One of the things we've learned so far is that culturally Peruvians have a different concept of space. In a lecture during orientation, it was referred to as the "guinea pig" culture. As you can see in the photos, our first bus ride helped us practice being up close and personal.

We got to see some great architectural details. We took a bus ride up a big hill/small mountain to see a beautiful overlook of the city and to visually comprehend just how large a city we will be living in for the next six weeks.

We finished our day at Larco Mar which is a beautiful spot right on the ocean. Students traveled in small groups by taxi to Larco Mar. They negotiated their own rates for the taxis and all got their safe and sound. They told of exciting conversations with their taxi drivers about politics, the war, etc. I was so proud of all them! They tenaciously bargained for a great price and jumped into this task with a sense of adventure rather than fear. Our unit rocks!

We also visited El Convento de Santo Domingo and the Palacio Torre Tagle on Thursday to see ornate architecture built at the time of the Spanish colonization.

Friday, we had a cooking class and tasted some typical Peruvian dishes including ceviche--raw fish marinated in lime.

Saturday, half of the group spent some time working with children in a shantytown. This was a completely different world than the world we've been experiencing in Lima. The living conditions were harsh, but the children were amazing.

This Saturday I visited Pamplona for the second time. This time, I was able to appreciate the trip much more. Not that a trip to a shanty town needs to be fun, but this second time I was more comfortable, more rooted in Peruvian culture, and I knew what to expect. I was also surrounded by my gringo peers.

It felt good that some of the children there remembered me, and knew my name. Pamplona is a community of sand dunes, a collection of straw mats, stones, and lumber stacked together to form homes. While there, I had the feeling of standing in a giant sandbox. I felt that with the first gust of wind or water, the entire community would erode into nothingness.

There are few plants and even less water. Instead, there is sand. The twisting, steep pathways are rivers of sand, ebbing and flowing and blowing.

Every Saturday, some of the children who live in this place gather in a small school house. Milagros (my host mother) and others from her church meet the children here and offer them games, snacks, and Sunday School lessons. I admire her dedication to this community. She desperately wants the building plans that have been formed to become reality so that improved facilities can be used.

As I interacted with the children, I was shocked that even they have been touched by my "gringo" culture. They could count to ten in English, they could identify a variety of colors and objects. They spoke of Play Station and celebrities and American cartoon characters. No matter where I go, even to Pamplona Alta, my collective identity as an American precedes me and seems to be privileged.

As our group was preparing to leave, I heard one child ask a GC student, "So when are you coming back?" The answer to that is more complicated than the child could have suspected. The sad truth is that we will not return. I personally will go back simply because I will accompany Milagros. But our presence as a group was only for a fleeting moment. We go, and we see. We take pictures and cluck our tongues in disbelief and sorrow, but then we leave and forget about Pamplona in a few days, once the pulverized filth is out of our pores and the sand is washed out from between our toes. We secretly try never to think of this place again, lest we be plagued by guilt and sadness.

I would like to think that something could be done on the contrary. I hope that our visit to Pamplona has a lasting impact on all of us, and that we remember it as we make future decisions and form relationships. I had a fun time relating to the children, and I hope that they enjoyed our company as well. I find comfort in people like Milagros, who make the trek every week, and in the fact that I made a few new young friends.

May 7

One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking about the city of Lima is its chaotic, yet organized traffic. The traffic in Lima put fear into my eyes when I first saw it. Street names that are unfamiliar, taxis and microbuses swerving all over the place, hardly any street lights, potholes, and cars stuffed with twice their limit are enough to put fear into any eyes. This chaos is madness! What sense is there???

A foreigner such as myself, may ask such a silly question, but a Peruano knows the true answer: It is easy – to have order there must be chaos. There is no choice.

After a time of observing the traffic from a distance and getting a handle on the inner workings of these driversÂ’ brains, I am now able to venture into a taxicab. I remind myself: This is not Nascar, nor a demolition derby. No, it is Lima. There is order in its chaos.

Taxis have a system, a universal language really, called honking. They all know the meaning of each honk, although they may come at the most random times.

One may think that all of this chaos would cause an increase in accidents. The opposite is true. LimaÂ’s accident rate is quite low and although I have seen many close calls, I have not yet seen an accident. Then again, IÂ’ve only been here 5 days. I do find the traffic of Lima a little ironic though. One would think that a culture that puts so little emphasis on time would do the same with driving. Perhaps drivers are trying to gain back on the road the time used up in relationship building. It has me perplexed.

However crazy Lima traffic may be, I believe that driving here would be quite exciting. Maybe that internal rush would wear off after getting to know the city.

Order must co-exist with chaos.

I remember our first night in Lima at the hotel and using the sink to brush my teeth. I just didn't feel comfortable using the water from the tap to wet my toothbrush. Instead I used bottled water, but it was much more of a hassle.

