Day 4 in Lima

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Today we visited a fisherman´s market. The men generally go on either paddle boats or motor boats out at night at about 3 am and have their catch cleaned and sold by their wives when they return in the morning. Our guide said that because sea lions biting through their nets, they must repair them every day by hand so that they are ready to use the next morning. They are very hard working people who have no insurance. If there is an accident, others in their community might hold fundraising activites to help the family.

Afterwards, we traveled to the shanty town of Villa El Salvador.by Villa El Salvador, a shanty. Some of you may not be familiar with this term. It is a place in which groups of people who migrate from their homes and take over land hoping to turn it into a thriving community. Some people would call them squatters. When the government tried to kick them off they raise the Peruvian flag and said that they were Peruvians and that in Peru everyone has the right to have land to live on. In Villa El Salvador people from the highlands of the Andes come in most cases with little or no money to set roots where ever they can. They have to live in the same land for 7-11 years before being recognized as land owners. So they much prove that they can sustain themselves and that what they call home is permanent. They do this by building more sturdy homes with some part of it concrete, planting grass or some kind of trees, bushes, or flowers. They also need to find a job. If they can do this when they are recognized as land owners the water and electrical companies can come into their community and put up electrical wires and dig pipes for water.

Villa El Salvador has made a name for itself around the world. Even the late Pope John Paul II or is it III, visited this shanty town because it is an example of optimism and hope that if people work together they can make life better for themselves. Here the men try to find jobs in the city while the women run the household. Family and education is formost in their minds. We visited a phase I section of Villa El Salvador where Maria, mother of 6 and volunteer forthe community soup kitchen, invited us into her home and the soup kitchen which she runs and is a part of her home. We met her beautiful daughters all 4 were no older than about 12. They too help in the soup kitchen. She is also one of the main leaders for the shanty. The community is very close knit and does its own policing. People from out side the shanty sometime try to steal from them.
Our guide today said that they may not have very many materialistic things, but they are not poor. Several times I had to hold back tears after hearing about their struggles, bravery, and stories. Maria is a wonderful role model for women and especially for her daughters who are very proud of what she has accomplished in 3 short years. I was inspired and overawed by my experience here. I will never forget it.

Just to give you an idea of how tough it is here, the minimum wage in Peru is 128 sol per month.
I just finish eating a nice lunch that cost me 27 sol. I am so grateful for the life I have. Life is good!

This will probably be one of the last times I´ll be able to blog in Peru and I don´t know whether I´ll have the opportunity to do any in Ecuador. I´ll be keeping a journal so that I can remember all of the fabulous times I had on this trip. I will update the blog whenever possible.