Real-life, Christian Communism (kind of...), Peruvian Style

Last night, I learned what a “junta” is (pronounced in Spanish “HOON-ta” -- NOT the military dictatorship kind). It is a microfinance lending and savings plan that is a very common practice among extended friends/families in economically poor or “developing” countries, but virtually unheard of (I think) in the US outside of immigrant communities. Or maybe it is well-known and I’m just ignorant. But I think (in theory at least) it sounds pretty cool and exciting, just because it’s so simple (so incredibly simple, in fact, that I had a hard time grasping how it worked and why I hadn’t heard of other instances where its been used: I can’t find any description of it whatsoever on Wikipedia – in Spanish OR English. ). So now I’m going to share how it works in hopes that some of you hadn’t heard of it, either.

Here’s a situation where a junta could be useful (note: this is a REAL idea proposed during an informal church session meeting, not something I just made up): Santa Isabel church (where I work/attend) would like to have a multi-media projector to show movies and powerpoint slides on a big screen or wall. The projector costs about $1000. That is a LOT of money in Peru, especially in neighborhoods like the one I live in, Comas/Carabayllo, in the northern cones of Lima. The church would like to have the projector now (well, as soon as possible), but there is nowhere near enough cash in the treasury to pay for it. The solution: get a loan from a bank? NO! Form a junta! Here’s how:

1. Find nine other people that have at least $100 of disposable income each month. Preferably, some of them (but not all) should also have aspirations for purchases in the next couple months that they don’t have enough money to realize. In the specific example given above, where the church is the primary beneficiary, the church’s treasury counts as an additional “person” – bringing the total number of participants in the junta to ten.
2. All ten people (i.e. nine people + the church) agree to pool together $100 each month for ten months.
3. The first month, the $1000 of pooled money (10 people x $100) ALL goes to the church. The church then buys the multimedia projector.
4. For each of the remaining nine months, a different person in the junta/pool gets a turn receiving the entire $1000 that is pooled together.

And that’s it. In the end, nobody makes any money and nobody loses any money. It’s just a type of accelerated savings plan. All in all, the church has basically budgeted $100 a month for ten months to pay for a projector. So over the course of ten months, it will have indeed pad for its own projector, but unlike what would happen if the church simply put $100 in a personal piggy bank each month for ten months, the church gets the projector at the BEGINNING of the ten months (after only having saved $100) instead of at the end of the ten months.

I should probably mention that I only put the word “communism” in the title of the entry to get people to read it. This isn’t communism. However, sociologically speaking, whether or not such a junta plan is successful depends on much of the same factors that determine whether or not communism can be successful. A junta will probably not work in a very large population of people. A junta probably will not work among a completely random or arbitrary group of people. A junta will probably not work among a very heterogeneous group of people. Ten people sharing in a junta have to be ten close friends with a high degree of personal contact and accountability. They have to trust each other very much. They have to all understand the goals and purpose of the junta, and they should probably have a common worldview and cultural/moral framework. There are just too many possibilities/risks involved for the person whose turn comes last to get screwed by the others dropping out and not making all ten monthly contributions. (I keep using the number ten, but obviously a junta can theoretically have any number of participants; though I personally probably wouldn’t want to go much higher than ten).

Many poor people in the world don’t have access to banks or credit. Even if they do, many have trouble meeting the requirements to qualify for loans/credit. But regardless, by participating in a junta, they don’t have to pay back any interest anyway. That being said, there are some types of juntas that DO involve payments with interest, because otherwise the person with the last turn receives no benefit whatsoever, and could potentially come out much worse off depending on the conditions of the larger economy. I don’t know if this is common, but my solution would be just to have two juntas back to back – with the order reversed for the second one.

Also, you’ve probably figured this out on your own by this point, but juntas are usually used by people who are starting their own small businesses. Without a bunch of money to pay for the start-up capital, the business won’t get off the ground. Participating in a junta solves this problem. Especially if the business is successful, the first beneficiary in the cycle of the junta could also potentially be someone who wouldn’t otherwise have the required amount of money available to pay every month. But after taking their turn at the beginning of the junta to create their business, they’ve secured a source of income that will allow them to continue participating in the junta and paying back the amount they received when they took the first turn.

Earlier, I talked about the importance of trust in the success of a junta. It can only be successful in a tightly-knit community. What I think is REALLY cool about a junta is the trust involved and created. While a junta isn’t really an investment of money (because although there is definitely high risk involved, in the end you don’t receive any more than you put in), a junta IS an investment of trust. As far as trust is concerned, it is a feedback system. The community has to have trust to begin with, but at the end of the junta, there will be a lot MORE trust among the community’s members than there ever was to start with. Upon successful completion of the junta, the community will be even closer, because the junta showed that their trust in each other did not fail. These social/communal benefits of trust and mutual dependence gained by a junta can NEVER be replicated with a standard bank loan.

This is an article that probably explains what a junta is (or as the author calls it a “rotating savings and credit association) better than I just did, if you want more information.

AIPRAL Conference Part 2: Brazil and Stuff

So there's definitely much more to talk about with the AIPRAL conference than just bible studies and talks on economic justice. First and foremost, we had the opportunity to get to know about two dozen young Christians from all over South America: Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Colombia. They were mostly 18 – 25-ish, either in college or recently graduated. There were maybe 14 males and 8 or 9 females. And of course, because of the geographical diversity, Sean and I got to hear a great variety of Spanish accents. The Chilean Spanish was probably most difficult for us to understand (well, apart from the Portugese, hahaha). Luckily, the guys who came to the conference from Chile spoke a decent amount of English. More importantly, however, they also did a GREAT job of putting on “gringo” Spanish accents. They could speak Spanish with a PERFECT California/valley accent. It was actually easier (and a lot funnier!) to understand them when they spoke with their fake North American accents.

We also participated in the “southern cone” tradition of hot tea (“mate”) drinking. The participants in the conference from Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina were constantly drinking tea. They each had a thermos and matching mug. The mug is filled about halfway with some sort of plant/herb, and then either cold or hot (depending on the outside temperature) water is poured on top of it. Then they drink the tea through a metal straw that you’re apparently not supposed to move. The cool part is that even though everyone brought their own, they each took turns being the “tea provider” for the day. That is, one person would bring their mug/thermos, and then be constantly sharing/passing around. In this way, it’s a much more community/social activity.

The first time I tried it, I had no clue what it was. And being totally clueless, (not having even seen anyone else drink from it) the first thing I did was take the straw out (a no-no) and look at it. And because the bottom part was wide, flat and sort of curved (resembling a spoon), I made a motion to ask them if you were supposed to EAT it (it seemed like a possibility – I didn’t know!!). So of course everyone laughed and quickly made sure I didn’t eat it. Finally, my last faux-pas was just sipping really slowly – I would quickly learn that they basically drain the mug in one quick, long swig, and then it gets refilled for the next person.

The slow sipping may not have been a bad strategy – they all claimed that the tea didn’t have any stimulants, but there is no WAY that was true. After my first morning of participating in one of their tea-drinking social circles, I was WIRED for the rest of the day! I guess “mate” is their version of the regular North American’s addiction to coffee.

Unfortunately, Sean and I didn’t get to see too much of Brazil outside of just the hotel and the waterfalls. The conference activities went all the way from 8 in the morning to 8 at night. However, the national park in Foz de Iguazu where we saw the waterfalls was pretty awesome. To start with, everything just seemed so green, compared to Lima which is technically coastal desert. The climate reminded me a lot of home / the deep south – hot and humid.

Of course, the waterfalls were nothing short of spectacular. You can check out pictures in my picasa album. There was a path that sort of winded along through the trees, down the hillside next to the river, and around every turn there was ANOTHER set of spectacular falls. I thought it would just be one big waterfall, but there were at least 5 different sets (maybe more like 7 or 8). There were also bridges with platforms that went out over the river so we could get close enough to feel the mist. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to cross over to the Argentine side (the Iguazu river forms the border between Brazil and Argentina) where you can walk on a bridge that passes pretty much directly over the falls, but we still had an amazing time. There were masses of other tourists everywhere from all over the world. South America, Europe, Japan, and even a guy wearing a University of Georgia baseball cap.

Finally, after seeing the waterfalls, I went white water rafting down the river (down river, not up river from the falls…). I’ve been rafting a couple times in western North Carolina, so I knew what to expect, but it was still a little disconcerting that our guide only spoke Portugese! There were actually only two real rapids – but they were both a lot bigger and more intense than any rapid I had rafted through previously! After the second rapid, we basically all jumped out of the raft and just floated down the river for the rest of the day. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting when I was told it would be a 2 hour rafting trip, but I wasn’t going to complain – the water felt SO good in the Brazilian heat and humidity.

