Memorial Weekend

Carter and his BFF Alex (who is Argentinian)

In Lima, much takes place behind 10ft walls, so it is often hard to judge one's surroundings. After months of driving by, suddenly you get a peek in and realize "Oh, there's a whole tennis club back in there!" or even "There's a whole neighborhood through that gate!" It is also common that the worlds inside and outside the walls can be very different. Take the zoo that Carter went to last week with his class. We have driven past the entrance many times, in a busy area where it is prudent to tuck your cel phone out of sight and street vendors sell cheap punch packaged in nothing more than little cellophane bags tied shut. But inside Carter enjoyed a very different scene with all the animals.

Our Saturday visit to the Hogar was typical. Bryan, the kid we had only known with metal bolts in his knees and unable to change position, was now in a wheelchair. Meanwhile two other boys had received corrective operations, Segundo (del Piso) having received the same kind of bolts and often wailing in pain. But Bryan was thrilled to be able to roll around at will and also happy because his mother was visiting with a friend (or sister or something). The two ladies sat mostly silent, with the expressions of people who have landed on a strange planet populated by smiling gringo aliens. Not much is asked of parents, but even so there are often huge practical and cultural gaps that make things difficult. Eloy's mom, pregnant with her ninth child, visited over the weekend and only had $3 in her pocket but needed $12 for the 24hr trip back to her town – in the back of a lorry most likely. Viktor (with club feet) is at the hogar because his family did not follow through on the physical therapy after an original operation. He is also the one who went to school without books for a couple months because they didn't send the money. Backstory like that is always present, but it is not what defines our visits there. More memorable: in the park, Carter and Jefferson playing ladrones (robbers) being chased by the policia played by myself, Christian and Bresny (shooting from his wheelchair). Or the family in the park who had a baby pet bunny with them...unasked, they came over and placed the bunny on Jenny's lap. Jenny has very limited movement but she was able to lean over and kiss and nuzzle the bunny.

The weekend was relatively unremarkable, though we did find a fabulous hole-in-the-wall taco place in Barranco on Sunday. Carter did not have Memorial Day off school, but Jen and I had had the day off and we seized the opportunity to spend a little quality time together without the boy. Our leisurely cebiche lunch in the autumn sun was a simply joy.

Marathon, Jen's Birthday

Carter's school had their big annual carnival on Saturday, with rides and booths and a giant stage with a video screen. Carter was due on stage with his tae-kwan-do group, but I had misunderstood the time (the Spanish for 12:30 and 2:30 sound very similar...dohsayeemehdio vs dohseemehdio). Luckily we wandered in just in time for Carter to hear the announcement and see his fellows going up on stage. I slapped his uniform on over his clothes and he slid in from offstage just in time for his routine. Afterwards, we had fun on the rides and even ran into a Peace Corps volunteer there to do a Frisbee Ultimate exhibition game.

Jen was registered for the Lima marathon on Sunday, but she was not the only one from Peace Corps. Several volunteers had trained at their sites and were all coming in to the city for it. We took the opportunity to have them all over for the pre-race carb loading, about 30 of them, with a big pasta dinner. Mariza had prepped several sauces and Jen made a couple of big pans of mac and cheese. In addition to serving them a taste of home with the macaroni, it was also fun to provide a taste of things impossible to get anywhere but at the embassy commissary: root beer, diet ginger ale, Nutter Butters and Fig Newtons. Perhaps sweetest of all was when the simple green salad came out and they all exclaimed "Vegetables!" I guess it's mostly starches out where they are stationed.



On a misty Sunday morning, Jen started the Lima marathon at 7am. It was also her 46th birthday. Carter and I rolled around Lima on the Trail-a-bike to watch, leapfrogging Jennifer's progress, and even riding with her for 5km. Most of the runners wore the official yellow race shirt, and it was fun to follow the route. The marathon itself is an illustration of the transition from old-Peru to new-Peru: the fact that Lima could be secure enough for an event like this is telling (particularly in light of the horror in Boston). At one big intersection where Carter and I waited, the tension between old and new was almost comically played out as the permanently honking traffic-snarl crossed the yellow river of runners. The police had it in hand, but at some points runners literally dodged cars. And it was more than simple frustration on those drivers' faces, it was incomprehension, like "What the hell is this?!" Lima is changing, but it's a slow process, one public work at a time, one public event at a time.



Jen ran well and the course isn't easy, with a long steady uphill at the end. After the finish, she felt pretty rough for a while but was buoyed by Maureen and Julio and Julito sweetly coming to the finish to congratulate her and wish her a happy birthday. We saw some of the other Peace Corps runners and hung around the finish line which, as with all marathons, is permeated by the good vibes of thousands of people proud of themselves and proud of each other. We finished Jen's birthday by getting her a burger and having a quiet movie night at home.

