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Dear friends,
nobody complained but the last letter was definitely too long. For this reason we are already now writing a new one and therefore hope to keep its length down.
Soon after we sent out our 2nd letter we noticed that we didn't tell you anything about the political situation here in the country or respectively Jaén. But somehow this expresses that politics aren't that important here for us and in Radio Marañón, too. Sure, the news reports of the Radio are full of it, but the people don't talk about it in private, probably because there are enough other things to worry about. We would like to read newspapers but our castellano isn't good enough for that yet. But this will hopefully improve. Poco a poco how the people in Jaén say.
We did notice however that the peruvians (at least the ones in the Radio) were very happy when Fuji announced his resignation. But there were no big street parties how one might expect. The people were and still are worried about the new government and what will happen next. However - as the intermediate government seems very good - they are confident that Perú will be more democratic again. But they all say that it's not enough to replace the upper functionaries. It would be necessary to replace all corrupt officials down to the lowest levels. And everybody doubts that this will actually happen. Anyways, this leaves more excitement than the German BSE crisis. :-)
As we hoped for in our last letter, we actually managed it before Christmas to go on a field trip with Felix, the agricultural expert of Radio Marañón. We spent 3 days with him. The first day, the driver José and Felix picked us up at 5am. With the 4WD-jeep of the radio we crossed the river Chinchipe ("chin-cheepah") and drove to Chirinos in the subregion "San Ignacio". Chirinos is a mountain village at an altitude of 1500m. We took the "pista" (so to say the highway) for about 1.5 hours and then another 2.5 hours of sandy, rocky mountain roads with lots of potholes. In Chirinos we met 3 peruvian specialists of the GTZ (= Society for Technical Cooperation, from Germany) and first went to have breakfast (pollo frito - fried chicken - with coffee). In this bar we saw - for the first time in Peru - a manger. A bit trashy but arranged lovely.
Then we continued through potholes and across sand hills which were prepared for straightening out the road.
Then we drove a little further to examine some parcels of land. For the first time we saw coffee plants in real life :-). They look a lot different than we would have expected.
The next day at 5am we again drove into mountains to San Ignacio. This time six of us: José, Felix with his little daughter Kathie, and the agricultural expert Placido. Soon a flat tire made us stop unexpectedly. The tire had been patched twice already. The peruvians vulcanize on open fire! In San Ignacio we met the GTZ guys again, had pollo (pronounced like "poyo") for breakfast, dropped off Kathie at her aunt's place and drove on to a village with the name Mercedes which we finally reached at 10am. On the way we stopped at a farm to take a look at a machine to peel and wash coffee.
The meeting of Felix took place on a beautiful farm. After the GTZ poll we all went into the fields and the owner - a pretty woman :-) - showed us her coffee plants, the best we had seen so far. Then we had lunch at the farm (pollo, of course) and learned a bit more about yucca and drove on to other parcels of land to let Felix inspect them. We noticed that - just like we were told - many campesinos really always carry their transistor radio with them. We spent the night in Ihuamaca, a little village at an altitude of about 1700m. A farmer wife took the trouble to prepare beds for us and then didn't even charge anything! And guess what we ate for dinner. :-)
For breakfast we were offered cuy (if you don't remember what that is you may want to reread our previous letter :-), but we said thanks, not in the morning. So, instead we got cold chicken and cold potatoes.
Unfortunately the weather changed overnight and it was raining almost the whole day. Good for us that we had bought rubber boots in Jaén. We trudged through the mud between coffee and grenadilla plants for 1-2 hours. On the way we learned a lot, e.g. that a mix of coffee, grenadilla, laurel and banana plants proved to be a good combination. On the way back to San Ignacio we took along quite a few people on the back of the jeep between our bags and backpacks. They were lucky because otherwise they'd have to walk for hours. In San Ignacio we picked up Kathie, ate lunch (guess what?) and returned to Jaén with a cute sunburn.
Other impressions during these three days:
It was interesting how our coffee is grown, how many hours of work are
needed before it can be exported and how little the farmers get for it in
the end.
It was interesting to observe the various zones of vegetation. Down at about 600m are more rice, mango and papaya, but no coffee and less bananas. In the middle (about 1000m) the vegetation is almost comparable with the German "normal landscape": many meadows, trees with leaves, cypresses and bushes. In the higher regions of 1600m - 1800m outweigh coffee, bananas and yucca.
All the farmers we got to know in these three days were very openminded and had great interest in participating in the new project. And Felix always stressed that the farmers will not get any financial aids, but "only" training and counseling/supervising through experts.
After the rain some of the roads were unusable - even with a 4WD - because the clay became awfully smeary. But somehow we always managed to avoid the worst ones. The large "pista" between San Ignacio and Jaén partially resembled a swimming pool. Umbrellas don't exist here at all. The people either get soaking wet or wrap a plastic foil around their shoulders. But once we met a woman who funnily was holding a huge leaf with trunk up over her head like an umbrella.
At home we tried to gradually prepare for Christmas. Instead of the missing advent candles (nowhere was anything like advent, advent wreath or advent calender) we just looked at our glowing arms and cheaks.
But just as if the people in Jaén had read our last letter they did begin to decorate their city a few days before Christmas. Almost every house had its own manger and we even saw a few (plastic) Christmas trees. Downtown on the main plaza - which is named "Plaza de Armas" just like in all peruvian citys - and in front of many public buildings they put up large mangers, too. Like many shops and residential houses they were also decorated with many colored and blinking lights.