All in all it was a good trip. The only other thing I guess I could mention is that we crossed the border (the OTHER border) from Brazil into Paraguay on the last day to do some shopping. This really isn’t noteworthy at all, besides the fact that crossing the border was so quick, easy and painless. The shopping consisted of street venders and a couple shopping mall-type buildings that offered very little in the way of authentic Paraguayan crafts and mainly just electronics, clothes, music and movies for higher prices than we would pay in Peru.

Halfway Home

So as of Valentine's Day, I've completed 24 of the 48 weeks that I will spend in Peru. Pretty crazy. Sometimes I feel like the time has really flown by. Other times I think "wow, so that means I still have ANOTHER 24 weeks?!"

But right now, halfway done seems just about right. I am content here in Lima. I'm not sure if I can say that living and working here has "met my expectations" or not. I feel like I didn't come in with too many expectations. I definitely didn't expect to be living in such a comfortable or modern home, which although this has posed some unique challenges for me in terms of how I want to spend my time, has also been a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting to still be struggling as much as I am with Spanish at this point. I also expected my work placements to be a little more organized than they are. Especially with Compassion, there's just not hardly any order or structure as to what I'm "supposed" to do, or what exactly they would like me to do. But I'm starting to take some more initiative and figuring it out.

OK, I just now thought of a much better way to do this. One of the first blog entries I posted was right before orientation, when I wrote down some of my hopes, fears and expectations going into the year. So I'm going to copy and paste it below, and let you know which of those hopes, fears and expectations have panned out and which haven't.

I’m excited to leave a culture in which you’re defined by what you consume and what you do.

Ok, this is definitely false. This might be true among the rural, more indigenous communities of Peru, but in Lima, I would say that people are even MORE defined (if that's possible; or "just as defined) by what they consume than they are back home. Cell phones, computers, name brand clothes -- all of these are important "status symbols" among the people in the area of Lima where I live.

I hope to enter a culture in which you’re defined by who you are.

This, in some ways, is true. I think it's because the concept of the "family" is so much stronger here. And my neighborhood, Santa Isabel, is actually a tight-knit community in some ways. And no matter what I do personally, I will ALWAYS be defined first and foremost as a "gringo." For better or for worse.

I’m excited about becoming fluent in Spanish.

I'm still excited about this. "Fluent" is an interesting word, because there's no real fine line that separates "fluent" from "not fluent." I have accepted that there's no way for me to be able to speak Spanish as well as I speak English, especially after only a year of living in a Spanish-speaking country. Like, I said, I originally hoped I would be a better Spanish speaker by now. But when I think about the fact that I'm only halfway done with my time here, I'm pretty sure I could call myself "fluent" by the time I'm done.

I’m excited about learning how to live simply.

This is another interesting statement. I think I am living simply, especially if "simply" means reducing my environmental footprint. I take public transportation or walk everywhere. Even though I still use a washing machine to wash my clothes, I dry them on a clothesline. My food is all fresh and local. But on the other hand, I've actually become MORE technologically savvy since coming to Peru: with skype, blogs and digital cameras/camcorders.

I’m excited about not feeling pressure to work, produce and accomplish individual accolades.

This is 100% true. And it's awesome. This excitement was definitely something held over from feeling burnt-out at the end of college. And whenever I get stressed about doing anything there, for whatever reason, I remind myself that I'm not expected (nor is it my job) to "produce" anything wonderful, magnificent or life-changing.

I’m excited about teaching people and learning from them at the same time.

This is another valid thing for me to have been excited about. Even though I haven't had too much success with my English classes, ocassionally they are very rewarding. And overall, just from my conversations with people, I would say I've done a lot of both learning and teaching.

I’m excited about gaining fresh perspectives on God, life, values and economics.

I'm not sure what specific type of "economic perspectives" I was thinking of when I wrote this, but I'd say this has happend as well. I plan on writing more about this in a separate entry.

I’m excited about learning how to trust God to take care of things I usually try to control myself.

This is something I probably need to continue working on. But putting everything in God's hands is definitely what I remind myself to do whenever I have one of those moments when I realize that I'm basically living on my own, away from friends and family, within a different language, culture, and socio-economic context.

I’m excited about becoming part of a new family.

I would never have guessed that I'd become a part of TWO new families. Which has made me "doubly blessed" in a lot of ways.

I’m excited about experiencing love and grace.

I probably won't ever know or understand how much love and grace the people who I live and work with here in Lima, not to mention God, have afforded me.

I’m excited about having plenty of time to read, write, pray and think.

Definitely true as well. And over the past week or so, I've actually done a good job with my commitment to do more of these things, and spend less time on the internet.

I’m excited about meeting people who are open to fresh ideas and listening to my thoughts and dreams.

Again, this expectation has most certainly been met.

I’m excited about defying people’s stereotypes about white people from the US.

I really hope I defy stereotypes about white, male North Americans. But I don't think I can ever really know for sure.

I’m excited about not “needing” a car.

Amen.

I’m excited about leaving a political climate that hurts and divides people.

I wrote this, obviously, during the election season. I was truly amazed and touched by the election of Barack Obama. It was awesome. From my perspective, it really did seem to unite people, at least for awhile (from what I understand, much of that unity has already eroded over the stimulus bill arguments). And Lima was an interesting place to witness all of the election happenings, which I'll never forget. Also - there's definitely plenty of divisive politics here in Peru.

I’m excited about leaving a culture obsessed with achievement, money, work and appearance.

Wrong. Again, US cultural imperialism has made this obsession even stronger among people in Lima, sad to say.

I’m excited about discovering who I am and becoming who God created me to be.

Probably the most important item in this list. And I'm still excited, because I'm still discovering and growing - even though the year is halfway over, I feel like THIS process has really just begun.

I’m scared that my year of service won’t live up to my high hopes and expectations about personal transformation.

Haha, well this is an awkward one to evaluate now, isn't it? So far, I think my hopes and expectations have been or are being fulfilled.

I’m scared about being asked to pray out loud in Spanish.

This still scares me, ocassionally. But I'm over it. I've definitely prayed some short, weird, grammatically incorrect and/or unintelligble prayers though. Oh well.

I’m scared about leading bible studies and teaching children’s Sunday school in Spanish.

Actually, I haven't done too much sunday school teaching yet. I'm still scared about that. But not nearly as much as I was. I do alright.

I’m scared that I have no clue how to teach English.

This is definitely true. I'm learning as I go.

I’m scared of culture shock.

Another legitimate fear. But I eventually dealt with it.

I’m scared of feeling utterly alone in a house filled with seven people and in a city of 8 million.

This is also true. The internet helps.

I’m sad about leaving my friends and family.

And I still miss them.

I’m scared about being bored.

I'm bored a lot, but it's nothing to be scared of. I'm working on creating more productive, mind-stimulating ways to not be bored, though.

I’m scared about being/thinking differently than my conservative evangelical brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church in South America.

Yep. This frustration/fear isn't going away any time soon. But I"ve learned a lot from being immersed among different perspectives.

I’m scared I’ll be tempted to come home.

Not yet.

I’m scared about being robbed.

Haha, 100% legitimate. It could have been worse.

I’m scared about getting hurt or sick.

This still scares me some times. But I've been very, very lucky so far. Then again, getting hurt or sick probably isn't any less likely to happen to me in the US. It would just be more complicated here.

I’m scared about becoming transformed.

Nothing to be scared about. I think I wrote this because I was pretty satisfied and happy with who I was and what I believed in before I left. Now that I've been 'transformed' a little bit, and am still being transformed, I'm still pretty satisfied and happy with the person I was before I left, and with the person I am now, too.

I’m scared I won’t live up to the expectations of the churches in Lima.

This was a silly thing to say.

I’m sad and frustrated about having to pay for drinking water.

That's still frustrating. Leslie has a purifying system that she brought with her that allows her to drink water out of the tap. I'm jealous.

I’m scared that I might confirm people’s stereotypes about people from the U.S.

I've definitely confirmed plenty of stereotypes. But what can I do about it now?

I’m scared I won’t make a difference.

Another silly thing to say. It would be impossible for me to come here and NOT make a difference. As David Lamotte says, there's a difference between wanting to change the world and wanting to FIX the world. It's not like we're going to wake up one morning and the newspaper will say "World Fixed; Let's all go to the beach!" You can't live in the world WITHOUT changing the world, the question is whether you will change the world for better or for worse.

I’m scared about getting angry at the world and at my country.

Yet another silly thing to say.

I’m scared (sort of) that my host family won’t be that different after all (wealth, comforts, technology).

A silly thing to be scared of, but it's true - I've got a lot of the same comforts and technology here that I had back at home. Which is ok.

I’m scared I packed too much.

Hahaha. Actually, I think I packed just about right.

