I look from the small window of the plane and I catch a glimpse of the city which will be the final destination of my flight: Lima, Peru. A young lady sitting close to me asks me what I am going to do in Peru. I answer that I am going to work. Then I add “voluntarily” and I explain that I am going to teach English in a slum area called Villa El Salvador. The world “voluntarily” triggers something in my mind. Suddenly I realize that, for the first time in my life, I am taking a long break from everything –job, family, friends and all the comfortable things that a life in Denmark offers me. And yes, I feel free. Free to try something that I always desired to: help people who have been less lucky than me, live my life under different conditions and, by exploring its boundaries, getting more aware of what normal life for many people in this world is like.
I land in Lima. Even the airport is different with respect to airports in US or Europe. The officer at the immigration smiles at me and asks me if I have a chewing-gum to offer him since I was chewing one. Ok, sure, I have one.
I decide to wait outside for Christian, the taxi driver from Villa El Salvador which is supposed to pick me up. I realize that a lot of men are looking at me and commenting¿Hola gringa bonita, donde te vas? I try to look as if I know for sure where I am going and I make an effort not to speak with an accent from Spain. Christian arrives and we drive from the airport to Villa El Salvador along the beach.
The contrasts between the districts we pass by are huge. Slum areas are only a few minutes away from skyscrapers and villas. The traffic is crazy and the car horn is not an accessory that is used in extreme situations but in daily routines. When this is said by an Italian girl like me it gives a better idea of it, I guess.
Finally Christian stops the car and tells me that this is the house in which I will live for the next few months. I look at it and I look around. The houses are made of red bricks; not painted, but furnished with asbestos roof positioned on the top of the walls. If it was in Denmark, the wind would have already blown them away, but here it is in the middle of the desert and wind and rain are almost absent. To my surprise, the shops are equipped with metal bars and I see people buying from outside the bars. No cement marks the streets, just desert.
I try not to over think – at the end this is what I wanted, right?
The family – my compass in Villa El Salvador
Elias, Mari and their two grown-up kids, Daniel and Ana Cristina are waiting for me and, after saying ¡Hola Lara, bienvenida a Perú! they start to kiss and hug me warmly. Elias is a geologist and works in the jungle almost all the time, while Daniel works in a hotel located 4 hours south of Lima. Therefore only Mari, Ana Cristina and I live in the house. We are three women who get along very well. Mari is very open and we spend uncountable hours talking about Peru, the culture, politics but also about her childhood and the poverty in the mountains of Peru and in Villa El Salvador. The strength of this woman deeply touches me. The relation becomes so strong that we will both have a hard time when the moment for me to leave comes. Ana Cristina is funny and open and we go out often together. Mari takes care of me and tells me what is dangerous and what is not in Villa El Salvador. So I learn not go out alone at night, to bargain about the price when I get on a taxi, not to carry valuables with me nor talk on the phone while I am walking in the street. I like the way she explains to me how life in Villa El Salvador is, because she never does it with a tone of panic in her voice. She makes me aware without making me nervous.
At some point I get so much into this family that I almost feel as if I am part of it.
Teaching English at Cepromup
My students at Cepromup are from 11 to 26 years old (only one student is above 60). I teach 4 hours a day. At the beginning the students are very shy and it is difficult to make them talk. I try hard to put myself at their level. But they see me as the goddess who comes from Denmark to teach them. So I try hard to show them that I also have flaws and problems, that I am not perfect at all and that my life in Denmark is not perfect either. I try to make myself human to their eyes. And only after this dehumanization process we start to laugh and joke together.
The level of English among the people in the class is very different and sometimes it is difficult for me to plan the classes. Some people in the same class understand everything I say, while others cannot follow. We do a lot of role plays, some of them involve delicate topics such as abortion and homosexuality and, to my surprise, some students are liberal and open minded while others are very conservative. I enjoy teaching very much and I wake up every day in a happy mood by thinking that I will spend my day at Cepromup.
I also take Spanish classes. It’s true, I speak and understand Spanish but my grammar needs to be strengthened. The Spanish teachers in Cepromup understand what I need and we work on verbs, grammar rules and writing essays.
Culture shock
At the beginning everything is new. The constant noise in the street, the colourful “mototaxi” (motorcycles which can carry two passengers at the back) driving crazily around Villa El Salvador, the kids selling caramelos in the street, the wild dogs wandering around, the market with its huge mangos and papayas, the constant music everywhere. I am too busy observing in order to think about myself and about what I am feeling.
The shock comes later, when I face myself with the paradox of the poverty; when I see Oasis, which is the poorest area of Villa El Salvador, where people live in barracks without water and some without electricity. The toilet is a hole in the back of the house. The food is made in old pots on a camp fire and transferred in buckets. I get shocked since people are extremely poor but some have a telephone which is more modern than mine, and a parabolic antenna on the roof of the barrack, and maybe a camera. But they have no money for health services and no money for the education of the kids. And the rate of violence is extremely high there, violence mainly against women and kids, spiced up with a very strong machismo culture.
There comes my shock. I am not able to accept what I am seeing. I want to tell each person living in Oasis that they can use the money they earn for better purposes than buying a camera or a new TV.
Later, I realize that this circle is difficult to break and I feel powerless for some weeks. Until I accept it. I accept that the TV, the parabolic antenna, internet, the new telephone are a short-term relief for poor people. That just sending money is not that useful as I thought in Peru, but education and the fight against ignorance, stereotypes and superstition are.
I have been in Peru for almost three months and it has been one of the best periods of my life.
One person said to me one day: “You will see, you come here and then you will find out you don’t want to leave anymore”. ¡Hay tanto cariño aqui que no querrás irte!.
And, apparently, this someone was right.
I felt at home in Villa El Salvador. I got used to the absence of proper streets, proper roofs, and proper shops. I got used to walking around Villa El Salvador finding my way among the wild dogs. I got used to the dust, the pollution and even the humidity. And, sobre todo, I got used to the cariño, of which there is a lot over there. I got used to the way the students talked to me, the way “my new family” interacted with me, the way people in Cepromup were with me and even the way people looked at me in the street.
If I could go back in time I would do this experience again.. and again.. and again, uncountable times.
Thank you Cepromup and AXIS!
Lara Scolari
10 May 2010
