Wednesday, June 29th: Holiday!

Wednesday, June 29th is a holiday in Peru for San Pablo and San Pedro, so I didn't have work. My host mom made delicious noodles and chicken with red sauce for lunch! I was starving! I went to the grocery store and bought Inca Kola for all of us. :)

Then we went on a drive to Chorrillos for their festival of fisherman, because one of the saints is the saint of fisherman. We passed by the cliffs on the sea which have ivy growing on them, giving Lima the name "La Costa Verde" (green coast).

We passed some dogs playing in the flowers on the beach. :D

More cliffs. There were a few paths and staircases up the cliffs to the streets above, but they did not look very safe. There was only a small wall to protect against rockslides.

Beautiful Chorrillos, at the bottom of the cliffs. I liked the romantic statues.

We went out onto the dock to see the fish markets. There were a ton of people selling things and crowding the dock, but it was a really great atmosphere. The live band was so cool that I had to videotape one of their songs. It was like a cross between Latin music and Pretty Lights.

The fish! My host family said this would be a safe place to eat ceviche but I think I'd better stick to restaurants with refrigeration when I eat raw fish.

Boat procession accompanied by loud-sound-only fireworks.

So cool.

Then my host family took me to see a famous site known for a friar's suicide because he fell in love with a woman and, although he didn't do anything with her, felt like he had betrayed God and jumped to his death on the rocks. I expected this story to be from the 1800s, but my host dad said it was like 1920s. Damn. A restaurant was built there called "the Friar's Jump" and men reenact the dive at 6pm sharp every day for money. On the holiday, though, they did it continuous. But they jump into the water, not the rocks, and then quickly scale the cliffs to ask for money from tourists. It was extremely cold that day so I was impressed at how they dove in.

Then we took the car up to the top of the cliffs to attend the street fair. I could only get blurry pictures, but it was an extremely crowded mass of people, hundreds of vendors selling nearly everything including huge knives for $5 and lots of coats, and tons of food and comedy shows. Beautiful fireworks were shown down the street and I bought some ice cream and enjoyed the night.

I'll be updating my blog soon to make up for the last week. Although I know it's best to live in the present, I know I'll forget the cool details of last week if I don't write about them. :)

Sunday, June 26th: Paracas and Pisco

We woke up early, took a bus from Ica to Pisco, and then another bus from Pisco to Paracas. This awesome guy was at the bus stop with his harp-guitar.

On the way to Paracas, I saw a lot of power plants and ugly-looking oil refineries out in the desert. :/ Sad.

When we got to Paracas, we started looking for a cheap boat ticket to see the Islas Ballestas, a protected area of small islands covered with diverse wildlife. We were offered tickets for 50, 40, and 30 soles, but eventually found 25 soles and bought them. While we were waiting for the boat to come back from another tour, I saw this cool guy with his trained pelican!

He tossed fish to it and it caught all of them. I got a picture taken with the bird and gave the men some money. :)

We got on our boat....

and headed out into the beautiful harbor with all the other boats...

passing by the absolutely gorgeous peninsulas and islands. Take a look at those colors!

We stopped at The Candelabra, a huge carving several hundreds of years old of indeterminate origin, possibly from island natives or from Europeans. It was magnificent!

After speeding through the water for another 15 minutes, we arrived at the Islas Ballestas and instantly appreciated the awesome rock formations and tons of birds. The water was beautiful and clear!

This rock formation looks like a downward-facing profile of a face, with the nose most noticeable.

Birds everywhere!

These walls are there to collect guano, aka bird poop, because it is considered the best fertilizer in the world and this island is full of it.

This is wooden structure to assist boats that come to harvest guano, which they do once every 8 years.



Look at all the birds! Click for a bigger picture. The guide said there were 2 million birds.

The weather was so beautiful and sunny, especially after having been in chilly, cloudy Lima for an entire month! I didn't get wet at all on the boat, but some of the people sitting closer to the edge received a spray of water every so often.

We saw sea lions lounging on the rocks. They have no natural enemies on these islands, so they are very happy and lazy.

Penguins!! They survive in this area of Peru because the Humboldt current brings very cold water to these islands.