Yesterday, I think I finally realized (realistically) what leaving Peru is going to be like. Up until now, I hadn't really thought about leaving in any other way besides predicting how excited I will be to go back to friends and family (as well as all of the foods I'm missing). But yesterday, I realized how attached I've gotten to this place. My host family is amazing (both of them: Javier, Raquel et al and my original host family, who I still visit at least once a week). I'm speaking Spanish much better. I know how to get around. I can tolerate all of the food, and I actually enjoy a couple of them. For the most part, I've really started to find a niche and get into a rhythm at my work placements. And between playing soccer with kids in the neighborhood and attending the worship service for high schoolers and young adults at Km 13, I'm starting to get to know and make friends with people my age. So right now, at least, I'm content.

Oh, and for those of you wondering how my singing went: it went fine. Nobody pointed and laughed. Javier told me (sincerely I think) afterwards that I did a good job. So we'll see if they ask me to do it again next week.

I'm a gringo spanish vocal artist

Just kidding. But it appears that last night I somehow became a member of the Santa Isabel Church praise band.

Okay, now that the laughter has died down, I'll explain how that happened. Basically, I had been hanging out at home yesterday evening alone. Raquel and Javier had left earlier -- I assumed they were going out to do some sort of Valentine's Day activity. The doorbell rang, and it was two people asking for Raquel. I told them she was gone and that I didn't know when she'd be back. So after they left, I decided to give Raquel a call to see when they'd be back. They told me they were at the church singing praise songs and invited me to come join them. I didn't have too much to do (it being Valentine's Day and me being in Peru), so I decided to go join them. What they were ACTUALLY doing, which I didn't understand from the phone conversation, was rehearsing the music for the worship services the next day. (Raquel and Javier are two of five people on the church committee for music and praise.) So as soon as I walked in, they were putting a microphone in my face and telling me to sing with them. I tried at least 3 times saying no, but they kept persisting, so I took the microphone (those of you who know me well know that I can only resist having a microphone shoved in my face for so long).

The praise band group varies between about 4 and 7 people every sunday (plus one more now, if you include me I guess). When all 8 are there, we have a keyboard player, drummer, guitar player and four singers. It's basically your typical contemporary christian praise band -- the singers have microphones, but they're not technically "performing," because the whole congregation sings along. And after being here for 6 months, I pretty much know all of the songs we normally sing -- plus the singers usually read the lyrics of sheets while they sing anyway so they won't forget the words (Santa Isabel doesn't use power point yet, but that's definitely in the future) . And having me there allows Javier to play the drums (he normally sings and plays guitar, but the drummer is sick or out of town or something), because without me there would be no other male singers.

I sang and practiced with them for the entire 1 1/2 hour rehearsal. And they kept assuring me that I was a decent singer. So in about two hours I will be singing with the rest of the praise band group for the 11 o clock worship service (we're all wearing jeans and black t-shirts). I'm not sure how the congregation will react, but I personally think the concept of a gringo male who has never really sang in front of people before suddenly singing contemporary christian music in Spanish through a microphone in front of a group of Peruvians is nothing short of hilarious.

That awkward in-between period

Today I visited my old host family, as I've been doing every Thursday for the past month or so. To get to their house and back, I have to take a bus for about 15 minutes outside of my neighborhood. On my way back, I did as I always do and paid the cobrador (that is, the person who collects the bus fares and announces/advertises the different bus stops on the route) and told her "Avenida Lima," the name of the closest main street to my house, where I get off the bus. You have to tell the cobrador where you're getting off so he/she knows how much to charge you. She charged me 50 centimos, which was good, because they occasionally charge 80. Today, the bus was full -- I had to stand up holding a handrail for the entire ride back. I'd say there were maybe 50 people on the bus.

As we approached the turn onto Avenida Lima, the cobrador, who was in the front of the bus, yelled out
"Avenida Lima." Meanwhile I was in the back of the bus. The bus stopped and the back door opened, which happened to be close to where I was standing. No one got off.
"Do you get off at Avenida Lima?" she repeated. I suddenly realized she was staring right at me. I'm sure I looked really confused. I've taken this same bus route many, many times and not once had this ever happened. It always not only turned onto Avenida Lima but traversed the entire length of the street. However, since the cobrador was asking if I was getting off at Avenida Lima before the bus actually turned onto the street, I started to think that this particular bus was altering the route today (something that HAS happened to me before with other busses). So for some reason, I figured maybe it wasn't going to turn onto the street, so I needed to get off right there, at the corner.
"Yes," I answered her question, "Is the bus not going to turn?" I was really, really embarrassed to be having a conversation across the length of the bus in my gringo Spanish accent while the bus was stopped in the middle of the street and all of the passengers basically were a captive audience.
"Oh, do you get off further down the street?" she asked me.
"Yes, of course," I replied. And with that the driver closed the door and turned onto Avenida Lima. Relieved that the situation had been resolved and the bus had started moving again, I said softly "I might be a gringo, but I do know my own bus route." The people around me chuckled (people always laugh when I call myself a gringo). Luckily, the point where I get off was only 5 or 6 blocks down the road, so it wasn't long before I got off the bus and walked the remaining half-block to my house.

There's really no way I can fully express the awkwardness/discomfort of that situation to a North American who's never before lived in Peru. Basically, the reason all of it happened was that because of my accent and probably a bunch of other cultural cues, the cobrador realized that I wasn't "from around here." So she wanted to make sure I didn't get lost. And it's okay that she assumed I didn't live in Lima and might not know where I was going. It took awhile, but I've finally accepted the fact that I'm never going to be Peruvian. Especially not this year. I'm never going to fully fit in. I'm always going to look, sound and act like a North American. Which I've realized is fine, and very much expected since that's exactly what I am. Whereas it used to really, really bother me when strangers would see me on the street and immediately start speaking English to me ("Hello. What is your name? Where are you from?"), for the most part, it doesn't any more. The vast majority of the people that do this are just trying to be friendly. Lots of people know English - it's taught in all of the schools, plus it's the default language of world media and entertainment - so they're excited to practice it with a native speaker. And especially in places like Comas, native English speakers don't come around too often. Even though she didn't speak any English to me, the Cobrador was a type of example of this friendliness/excitement. She was just trying to help me. She recognized me as a foreigner, but she didn't overcharge me for the bus fare. Instead, she decided to let me know when I should get off, since she figured I didn't know where I was going. But little did she know, her trying to be friendly and helpful actually caused me a lot of embarrassment.

I know this seems like a silly situation to over-analyze, but just that's what I do. The last important thought I had is that I have a feeling most people who get off the bus on my street, avenida Lima, probably tell the cobrador something different than "avenida lima." I've actually only ridden that bus one time when I wasn't buy myself (don't worry, I'm never riding it at night), and I don't remember what the person who rode with me told the cobrador was our stop. Most Comas natives might just say "santa isabel" or something like that, something that also might distinguish me from the other bus-riders.

So even though I feel comfortable and well-adjusted to living in Lima, this proves that there are still a few things that I have to learn. I'm still in an awkward, in-between period. On the one hand, I'm speaking Spanish very well. I know my way around. I can do things relatively independently. I've gotten used to (or even started to like) a lot of cultural things that at the beginning of my year here annoyed or confused me. But the transition isn't over, and may never be. I still don't tell the cobradores the right things sometimes. I still make cultural faux pas. Even though I feel more and more like a regular Lima resident, I still act and look enough like a foreigner for people to continue mistaking me for a tourist. And finally, even though I keep claiming that it doesn't bother me any more, the fact that this happens still, well, bothers me a little bit.

As someone who has finished his undergrad but has not yet begun graduate school, I really shouldn't be surprised that perhaps the best way to describe this year is "an awkward, in-between period."

Mission

so today I went up "in the hills" to a poorer area of santa isabel's neighborhood with some of the members of the church. First we shared a brief bible reflection, and then we gave out clothes, toys and juice to a group of kids and families who live there. Since it's a relatively "middle class" church, I'm glad that some members of Santa Isabel are starting to get a sense of mission. I am also excited, because I see this as a place where my presence and experience could definitely help them, since the whole community service idea is relatively new to them.

The whole thing was a kind of controlled chaos. I read the bible passage in Spanish using a megaphone, which was made more difficult by the fact that I was reading it from someone else's bible, and that bible happened to be basically the equivalent of the King James Version in Spanish. Meaning that it had a lot of antiquated, elevated language, specifically with the vosotros verb form everywhere, which I've NEVER had to read/use out loud, outside of verb drills in Spanish classes in the US. Then another church member used the megaphone to preach a short sermon about the passge that I read. And finally, we lined them up to get their clothes/toys. For awhile, they actually stayed in line, which really impressed me. The main problem was most of the toys were actually bundled in little bags, and at first we started handing out one bag of toys per person. We ended up with enough toys for about 1/3 of the kids who were there... which wasn't good. Then we started giving out the second hand clothes. This was made complicated by the fact that all of the clothes, regardless of size or gender, was all mixed together. One of the church members was handing out specific clothes to specific people based on size/gender while the other just handed out the clothes to whoever was there, and told them if it didn't fit to give it to a parent or sibling. Finally, we gave out juice. This was probably the most successful part, because we did end up with enough juice and cups for everyone. Again, the line worked for about a minute or two before it just became a free-for-all, but in the end everyone got served.