This was the point that I felt marked my entrance into a culture that has always had to go to greater lengths to obtain drinking water than I ever had. No public drinking fountains--I must always remember to fill my water bottle before leaving my house. I have come to value my water bottle quite a lot.

One thing that first surprised me is the minimal amount of water Peruvians drink. Knowing the water situation where potable water is bought or has been boiled, I think this may be a primary reason. I wonder if U.S. residents had to buy water or boil tap water if the “water-bottle craze” would disappear. Would Nalgene bottles be history? Would alcohol become a more acceptable drink – for younger ages?

The other day I saw a tanker truck moving slowly along the road by the median. There were a couple of men standing at the back with a hose and I was surprised to see that they were watering the trees in the middle of the boulevard. That helped me realize just how much of a desert Lima is situated on. In Indiana, mature trees never need irrigation even during dry spells.

Seeing the tanker truck also made me think of water like oil – another valuable natural resource. What if the BBC article we read is correct that two droughts in consecutive years would exhaust Lima’s water reserves? That would make me feel very vulnerable if I lived here and planned to settle into a career or start a family.

The end of the BBC article says that there might be a time when water costs more than oil. This suggests it is just an economic issue, but this is a social-justice issue. What happens to people residing on the fringes of the city in shanty towns that canÂ’t afford water? A body cannot survive long at all without water. It is the duty of those with a political and economic voice to look out for those that donÂ’t and one way that they (we) can do that in Peru is developing plans for water transport, etc.

Isaiah addresses a critical concern about insufficient water and says that God will not forsake the Israelites. Other verses use water to symbolize God’s grace or the water Jesus offers that forever satisfies thirst. This is a clue to me that a privileged North American like me can still think of myself as a thirty soul in a dry land and God as the never ending stream who satisfies needs much greater than physical necessities. At the same time, God will not forsake those who are thirsty. We are God’s hands and feet – we’ve got a job to do in insuring water for Lima and other places.

Wow. What a trip! The weather was perfect. The photos just can't do the mountains justice. We were awed by the vistas, the people, and the culture. Wish y'all could have joined us.

Our first stop was Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. We enjoyed wonderful hospitality at our hostel and were impressed by the panorama of mountains that surrounded us.

We happened to arrive in time for a local festival in the main square--definitely not a planned-for-tourists event. We also got to visit a traditional Andean home with chortling guinea pigs and ancestral skulls adorning the family altar.

Saturday we were off to Machu Picchu, which is amazing. Everywhere else we have visited, the effects of Spanish colonization are apparent, but not at Machu Picchu.

Sunday, we did some more exploring of Inca ruins in the Sacred Valley and some shopping in the market at Pisac.

Monday, as a group we explored Cusco and visited the Cathedral, Qoricancha (Inca sun temple), Sacsayhuaman and Qenco archaeological sites before splitting up to do some exploring on our own.

We ended our trip with a farewell chicken dinner--a plentiful and typical Peruvian dish. We all made it safely home on Tuesday and ready to complete our last two weeks in the city prior to leaving for service. Time is just flying by.

Lindsay is pictured with her "real" brother Kyle's host sister. (Kyle came in last year's SST group to Peru). An excerpt from her arts journal:

Peru has rich art, literature, and music, each with an incredible history. We have visited museums, heard lectures on art and literature, and encountered dance and music.

Recently I was at a host family gathering with extended relatives. They played DVDs of various singers and dances. They showed me dances from the jungle and dances from the highlands. We listened to Reggaetón. It seemed like every region had their own style of dance and dress. Each was beautiful and different and all the family members knew them and could tell me all about each one. To me, it reflected the richness of the people of Peru.

...The Museum of Art divided its collection into regions like the Highlands, Lima, and the Jungle. Common things I saw were the importance of family, religion, and community. Mothers or fathers could be seen with children, crosses, and churches. Religious traditions were depicted, and a sense of community was evident in the paintings.

One of our last field trips was a visit to a 36-year-old shantytown. VES is well organized and has accomplished amazing things in its brief history. Today it is home to around 350,000 and models self-determination by Peru's marginalized Andean majority.

Our trip included lunch at a community comedor, an overview of the structure and organization of VES, and a visit to the grave of a popular community leader, Maria Elena Moyano Delgado who was killed by Sendero Luminoso guerillas.

The town's libraries, community radio station and written bulletins communicate the belief that education can bring about self-advancement and change. We also drove through an industrial park created in 1987, bringing much needed local employment and exporting products around the globe.

Lindsay has been working at a comedor run by a church in the afternoons. A comedor is sort of like a soup kitchen in the US. After she finishes at the comedor, she works at an orphanage helping with homework and interacting with the kids.

