The Best Week in Peru

This is my last day here in Peru and the last week has been the best. Since Saturday, I’ve been staying with the Familia Nuñez, Jose’s family here in Lima. They have treated me like a king. They live in the Centro, the oldest part of Lima, and there are hardly any gringos in the area. I love feeling like just one of the Peruvians here- totally submerged in the culture, speaking Spanish all day long to everyone. The entire family and I have had breakfast and lunch together everyday since Saturday. They keep asking me what Peruvian food I like and sure enough they have made every Peruvian dish that I love. I’ve loved our hour-long conversations during every meal and can’t remember the last time that I didn’t feel overly rushed to be somewhere. I feel like I’m home with my family in a lot of ways because they treat me just like family.

I have spent most of the week writing up my final reports for the NGOs and for my MPH, working in Rolando’s office, the same office Jose studied in as a university student. Olivia keeps telling me that I remind her a lot of Chino (what they all call Jose). I’m almost done with my write-ups for the study, which is a relief. And I just have one more meeting in California next week with Freedom from Hunger to report our findings.


The first night I got here, it was Renzon’s (Jose’s nephew) birthday, and the whole family was over to celebrate. We all had a family home evening together, and they asked me to share my testimony as well. After dinner, Jose’s brother, Hugo, broke out his guitar and sang to us along with his girlfriend, Ingred. They are really good! A lot of their songs are about Hugo’s son, Rolandito, who died a few years ago at the age of 15 from a brain tumor. I’ve been helping him record songs all week to make a CD for Jose and Luz. And Uncle PR has been my tech support, as always.


On Sunday we all went to church together and later that night we went to La Plaza de las Aguas to see the amazing fountains and the fireworks at midnight for Peru’s Independence Day, July 28th. The mayor of Lima has turned the city around the past few years, renovating several of the sketchy parks. The fountains at this park were incredible- I’ve only seen fountains that compare at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Many were synchronized to music. And there were a few fountains that pop out of the ground at unexpected times, designed for people to play in.

So this week I accidentally sent an email to my whole class at GW via our listserv that was only intended to go to the admissions office. In it, I mentioned something about being in Peru. It just so happened that one of my future classmates, Daisi, is here in Lima this week. She has been all by herself, so we got together on Monday night for dinner. It was great meeting her and I had a fabulous time. Then through the grapevine I heard about a friend of some of my friends in Salt Lake who was robbed last week in Cuzco. She’s here in Lima until she leaves. So I wrote her an email and we got together last night to see Batman. It has been a fun week. I just received an email though from my mission president, President Gavarret, and he got stuck in Brazil and won’t make it back to Lima until Sunday. We were going to have dinner together tonight that I was looking forward to. So I’ll just have to come back to visit again.


This is a picture of the four of us overlooking the Nazca Lines. Last week we finished up the last of our surveys in a little town nearby, so we spent a few days in Nazca writing our reports. It’s a very popular tourist area because of the Nazca Lines, which were created by the Incas. They are lines and pictures (like this monkey) that stretch for hundreds of miles in the desert sand and have been preserved for thousands of years because it hardly ever rains in the area. And to this day, no one is completely sure of their purpose. Fascinating!

Milking Cows in the Andes

This week we were in the boons, literally. We had to take a bus on a bumpy dirt road for five hours in the desert to get to the two pueblos we were in for the week. I’m sure gringos haven’t been there for ages because everyone looked and talked to us as if we were from a different planet. The mountains were incredible and reminded me a lot of the mountains up Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon. One of the FONDESURCO staff members in Omate took us down to her farm one evening and taught us all how to milk her cows. I especially struggled -even when I squeezed harder, nothing came out.


This is how the people here make adobe bricks to build their homes. Adobe makes up the majority of the homes we visit in the colder regions of the Andes. The work this week was especially exhausting. We’re in the middle of conducting a client satisfaction survey for the NGO here, which means traveling many hours on dirt roads to try and find just one or two people at a time. And many times we don’t find the people home- so frustrating! I try to listen to my NBC and NPR News podcasts or the books on my iPod because there is a lot of travel time. Way too much! And I start feeling sick if I read in the car on the bumpy roads. But we have already done 76 out of the 95 surveys that we need and only have one last area, 8 hours away, which we travel to tomorrow. We’re almost done with the traveling part. Hurray! Only a few days left of traveling and then I’ll be back in Lima staying with Olivia and Rolando, the parents of Jose.