I didn't know much about what wer were doing until we actually went. I just knew we were going to give out clothes, toys and juice to kids up the hill. As we walked back down, we all talked about ways it could go better next time. I told them that my experience in the US shows that these type of things require a lot of previous effort/organization. Next time, I said, we should go through and sort the clothes by male/female and child/adult/baby. We should also count to see how many articles of clothing and toys we have beforehand. One of the church members also suggested that we create a list of all of the names of the kids who come next time, so we can have an idea of who/how many kids we're dealing with.

All in all, I'm very excited to continue doing this in the future.

Some (random) thoughts

Merry Christmas! Coherent narrative storytelling/reflection just isn't going to work today. Sorry.

An official YAV newsletter will be coming soon. I promise.

I preached in Spanish twice this past week, with barely any notes (I was told that if I "read" my sermon, no one will listen). I'll upload a video on youtube later, although anyone who wants to watch me incoherently ramble in Spanish for fifteen minutes about the meaning of Christmas is certifiably insane.

I went camping on the beach two nights ago, watched the sun set over the pacific and slept on a blanket under the stars.

Evaporated milk is probably the most popular item at every single supermarket and in an average Peruvian family's home. On an unrelated note, I personally think evaporated milk is disgusting.

A group of us from Santa Isabel church took used clothes, 20 loafs of paneton (Peruvian-style fruitcake) and a bunch of soda up the hill to share with some of the very poor squatter families that live there. It was one of the first "service" events that I've participated in with a church here, and I loved it. The best part is that the church members all felt really good afterward and want to make community service a more important part of their church life.

At 5:40am on Friday I leave for Cuzco for two weeks of vacation that will include Macchu Pichu, Lake Titicaca/Puno and Colca Canyon/Arequipa. I have a hard time explaining to my Peruvian friends the difference between this "real" vacation and the "work-related" retreats/reunions that the YAV group takes every 6 weeks or so to various touristy beach/mountain locales.

Peruvians celebrate Christmas at midnight on the 24th with hot chocolate, fireworks, presents (new clothes are the normal Christmas gift) and a huge turkey dinner. All the TV stations play a Christmas countdown, much like on New Year's Eve in the states.

On New Years, they do the whole thing all over again. But with less turkey and more champagne. And with the added tradition of using all of the family's old clothes to dress a homemade mannequin and then setting the clothes on fire to symbolize leaving the old year behind and starting the new year fresh. I assume this is why people first give each other new clothes for Christmas. Apparently it's also good luck if you wear yellow underwear for new years.

I don't have a car here. And I don't even miss it. How long will it be before people in the US actually become convinced that walking, public transportation and massive carpooling is DEFINITELY worth it?

I've officially finished 1/3 of my YAV placement. That was fast.

"Crash" was on TV the other night ("Vidas Cruzadas" is the title of the dubbed Spanish version). I watched it with my host family and remembered why it's my favorite movie ever.

Remember, if you want to see photos, they're all available from the "Picasa" link on the left side of the page.

Starting in January, I'm going to be preaching a lot more in both Santa Isabel church and Kilometer 13 church. Let's hope my Spanish extemporaneous public speaking skills improve.

Slowly, I'm starting to feel more spiritually fulfilled by the worship services here. The "sociologist" in me is finally getting bored as I've gotten used to a lot of the differences between here and home. This is allowing me to take in the spirit of community and presence of God here on a personal level.

I'm still long overdue on making a boring, overly intellectual/pretentious-sounding blog post that reflects on the political/theological differences between "evangelical" churches here and mainline denominational churches in the US as they relate to respective differences in social/economic realities. But of course the real objective is to try to use big words to impress you and make you think that I'm SO READY to go to seminary and single-handedly fix the problems of the church/world.

I know this is looking WAY far ahead, but when I come back to the US I don't even want to SEE a grain of white rice or a beet for at least 3 months.... Except for the "beet" part. I don't want to see a beet again, period. Ever.

Ceviche and Tallerin verde with carne de res, however, will always be favorites.

Some days I find myself speaking spanish so well that I forget that I'm speaking a foreign language, and later on when I chat online with people from back home it's hard to remember certain English words. Other days it seems like I can barely form complete sentences in Spanish, and when people talk to me I ask them to repeat themselves at least 3 times before I eventually just say "ohhhh!" and then nod my head and pretend I understood what they just said.

Two years ago, if you told me that right now I would be spending Christmas Eve with a host family in Lima, Peru while working as a Young Adult Volunteer for the Presbyterian Church, I would have suggested that you seek psychological counseling....

Well, probably not. But I most likely would have laughed excessively and said "really?"

I missed Christmas Vespers at Trinity. I going to miss spending Christmas morning with family and relatives back home in Decatur. I'm going to miss spending New Years with more family and relatives at "home" in Montreat. And I'm going to miss the Montreat summer staff reunion and college conference during the New Year, too.

The White Randy Jackson

Last week, I served as a member of a "jury" for an elementary school singing contest. Yep, not kidding. My friend Eva helps me teach English at Santa Isabel (she definitely speaks English better than I speak Spanish, despite the fact she's never traveled outside of Peru), and her husband is the music director of the local elementary school. Every year, the school has a big concert/contest where choirs and individuals from all grade levels perform. He always has trouble finding people who are "qualified" enough to serve on the jury to judge the contest. Eva told me all of this a few weeks ago after finding out that I played trombone for 8 years during elementary, middle and high school. And then she asked me if I would be on the jury. I told her I would be on it as a last resort - that her husband should continue looking for people, and if he just couldn't find anyone else, I would do it. And you can figure out what happened from there.

Before the contest, I had to prepare my "resume" that detailed my musical experience. So I wrote down on a piece of paper that I played trombone in concert band and marching band from 8 years. For good measure, I added that I was in my church's handbell choir (which mainly consisted of going to practice about twice a month--and all we really did was play stuff like chords for "Silent Night" during Christmas). After I showed my resume to Eva, she insisted that we spice it up a bit. So I didn't just play trombone for 8 years - I played trombone and studied music for 8 years at the "Institute" of Decatur High School. And when the MC of the concert/contest announced the jury, I was introduced as "Professor" Alex Cornell, a "specialist" in wind instruments, who studied music for eight years at an Institute in the United States of America! They didn't mention that, as a judge of a singing competition, I hadn't EVER received ANY type formal instruction in voice/singing/performance, and the last time I had practiced or participated in any sort of organized singing group was when I was in the church choir in 5th grade. In fact, until my sophomore year of college I thought the only meaning of the word "jury" was the group of people who decides if the defendant in a court of law is guilty or not guilty.

So suffice it to say, as I'm sitting there between ACTUAL music professors (or so I thought--you never now...) getting introduced at the beginning of what would eventually be a 5 hour concert, I couldn't help but feel a little silly and out of place. I was mainly just praying that I wouldn't inadvertently ruin the promising future of some 5 year old musical child prodigy by giving him or her an undeserved low score. I really had no idea what I was doing -- seriously, I don't even watch American Idol!

To evaluate the performers, we (the jury) had to give them scores from 1 to 5 in four categories: pitch, rhythm, diction and performance. Let me just take a moment to say that the spanish word for performance is "interpretación," which I thought (wrongly) meant "interpretation" (duh). I didn't find out until the next day that it actually means "performance." So while they were supposed to be graded on pitch, rhythm, diction and performance, I graded them on pitch, rhythm, diction and interpretation. I quickly learned that it didn't matter that much anyway. As long as you don't give 1's and don't give 5's (unless somebody is REALLY good or REALLY bad), everything will be okay. Throughout the night, my judging method was more or less "hmmmmm, let's pick a random number between 2 and 4." Especially for the 3 year olds. That's right, there were 3 year olds (just choir groups, not individuals). How are you supposed give a group of 12 three year olds a score for "pitch" when the only thing the choir director is concerned about is preventing them from wandering off the stage in the middle of their "performance?" They were all really cute though....

Luckily, one of the other members of Santa Isabel Church, who was once a professional musician, was also on the jury, and he let me copy off of his paper. I'm also lucky that all we had to do as members of the jury was to grade those 4 categories with a number between 1 and 5 and add up the four numbers for a final score. If there was a "comments" section, I'm pretty sure my cover would have been blown. During the couple days leading up to the contest, I pictured us (the judges) giving verbal feedback, American Idol style. I figured I could just be like a "celebrity" judge. They could put me last in the line-up, and after all of the serious judges who knew what they were doing gave technical feedback, I would be waiting at the end as the US native-gringo who just told them if their outfits looked funny or that they gave "a great effort."