The following is an excerpt from one of Tessa's required journals on the topic of malnutrition.

My service placement is with World Vision in Huancero. It is an extremely poor area, but because I work at Pueblo De Dios, I am given great respect. At Pueblo de Dios, World VisionÂ’s chapter in Huancaro, just outside of Cusco, there are two main programs/projects. The first is a nutritional program and general sanitation program. What I, and many others at the center do is take treks as far as the path, not street, goes and then we get out and walk in the mountains where we visit los campacinos or farm areas. Here is where the truly poor live.

Statistics I was given by World Vision said that a study from 1996-1998 stated that the poor in Peru have a daily kilocalor, intake of 240 kcal. That is the same as eating two 80 centavos Sublime bars! When these studies came out World Vision had to respond. Now, there are visits to farms and the workers of World Vision take heights, weights, and different information about the home and home life. This, along with classes for mothers who are pregnant, nursing, and/or have children 0-5 years old, teach the impact of balanced nutrition. In the highlands, diets consist mainly of potatoes, other root vegetables, and meat. This is a problem because many, many children are severely iron deficient. Iron is very important for proper growth of the body. The Quechua-speaking mothers often do not have proper teaching or understanding for how to provide well balanced meals to raise healthy children. From the National Institute of Statistics and Information, a study of family health completed in 2000 stated that the number of deaths of children younger than 5 per 1000 nationally is 60, but for Cusco is 108. That is just so many children dying because they do not have basic necessities like warmth and balanced nutrition. As I put into the computer the weights and heights along with ages, the computer sadly showed only 3 of the 46 children of proper weight. There is a huge problem of hunger and malnutrition in Cusco, and in Peru.

I encourage and implore President Alan Garcia in his acknowledgement of this problem. I hope he follows through with his publicly stated opinion that “children are abandoned.” When I walk from village to village asking mothers what and how much they feed their children, it breaks my heart to hear they eat once a day and that meal mostly consists of potatoes. When reading all the information I have been given the last few days, and then seeing with my own eyes the need, I can’t help but feel guilty for how richly blessed I am. The people in the highlands are the neediest I have seen, but still they greet me with smiles, handshakes and offering of the little food they have. I have learned the problem is not that there is not food, but the food that is grown is mostly for selling in mercados. I hope that through my service as I learn so much about the rural lifestyle and the Quechua ways of life, that I also may teach them the importance of a balanced diet and the simple but extremely important art of washing their hands.

The following is an excerpt from a journal entry Mitch recently submitted.

A Day in the Life of My 12-Year-Old Brother

Everyday I interact with my twelve year old brother and I am enchanted with his responsibilities and at the same time with his simple want to just be a boy.

5:00 a.m. - My brother rises from his bed and enters the 30 degree climate of the Andean morning. First responsibility of the day: find and chop fire wood for the stove in the kitchen at his home and start the fire. Next, he unties the three bulls standing in the courtyard and drives them approximately 2 km to feed for the day. He returns home and stokes the fire adding more wood and dry cow chips for fuel. He dresses for school and leaves on his bicycle for Grandpa and GrandmaÂ’s house. On the way, (1 km ride) he picks up a liter of milk and 5 pancitos.

About this time, I start thinking about waking up. The longer one stays in bed the less cold air one has to encounter.

At 7:00 a.m., my brother arrives at my grandparentsÂ’ house which is where I sleep and starts a fire to boil the milk. By this time, I have dressed and have arrived in the kitchen. My brother serves me the milk and insists that I eat a few pieces of pancito. After feeling somewhat content with my stomach, I say my goodbyes and head to work while my brother leaves for school.

By 2 p.m. he returns home helping with preparation for supper. At any spare moment, marbles leave his pocket and enter the dirt playing field of his front courtyard. There are no PlayStations or Xboxes here - just marbles. Between helping my mother with supper and playing marbles, the afternoon is spent. He travels to the field where the bulls were tied up for the day and leads them home.

Andean people start early with hard work. They donÂ’t wait until the age of 18 to decide to get a job. With no complaining, my brother carries out his duties. This is not something I could say about most 12 year-olds from the US.

Her family raises some cuyes in the backyard so she has been having fun with having some animals around. She also loves playing with her 3 year-old host niece, Susan. Lauren has been helping Susan learn how not to squeeze the guinea pigs when you hold them. We heard Susan had been responsible for some accidental cuy fatalities prior to our visit. There is much laughter in her host home as evidenced when we did the home service visit.

They also teach English twice a week and do a fair bit of tutoring. During the service visit, we observed a great rendition of Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes to practice vocabulary. Jesse also wrote an original tune with numbers as lyrics which was obviously helpful as students were quite skilled at singing it. The lesson topic for the day was transportation and animals on the farm. Old MacDonald had a Farm was helpful in reinforcing the new vocabulary from this lesson.