Mothers

A week ago Saturday, Carter and I did not stay for long out at the Hogar because Carter was invited to one of his classmate's birthday. This party had the ubiquitous inflatable (bouncy house) and a pool. As with many of the events centered around Carter's American school, there were plenty of people with some English ability. The birthday boy's grandfather was American and a former Peace Corps volunteer (India in the 1960s), but after that stint he never returned to live in the US. His daughters all have dual Peruvian/US citizenship and went to college in the states. Peace Corps has 250+ volunteers in the Peru, but the organization is not widely known. We often have to explain to people what it is, that it is not a religious charity, etc.

Jefferson borrowing Carter's helmet.

Then last Saturday we returned to the Hogar, Carter bringing his bike to take to the park with the kids. Jen got Mother's Day chocolates and pie for all the ladies who work there. This was the first visit where I began to see the bigger picture. Up to then it was impossible to see the way things change, to see the Hogar's effect on the kids. But this time, for example, Victor with the clubfeet was out of his casts and even riding around on Carter's bike. We met a university student who had lived at the Hogar in her youth, this time bringing some friends to play games with the kids. Speaking about the effect the Hogar has on kids she said, "You learn that you can be happy." Speaking of being happy, Jefferson was engaged and happy this time. He is the 8yr old boy I was paired with way back in December at the embassy Christmas party for special needs...he was shy back then and every other time since. Of course, his is a rough story: a house fire that was so bad that his parents just assumed baby Jefferson dead and left (forever). A neighbor went in and found the badly burned infant and he's lived at the Hogar ever since. But this Saturday, he rode a bike and talked and sat on my lap. On a side note, I continue to be amazed at how matter-of-factly these kids treat each other's disabilities. The blind kid kept wrestling around with Jefferson, tweaking the large, scarred protuberance on Jefferson's patchy head and Jefferson kept triggering the blind boy's talking watch. Carter and I took Jen to a nice Mother's Day dinner that night, Carter falling asleep in the comfy booth and giving Jen and I time for some unhurried grownup conversation about the kids at the Hogar and life in general.

Jenny

Ana, playing with ribbons

Jen loves Percy.

On Monday, I took Julito and Carter to a birthday party at KFC. Carter's Spanish has crept up on him, almost as if he is unaware of it. He and Julito yammer away and at the party's "mad science" show, Carter did not hesitate to yell out along with the other kids his own suggestion of something in outer space, "Hueco negro!" (black hole). I think the benchmark for language success should be whenever you feel comfortable doing audience participation.

Finally, today, Friday, Carter did not have school because it was a day for student-led conferences. Carter showed us all his work and was very professional about it all. Now we head into a big weekend: tomorrow is the annual fair at Carter's school in which he will be doing a tae-kwan-do demonstration with his dojo, then 25 Peace Corps people are coming over for a big pasta dinner prior to Sunday's Lima marathon in which many of them (and Jennifer!) are participating.

Breakfast (and new board game) for Mother's Day.

Built on bones.

On Monday, a friend of Jennifer's from her days as a volunteer in the Dominican Republic came through Lima. She was coming directly from Iquitos where she had been out in the jungle at a temple that hosts spiritual experiences with a psychedelic concoction known as ayahuasca. Native people out there have developed a recipe that they brew out of native plants and shamans at this temple escort participants through the process. I am both skeptical of these kind of beliefs and frankly frightened by the process, perhaps even fundamentally frightened/unconvinced of the need for revelations. Jennifer's friend took the ayahuasca probably 5 or 6 days over the course of her 2 week visit, sitting in a circle of mattresses with a shaman singing in front of her, vomiting repeatedly, hallucinating. Sounds like hell to me, but she had the spiritual breakthrough she was seeking and was actually sorry to have left. A quick look on the internet and I can't find any negative testimonials, so who knows, there might actually be something to those jungle vines.

Jennifer's friend was happy to get some laundry done, though, and patiently answered all our queries. Yesterday we went with her to the colonial downtown of Lima and toured the Franciscan monastery. The catacombs beneath the church are chock full of bones, estimates put the number of people buried down there at 25,000. Most of them are still hidden behind walls and lost chambers, but some were excavated in the 40s, with archeologists arranging large piles of bones in geometric patterns. [Why put the bones in patterns?]

The church is nothing compared to some of the grand cathedrals in Europe, but still interesting in context. I particularly enjoyed a large painting in the dining hall, a 17th century version of the Last Supper. When you pay attention, it becomes clear that the well-known theme has variations that are particularly Peruvian. The table is round and welcoming and children run around. The central platter shows that the main course is cuy (guinea pig) and scattered on the table are 3 of the important Peruvian chilis.

Afterwards, we went out to dinner close to our house. This restaurant was started by a couple, a Peruvian chef and her Australian superstar chef fiancee. These two were killed along with 2 other star Peruvian chefs, back at the beginning of December in a mountain auto wreck, rocking the country's vibrant culinary community. At the end of our meal, the waiter brought out complimentary chocolates and alfajores (cookies) and a man introduced himself to us and asked about our meal. It was the father of the woman, putting a brave face on it and showing us a picture of the couple on his iPhone.