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Goshen College

Africa and Peru in one small community – Part 2

February 16, 2017

Thursday night and Friday, February 9-10.

Climbing the hill to the old cemetery.

After the Ballumbrosio family fed us supper they put on a musical show filled with beats and zapateo dancing characteristic of their community.  Another popular tradition we followed is dancing around a bonfire, also to the beat of drums and cajones.

The next day was dedicated to learning more about the history and lives of African descendants in Peru.  Camilo took us to a hill with an altar and the first graves of his ancestors, once they had been freed from slavery.  The commanding view of the surrounding desert was also a good place to learn how they have learned to use low-technology irrigation to farm, as well as the competition with large agro-businesses for access to water.

Later we visited a former slave plantation that grew sugar cane and later cotton, a crop that is still grown in the fields around El Carmen.  Dating back to 1688, the plantation and its massive hacienda began as a Jesuit monastery, which imported the first slaves.  The stories of slave treatment, including torture that lead to death, were harrowing.

 

This entry is posted on the evening of the students’ last day of their “study” portion of SST in Lima.  Tomorrow morning we leave for a week-long tour to several Incan ruins in the Andes, culminating in a visit to Machu Picchu.  Until the week is over we will not be able to post more blog entries.  Then we will post pictures of tonight’s farewell dinner for the host families, and later several entries from our week of group travels in the Andes.

Our supper at the Ballumbrosio home.
I believe the hand signals mean that each wants seconds.
The drums and cajones made a solid wall of rhythm, followed by …
… dancing, …
… zapateo, …
and group zapateo.
The bonfire dancing to Afro-Peruvian rhythms was a big hit.
Friday morning. In this heat an oft-repeated routine is refilling water bottles.
Climbing the hill to the old cemetery.
Locals come to this cross to leave offerings to the Virgin Mary of El Carmen.
Camilo reads the inscription for us.
We walked further along the ridge to the old cemetery.
In these unmarked mass graves the earliest freed slaves buried their dead.
Hiking back down the hill, past irrigated fields.
Camilo explained how fields are irrigated without pumps, by diverting channels to flow through field rows.
The Hacienda San Jose, a slave plantation, built 350 years ago.
An early painting of the plantation shows the twin domes of a Jesuit chapel, and on the sides the galleries, where plantation goods were sold.
A bronze bathtub where the master was bathed by slaves.
In this underground chamber water was stored in clay jars for the dry season.
Slaves were brought underground from the port in this tunnel.
In this gruesome room our guide demonstrates how slaves were punished here until they died.
This chapel was built by Jesuits, who started the plantation and imported the first slaves.
In front of the chapel’s elaborate baroque altar.
Before leaving the Ballumbrosio family we thanked them with the hymn, “How Can I Keep from Singing.”