The towns we were in this week didn’t even have a single gas station. So this is how you fill up the gas tank when there isn’t a gas station in town. You go to the local store and they give you a pitcher of gas and a funnel.

And the last bit of news this week is that I’m coming home July 31st, 9 days earlier than I had planned. It will give me at least a couple of weeks to have a summer break before I have to start school again at GW on August 20th. Tyson Tidwell invited a bunch of friends up to his cabin in Island Park for a weekend of waterskiing and hanging out. They leave a couple of hours after I get home from Peru. So I’m looking forward to that! I was going to have to spend that last week in Lima all by myself with basically nothing to do because I’m almost done with all my write-ups for the NGOs and for my MPH practicum project.

The Importance of Education

Above is a photo of the old famous quaint cathedral on La Plaza de Armas in Cuzco where I was last Sunday. The weeks seem to keep flying by and we are conducting our last survey in the pueblos here. In addition, we’re writing up our findings for our research. My hope is that we can soon get an educational program that’s nonexistent here, up and running. Here’s an excerpt from one of my reports:

The NGO we’re working with here, FONDESURCO, has given out microloans for over a decade without any type of accompanying education. It is obvious from the results of our research that all women would greatly benefit from an education program that would not only teach them how to invest their money more wisely in their businesses, but also teach them vital practicalities such as good hygiene and health competence. Many women I met knew very little about how to prevent disease and also how to take care of their children when they become sick. They hardly ever go to the doctor because of incompetent doctors that don’t know how to treat the sick, clinics and hospitals that only treat those that have money, and clinics that are located too far away. Instead of seeking modern medicine to treat their children, many of these women use household remedies that have been passed down through generations. For example many of the women of the Altiplano bathe their children in urine when they are become sick with acute respiratory infections (ARI). Many also give their children toasted rice with water when they have diarrhea. Educational classes could teach mothers the importance of treating ARI with proper medication like antibiotics and severe diarrhea with Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT). In addition, a myriad of health topics would be useful to these mothers including the importance of vaccines, breastfeeding, proper hygiene, a balanced nutritional diet, water and food safety, etc.

Last week before I came back from Cuzco, Brittany, Sampson and I went to a nice restaurant on La Plaza de Armas (the main town square) with authentic Peruvian music and dancing. It was a cold night and hardly anyone was there so for two hours we had a private concert with some amazing musicians and dancers in elaborate costumes. And of course I was asked to dance by one of the Peruanas.

Above is he Sunflower House, the orphanage where Brittany and Sampson will be working for the next month. It’s located up on the hill in an incredible picturesque valley in between Cuzco and Machu Pichu.

We only have a couple of more weeks of data collection. I'm looking forward to the day when we won’t have to pack up every couple of days and travel to a new area. However since we are close to the border of Chile, I’ve been tempted to hop on a bus to Santiago when we get done here. That idea came to an end last night when I found out that the bus takes 45 hours to get to Santiago and costs $110 one-way. I don’t think I have it in me for another four days on buses.

Cuzco and Big News from GW

The big news of the week was my conversation with Dean McQuail at George Washington Medical School last Thursday morning. I still can’t believe what she told me, “We have a spot in our class for you.” On so many of my morning runs, I’ve imagined how it would be to be accepted someday to med school. Now that it’s actually here, it feels so surreal. One of my professors at the U told me this week, “Divine intervention does work.” I know that the Lord had something huge to do with this. It’s an answer to so many prayers. I found out my first MCAT scores here in Peru two years ago and felt so discouraged and doubted whether I would ever be able to go to medical school. So now I find it somewhat ironic that I found out that I’m accepted here in Peru exactly two years later. I get back August 9th and have to be at GW for orientation August 20th. So it’s going to be a crazy week when I get home. But as you can imagine, I’m extremely excited.


