Round the World with Us

Children in nursery school near Inca, Peru

singing a song about numbers 1-10

happy to be in class

a great place to learn and play

The children and the school

Today (May 04, 2010) we traveled with Karla Schaefer, one of the Directors of Tierra y Ser, a non-profit in Peru that I blogged about earlier.  We first traveled to a preschool built by Tierra y Ser on the outskirts of the town of Ica, which is a few hours south of Lima.  The school is for children ages 6 months to 5 years and it’s a wonderful place.  Karla explained that the children learn academics appropriate to their ages, but what is most important is to teach them a new way of life and that opportunity is available to them.  She said that they wanted the school to be as nice as possible to show the kids how much they are worth and how much people care about them.

The school had smooth cement floors, nicely decorated walls, tables and chairs, toys and educational materials, and served good food to the children for breakfast and lunch.  We sat on the floor with the kids and sung songs. They were learning their numbers and seemed very happy and enthusiastic. The kids all seemed to have good shoes and clothes and seemed well cared for.  Most of the girls had their hair done with ribbons or clips.  I dare say that my daughters did not go to school with their hair done so carefully…mostly they didn’t want me to do anything with it or we were rushing out the door.  Some of the kids had rashes or skin conditions (from lack of water for cleaning), but that was about the only sign that they were very poor.  I couldn’t tell if they were above or below the education level of kids their age because of the language barrier, so I asked our friend and guide Vanessa, who said that they seemed at the right level for their age.

We asked the Director of the school how they decide which kids will attend the school.  She explained that many parents work from 5 am to 5 pm and need someone to care for their children.  The school verifies their employment and then allows their children to attend – although they still cannot accommodate all of the children of the working parents.  The Director explained that the people in the area often work long hours, but they make very little money.

The “village”

Then we left the school to walk around the village.  I say “village” because I don’t really know what else to call the area where the children live with their parents.  It was literally a sand dune that was covered with grass, wood or brick shacks.  Many of the shacks had once been homes of better construction, but the earthquake in August 2007 destroyed most of them.  Now a large number of the homes are built from 5′ by 7′ sheets of woven grass.  The roofs are made of tarps with woven grass on top. Karla explained that many families have lived there for generations and don’t know any other way of living.  There may be opportunities to live a better life, but if you don’t see an opportunity, or if you don’t know how to take advantage of it, then to you, it does not really exist.  I know that people’s perceptions are their reality, but this is the first time I have seen such dramatic effects of that first hand.

Tierra y Ser is working with the residents to try to teach a better way of living and show that there are opportunities to live better.  Most residents lack confidence that they are capable of doing new things.  Karla pointed out the neat row of white rocks forming a rectangle outside of most of the homes and the small tree that each family has planted.  She explained that they encouraged those tinges as small steps toward making people want and appreciate an orderly life.

this is the kind of housing the children call "home"

the village

6 minutes of water

Many residents of the community, with the help of Tierra y Ser, also started very small vegetable gardens.  Because of the lack of water, their gardens cannot be large, and they cannot start them until the fall when the weather is cooler. Their only access to water is via community spouts that are turned on only three times per week. Each family gets 6 minutes of water.  They fill containers and have to make that water last until the next time the water is turned on.  They reuse the water they use for washing to water their small gardens.

Maria's son plays at the dry water spout - each family gets only 6 minutes of water three times per week

Meeting Corinna and Maria

Karla led us up a hill of loose, very hot sand, which we climbed with some difficulty to the home of Corinna, who greeted Karla with much excitement and warmth.  Karla explained that Corinna was a model citizen of the community and had the best garden.  She was even helping others to care for their gardens.  Corinna beamed at this praise and proudly showed us her little plants and told us about each one.

Corinna is a pillar of the community - she is proud of the fresh vegetables she is growing and is helping others with their gardens

Corinna shows off her garden

We also met Maria who carried the youngest of her five sons.  She helped him stand so he could play at the dry water spout.  Karla  pointed out Maria’s house to us.  Her family of seven was living in one of the smallest, most unstable looking dried grass shacks.  She smiled for the camera as she played with her son.  Somehow, I thought it was incredibly sad that only Doug, Karla and I thought the conditions in which she was living were not acceptable.  Was she just being polite, or was she fine with living in a grass hut on a sand dune with very little access to water?  I am very happy that there is a school to help educate her sons and teach them that they deserve better than that and that they can make it happen.

Doug and I walked around a little bit more on our own. Doug asked me how I was doing, but I couldn’t answer without crying.  I thought about how we celebrate birthdays in the US – sometimes we can’t think of what to buy each other, because we have so many things.  Here we were visiting people who have less that we can even imagine.  What could the money we spend buy them?  Maybe a much better house – maybe access to enough clean water – a decent outhouse – maybe enough money to keep their kids in school longer.

Soda and ice cream – entrepreneurs in a shanty town

Just then a man passed us dragging a small box on wheels through the dust and sand.  Vanessa said that it contained ice cream for sale.  I could not imagine anyone buying ice cream in this area, nor could I imagine where he got the ice cream or how he was keeping in frozen.  At another home, words on the outside “wall” advertised that they sold cold sodas.

ice cream man in a shanty town - an unbelievable sight for me

Life goes on

I don’t know how to explain my surprise that normal daily living exists where people are living in makeshift huts on a sand dune. They only have a hole in the ground the go to the bathroom, they don’t have enough water, but the parents go to work, and thanks to Tierra y Ser, the kids go to school…some apparently even buy soda or ice cream.  The only school that was close was the nursery school that we visited, so the older kids walked long distances to go to their schools.  I didn’t see the older kids in this village because we were there in the morning, but in other places, we saw them walking home from school in uniforms – the boys in shirts and ties and the girls in skirts and blouses with their hair in ribbons – walking to their huts and shacks.  It’s been days since I first saw this, and I have now seen it in many “towns”, but I still have a hard time accepting that for the people who live there, walking through the dirt in shirts and ties from their work or school to their huts and shacks is perfectly normal.  When we come back to volunteer, what I would really like to do is to put up a shack and live the way they do for a period of time while getting to know them.  I think only then could I understand what life is like for them and how they feel about avenge so little in a world where some people have so much.  When I say, “so little”, I am not talking about material goods, but things like water, housing, health care, and education.

Can we make a difference?

That is the big question.  Sometimes I am very encouraged.  We can fund things like housing, outhouses, education…I would also like to do something about the water situation, but in this area, that may be a political problem that is beyond our reach.  In another post, I will talk about funding a community kitchen and nursery in a nearby “village” that wool allow the many single mothers who live there to work during the day and to provide better nutrition for their children.  All that is encouraging.  But sometimes, I have to admit, it is overwhelming.  I think of a quote that someone I know relayed to me recently – no man ever made a bigger mistake than the one who did nothing because he could only do a little.  If we all did a little, it would make all of the difference in the world.  I guess that is what this trip is all about – trying to give many of us a way to do a little, so together, we can do a lot.

Working with the community and sustainability

I am very grateful to Karla for showing us the wonderful work of Tierra y Ser and Copredelli.  The only way to make a sustainable difference anywhere is to get community to buy into the project and commit their own time and effort to making the project a success.  It’s been proven over and over again that if you just build houses or a school, the community does not see the importance and take care of it the way they do if they help build it and if they volunteer their time to work in the school on an ongoing basis.  Tierra y Ser and Copredelli understand this and choose their community projects carefully.  Not only was it great to see the success of their work, but it gives us confidence that if we fund in partnership with them, it will benefit the community in a meaningful and sustainable way.