Every Friday, they spend making friends with and helping to feed the adorable orphans living at the hospital connected to the parish. Mondays, they provide respite care for children with disabilities. They also fill in doing random jobs helping out in any way they can. Both chicos have been enjoying attending mass at the parish on Sundays. Jesse can be found at the organ after mass leading singalongs.

The following is a journal Jesse wrote while on service that gives greater insight into the work of the parish in this community.

Thinking today about grief this evening...Father Jack showed the gringo a list of the sick people in the nearby community who have immediate and serious medical needs. The list was filled with illness like TB, AIDS and cancer of various types; the age of the sick ranged from 2 to 50. Father Jack was pacing, agitated, as he described the various challenges that the families were facing, and several times I was wondering if he was going to burst another blood vessel, as he has, before. He was feeling, as I was, completely weighed down by the tragedy that is embedded in Chimbote.

I work with three of the patients on the list - Freddy (14), Ernesto (17) and Jose Luis (20), who has a bone disorder, TB, and cancer, respectively. Work with is an overstatement. What I do is show up at the their houses, make awkward conversation, bring them books and food and ask if there is anything they need. So far, they’ve never given an answer like “a new skeleton” but it is an unspoken truth that I don’t do much to help, only stand in their dark rooms, wondering what I can possibly say. Most likely, by the time I finish next year of college, at least one of them will be dead. “Is there anything you need?” It’s a kind gesture of courtesy on their part that they never say, “I need everything you always had, you stupid gringo.”

Yesterday, Ernesto’s little sister discovered that she also has TB. She is two years old. Last year, Ernesto’s older brother, age 19, died of TB, leaving behind a wife and baby. The mother of this household is beside herself with grief, asking Father Jack if she would have to bury all of her children. Outliving one’s own children – I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around this level of grief. Even trying makes me feel sick to the stomach.

I think about a speech I read of Father JackÂ’s, where someone asked him if he was happy. He replied that, no, he wasnÂ’t happy with all the poverty and cruelty that surrounded him. Hardly a fairy tale answer obviously the thing many idealists want to hear is that this life of service is so rewarding and joyful etc etcÂ…but what happens what the life of service is so tragic that you can barely stand it, when it threatens to swallow you whole?

IÂ’m not at that place, not by a long shot. Even as I write about suffering, my little cousins are making faces in the window, and their laughter is so contagious that I canÂ’t help but smile. Still, I wonder what sort of gifts are needed for those that immerse themselves in this for years and years. IÂ’ve only been here for a little more than 3 weeks. Do they see their lives as a sacrifice, losing their own happiness, innocence and comfort in the hope that those around them may have things somewhat better? Or do they find something that lets them continue to laugh at 8 year olds making faces in the window?

The 4 Huancayo chicas (Jenna B, Janna, Yovana and Cadie) returned with us and are safely living in Lima now. The Huaraz group (Jon, Jesse Y, Lindsay, Jason, Rachel and Amanda W)are traveling today (Sunday 7/22) and are expected to arrive around 4pm. Tuesday (7/24) the Cucso crowd, (Mitch, Katie, Hannah, Amanda B, Tessa, Analisa, Dan, Jenna P)will fly into the city around 9am. 20+ hour bus trips just didn't seem prudent in light of our transportation concerns. Chimbote (Jesse L-E, Lauren and Ryan) and Kelly and Ben just north of the city are in locations that currently are not in the area of the protests. They will all return to the city on Thursday or Friday.

While many students have been very sad about leaving their service families and placement unexpectedly, we are confident that they will be happy to rejoin their city host families who are anxious for their arrival. The Lima families have been so wonderful in reopening their hearts and homes to welcome the chicos back to the city early. While the strikes have caused a little stress as we've needed to do some schedule adjustments, we have felt very supported by Goshen College and our local Peruvian contacts. We are completely confident that the city transition will be smooth.

We spent two sunny days in Chosica, just outside of Lima, presenting our final projects, catching each other up on what happened in the second half of the term, and reflecting back over the memories of our SST journey. It was a good time to all be back together and play a little, think a little and begin to let it sink in that we were really almost done.

All good things must come to an end and while everyone will always feel connected to Peru, they said their good-byes, packed their bags, and boarded the airplane to return home. Sueann and I left them at the airport last night, minus the 8 students who are heading for the jungle on their own today.

Sueann and I will spend the day saying good-bye and packing and will leave for the airport this evening. It is bittersweet for us as well. As Celia explained to the group as she said good-bye, Peruvians see this experience as a beginning, not an ending. We may be saying good-bye for now, but the relationship doesn't end just because we board the plane. Thanks to all of you who have followed our blog. We've appreciated your prayers and support for our journey.