ill-equipped to handle the flood of refugees. Many people made a home wherever they could, in the sands in Lurín, shanty towns in Chorrillos, in slums in the middle of the city, or on mountain hillsides, without water or electricity. 


Once in Lima, life didn’t necessarily improve, as many migrants were not only living in squalid conditions but were also met with suspicion and hostility, as Limeños were worried that the new migrants were senderistas themselves.


Things came to an end, mostly, by 2000 through brutal and questionable methods. The Fujimori government had cracked down hard on the senderistas, through corrupt and illegal techniques and racked up many human rights abuses in the process. Eventually, enough of the senderista leadership was captured or killed that it was paralyzed as a government “reform” organization.


The Sendero Luminoso still exists today, but is now primarily a cocaine smuggling operation. My Spanish teacher, Silvia, says that the senderistas still control certain areas of Peru, and I frequently read headlines about senderista activity. But it doesn’t seem as emotionally or fearfully charged now as it was several decades ago. (Of course, I’m not sure whether the people who live in the areas with active senderista involvement would agree with that.) A recent set of headlines has revolved around the revelation that a current senderista leader is recruiting and using children as soldiers, with perhaps 80 children under his command.


Once Fujimori fled the country in 2000 to escape prison (although not for long; he’s currently incarcerated here), the next president established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Between 2001 and 2003, the Commission held public meetings, collected testimonies, and completed much research.


Through their investigations, they determined that nearly 70,000 people were killed during what is now called “the internal conflict”. Nearly half of the deaths was attributed to the senderistas, an almost equal amount was attributed to the army, and a small percentage was attributed to the MRTA. The Commission also made recommendations for reforms in their final report, in which they noted that the Sendero Luminoso and the Peruvian army were major perpetrators of human rights abuses. They called out the Catholic Church, so important in Peru, for its steadfast determination to look the other way instead of taking a stand against these abuses.


The Commission culled photos and videos from news sources, individuals, and the government to create an archive, called Yuyanapaq (“to remember” in Quechua). And now, on the 6th floor of the Museo de la Nación, that archive is open to the public, a gripping and graphic exhibit of just how far people can go when power or zeal overtakes them and the people are powerless to stop them.


By law, to incorporate a business in Peru, you need three people, called socios. Manos Amigas was formed by Yannina, her brother Roberto, and their mother, Angélica. My Spanish school, Elelatina, was formed by my teacher/the director and two of her siblings. Learning more about Peruvian history makes me wonder whether having family businesses is a ramification of the internal conflict, because when you can’t trust anyone, you turn to your family.


It also makes me wonder if that is why, in the back of every notebook you could possibly buy, the 1948 United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights is printed.


Since learning more about what “the terrorism” meant, I’ve been more frank in asking questions when artisans mention it as their reason for leaving Ayacucho, one of the regions that was completely under senderista control. And it’s been scary and sad to hear more, but I’m thankful to learn more about what happened to them and why they were driven to seek a better life in Lima. Rosana’s father was murdered just after she turned 9. “He was the governor of the district, and the senderistas were looking for those in authority. So they killed him.” She was sent to live with an aunt in Lima soon after, for her safety. She later moved in with her father’s brother, after he and his family relocated to Lima when he received word that the senderistas were coming for him next.


Another artisan, Fredy, told us that he couldn’t wait to leave Ayacucho, since he had to spend his days hiding. “I had to leave before it got light out, and then spend days or nights in the mountains or in tunnels.” He finally came to Lima when he was 13. “The senderistas would come into a town at night. They would raid a home, kill all the old people, leave anyone younger than 3, and then kidnap or disappear everyone in between. The youngest ones were left to die. Some of my uncles, some cousins were disappeared. Some lived, some died.”

One of the final rooms in the exhibit features walls filled with quotes from participants in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's  research. This one, very roughly translated, says, "All of the dead people had names and families, and the violence has reduced them to photos and memories. Let's not let their deaths be in vain. Let us please not forget!"