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Dear friends,
We are back in Jaén! Our stay in Munich feels like just a dream. We woke up and are back here again. Can you imagine the joy among our friends in the radio? On the other hand the piled up work is just as big. Just before we returned from Lima to Munich Andy had ordered new PCs for the radio. Since that time they are waiting to be installed and configured. Besides that other PCs stopped working in the meantime. And Bobby seems to have forgotten everything Andy had taught him. *sigh*
But we try to see things differently and calmer now. The experience of the last months does make one start thinking. Thus the work keeps piling up until Bobby finds time to continue the work together with Andy. And we practice saying NO - not just that easy. On the other hand we don't think so badly about Bobby, because he has other tasks in the radio that keep him in short breath. For example, currently he is digitizing all the available music on tapes, records and CDs so that the radio programs with pure music can be programmed with the studio PCs ahead of time. One consequence of that is that our FM-branch now broadcasts around the clock. Just music during the nights, but what would we want more for the beginning. Previously we shut down like the AM-branch between 10pm and 5am and on sundays. At the same time an advertising campaign was started that lead to the great fact that the whole town is talking about Radio Marañón. This is very important because there is lots of competition: just in Jaén there are 5 more radios and one TV-station. Plus the otheres that are region and nation wide.
Anyway we are just fine. Heidi is neither feeling worse nor better than in Munich. She is gradually getting used to the continuing formications. But we still hope that these feelings too will disappear one by one - like the professor in the clinic of Großhadern promised us. Starting with today we have hired a woman who helps us in the house. She goes shopping, cooks lunch, cleans and and washes our laundry. The meal she prepared for us today was excellent. And the house is once again clean and tidy. With her help we can start the new day more relaxed, rest a bit during lunch break and enjoy the free evenings without having to worry about our chores. Actually we had been planning this for quite a while already, but we put it off again and again. We just didn't like the feeling to make a peruvian woman work for us for a ridiculous price: $40 per month! After all we came here to help not to exploit people. But there is an alternative way to see things: for many women (out of poor grandfamilies) this is the only chance to earn something to support their family financially. Our Hilda, for example wants her daughter to go to the university.
And there's another new luxury in our house: here the water supply is a little different from what we are used to in Europe. Most of the houses are connected to (more or less) potable water (there are lots of different waterworks, but only "Mapa" distributes really potable water. Off course it's more expensive which is the reason why many people in Jaén rather pay for the cheaper one and always boil it before drinking - or not. We could tell you long stories about water!). However it does happen every once in a while that they shut it off for a few hours or even days. For example after heavy rains when the supply pipes are jammed with dirt. Or when they can't treat the water fast enough for all households. Besides that Mapa usually closes the faucets during the night in order to save water. For many households have bloodcurdling water installations: it's dripping and seeping all over the place. Besides that many smart asses (oops, excuse me) hook themselves up to the "better" water without applying (and paying!) for it. That way Mapa suffers great losses which lead to higher fees and naturally to the fact that even less citizens can afford the drinking water. You can imagine the health consequences. With our last water bill Mapa informed us precisely that they had produced 350,000m³ water, but only collected fees for 70,000m³.
Well, because of that we now have a water reservoir on top of our roof to fill in during the "dry times". Finally we can also go to the bathroom during the night without having to have a bad conscience or bad odor respectively. And the days without the chance of a refreshing shower are also decreasing considerably. Talking about refreshments: the reservoir is exposed to the intense sun rays all day long which nicely heat the water. Heidi was already rejoicing, because she never liked the bloody cold showers. But the problem is that the (heated) water from the reservoir is only coming out of the faucets when there is no water from the waterworks. And it's not really that attractive to have a shower out in the dark garden between midnight and 5am. :-)
Now we would like to tell you about our last trip to "La Lima" which was very impressive. You can find accompanying fotos on our website: " http://peru.spiegl.de/bilder.html ".