For Christmas Eve we were invited to our peruvian friends, the family Rojas-Robles with 3 kids. We already spent the afternoon with them and watched Calín (the father) prepare the turkey. He then brought it to a neighbor to roast it (on open fire) because it was too big for the normal oven.
Together with the Rojas we walked through crowded downtown to the "christmas market" which reminded us very much of a "Christkindlmarkt": figures for the mangers, tree decorations, light chains, glazed apples, carmeled peanuts and other food. And of course lots of different types of jumping crackers, fireworks and other noisy stuff which are a fixed part of Christmas here. However not the same colorful fireworks like in Europe or North America because they'd be too expensive. We thought of the German fund raising "Brot statt Böller" (bread in favor of fireworks) and couldn't help us frown a bit. Shortly before New Years Eve Heidi's dad had sent us an article from the paper Süddeutsche Zeitung which describes the situation very fitting. Those of you capable of reading German are welcome to surf to our - now finally updated - webpages and read it there: http://maranon.spiegl.de/rundbriefe/03/silvester-sz.html
The time between 9pm and midnight got a little long. The kids started getting tired and always had an eye on the presents - although they already knew them as we learned. They had gone shopping together with their mom which we thought of as a great idea. If they do use their little money to buy presents it should at least be exactly what they like or need. Andy then went with Calín to his friends "at the corner". They drank some bottles of beer and talked about the Spanish people, the Germans and lots of other things. Funny custom among friends: they use only one glas for all. One after the other fills and empties it and then hands it on to the next person. In the meantime Heidi talked with Roxana (the mother) about the peruvian opinion about the Germans and vice versa and could dismantle a few prejudices. Just before midnight Andy and Calín returned.
Midnight was "Christmas Eve". We mutually wished us a Merry Christmas followed by a very nice custom: Roxana put baby Jesus on Heidi's hand and all of us held strings attached to the baby while Roxana - as mother - held a short reflective speach about Jesus, the meaning of Christmas, the family and its friends. Together we prayed the Lord's Prayer and Ave Maria. Everyone made a secret wish and gave "niño Jesús" a kiss. Roxana then put it into the manger and the kids started unwrapping their presents. Unfortunately advertisement brings Barbie dolls and Pokemon even to the farthest corners of the poorest country of South America. See a nice picture of the three kids in front of a typical manger:
Then finally we got something to eat: turkey (unfortunately now cold (deliberately!), but yummy) with yucca, onions, rice, tamales (corn dough pies strangely filled and wrapped in banana leaves) and little horn shaped pies (filled with raisins, tuna, chicken, lemonate, orangate). Also canned peaches, hot chocolate and champagne. Everything simultaneously! :-)
The 25nd we slept in. Then we took care of the roses in our garden (our "christmas rose" as we called the beautiful, large, single, red rose STILL was blooming. At least for two weeks - but we think, even longer - it has been blooming and smelling wonderfully!). At noon we returned to the Rojas and to the rest of the turkey.
The second day of Christmas unfortunately doesn't exist here. While most of you still were relaxing everyone here already was working hard again.
In the morning of New Years Eve we (finally, for the first time) went swimming in the nice, large and relatively clean outdoor swimming pool "Los Cocos". Normally it is overcrowded but this day we were the only ones! In the afternoon Andy started a compost in our garden and got his second peruvian sunburn, this time on his back. Ouch! In the evening we noticed that the new year and millenium had already started in Germany. :-)
At night we were invited to other friends this time: Both Hitalo and Ligia work in the radio and their daughter Karoll often is there too, because she is crazy about the two Rottweilers Tequila and Etan - they are the watchdogs of Radio Marañón. Around 8:30pm we crossed the already crowded Plaza de Armas and went to their house. There we got to know their dog Nala - a child of Tequila.
Here at New Years Eve it seems less important to make plans for the next year than to say good-bye to the old one. That is probably a reason for the custom to burn dolls made out of old clothes and stuffed with rice-straw and firecrackers. Hitalo covered his doll with phrases about Fujimori and Montesinos: "Fuji-Rat", "Down with dictatorship", "Vladi into prison", etc.
New Years Day (holiday here, too) we comfortably slept in and then accompanied the Rojas to the swimming pool again which was a lot more crowded than the day before.
Then everyday life commenced again. The 6th of January wasn't special except that all mangers and decorations were taken down.
Life in the radio is a lot different since the beginning of the year. January through March are the summer months and the only chance to go on vacation (exactly one month) are January or February. Besides an important woman colleague is in Ecuador for 3 months of training. This means that in each of these two months only half the staff and a few temporary assistants are present. That's why the time schedule was changed and some of the broadcastings were canceled or moved. In April everything will return to normal.
Wow, although we tried hard this letter got pretty long again. We hope you made it so far :-). As reward you may now enjoy the illustrative pictures. And: In case you haven't read it between the lines yet: we are feeling great here and already feel like home. Now we also are sure that it made sense for us to come here. Our proposals are picked up, discussed and put into practice. In the beginning Heidi felt a little helpless with the huge chaos in the administration. It is also seen very positive that we try to do everything together with our peruvian colleagues.
Thank you very much also in the name of the whole staff of Radio Marañón for your financial and moral support!
Lots of love
Heidi and Andy.
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