La Vida en Perú: August 2007

The trees speak

Modern plumbing

On August 2, 2007, running water arrived at Km 38. This was a most momentous occasion, as for 12 months we had been hiking to a pit toilet for the potty, taking bucket baths, and washing hands and dishes in a plastic tub. There is just nothing like running water.

The shower was completed first. Then the utility sink behind the house got hooked up, and suddenly we had a place to scrub potatoes and wash the rice. The next day when we returned from errands, the toilet, complete with toilet seat, was ready, and there was even a tiny sink in the bathroom.

I couldn't handle it.

"Carly!" I squealed, "There's a SINK in the BATHROOM!"

Emily, being inside the house, yelled out, "There's a SNAKE in the bathroom?" Emily is one of the new student missionaries, who arrived just days ago.

Before I had a chance to reply, there was a scream from behind the bathroom door, occupied by Kristin, another newbie.
"There's a FROG in the TOILET!" she hollared.

There actually was a frog in the toilet. Carly and I looked at each other and laughed. Welcome to Peru.

The Newbies

If you're happy and you know it

The kids listened with remarkable silence as Carly read the story of the birth of Jesus from our Children's Bible. Carly held up the felt board we made out of a large piece of blue felt and a cardboard box and she juggled the pages of the Bible while I placed our felts on the board at the appropriate time.

The star felt moved across the vast blueness and came to rest above a felr stable, littered with golden straw. The three wide-eyed wisemen trotted across the board in pursuit of the felt star, and the children laughed.

We often start our program with only a handful of kids, 30 or 40, and they steadily trickle in as we sing "Adentro, afuera, arriba, abajo," or "Las gallinitas pica."

We love to see the kids come from our families, the kids who we talk to every day, whose pets we know the names of. We see them arrive, dragging their younger siblings behind them, and we beam in their direction.

The story finishes, and as Carly puts the felts away in the market bag, I lead the kids, all up on their feet, in the closing song. There is an enormous and energetic crowd of them now.

We sing "If you're happy and you know it," which in Spanish translates, "If it's true that you're saved____" and then an action, like stomping, or handclapping, to illustrate that you are, indeed saved.

The last verse says, "If it's true that you're saved, say amen!" And then the kids chorus "AH-MEN!" yelling it out, and throwing their arms out wide away from their bodies, as if preparing to give someone a huge hug.

The moment is beautiful, and both Carly and I feel the joy of it.

We are overcome with the chorus of children, belting their lungs out, and throwing their arms open to Jesus.

Health workers

Carly and I have two jobs. By day we are public health workers, and at night we are child entertainers. Our public health program is called Familias Saludables, which is Healthy Families in English. It is a brand new program, designed by the project physician, Dr. Richard, and tweaked in many ways by us, the implementers.

We have found many things that look nice on paper but don’t actually work in the field.

The basic idea is that we have a list of families for each of us, families that have chosen to learn and work in the program, and we visit them every work day for a month, which ends up being about 20 days.

We tried to pick needy families, which isn’t hard because all of them are needy, but we did go to the edges of town, to the run-down, rolling-over, bottom-up houses.

This in itself proved to be a problem because it is hard to talk to someone about nutrition when they don’t have any food to eat. How can you say “Let's work on adding more protein to your diet,” when they don’t even have access to the most basic of carbohydrates—rice, yucca, and platano? It has been a challenge.

Every day during our house visits we fill out a check sheet which allows each family points in five areas—nutrition, hygiene, financial planning, home environment, and family cooperation. This means that even if the family can’t afford food to rank up points in the nutrition area, they can get points for picking up the trash in their yard, or having more time together with the family, or working together to achieve family goals.

We’ve learned a lot about what it means to be a family, and how a family can address and work through many kinds of problems. We have learned about teamwork, responsibility, and the importance of trust. It is important that they trust us, and it is important that we build good relationships.

Gringa

Wherever I go in the streets of Masisea, my presence is well announced by the children of the neighborhood.

“Grin-GA, Gring-GA!” they yell, “Mira la gringa!” they say to their friends.