Roxana (whom we also spent Christmas Eve with and who really has integrated us into her family in the meantime) invited us to visit a small mountain village over the weekend that is about two hours away from Jaén. We had no idea what to expect but of course we accepted enthusiastically. Saturday noon we took off - of course with the usual delay :-). We had planned that the Radio-jeep would leave around 11am right after the weekly staff meeting, but the driver José first had to fix a broken plate-spring. And it also took quite a while until everybody was picked up who wanted to go with us. In the end the 8 of us left Jaén at 1:30pm: 2 in the front, 3 in the back and 3 outside on the back of the pick-up. We also had a doctor from Jaén and a farmacist with us. Then 2 hours of bumpy but dry roads. In La Lima - a village of about 500 souls at 1600m of altitude - we were warmly welcomed! "The representatives of Radio Marañón and the doctor have arrived" was announced many times and with lots of pride through the loudspeaker on top of the cityhall. Then each of us was assigned a very friendly host family who right away took us to the rooms where we would sleep at night - for free of course. The houses were even more rudimentary than in Jaén, but we slept in our own room on straw matresses and with mosquito nets. Unfortunately there still doesn't exist a sewerage system allthough they have been promised for ages.
In the meantime the doctor had opened his practive in the cityhall in the center of the town. Next door the farmacist sold his medicine. Patients came from La Lima and the surroundings. There does exist an infirmary and a nurse, but doctors almost never come up here. And this one even treated them for free! Meanwhile the rest of us was served Piñada (Schnaps with pineapple juice) by the mayor and his staff - of course the peruvian way that we described the other day: ONE glass for all and a jar that are passing from one to the other. As the rain stopped for a while (theoretically the end of the rainy season has long passed, but we didn't notice that yet. Because of the inicial delay we suppose that Saint Peter has decided on a prolongation of the game.) we were shown around the village: the infirmary, the kindergarden and the two schools: primary and secondary. The adults were always with the mayor and his councilors and Roxana who recorded lots of interviews with her walkman - the children of course always surrounding us gringos (c:. They showed us their school with enthusiasm. Every class room had its specialty: Labs (chemistry/physics kit for a few experiments), library (one small book shelf), geography (a world map where we even found Germany), biology (one plastic torso with organs that could be taken out - the skeleton supposedly in the office of the director) and on the wall of one room we saw really cute poetry for mothers day. If you understand a bit of spanish take a look at the respective foto on our website.
Then it got dark (the sun sets really fast here and even faster when it's cloudy) and we had to find out that all the street lamps that we had noticed right away (there is electricity in every house and each has its ammeter - very well organized!) well, didn't work. We were told that the generator broke half a year ago(!) and since then they couldn't convince anybody to come and fix it. Meanwhile they use some smaller generators e.g. for announcements and parties. In the past the generator was running every day from 6pm to 9pm. They can't afford more fuel. By the way, the inhabitants of La Lima earn their living with coffee - like almost everybody around here. They are also planting bananas, papayas, granadillas (similar to maracujas) and pineapples, but only for their own needs. As we already knew from our trip with Felix in december the coffee prices had dropped dramastically - mainly because of Brasil which is inundating the market with cheap coffee. Besides, they don't get paid a fair price by the intermediaries who are selling their coffee in Jaén. They barely earn enough to finance their families. They told us that they would really like to participate in one of the agricultural projects of Radio Marañón to increase their productivity and to build cooperatives who can achieve a fair price. Let's hope that Felix will take them into account in his next project. But there are so many yearning participants! This would really be a subject for the government, but nobody believes that Toledo will improve the current situation very much. Oops, now we are really digressing, hehe. Surely you have read about the second ballot two weeks ago. Thank god Alejandro Toledo defeated Alan García! Almost everybody agreed that none of the two is a good choice but in the end they were glad - especially here in Jaén - that Toledo was a few votes ahead.
Now where were we? Yep, life in La Lima is not exactly the rosiest, but nevertheless, they served us cuy (guinea pig) which is the most exquisite they can offer. In the house of the assistant mayor Gustavo - with candle light. But we were surprised to see wallpaper (colored sheets protected with plastic) covering the adobe brick wall and a big TV at the end of the table.
After dinner we went back into the cityhall where they had prepared a grand ceremony: first extensive addresses and thanksgivings for our visit. Then a large group of local juveniles was solemnly inaugurated to be juvenile correspondents of Radio Marañón. Afterwards music and dancing (with the help of one of those smaller generators). Of course they only dance simple cumbia here, too, but we found that they do it peppier than in Jaén. Searching for a bathroom we didn't find anything appropriate and finally followed the example of the native: you go around the corner and keep walking until you don't see a thing (no more than 10 feet :-) and then ... you just let it happen. ;-)
It was still raining and the ground is pure clay - you can imagine the kind of mud bath we had. Unfortunately one side effect of that was that the other ellbow of Andy now hurts, too. Well, climbing stairs isn't that easy, jajaja. After a while we couldn't stand the loud music - and especially Gustavos screeching screams of joy - anymore and went searching for our accomodation somewhere in the pitch dark village. There we laid down in the bed - for Andy of course way too short.