I DID end up giving a couple "5's" in the competition. There was one kid who was I think 7 years old who was AMAZING. I learned later that evening that he's been on TV singing multiple times. He sang a mariachi song in a full mariachi outfit. At the beginning of his performance, as the audience sat in silence waiting for him to sing while the instrumental introduction to the song played he suddenly yelled the Spanish equivalent of "put your hands together!" to get everyone to start clapping. From that point on, I was sold.

So that's my first ever jury duty experience - in either a courtroom OR a concert. I guess this is what the "new experiences" of being a Y.A.V. are all about.

Culture shock...

First things first: no more virus. Sasser = matado. Which is good news.... sort of. I hate to admit it, but the virus kinda won. With the help of my computer friend, I ended up just starting over and erasing my hard drive. But, like I good boy scout, I came to Peru prepared for just such a situation. Before I left the states, I backed up everything on an external hard drive, and brought along all of the re-installation disks for my operating system, drivers, programs etc. And all the new documents I've created IN Peru since then, I've saved to my flash drive. So even though I had to erase everything to kill the virus, I had all of the important stuff backed up. And now all is back to normal. So we'll call it a draw. But now I have NOD32, so you won't be so lucky next time, Sasser...

* * * * * *

I've been in Peru for 11 weeks now, and so I thought I'd do a little reflecting on how things are going.

At this point in my work, I feel frustrated a lot of the time. Mainly frustrated with myself. See, I speak Spanish fairly well, and people frequently compliment me on how well I speak. Still, after living here for 2 and half months, the daily challenge of using a foreign language ALL the time has gotten to me. Sometimes when people talk to me, I just hear a blur. On the other end, I often just lack the vocabulary I need to express myself. It's REALLY frustrating not only to hear someone repeat something 3 times without understanding it, but even more so when YOU repeat yourself 3 or 4 times without being understood, even though you think you've explained whatever it is you're trying to say perfectly. My Spanish is getting better, but I really have to admit that I thought it would be a lot easier by this point.

I've also felt frustrated with my own ethnocentrism. I find myself blaming things that are different or "worse" than home on the Peruvian or Latin/South American culture. "They're just not as educated or advanced as we are." I would have told you you were crazy if you told me I'd find myself saying or thinking things like that before I left. Back before I came to Peru, when it was all just hypothetical, I always hated the typical "western = better, rest of world = inferior" worldview. I never understood it when I met people in the US who'd spent a lot of time traveling or living in another country, yet they seemed like the most snobbish Americans ever. I felt like this type of "ignorant" attitude in people who had NEVER in their lives left the US, (or the South, or Texas....) was easily forgivable and explainable, but to hear it from people who'd spent months or years traveling abroad just baffled me. But now, I'm kind of starting to understand how even these well-traveled and "cultured" people could sadly have the same type of mindset.

Back home, especially for white, upper-middle class university students, appreciating new perspectives and acknowledging the value of other cultures, peoples, worldviews etc is relatively easy, because it's all in THEORY. You're just doing it at 9:30 on a Monday, inside a modern, western university classroom, with other white, upper-middle class students and a white, upper-middle class professor. And after the 50 minute class period is over, you don't really have to think about it again until next Wednesday; meanwhile, you're going back to your dorm room to spend 4 hours surfing YouTube.

However, when you're living abroad in a culture where you don't speak fluently the language you need to survive, and when cyclical poverty, domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, gang activity and non-western thought processes actually become daily realities rather than bite-sized, easy-to-swallow textbook concepts, theory goes out the window. Life back home seems so simple, so easy, so FUN! in comparison.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Alex, aren't you supposed to be an 'expert' at this kind of stuff, Mr. Sociology gruaduate? Aren't their GLOBAL social processes at work?" And, YES, I know there are "global processes" going on far beyond the scope of what I see at a micro-level during my daily life in Comas. I FREQUENTLY find myself applying what I've learned in classes to what I see here in Peru. But at some point it all just becomes "blah blah blah, globalization, blah blah blah, free-trade, blah blah blah, the multi-national corporations, blah blah blah, neo-colonialism, blah blah blah, self-fulfilling prophecy, blah blah blah..."

And maybe the fact that I pretend to understand the macro-level socio-economic theoretical concepts (how's that for a string of fancy words that doesn't really say much?) just makes it worse. Because then it just makes me go back to the attitude of "I understand this situation, because I'm an enlightened Westerner, and the Peruvians don't." In conversations with people, I just find myself thinking "if only they understood, if only they thought like I think, things would be better." And I can't stand it when I find myself having these thoughts.

I could definitely go more into some of this, but I can't right now. I don't think living in Peru is turning me into a cultural imperialist or anything like that. I'm just frustrated, because I'm learning that I'm a little more prejudiced, ethnocentric and "ignorant" than I first thought.

Random thoughts and anecdotes

This past Saturday, I played fulbito (mini-soccer) with some youth from Kilometer 13 church and the surrounding neighborhood. They were all a whole lot better than I was, but they were still nice enough to let me play. If I play every Saturday, maybe by the end of the year, I’ll be halfway decent.

After the worship service at Santa Isabel on Sunday, I went to lunch at the house of Juan Ambrosio and his family. Juan is the president of the consistorio (the church’s governing body) of Santa Isabel, and he’s the person who has designed the schedule for my placement there. In the back of the house, they have a little pen filled with guinea pigs. When I saw the guinea pigs, I hesitantly asked Juan if they were pets or food, even though I already knew the answer. Of course, he told me they were for food. They were just so cute though…. We didn’t eat guinea pig for lunch that day, we just had soup. But I learned in orientation that guinea pig (known as “cuy” in Peru) is a Peruvian delicacy, especially in the mountains/rural areas, so I’ll probably have to eat it some time. Because it’s such a special food, you can’t really politely refuse it. To decline cuy would be very offensive.


As Young Adult Volunteers, our job isn’t really to teach the people in our placement sites how we do things as “advanced,” “modern” westerners. Really, we’re just supposed to be present and form meaningful relationships, rather than produce tangible changes or “improvements.” We should be doing more listening than talking and more learning than teaching. But I think I might have to break this rule in order to teach the congregations of Kilometer 13 and Santa Isabel something that will revolutionize the way they experience contemporary Christian music. It’s rather simple: you clap your hands on beats 2 and 4, not 1 and 3. Those of you who aren’t musically inclined might not know what I’m talking about, but if you are, you probably know EXACTLY what I mean. Unless the band is practicing the song for the first time and doesn’t have a drummer, you just don’t clap on 1 and 3. When they learn this, it’s gonna be big…


A couple weeks ago, I went to a concert at the UBL (University Biblica Latinamerica) by a group called Siembra. Siembra is a Christian folkloric Peruvian music group. Quite simply, they were amazing. They sing beautiful harmonies about God, peace, and the Peruvian people and land. Their instruments include the guitar, a drum, churango (mini-guitar) and zampoña (or something like that – I can never remember what it’s called, let alone how it’s spelled – it’s basically windpipes). They kinda sound like the Peter Paul and Mary of Peru. They’ve been around for awhile and have made a lot of CDs – I bought a double CD “anthology” at the end of the concert for a whopping 10 sols (about $3.50). If you like folk/acoustic/Spanish/traditional music, you should look them up.


Damaris calls me “Aleps.” She’s perfectly capable of saying “Alex,” but for some reason, she prefers “Aleps.” Don’t ask me why. I first thought this was pretty annoying, and I used to correct her every time she said it. But now I think it’s kind of endearing.


This past week, I was finally asked to pray in front of everybody for the first time. Twice, in fact. Once before “class” started in the Compassion program, and another time at the end of worship this past Sunday at Santa Isabel. I won’t say it was a piece of cake, but I got through it. At least God knew what I was trying to say…


I’ve finally figured out why all the food here is so heavy on grains and meat! It’s just because that’s what Peruvians consider to be a balanced diet. I discovered this in the kitchen of Kilometer 13 Church, where the cooks prepare the kids’ lunches in the Compassion program. Painted on the wall of the kitchen is Peru’s version of the “Food Guide Pyramid.” Except instead of a pyramid, it’s a pie graph (no pun intended). The pie graph has three sections: grains, meats/dairy, and fruits/vegetables. Grains account for 60% - and included in the “grains” group picture is flour, potatoes, rice, SODA, VEGETABLE OIL, and CANDY. Yes, I’m not kidding, there is a picture of a bottle of vegetable oil, a bottle of “Inca Cola” (the local favorite soft drink), and pieces of candy included in this nutrition graph. The meats and dairy section of the graph accounts for 30%, and the “fruits AND vegetables section only gets 10%. Yes, this is quite odd from our point of view. But it makes sense to me, because these percentages are pretty much exactly what I’ve had to here in Lima for the past month.


