23rd November

The last few weeks have been pretty quiet here so I really don't have much of an excuse for not having written here other than there simply wasn't much to write about.

We had two or three very busy weeks coinciding with the group from Germany coming out here, the trip to Orcomampa and Alca and the start of the project in La Mansion. At that time I felt I wasn't getting a moment to myself so it has been strange these last couple of weeks where nothing has really been asked of me.

The Comedor (kitchen) in La Mansion seems to be running along successfully. I went most of the first week and a few times the second week but of late I've been a bit pre-occupied with trying to get the website in order and the two hour round trip has also been a factor.

For those reading this post as a one off, La Mansion is a pueblo joven, a shanty town on the edge of Areuipa where malnutrition and parasites affect many, in fact post, of the residents especially the children. CIESCU's project is designed to combat these issues by providing nutritional meals for primary aged children. A secondary aim is to aid the capacity building of the community, mostly the mothers, who learn how to prepare these meals under the supervision of two trained nutritionists. Also it is hoped that improved nutrition will have a beneficial effect on the school work of the students.


It's great to finally see a project get going and to get a tangible understanding of what CIESCU actually *does*. When I signed up to come out here I had been under the impression that there were several projects already under way here but as of yet I have not seen them.

On the website there seems to be some projects planned and awaiting finance but these seem to range from restoring colonial era churches to setting up mobile dentists and optromocists however I'm still confused as how this is meant to be accomplished. Jose has explained that my role here is to raise funds for the projects and get volunteers to come out to take part, but without being clear on what the projects are, or even if they currently exist this is proving difficult. At least now that my Spanish is improving I should be able to broach some of these subjects. I also need to find out more about how much money the organisation has and where this goes as any potential funders will want to know this before they send out any money.

I should at this juncture highlight that it is not my intention to complain or gripe about my situation here. My role, however ill defined, is allowing me to learn and explore avenues that would not otherwise be open to me. If all I get out of this year is the experience of living in Peru for a year and improved Spanish this will be enough. I raise these points and problems to illustrate some of the challenges faced in working in Development, especially when you are working with a Southern organisation where stricture and accountability are sometimes not given the same attention as they are in Northern countries.

La Mansion

One of the projects that CIESCU is involved in is in a part of Arequipa called 'La Mansion'. La Mansion is a pueblo joven that, if the gateway welcoming people to the district is to be belived, was founded in 1996.

Like many pueblo jovens it looks very much like a building site with half constructed houses and building materials along the side of the road. Many of the people construct additions to their houses as and when they have the money so it is very common to see shafts of metal sticking up out of walls for when the home gets the next level of investment. Only a handful of homes that I saw had a completed second floor.

Many pueblo jovens and rural area's have high levels of malnutrition and paracites and anemia is common. CIESCU's project in La Masion is centred around bringing nutritional meals to school children of primary/elementary age. The idea is to use local grown ingrediants as far as possible and to have volunteers from the children's parents and families help prepare the meals under the guidence of a qualified nutritionist.

The project hasn't quite got off the ground yet however. The director of the school apparently doesn't think it's his responsability to be concerned with the childrens nutrition, only their education and has refused to allow the project to take place on the site of the school.

On Sunday I went with Jose to try and find another place where we could provide school dinners. A few of the houses had garages or large yards and we had a look at but I wasn't convinced they would be large enough to fit 100 studentshave space to cook the food.

We kept asking around and finally ended up knocking on the door of a lady who took us to a newly build house just around the corner. no one had moved in yet and there were no appliences in the kitchen, but the space was large and looked promising.

I'll be returning to La Mansion some time in the next week and hope to have more details then. But so far it's looking promising.

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.