Look at the white girl.

Usually I will call them out. I will call them right over.

“What is my name?” I ask them.

They always know. This whole town knows by now, especially the kids.

“Ani,” they respond.

“Right,” I say, “My name is not ‘Gringa,’ my name is ‘Ani.’”

They wriggle, they tip their shoulders to the side.

“Okay, thanks,” I finish, “See your later.”

‘Gringa’ is not necessarily an insult. It is a label that we have endured all year now. If you look it up in a Spanish/English dictionary, the definition is simply a slang word for foreigner. Everyone calls us gringos. The students, the adults, the shopkeepers.

And we put up with it. We are foreigners, we are white, we are different.

But how much nicer to be called by my name. How sweet when the kids wave from their porches and yell, “Hola Hermana Ani!”

We might not all be the same color, but we are still brothers and sisters. It’s important to treat each other with respect. I want to learn their names, too.

Remedies

Only in the jungles of Peru could you ask people about their protein intake and they would reply, “ardilla!” or “huevitos de tortuga!” which means “squirrel,” or “turtle eggs.”

I love it. I love being so far out in the selva boondocks that the people have their own dialect and traditional clothes that they wear just because they do, not because there are tourists around who want to take pictures. They eat interesting foods, like squirrel and turtle eggs, and a drink made by spitting out chewed up yuca and then letting it ferment. Mmmm.

They fish for piranha and still go to traditional healers when they get sick.

As the word has gotten out that a foreign nurse is in the village, I have been summoned on a handful of occasions to make house calls for wound care. Melina fell and sliced her shin on a piece of taut wire, Adrien was hiking when a nail pierced his shoe and consequently his foot as well, Felisa’s nephew skinned the back of his arm on a falling tree branch, Merlita split open the bottom of her foot on a piece of glass while traveling from Masisea to her community, an 8 hour walk away.

I find each of these people with their own unique remedies for treating their ailments. Some drink potions of brewed local plants, some tie herbal medleys about their necks, some carry a charm in their pockets. Do any of these creative methods work? Who am I to say? Believeing in something works wonders. If you believe it is working, sometimes it really is.

Let's go

Domingo, the leader of our Bible worker team of four, really wants to go to the States. He finds some way to bring this up at every opportunity possible.

“Ani,” he says to me, in this slow and wise voice, “I want to go to your country. To preach.” He often speaks in fragment sentences.

“We will take the tent,” he continues, “to baptize, to convert the people. And we must have Tarzan, our guardian. And all of your children want to go, too.”

Tarzan is our favorite Masisean dog, who is barely older than a puppy, and who sings, or rather howls, on command. He stays in the big evangelistic tent when no one else is around, and keeps watch.

“My children” are the 150 kids who come literally dashing from their homes each night for our children’s program. I love them, and do feel a wave of warm fuzzies when the run up and yell, “ANI!” and throw their arms around my legs and waist, so many at a time that I can’t walk at all and begin instead to trip over the crowd of them.

They are precious, but I can’t take them home with me. I can just imagine the plane headed north—filled to the brim with Domingo, the Brethren, the huge tent, all rolled up in an enormous orange and blue hay bale, Tarzan the singing dog, and all of my kids, all together.

Nest

I am going to miss this house so much. The seven rooms, the creaky beds, the stains on the floor where someone spilled diesel or paint. I will miss the bird songs, the flutter of bat wings, the funny noises the dogs make as they wrestle in the yard. And the smell of the kitchen when the rice is almost done.

I love looking out the front window and seeing the greenness—the vibrant grass, the squat lemon trees, the little peeks of the caretaker’s house beyond. So many mornings I have gotten up and opened the crooked wide window that John and Jackson built—the window that opens to a vast plane of lushness and the jungle beyond.

I love the big table, smoothed down with the wax from our drippy candles, and the benches that wobble when you sit on them.

So many times I have awoken in this house and thought, “today is a new day,” and so many times I have fallen asleep here inside my mosquito net on the little wooden bed frame, all quiet and peaceful.

How sad I am to leave.