Lima - redeeming its reputation slightly

Whenever you look at guidebooks or talk to people who've been in Peru for a quick visit, they tell you what a horrible city Lima is. I think they're being a bit unfair!

A lot of it stems from the fact, that if you arrive off an international flight, tired and jet lagged, the first thing you see as you leave the airport are some poor and ugly slums. At this point all the warnings about safety and theft reverberate in your head and you feel distinctly nervous.

You spend maybe a day in the city, being whisked round museums in a blur and closing your eyes and hoping you aren't going to die as the traffic rampages round at speed. If you've come to Peru with Inca ruins and mountain wildnernesses in your head, then Lima isn't going to appeal.

But even for the short stay tourist, there are nice things to do and pretty sights to see. In central historic Lima, efforts have been made to smarten things up and the central square is lovely, with the cathedral providing an electic range of religious art and tombs and San Francisco round the corner with an extensive collection of bones!

And if you have more time, walk down the shopping street between the Plaza de Armas and the Plaza San Martin and start to get a feel for daily life. It might be the city and it might be Lima, but it's all part of Peru and if you want to get to know the real country and not just the tourist hotspots it's a good way to start. 

Brayan and I at Esperanza

Someone else´s election - Reflections on Peru

Today I´m coming home from Peru, as voting takes place in the second round of the Presidential election. It´s been very interesting to see the last two weeks in close up and through the eyes of the national press, rather than through the filter of other foreign observers.

I´ve been asked what do I think and I find it hard to answer, because I´m not a resident and so don´t have lots of background into what is going on but for what it´s worth here goes:

The choice of presidential candidates doesn´t seem a great one as it´s between Ollanta Humalla, who launched a failed coup a few years ago and Alan Garcia, who was president before and failed to do much good for the economy or to successfully tackle terrorist activity. What´s interesting is that watching television performances it´s obvious that the ability to come across as a strong leader by giving charismatic public speeches is really critical in Peru. I´m not sure that´s true anymore in the UK where the ability to manage the press seems more important than true charisma.

There´s been loads of outside commentary or interference. The Peruvian press loathes the interventions of Hugo Chavez and the existing government isn´t happy either. It seems incredible that Chavez, a canny individual, doesn´t seem to have grasped the fact that his continuing commentary is damaging Humalla´s electoral prospects. That or his real intention is continued worldwide pubilicity reinforcing external perceptions that he´s a key leader in South America and the damage it´s doing to Peruvian-Venezuelan relations is a price he´s prepared to pay. On reflection I´d bet on the latter.

By contrast the Chilean government acted decisively to stop Alberto Fuijimori (renegade Peruvian ex president) from talking to foreign press and interfering in the election. Less posturing more action.

From all the polls in the run up it seems that Alan Garcia is going to win handsomely, but whoever does I hope for the country´s sake that they get a president who isn´t corrupt and who works effectively to improve things for all the people in the country and narrows the wealth divide.

Hope

I´ve been in Peru for the last couple of weeks and one of the things I´ve done is visit Bryan, my "ahijada" (literally godson) but actually a child that I sponsor. Last year while I was living in Cusco I had quite a long conversation with a street child and one of the things I decided to do when I got home was to look for a charity that supported children.

Of course there are lots, but I decided to go through SOS Children´s Villages http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/ as they focus specifially on abandoned or orphaned children and as it was a street child who´d triggered my interest, it seemed the right thing to do. I felt a bit odd about the visit in advance, no real expectations of what it would be like, but also a bit apprehensive as I´m not a parent and so don´t have huge exposure to children all the time. I also felt concerned that I'd feel patronising rather than helpful, be shown round like some honoured guest.

The charity in Peru were incredibly accomodating, when I asked how to get to the village, they said don´t worry about it, just come to the office and we´ll take you. So off we went, Jacqueline from the charity, Fernando my boyfriend and I. We´d established that I spoke Spanish which slightly rebounded on me, because Jacqui talked at high speed and it was quite a test for my understanding.

While I was concentrating on listening, Fernando was asking appropriate questions, like where do the children come from? Jacqui said that they work closely with social workers who refer children who are orphaned, abandoned or at risk. They also get sad sad cases such as children literally threwn away and found with rubbish. I got the feeling that in a poor country like Peru, SOS and other charities like it, are providing the social safety net that the state provides in developed countries. Of course the demand is sadly more than the charities can meet at the moment. SOS is continuing to open new villages in Peru as communities ask for them but it can only do so as its funds permit.

We wound our way up a river valley to Choisica, a pretty town that is about an hour out of Lima. There are two SOS villages there, Rio Hondo and Esperanza, where my child lives. We got to the gates of the village and went in. Jacqui was at pains to explain that the village is being seriously renovated so there´s loads of building going on and not all the houses are currently occupied. However, to me it looked very nice and a calm environment as well. The houses are one storey and painted white with lots of greenery around and flowers.

The SOS approach is to place the children within villages, communities of several houses, each with a mother who is totally responsible for her own house and children. As a mother will have many children, she has the help of aunts, often mothers in training. If there are suitable schools nearby the children attend these, if not the community might have its own school.

We walked through the community to the house where Bryan (my ahijada) lives. Tania, the house mother came and welcomed us with Bryan. The others (there are 11 in the house in total) were all doing their homework and were all looking over very curiously. Bryan is 7 and he has lived in the village for several years, his older brother Franco is also there and his younger sister. One of the things I like about SOS is that they don´t split families up and the children grow up together.

Being Peruvian he is tiny and slight, to my surprise as we watched him and Tania come to the door I felt quite emotional. He kissed Jacqui and I hello and very formally shook Fernando´s hand. Then I gave him a bag with some gifts. He took each one out very carefully, looking at it attentively before moving on to the next thing. The football at the bottom of the bag got a huge grin and it got carried around a lot.

I´d brought a photo album with pictures of my family and the area round Southampton.
He was fascinated by the photographs of the liners and when he looked at the dinghy photos, he wanted to know if the sailors were going to drown!! A photo of breakfast was also of lots of interest because you could see into one of the bowls and he wanted to know what it was. The answer was cereal and milk but I´m not sure I really explained it.

He very proudly showed me round the house, including his bedroom, which he shares with 3 other boys, and the bedroom his little sister sleeps in. It was all incredibly tidy and each child has a small selection of toys and their own space to keep things in. Then we all walked round the village with Bryan pointing out the hens and dogs and took photos of all of us. When we got back to the house he got his homework books out to show me. He took us through every page of them - writing practice and maths as well. He seems to be doing well and the books were beautifully tidy and cared for. Then too soon, it was time to go. Bryan and his mother walked us to the gate and waved goodbye as we drove away.

So after my visit how do I feel? I didn't feel awkward during my visit, I really enjoyed meeting everyone and Jacqui told me that very few sponsors do visit so the children are really curious to meet them. I was committed to sponsoring a child for the long term before I visited (SOS support them through school and then help them settle into the adult world through a slow transition process). However, meeting Bryan in person has made it very real for me and I hope that he enjoyed meeting me.