I spent the 4th of July on a bus from Arequipa to Cuzco and met Brittany and Sampson here yesterday morning at 6am. Yesterday Eagle Condor took us up to their school, 45 minutes above Cuzco and asked us if we could prepare health classes about hygiene for the students. And tomorrow we are going to check out Southern Cross’s Sunflower House, an orphanage for street children an hour outside of Cuzco. Paul Evans wrote a book about this place too. There seems a myriad of options here and Sampson and Brittany seem really excited. Above is a picture of Sampson and me on the road up to Eagle Condor in front of a pack of alpaca and llamas. And the second picture is of the Sakantay School that we collected school supplies for.


Cuzco is a cobble-stoned, quaint city, surrounded by beautiful forested mountains on all sides. It is South America’s oldest continuously inhabited city and its history is spectacular. Yesterday we went to Qorikancha, which was once the richest temple in the Inca Empire. The Inca stone foundation still exists. When the Spaniards conquered the Inca they built their church on top of this Inca temple. So there are literally many layers of history within the church’s walls. The most impressive thing for me was how the Inca’s stones fit so tightly together. This is a picture next to one of these walls with the sunset of Cuzco in the background.


I spent most of the week in front of my computer writing up our analysis report for Fondesurco, the NGO we’re working with. It has been a ton of tedious work, but such is research. I’ve loved being in Arequipa all week- the weather is perfect with 70s during the day and 40s at night. Arequipa is known for El Misti, a 20,000 ft. active volcano that towers over the city. This is a picture of the crew with Kirk last Monday with El Misti in the background.

Colca and Kirk's Visit

We finished up our 48th and last focus group discussion this week in an area called Colca known for having one of the deepest canyons in the world (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). We spent most of the week in the tiny town of Chivay at 12,500 ft. and it was freezing at night! Every night I put my thick black tights on and climbed inside my sleeping bag with four thick blankets on top of me. The problem here is it is just as cold inside as outside because the buildings are literally just blocks of cement without any insulation. So my guess is that it was in the 30s at night outside (and inside). All the focus group discussions went well this week. The women in Colca wear some of the most beautiful dresses I have ever seen. They have so many colors and have matching hats as well. The traditional dress of the region is very distinct from anything else I have seen. Most of the women in the area don’t make money off of their crops but rather off of selling handicrafts to the tourists in the area. I saw more gringos in one week in Chivay than I have seen during my entire time here in Peru. The tourists come to see Colca Canyon and hike around it. This is a girl I met while working on my MPH report in a tiny restaurant that let me plug in my computer for the afternoon in Huambo (pop. of a couple hundred). She was so fascinated with my computer that I had to take a picture of her with Photo Booth. She loved the other feature that made her face stretch all crazy.


We traveled 2-4 hours down Colca Canyon, one-way, on dirt roads with 20,000+ ft. peaks overlooking from above to visit the little pueblos we were working in. It was spectacular terrain! At one point along the road there was an overlook called La Cruz del Candor where there were several huge candors flying very close to us at the top of the canyon. It made me think of E and the mascot at Cottonwood Elementary.


Kirk Dearden said he was sick of Lima this week (he hasn’t seen the sun there in months) and so he took a flight to Arequipa on Friday and then took a bus 3 ½ hours to meet us in Chivay on Friday night. We didn’t get back from working until around 9:30pm but we met up that night at the hotel and went out to dinner late. The hotel manager that night told us that a worker had to replace some electric wires in our room the next morning- at 4:30am! I thought he was joking at first, but no, he was very serious. Chivay is known for its volcanic hot springs. So the next morning, instead of trying to sleep through the noise in our room, we got up at 4:30am and went to the hot springs. And they were amazing! It was so cold outside (I even saw ice on the ground) but the hot springs were amazingly clean and steamy hot. I didn’t get much sleep but it was worth it. Afterwards we rented a car for the day and we went with Kirk down Colca Canyon again to see the candors and hike into the canyon from the tiny town of Cabanconde. Then we caught a bus late yesterday afternoon back to Arequipa. Kirk and I talked the entire way back. He’s been a great friend and mentor to me. This picture above is Kirk with one of the traditional hats the women wear. The other picture is of a Peruvian baby on her mother's back at one of our focus group meetings. The babies here in the Andes, I think, are the cutest in the world.

