Pueblo Joven

Not all translating is as straight forward as I'd like. There are many words and phrases that, when translated literally, lead you down the wrong path or don't make any sense at all. Pueblo Joven is one of these.

"Pueblo" often means a "town", "village" or "settlement", although it can mean "people" in general, and "Joven" generally means "young". Initially I was led to translate it as "young people" or, because of the context as "young town". Much of these young towns suffered from poor conditions and nutrition and eventually I found out that another translation for Pueblo Joven in English is "shanty town".

When we talk about shanty towns in English we think of those areas on the edge of large cities where the poorest people from the countryside eek out an existence of poverty and hunger. However the Spanish, or Peruvian term "young settlement" carries different connotations.

The people who live in the Pueblo Jovens arn't necessarily trapped between hardship and margalization, they're just living in area's that haven’t yet matured and reached their potential. This, I believe is an important crux of Development.

I've visited a few shantytown and one in Lima struck a chord that I still remember. I was seventeen when I visited El Chancheria, the pigsty, and its only now, nearly ten years later that I begin to appreciate what I saw.

The first thing I saw when I stepped out of the car was a dog, lying dead on the dune, it's eyes burrowed out by insects and left to rot. The road was in a valley between two steep dunes, the sand wet and damp despite the fact there had been no rain there for many years. The houses that clung to the hillside were made of posts and tarpaulin, the floors the same inside the abode as outside, moist earth.

We visited a few of the houses. At the time I was with a Christian Organisation that was running several projects in the area to help the people become more self sufficent. One was a duck project, where the people were given two ducks, one male, one female. The ducks laid eggs for the peoples breakfast and, when they had chicks, these were then eaten or passed on to other families.

This micro development slowly allowed families to find other means of raising money and feeding themselves then selling sweets on the streets of Lima. There were other projects to, but sadly I don't remember them all.

The other thing that struck me was that although there were no lights or concert floors here at the expanding edge of Lima, several hundred meters up the road the houses had both, as well as more developed walls and rooms. The people still lived in what we in the comfortable rich West would term poverty, but the town was less young, more mature.

There are of course other important factors, and it is not as simple as saying that if we give enough ducks to poor people they will develop to some semblance or a shadow of our own lifestyles however I think that the idea of Pueblo Jovens is much more useful to dialogues of aid and development then simple concepts of shantytowns.

First Blog From Peru!

I write this, my first blog from Peru, sitting in a Starbucks in the airport. My watch, now that I have changed it to local time, tells me that is its 1:45am, however my body, which I have not been able to so serrundipitiously placate, tells me that it is 7:45, 24 hours since I woke from a comfortable bed in Chester.

So far my trip has been eventful to say the least. I had origonally plannd to sort my self out with a taxi and a bus to make my way to Arequipa, but was fortnate to be offered a collect from the airport and a drive to a hostel and then to Arequipa the next day. In the back of my mind though I was always thinking "This is Peru. Nothing will be that simple."

Having traversed customs and collected my luggage with suprising expedience I emerged into the arrival lounge prepared to look for the board "Adam. CIESCU" that would indicate my contact. However no such board was present. I went back and checked four times over the next hour so I would know.

Rummaging through my papers I found Jose's number and finally managed to contact him around 12:30, over an hour after we had arranged to meet. My Spanish is not that great, especially when stressed, and Jose didn't appear to speak much English. From the few words I was able to glean I belive his reason for not meeting me was that he "didn't have time" and he suggested taking a taxi, although to where I was not even sure. (My first thought was that he meant he was busy, but after talking with my mum some hours later she suggest the more likely explination that my arrival time had not been passed on to him successfully and so he did not know what time to expect me.)

Having no experience of translating aural Peruvian place names to paper I promptly hung up on Jose declairing that "I have an idea." It took me a further twenty minutes to find somone who was able to ring Jose on my behalf and get more details. Fortunatly the airport is 24 hours so that fact that it was by now 1am was no great hinderence past the ordinary.

Jose was able to give my new found friend, who worked at the telephone cabina in thairport, the directions and he was then able to write them down on a peice of paper which, or so I am told, should be understood by a taxi driver. The address, all things being well, will take me to a hostel where I will be able to grab a few hours sleep before Jose picks me up, or doesn't -we shall see-, in the morning.

Part of me wonders if I should stay in the familiar confines of the airpor for another 6 hours and then make my way across in the morning. It would certainly be easier. Hmm that plan is now growing on me. As much as I like the idea of the adventure of traversing the city under the cloak of darkness I think a I would prefer it better after the break of dawn. If I could garentee that the hostel would be easy to find, that i would be cheap and convinient i would jump at the chance. But this is Peru, and if I did not know before I certainly do now, nothing is ever that simple.