I have decided that the reason soccer isn’t popular to watch on TV in the United States is money. Soccer is non-stop action. There are no timeouts except for halftime. There are only quick moments of downtime when someone gets injured and after a team scores a goal (but it’s pretty common to have games in which no goals are scored). Even when there’s a penalty, the “quick restart” is part of the strategy of the game. For these reasons, you just can’t show commercials during soccer broadcasts. It doesn’t work. Instead, of futbol, we watch football, which is the KING of convenient breaks in the action to show commercials – timeouts, changes of possession, quarter breaks, touchdowns, field goals, etc. (Don’t forget my favorite – the “two minute warning.” Ha!) “America’s pastime,” baseball, requires breaks every half inning, and in basketball each team gets a million timeouts. Soccer is the most popular sport all over the world except for the US…. Hmmmm, maybe now we know why.

A week in the life

I’m still easing into my daily work routine. I start the work week off right – Mondays are my free day. I also have Tuesday and Thursday mornings off. Starting on September 30, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I will teach English classes at Santa Isabel Church, which is about a 20 minute bus ride from my house. Eva, a member of the church speaks English and has taught English before. It sounds like she’s going to be pretty much running the show, and I’ll be helping her out. Starting tomorrow, tuesday nights I will attend a prayer service at Santa Isabel, while Thursday nights I will go to Bible study with Santa Isabel. On Wednesdays and Fridays from 8:30 to 5:30 I’m working with children at Kilometer 13 Church as part of their “Compassion International Program,” which I’ll explain in great detail later.

As many people reading this probably know, I am planning on attending seminary after my year of service here in Peru. I think Debbie, my site coordinator and “third mother” here in Peru (the second being my host mother and the first obviously being my real mother), designed this plan of work for me knowing that it would be great preparation for being a “real pastor” one day. I say this because like any good “pastor in training,” the weekend is where I make most of my money (okay, that joke’s bad enough when you’re an actual pastor and even worse when you’re a church VOLUNTEER!). Starting next Saturday, I will be going to Kilometer 13 at 7:30am, bright and early to play fulbito with the church youth. Fulbito is “mini-soccer” – with smaller goals, and it’s played on a concrete “field” that’s about as big as a basketball court. I've only played once so far - and I was pretty much the goalie the whole time, because when I play in the field I pretty much just run around after the ball trying not to get kicked in the shins. After futbolito on saturdays, we eat breakfast. From 9:30 to 11:00 (again, starting next Saturday), I will accompany the pastor, Hernando, and a psychologist (I can’t remember his name – I’ve had to learn a lot in the past couple weeks) on visits to the homes of children in the Compassion program. Most of the kids have lots of issues at home, so we’re there mainly as counselors for the families. Hernando says that together, the three of us will be a great “pastoral team:” he’s a professional pastor/theologian, the psychologist is obviously a psychologist, and I’m a “professional” sociologist (because I majored in sociology). Any time he’s explaining this “pastoral team” concept to someone and he implies that we’re all equally qualified in our respective disciplines, I have to try really hard not to laugh. It’s not that I think I didn’t learn anything by majoring in sociology at Trinity (far from it). It’s just that Hernando and the psychologist each have master’s degrees and about 20 years of life experience that I don’t have, so to hear him talk about me, a 22 year old volunteer missionary with a newly minted bachelor’s degree and who doesn’t even speak Spanish fluently in the same breath as the two of them is rather amusing.

Starting October 4, from 11 – 12:30 every Saturday I will teach basic English at Kilometer 13. Then, from 12:30 to 4, I have time to eat lunch and take a siesta. At 4pm (again, starting Oct. 4) I’ll teach “intermediate” English for people who already know simple vocabulary and grammar. Pastor Hernando’s plan for these intermediate classes is that each class will start with a Bible passage or Christian message in English that we’ll have to translate. But this format won’t be advertised – the class is just advertised as free English classes for the neighborhood. After we get them to come to classes, we get to sneakily evangelize them! (Bait and switch? Not exactly – we’re still teaching English) Finally, my Saturdays conclude with the “adolescents” worship service in Kilometer 13 from 6:30 to 8pm. First we play games, and then Hernando preaches, or occassionally one of the youth does it (this is what I'm told - which means I'll probably have to do it eventually...) Sundays, I spend the whole day at Santa Isabel. I help out with Sunday school from 9:30 to 11, and church from 11 to 12:30-ish. Then I eat at a restaurant with some of the church members. Starting in a couple weeks, I will do "visitations" after lunch with the President of the Consistorio (basically the church ‘session’ or government – Santa Isabel doesn’t have a pastor). I think these will be similar to the family visitations I am supposed to do on Saturdays for Kilometer 13. I finish up Sundays with another worship service at Santa Isabel from 7pm to 8:30. And that’s what an average week will look like. Theoretically.

The Compassion Program at Kilometer 13 has definitely been my favorite part of my job so far (it's also the only thing I've done regularly). I’m still piecing together exactly what the program’s purpose is. Basically, it’s daycare and lunch for kids from 2 – 16 years old, provided for free by the church to the neighborhood. There are two sessions – one in the morning from 9am to 1pm and one in the afternoon from 1pm to 5pm. The sessions overlap a little bit, and each child can only come to one session per day. If you come to the first session you get lunch right before you leave; if you attend the second you get lunch right away. I guess the thing I’m not clear on isn’t how the Compassion Program works but rather what the laws are as far as going to school in Peru. My best guess is that the schools work the same way as the Compassion program (minus the whole free lunch part) – you either come to classes in the morning or in the evening. It just seems odd to me that all these kids would just be wandering the streets or burdening their parents for half the day if it weren’t for the Compassion program. Outside of food, the Compassion Program is basically like Sunday school. The younger kids sing songs, play games and draw/color. The older kids have a Bible curriculum and even complete homework and tests on Christian living. Each child has a “Padrino” or “Madrina” in the United States (or maybe some other countries). Padrino/madrina literally means “Godparent.” These are the sponsors of the program. They donate money to Compassion International, the NGO which provides the funding for the staff, food, materials etc. Kilometer 13 Church provides the building and the teachers/tutors. Every couple weeks each child has to write a letter to his/her padrino/madrina (I’m just guessing – it could be more/less often).

In all, there are over 200 children who participate in Kilometer 13’s Compassion Program. They are divided into 3 age groups that share 5 classrooms. The youngest group are 2 – 4 year olds, then 5 – 12, and one for 12 +. My host mother, Daniela, is one of the teachers for the middle age group. About an hour or so into my first day working she informed me she was leaving to go to the market to buy something (which ended up being a cake and soft drinks to welcome me, paid for with money that all the students contributed). So without warning, I was left alone for 40 minutes or so with about 18 kids who I’d just met that didn’t speak English. That was fun. Fortunately, I prevented them from killing each other. They were pretty rowdy since it was my first day there, and they’d been anticipating my arrival for weeks. And the fact that they were obviously really happy I was hanging out with them didn’t mean that they were going to listen or follow my directions. I eventually taught them how to play “Here I sit” (or “aca me siento,” as I roughly translated it), a game we play in Montreat that helps you learn people’s names. They liked it a lot, but it’s a game that gets old quickly. Once they were bored with it I couldn’t think of any other games that were suitable for an indoors, classroom-type space and that I could lead in Spanish. So I finally sat them all down and taught them how to sing the first part of “Jesus Loves Me” in English. Soon after, Daniela returned to rescue me.

Well that's about it for now. Today's random story: yesterday Santa Isabel had a "rummage sale" after the morning worship service. Among the things for sale was an old t-shirt - made in Peru - that says ATLANTA OLYMPICS '96 with a picture of a bald eagle and American flag. It was only 1 sol (about 35 cents), so I had to buy it!

At least I don't have to worry about being shocked by an electric water heater in the shower

So after church yesterday, I’m walking through the local open-air fresh food market with Daniela (my host mother). I’m looking at all of the nice vegetables, fruit and meat, taking in the sights and smells, when all the sudden, there’s a pig head. Yeah. It’s just the head of a full-grown pig, obviously bathed in preservatives, but it’s detached from the rest of it’s body. And it’s just hanging under one of the tents at a little above eye-level STARING straight at me. It was kind of creepy. And by “creepy,” I mean “awesome.”

Anyway, today’s entry features sub-headings! As well as descriptions of who people are in parentheses after their names (you may have noticed that above). I’ve described who these people are before, but if you’re like me, you probably won’t remember – or you just didn’t read the previous entry or two – shame, shame, shame!