Today we attended the ward here in Arequipa where three American families attend as well (the men are working in a copper mine here). We even had Sunday School in English. This week’s plan is to do the qualitative data (focus group discussion) analysis here in Arequipa. I love it here because it reminds me a lot Salt Lake. The city is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes on all sides. And I saw a sunset here last week that I swear looked just like the sunsets over the Oquirrhs. It was just gorgeous. And this week has been a much better week with my GI problems, ever since I started taking that medicine for Giardia. I just had a cold, which I’d trade any day over stomach problems.

The Farm Towns of Southern Peru's Coast

This week we were in the tiny little farm towns around Cocachacra, which are very close to the ocean 2 ½ hours west of Arequipa. The towns remind me a lot of the sleepy little farm towns of Paraguay where I spent most of my time as a missionary. Everything revolves around agriculture there. But it is completely different than the last towns in Puno because the people had tractors and seemed much better off and of course it was much warmer. It’s amazing to see the huge disparities in food security and health as we travel all around Peru. By far, the people who live high in the Andes are the poorest and least food secure. They don’t even have any tools to plant and harvest crops- “just their hands,” as they said. And basically all they live off of is the potato. Many live so far away from a health clinic that they merely just use herbal remedies to heal their families, even with infections as serious as pneumonia. At least the people around Cocachacra had a little more variety with the rice, potato, artichoke, garlic, and onion that they grow. Since everyone works in the farm fields from very early in the morning to around 5pm we only worked at night. I was sick most of the week with stomach and chivivi problems and was completely wiped out after holding our focus group discussions at night. I’m regretting not buying that box of Pepto at Cosco before I left!


The staff at Fondesurco, the NGO we are working with through Freedom from Hunger, was incredible at rounding up women for us to talk with. At night we’d show up to other tiny little towns and there would be between 50 and 100 women for us to hold out meetings with. It was amazing. Our focus group discussions were so big that it was hard to hear all the women who spoke at once, and it was hard to keep order. But having so many women was fun at the same time. They all treated us like celebrities. At the end of every meeting the Fondesurco people would hold a raffle and gave away pots and a gas stove. I thought it was somewhat ironic that they would give away a gas stove without any gas. Although it was a nice gift, the poor women in these communities probably couldn’t afford the gas.

About 1 ½ hours from here, in Moquegua, there have been blockades and riots in the streets this week with people fed up over the rising cost of food and gas. I received an email from my supervisor at BYU telling us not to travel anywhere near that city. It’s very interesting though that food security is affecting everyone here, not just the poor.


The Fondesurco staff has been great and even took us to the beach one morning and also to an overlook where a huge statue of Christ overlooks the town below called La Punta.


We’re back in Arequipa this weekend and the weather is beautiful here (70s during the day and 40s at night). It reminds me a lot of the weather in Salt Lake during the Spring and Fall. A huge extinct volcano called El Misti overlooks the city. I think this is the nicest city by far that I’ve seen in Peru. They even have a movie theater and a mall. We tried to go and see Hulk last night, but ended up not going cause it was dubbed in Spanish, instead of in English with subtitles. We went to church here today and there are even two American families that attend whose fathers work in the mining industry. We head to Chivay tomorrow for the week and Kirk might even join us next weekend there. I hear they have colder weather but some great hot springs.

Lake Titicaca and Snow in Juliaca

Last night I went to Puno and met up with Annie Siddoway, a good friend from Boston. We went to a nice Italian restaurant and is was great to eat real food for once. She planned this trip just on the spear of the moment and it was just by coincidence that we were in the same part of Peru on the same day. After being here five weeks, it was very comforting talking to a good friend. Afterwards we walked along the beach of Lake Titicaca to the bus terminal where she caught a all-night bus ride back to Cuzco and I hopped in a random car that took me back to Juliaca.


Well I had never seen snow in South America until last Tuesday morning when I went for my run in a snow blizzard. Crazy! It has been really cold here this week as we’ve worked in the town of Juliaca, about 45 minutes north of Puno and Lake Titicaca in southern Peru. We are evaluating the surrounding areas to see if there is a need for a financial program that gives credit with education to the poorest of the poor. We have held focus group discussions with 5-10 women in the some very rural areas asking them about their financial resources, how they make/spend money, and what times of the year are the hardest financially. The people here live off their crops and their livestock- that’s it. One of the most interesting things I learned this week was those who work in the fields are not paid with money but rather with the very crops that they harvest. So they literally work for the food that feeds their families. In addition, everyone here has no concept of saving money. When they need to make a purchase, they go and sell a cow, sheep, llama, or pig in town. So all their savings is pretty much in the livestock they raise. They live day to day so there’s never any extra money to put away for savings. This photo below reminded me of a scene from Jurassic Park. At least their livestock benefit their crops.