The next morning we learned that around midnight the others called it a night, too. We had breakfast in the house of Gustavo again: yucca, fried eggs, bread and coffee with milk.
Because of the lasting rain many of the expected patients from the surrounding villages didn't come so that we and the doctor spent a quiet morning in front of the cityhall. As soon as the rain stopped for a moment the peruvian flag was hoisted on the Plaza de Armas which is beautifully planted. Andy was asked to raise the flag while all peruvians were singing a song for the flag and the national anthem.
Another big event was announced through the main loudspeaker: "Charla" Our dictionary translates it as chat or smalltalk, but it was totally different. Almost the whole village met in the cityhall and first Dr. Fuentes, then Roxana held a speech on "breeding and care" of children. No, seriously they were preaching about how important a good and above all loving education is for their children. For the children are not only the future of Peru, but the present. Everything begins in the family: if violence and suppression is happening there, how can it be different at school, in the village, in the state, in the whole world? Just as important is the partnership between man and woman instead of the pronounced machismo. Unfortunately we always heard between the lines of Dr. Fuentes that all this is only a problem of the development countries (by the way, the peruvians very often use the word development country for their country which shows how little self esteem they have. No wonder if you look how they are treated by the so greeaatly developed countries )-:. During the following lunch Andy tried to explain a little how we see things and that unfortunately the situation in german families isn't so much different. There too is violence, alcohol and machismo. They were pretty surprised to hear that.
Roxanas speech was super graphic. She had a few people make holes with a pencil into small pieces of paper: on the left side one hole for each good rememberance from their childhood and on the right side one hole for each bad rememberance. Afterwards she asked them to undo the holes. Embarrassed silence: you can't do that! Exactly - said Roxana - every experience in our childhood shapes us irreversibly. And that's exactly why it is so important that we raise our children with lots of love and affection. Wow, we were fascinated!
The inhabitants of La Lima were inspired by the Charla, too. We heard lots of great statements and someone made the concrete proposal to vote for a local representative of human rights. We were even more fascinated!
Before lunch the men prepared a typical appetizer: rompope. Hand-beaten eggwhite mixed with the yolk, sugar and yonque = sugar cane rum. Mmmh, yummy! And then we had to say good bye. Of course once again it was announced through the loudspeaker and all families stood in front of their houses. Some gave us vegetables, pineapples and a huge melon. Then we returned on wet and slippery clay roads to Jaén. The back of the jeep was filled with as many people as possible to help them on their way home into the surrounding villages.
Back in Jaén we were really surprised to find a small fair: the quarter Moro Solar was celebrating - with popcorn, candy apples, carameled peanuts, loads of mini-socker tables, shooting stands (candy on paper strings to shoot at) and even a fairy wheel (10 chairs, hehe!), many roundabouts (mostly hand-operated, but partially motor driven) and a mini roller coaster! We suppose that many years ago the Oktoberfest in Munich had been similar. Just the beer tents and chicken grills were missing. (c:
Well, we hope that you made it up to here and that maybe some things have fascinated you as much as us. Anyway we are very happy to be here again. Not only to help but also to learn from a people that understands to live with the heart. And don't forget to look at the documenting fotos in the web!
The end of this week Sabine from the INES office in Munich will come to visit and check on us whether we really are working or just lazily relaxing in the shade of our coconut tree. Paco (the director of the radio) suggested to take her on a trip into the "Selva", the rainforest. This sounds great because we still haven't been there either. The tour is pretty adventurous, with car pools and boats. We'll let you know whether we survived it. (c:
Thanks a lot again to every one of you for your kind and encouraging letters. Most likely we won't make it to answer them separately, but we are really happy about every single mail we get.
And thank you very much for all the kind words about what we are doing here but please don't forget (constructive) critisism. After such a long time in this country we probably see things with different eyes already so that it can't hurt to listen to other opinions every now and then.
Abrazos and Besos from rainy Jaén!
Love
Heidi and Andy.
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