Paging Dr. Atkins

Peru is the starch capital of the world. Seriously, I hope not too many of my friends and family are too attached to skinny, long-distance runner Alex, because in all likelihood the Alex that returns to the States next August will NOT be that guy. I knew that Peru was going to be a meat ‘n potatoes kind of place, but I didn’t know it was going to be a meat, white rice, white bread and potatoes kind of place. Yes, most regular meals here include BOTH potatoes (they’re frequently french fries) and white rice. And white bread is a breakfast staple. On top of that, I think Daniela (host mother) must use about a half a bottle of vegetable oil with every meal she cooks. Don’t get me wrong, the food here is really, really good – it’s just also really, really bad for you! The other day, Daniela told me that the family doesn’t really save any of their income. But they don’t use it to buy extravagant things either – they just spend it all on food! “Y por eso, somos muy gordos!” (and because of this, we’re very fat!). They aren’t that poor (by Peruvian standards…), they just like to eat.

So much for “Machismo”

Last Tuesday, Juan Carlos (host father), Juan (host brother) and I had a “guys night out.” What did we do? We went shopping at the mall of course. There was a family wedding on Saturday, so first we had to buy suites for Juan and me. The store we went to was basically a Macy’s-type department store in what was I think just a US-style shopping mall. We never did find one that fit perfectly. Every suit jacket there was really big. It almost felt like we must have been in a “big and tall” store – especially when you consider the fact that Peruvians normally aren’t that tall (and considering the average caloric intake, surprisingly they aren’t that big either). We eventually did find one that was reasonably priced and that fit well enough. I tried to pay for half of it, but Juan Carlos wouldn’t let me. I tried again when we bought dress shoes, and this time we made a deal that I would pay for dinner for the 3 of us that night. And conveniently located in the parking lot of the mall was a KFC. I had become wary of all of the greasy, unhealthy food I had been eating recently, so at first I wasn’t too thrilled to be getting fried chicken and french fries for dinner. But then I remembered that KFC recently stopped using trans fats!!!!!....... and then I thought about it for a second and realized that they probably weren’t too concerned about trans fat in South America. Oh well. The worst part is that while KFC still serves its gross mayonnaise-y cold slaw in South America, for some reason they DON’T serve their amazing biscuits! What’s the point of going to KFC if they don’t have the biscuits?!

Weddings and Receptions

As mentioned above, I got to wear my fabulous new suit Saturday night at the wedding. (WHICH, by the way, was in an ANGLICAN church. How many people can say that they’ve attended an event at an Anglican church in Latin America but not a Catholic one?) The bride was Juan Carlos’ (host father) sister, and she was marrying umm, some guy… who I soon learned was a professional singer. After they exchanged vows, Juan (host brother) informed be that the groom was going to sing a song. I thought this to be a strange Peruvian custom. He started singing the first couple phrases, and I thought “dang, this guy has a pretty decent voice.” Midway through the song I finally figured he must be a professional singer. I was kinda disappointed that the groom doesn’t have to sing at ALL Peruvian weddings.

Damaris (6 year old host sister) was pretty much the star of the wedding. As the flower girl, she was the first person in the spotlight, and never really left it. I think she found a way to work herself into nearly every picture taken of the newlyweds and families at the reception. Which brings us to the reception. The wedding and reception were in San Isidro, which is one of the upper-class, high-end financial districts of Lima (my host family and I were kind of out of our element – I had to tie Juan Carlos’s necktie for him before the ceremony because he didn’t know how). The reception was pretty tame – just a little music and dancing. But there was champagne and fingerfoods EVERYWHERE. Seriously, I think I nearly ate my weight in cookies and candy and pastries and meat kabobs. And then I learned that we were having DINNER at “part 2” of the reception, at a nearby hotel. So there was more wine and champagne, and some sort of fancy Peruvian pork and cheesy potato dish that I couldn’t eat much of because I was already stuffed. Although the wedding had started at 7, we didn’t get home until about 1am.

Meet the Gringo

Have I mentioned that I have yet to actually start my “work” yet? Our Lima orientation lasted all the way until Friday, and we had the weekend to rest. On Sunday, I was introduced to the congregation of the creatively named “Kilometer 13” church (one of 2 churches that I’ll be working with). It’s in a little bit poorer area of Comas (the name of the district of Lima that I live in). I arrived with Daniela during Sunday school (the rest of the family doesn’t go to church0. They had all of the Sunday school age groups together taking turns with bible trivia. I knew most of the answers for the younger kids’ questions – and I might have done alright with the older kids if the questions hadn’t been in Spanish! Once the worship service started, I was called up to the front to be presented by Hernando (the pastor) to the congregation pretty much immediately. Debbie (the YAV Peru site coordinator) must have given him a copy or summary of my YAV application, because he almost literally read my entire resume to the congregation – right down to my high school class rank! It was kind of uncomfortable. Afterwards, I got a chance to introduce myself. I basically told them I was happy to be there and excited about learning from them and also teaching the congregation about my personal faith and culture. And I asked them to be patient with my Spanish. Luckily, they didn’t ask me to pray (it would have been in Spanish of course) – I really thought they were going to!

The format of the service was pretty much standard for Protestant (“Evangelical”) churches in Latin America. We sang a few contemporary songs and a more traditional-style hymn, all led by a praise band. Then the pastor read scripture, delivered the sermon (~ 40 minutes long, maybe a little less), then we sang one more song to collect the offering, and finally the “President” of the what Presbyterians would call the session read some announcements and then called on a lucky soul to pray (again, not me!) before we departed. After the service was over, I met with the pastors and a few members of the session for a few minutes before I was bombarded by members of the “youth group” (which is high school, college and “young adult” ages). They all introduced themselves and invited me to help out with their worship service the next Saturday. I quickly learned from Hernando (the pastor) that I was not obligated to do anything that anybody but him asked me to do – my schedule was already set. He told me some other things too – suffice it to say that if I’ve learned one thing already, it’s that there is NO escaping the headache of petty church politics, no matter what hemisphere you’re in.

Para Concluir (if you hear this during an evangelical sermon in Peru, that means there's still a good 15 minutes left)

That’s about it. I think I’m definitely still in the “honeymoon” phase of living in a new culture. I’ve gotten over the initial discomforts of adjusting to a new routine, and now I’m just enjoying being here. It’s pretty exhausting to be speaking Spanish all the time, but I’m able to understand the Limeños more and more. Juan Carlos still has to repeat everything he says about 2 or 3 times before I can begin to figure out what he’s saying, but I’ll get there eventually.

I’ll leave you with my personal guide on “How to Take a Cold Shower.”

Wait. Take the cold shower at night, not first thing in the morning when everything will just be even colder. As soon as you’re done with the shower, you can get straight into your nice, warm bed.
Exercise. Go for a run. Or a bike ride. Or, if you’re living in a South American mega-city, do a bunch of push-ups and sit-ups in your room. The point is to get hot and sweaty so a cold shower doesn’t seem like such torture after all.
Pray. Or, if you’re not into that type of thing, meditate. Do something to get yourself ready for the challenge ahead. A cold shower is never something that should be sudden or spontaneous. If you aren’t prepared, you’ll be in for a rude awakening (if you think about it, that’s basically what a cold shower is….)
Once you’re ready and disrobed, step into the shower before you turn on the water. Once you’re in, turn the water on all the way to get it over with – think about it, if you know the pool is cold, you don’t stick your toe in and slowly submerge yourself. Instead you dive right into the deep end. (This is the worst part, but you probably already guessed that).
Once you’re good and soaked, turn the water off. It’s not going to help anything if it’s just running while you’re standing there soaping yourself up. Getting nice and soapy isn’t too bad – the soap is actually kind of an insulator.
Rinse off. The same way as before, turn the water on all the way and stand directly under it. Don’t sell yourself short, subject yourself totally to the cruelty of the water in all of its frigid glory for longer than you think is necessary. There’s nothing worse than finishing a cold shower, starting to dry yourself off, and then seeing a mound of suds in your armpit and realizing you have to do it over again.
Dry. If you’re able to dry yourself with a soft, warm freshly washed, towel, do so. But if you have access to nice, toasty, recently washed and machine-dried towels, chances are you’re probably not in a place that you’d have to take a cold shower in the first place…
Jump into your cozy, warm bed. Congratulate yourself on being super hardcore. Give yourself a pat on the back for decreasing your ecological footprint, saving energy and water. If you’re me, take comfort in the fact that you won’t have to do this again for (at least) another 3 or 4 days!!!

Lima Living

You may have noticed a subtle difference in my blog title. My old title, "Pensamientos Peruvianos" is Spanish for "Peruvian Thoughts," or so I thought. Actually, "Pensamientos Peruanos" (no 'v') is correct. That's what I get for trying to show-off and be fancy with a suave, mysterious, foreign-sounding blog title.