Another interesting finding is how people here have connected the prevalence of disease caused by lack of food. At the end of our focus group discussions I usually ask, “What diseases are prevalent in this region?” Pneumonia is very prevalent, especially in the colder months of the year, as well as diarrhea (which happen to be the two biggest killers world wide with children under 5). I follow up by asking, “What causes these diseases?” Usually the first answer that comes is, “The cold weather.” But as I have probed more, I have often heard, “Lack of food.” As this financial program is implemented and the people here are able to take out a little bit of money for capital to assure they have enough to eat, infectious diseases will diminish. The research here is rewarding because I feel like we are treating root of the problem here instead of just the disease. Many of these people would love to have a little but more money to plant more seeds, buy more livestock, or sell the clothes they make. But there is never extra money. They are trapped in their poverty without a way out. As a result they don’t have enough food to eat, which ultimately leads to suffering and disease. I feel we are teaching, in our own way, the people here how to fish so they can be more self-sufficient with the food security of their families.


Friday we had the day off so we went and did a tour of Lake Titicaca, one of the highest lakes in the world at 12,500 ft. along the Peru/Bolivian border. We took a motorboat out to Los Uros which are artificial islands made of floating reeds. The people there live off of their own fishing and also tourism (which believe me is very prevalent). We were dropped off on a tiny island with nothing to do for 2 hours except to look at all the souvenirs to buy. It was the ultimate tourist trap as we were surrounded on three sides by water and the other side by artisans.

Visita con La Familia Nuñez en Lima

After church Olivia, Rolando, and their son Hugo came and picked me up with my luggage and took me to lunch at a nice restaurant in Lima that serves food from Arequipa (where I’m heading right now). It was so great to see them. Olivia plastered me with kisses on both cheeks. And Rolando gave me a bear hug and told me that I look more like a man now. I took it as a compliment. It was good to have a real meal today too, even though I couldn’t eat all they ordered me. Olivia ordered guinea pig, which they eat quite a bit here. It came fried, head, feet and all. Pretty gross if you ask me, but all the Peruvians see it as a delicacy.




After dinner we went back to Rolando and Olivia’s home and I showed them photos of the family. Olivia loved seeing photos of her “angelito” Ethan. Rolando gave me one of his books from his library to read in Arequipa. He has a huge library of books that he has read over the years. And the rest of the family was there as well, Macho, Isabel, y Monica. Macho y Kathy took me to the airport and I loved talking to them because I can tell they are the most active in the church. I guess the rest of the family has fallen away and hasn’t been to church for awhile. So we talked about why they aren’t going anymore. Rolando has a really hard time hearing so it’s hard for him to understand the talks and lessons. But he still loves to read.

Hanging out with Kirk in Lima

I got back to Lima Saturday afternoon and went with Kirk and his BU student, Ryan, to the beach about 1 ½ hours away. It was really desolate and the water was too cold to swim in. I went for a run for an hour and luckily found a bathroom along the way :) But it was really good to spend some time with Kirk. Afterwards we went back to his apartment and he made us dinner and we played a board game that he has had since he was a teenager in the 70s called Civilization. Our game lasted a couple of hours and towards the end it was all I could do to stay awake cause I felt so crappy. But it was fun. I think Kirk could tell I wasn’t felling all that well cause he insisted that I sleep in his bed and he sleep on the floor. I tried to convince him that I could sleep on the floor just fine, but he was pretty dogged about me sleeping in his bed. He is a saint! It was cold last night too and all he had was a thin blanket on the hard wood floor. I don’t know if he slept much.