But more importantly, I want to share that the past 11 days or have been a whirlwind! Orientation in Louisville lasted for a week. The entire group of YAVs bonded really, really well. After 8 days of meaningful worship services, small group sessions and meetings about self-care, culture shock and how to "do mission," we were all definitely ready to get our feet on the ground in our new countries and get to work. But at the same time, we were sad to say one last round of goodbyes. In all, there are 30 international YAVs serving in five different partner countries: India, Northern Ireland, Kenya, Guatemala and Peru (there are six of us in Peru). You can read blogs of the other YAVs at www.pcusa.org/yav.


And now I'm here, in Lima. Sean, Leslie, Michael, Lynn, Katie and I landed in Lima last Tuesday. Since then, we've been doing group orientation in Lima, which lasts until Saturday. Katie, Leslie, Michael and I will all be living/working in Lima for the entire year, so we've been staying with our permanent host families since day 1. Lynn and Sean have placements in Huanuco and Huancayo, two smaller rural towns that are each a several-hour long bus ride away, so each of them is staying with a temporary host family in Lima during orientation. I am EXTREMELY thankful that we have these 10 days of orientation together in Lima before we're off on our own. I feel a lot more confident getting to know the city with five other gringos than I would if I were solo.


My host family is amazing. I'm staying in Comas, a department on the northeastern side of Lima (a "suburb" by the US definition) that is about an hour-long taxi ride from downtown during normal rush-hour (but if you take a bus, or if the traffic is particularly nasty, it takes much, much longer - I'll get to that later!). My host family is among the most loving, caring group of people I've ever met. They greeted me from the airport with a big posterboard sign that read "I Love You Alex!" (in English). Daniela is my madre here in Lima. She speaks Spanish slowly and clearly, and often "translates" the faster, slurred spanish of the other family members - especially Juan Carlos, my padre. He is a bus driver in Lima and works a lot, so I haven't spent much time with him. Daniela really keeps the family running. I don't know how she does it - I think she hardly ever sleeps between caring for children and grandchildren, and making 3 meals a day for everyone. On top of being a full-time mom and grandmother, she also works part-time with youth and children in one of the churches that I will be serving for my placement here in Lima. She's basically a super-heroine. Juan (or "Juancito") is my 19 year old host-brother. Damaris is my EXTREMELY energetic and affectionate six-year-old little sister who is absolutely delighted with anything I say or do. Julia is my 16-year old host sister who stays busy attending night classes and taking care of her daughter Dayra, who turned one this weekend. Cristiano is a three-year old grandson of another of Daniela and Juan Carlos' sons (who doesn't live at home). Needless to say, it´s a crazy, energetic family.

Luckily, I have the ground floor of the house all to myself (which I also feel kinda guilty about), so at least I have a place to sleep that's relatively quiet. As of now, the house doesn't have hot water. So taking showers is fun. Lima is technically in a "desert" climate-zone, in that it hardly ever rains and there's not much vegetation. However, it's usually totally overcast (I think I've seen the sun once so far), and the humidity is always above 80 percent, which means everything is always damp. It's winter now (but we're coming up on spring), and temperatures are in the 60s. Aside from its interesting climate, one thing you notice pretty quickly about Lima is that the traffic is much crazier than any I've seen in the states. During our 10 days of orientation, I take a city bus for about an hour and a half from my neighborhood to the Uniendo Manos de Peru's headquarters (the PCUSA's partner organization). Most of this ride, I end up standing up shoulder to shoulder with the other Limeños going to work as we all try to brace ourselves while the bus driver navigates the insane rush-hour. Traffic here is governed by unwritten rules of the road much more than it is by signs and lights. Many busy intersections have police officers directing traffic instead of lights. Everyone drives pretty much as fast as they can, as close as possible to the person in front of them. You use your horn to declare that you're coming and that you want the right of way. If two vehicles want the right-of-way at the same time, the smaller yields to the larger. Pedestrians NEVER have the right of way. It's fun!!!

As I sit here thinking that I need to wrap this post up, I'm realizing that I haven't really said all that much, though there sure are a lot of words on the page (sounds like I'm becoming a preacher already, no?). So I'm gonna try and do this whole blog-update thing more often in the future, once orientation with the other YAVs is over and I've moved full-time to my job with my two churches here in Lima. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the top 5 things to love about Lima and the top 5 things to.... not love.

TOP 5 THINGS THAT KINDA STINK ABOUT LIMA
5. The air. It kinda stinks. There's a lotta smog. But that makes sense in a city of 8 million - even if everyone DOES take public transportation.
4. It's so big! On a day with particularly bad traffic, I had to ride the bus for 2 hours one way, standing up the whole time to get from my house to orientation. Urban sprawl isn't just a US thing.
3. 90% humidity + dust - rain = EVERYTHING is just kind of dirty
2. They speak spanish SO FAST. And use so much slang!
1. The water. You can't drink it. You can bathe in it, but it isn't hot.


TOP 5 THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT LIMA
5. Everyone greets each person individually with a handshake/hug/kiss on the cheek when you arrive or leave a place, rather than saying a cheap "goodbye" to everyone at once.
4. Even though they drive like lunatics, NO ONE drives while on a cell phone (it would be suicide).
3. The prices. Everything is really cheap. A big lunch (the main meal here - including an appetizer and entree) in a really nice restaurant costs about $5
2. The food - especially the abundance of meat 'n potatoes. Steak. Chicken. Mashed potatoes, whole potatoes, sweet potatoes, potato puree, french fries. Plus there's ceviche, which is a type of seafood salad with "raw" fish that's been "cooked" in lime juice. And there's "canchitas," which are a type of salty nuts that all the restaurants have for you to eat while you're waiting for your real food.
1. It's much closer to the REST of Peru (mountains, jungle, beautiful natural beauty, etc) than the US is!

So that's about it. Hopefully I'll post again soon with more detailed, fun anecdotes!

Hopes, fears and expectations

It’s time to write the journal entry I meant to write two days ago. I actually wrote this yesterday as I was sitting at my gate in the Atlanta airport waiting to fly out to Louisville. Having said goodbye to my family for a year, I sat in the airport realizing that I will be doing the exact same thing in exactly a week as I leave for Lima.

I’m excited to leave a culture in which you’re defined by what you consume and what you do.

I hope to enter a culture in which you’re defined by who you are.

I’m excited about becoming fluent in Spanish.

I’m excited about learning how to live simply.

I’m excited about not feeling pressure to work, produce and accomplish individual accolades.

I’m excited about teaching people and learning from them at the same time.

I’m excited about gaining fresh perspectives on God, life, values and economics.

I’m excited about learning how to trust God to take care of things I usually try to control myself.

I’m excited about becoming part of a new family.

I’m excited about experiencing love and grace.

I’m excited about having plenty of time to read, write, pray and think.

I’m excited about meeting people who are open to fresh ideas and listening to my thoughts and dreams.

I’m excited about defying people’s stereotypes about white people from the US.

I’m excited about not “needing” a car.

I’m excited about leaving a political climate that hurts and divides people.

I’m excited about leaving a culture obsessed with achievement, money, work and appearance.

I’m excited about discovering who I am and becoming who God created me to be.

I’m scared that my year of service won’t live up to my high hopes and expectations about personal transformation.

I’m scared about being asked to pray out loud in Spanish.

I’m scared about leading bible studies and teaching children’s Sunday school in Spanish.

I’m scared that I have no clue how to teach English.

I’m scared of culture shock.

I’m scared of feeling utterly alone in a house filled with seven people and in a city of 8 million.

I’m sad about leaving my friends and family.

I’m scared about being bored.

I’m scared about being/thinking differently than my conservative evangelical brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church in South America.

I’m scared I’ll be tempted to come home.

I’m scared about being robbed.

I’m scared about getting hurt or sick.

I’m scared about becoming transformed.

I’m scared I won’t live up to the expectations of the churches in Lima.

I’m sad and frustrated about having to pay for drinking water.

I’m scared that I might confirm people’s stereotypes about people from the U.S.

I’m scared I won’t make a difference.

I’m scared about getting angry at the world and at my country.

I’m scared (sort of) that my host family won’t be that different after all (wealth, comforts, technology).

I’m scared I packed too much.

I know I have other hopes, fears and expectations, but these are the ones that come to mind as a sit in the airport.

Dear God, please keep me and the other YAVs safe during the upcoming year. Give me clarity to understand your will and the courage to work as your hands and feet in Peru. Thank-you for giving me the opportunity to travel and serve you. Help me to let go of my fears and naïve preconceived notions. Please bless my brothers and sisters in Lima as they sacrifice much to accommodate me. Amen.