Bolivia

It was comforting early Wednesday morning morning in La Paz hanging out with two elders returning from their missions in Peru who were on the same flight as me. It was 4am and one of the elders saw there was a lady sitting by herself in the airport. So he went over and started sharing the message of the restoration with her. It was so great. I loved it. It was freezing, I could hardly breathe, and just wanted to sleep. And here, this elder was just doing what he had been trained to do. It didn’t matter that it was his last day as a missionary, or that he hadn’t slept that night at all. Three days later I ran into the same elder in the temple in Cochabamba. He had a smile from ear to ear and just glowed. I really could see the Savior in his countenance and know that he must have been an amazing missionary.

Chanchamayo

We must have dropped several thousand feet in elevation on Tuesday to the town of La Merced, a town we’ve been in for the last five days, because it’s hot and humid and the scenery is nothing but lush green hills. There is a musty taste in the air that reminds me a lot of Paraguay too. I’ve even had a fan going on in my room at night. The first thing I did here was buy some detergent and a clothesline and wash all my garments by hand. It only took me a good hour and a half. It really makes me feel for all the member ladies in Paraguay who washed all my clothes by hand every week.


We’ve had a good week and got all the surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions that we needed. The drama for me this week was meeting a woman who lives out in the farm fields so far away. After driving for 1 ½ hours, we had to park the car and walk a couple of miles into her place because the road was so torn up. When we finally got there she told me that her husband was murdered a month ago. He was the sole provider for the family, so now she doesn’t know what she’s going to do. She works in her fields and sells the fruit in town; but it sells for basically nothing. Tears were streaming down her face as she told me all this. I felt so helpless and wanted to give her a hug and tell her everything would be ok. But I just sat there not knowing what to say cause everything is not ok. Her life sucks and it has eaten at me all day. Yeah I can send in my survey with her responses but she needs help right now. I just feel helpless thinking about her. Above is a photo of her and her son.

After we got our work done for the week, the others met us here. So yesterday afternoon we all went hiking up to waterfalls El Velo de la Novia (Bridal Veil Falls) outside the city. It was great to have a day off from work and do something fun for a change. And the Sabbath, today, has been such a relaxing day as well. Tomorrow we head back to Lima, and then on Tuesday night I head to Bolivia for a few days to check up on the other BYU students. Five of them were robbed at gunpoint yesterday of their backpacks which had money, cameras, passports, etc. inside. And it seems like the NGOs there aren’t giving them enough work to do. So I hope I can help out to some extent.

Cold Andes Warm People

Last night as we were leaving the little store where we held the focus group discussion, one of the ladies, Berta, brought out a beautifully knit wool sweater that she had made and gave it to me. I was so touched! She is very poor and gave me something that I’m sure would have taken her weeks or months to make. It’s a gorgeous, thick, white sweater made of sheep wool with very intricate patterns. And it is so warm! I’m so taken back at how generous the people are here. I thanked her again and again for the sweater. But for her it was like it wasn’t a big deal- like she gave things away like that all the time. All the other ladies in the group started chanting, “¡Póntela, Póntela!” So I put it on, and it fit great. I wore the sweater to church this morning and two or three members came up to me and said, “¡Que linda chompa que tienes!” (What a beautiful sweater you have!) One lesson that I want to apply to my life from Perú so far is to be more selfless and generous with others. The people here are amazing that way.

Focus Group Discussions

Friday night we went to Murahuay where we organized a focus group discussion with 6 women. The focus group discussion’s purpose is to get the women to discuss in what months there is the greatest lack of food, sickness, migration, and income. We use five beans on a grid to indicate the greatest lack of food or sickness during that month and one bean indicating the least amount of sickness, etc. in that month. After all the beans are laid out, we analyze the relationships between the different categories. There are obvious correlations like the direct relationship between lack of food and income. But there have been other interesting correlations, for example between sickness and lack of food.


We did another focus group discussion last night in which we discussed who are the different groups in the community here in Tarma. We used beans as well to divide up the community. After all the beans were divided up, the groups ranged from extrema pobreza (extreme poverty) to los ricos (the wealthy). We talked about each group and what defined them with regards to health, social status, income, work, spirituality, and education. The most interesting part of the discussion for me was where the group of women saw their own status. They did not see themselves as extremely impoverished but rather just poor. I love being in charge of the focus groups because they are so much more interactive than just giving surveys one on one. And the women think that I’m funny for some reason (probably just funny looking with blue eyes and white skin)