Here's the building where the person who watches over the island stays, and where the guano-collectors stay every 8 years. After circling around and through the islands, the boat headed back to Paracas. It was such a great 2 hours for just 25 soles!

Renzo and I headed straight to the cheapest lunch menu around. I picked crab soup and seafood with rice, which although it was tasty, was way too salty and spicy. I should have just gone with fried chicken (not breaded) like Renzo picked, with salad. Oh well... my food sure looks nice!

My rice was so colorful. I put lime allll over it. :D

The dog to which Renzo gave his chicken bone.

This is a Peruvian hairless dog! Unfortunately she was probably sick or sunburnt because their skin shouldn't be red.

The beautiful street parallel to the ocean...

...and boys from Chile (as Renzo could tell from their accents) playing soccer on the beach.

After a few hours of lying around and sunbathing, Renzo and I reluctantly took our bus back to Pisco. I was really enjoying the tranquility, fresh air, and relaxation-promoting atmosphere of Paracas and didn't want to leave!!! A few last pictures of Paracas.

Although I was sad to leave Paracas, I found a similarly relaxed atmosphere in the small town of Pisco. Renzo and I wandered around and checked out some stores, a marketplace, and a restaurant where I bought a ton of French fries because I had the munchies.

The city center. Unfortunately the main buildings are still broken from the earthquake in 2007. None of these churches have roofs anymore. :(

Renzo said he remembered seeing this part of the plaza filled with dead bodies after the earthquake. There are still a lot of people living in tents or makeshift houses in Pisco, although generally away from the city square. There were a number of empty lots filled with rubble piles at random locations throughout the city. It was an 8 on the Richter scale, way too much for a small town to handle.

In the main plaza, I wanted so badly to touch this tiny puppy who was covered with fleas!!! But I didn't. :( Poor thing, all he needs is a flea shampoo... I think he was too young to be without his mom. :(

The architecture of Pisco was really pretty.

Love in the plaza. :)

We took a bus to the crossroads and then another bus for 15 soles back to Lima. At the crossroads I saw a girl who couldn't have been more than 17 years old trying to breastfeed her screaming baby. She was sitting on a bench surrounded by mud puddles and probably waiting for a bus. We made eye contact for a second and I really wished I could have known more about her life. But it was time to get on the bus to Lima because it was already about 6:30pm and dark outside. The drive was a relatively uneventful 4-5 hours on a charter bus and, to my surprise, extremely violent movies were once again shown on the bus TVs.

Tuesday afternoon, laziness

After work on Tuesday I headed to the Cultural Center of Spain, near MHOL, to see some queer documentaries for the gay film festival. I'm not going to turn down free movies! I got a little lost and arrived 8 minutes late... and the guards wouldn't let me in. So much suckage. I decided to walk all around the area instead and possibly find some food. I walked all the way to the Parque de la Exposicion, but by the time I got there I was really sleepy and tired. I found a bus home.

One neat thing was the I asked some security guards and police officers how to get the Cultural Center and pulled out the map from the OutPeru gay film fest ad. I wonder if it crossed their mind that I might not be straight, and I was thinking about the police-initiated violence against protesters that I had read about earlier in the day. I also read that some trans women were attacked in 2010 by police for no reason. But Gian Franco is confident that there will be no police trouble at the gay pride march next week.

As I was walking around, a wrinkly old man made a loud kissing noise at me. I was pleased that I didn't look at him, flinch, or even blink, treating him like he was a ghost. I don't mind it one bit when a man on the street says something like "Good morning, senorita" or just "Hola", but cat-calls aren't as acceptable and sexual treatment from an old man is not okay with me at all. (Especially not since I watched Black Swan yesterday, which contains a scene of sexual harassment by an old man.)

I saw this awesome building covered with painted skulls. It looked like the workers were taking the paint off, so I took a picture.

I saw this sign in a printing store and asked if I could take a picture. They said yes... I probably should have told them that this is a racial slur in English. But in Spanish it is pronounced "kee-keh".

This ad near my apartment was pretty interesting. It uses women's right to decide as a way to promote a new type of menstrual pads... and all the women are still white as snow. But at least it has some message of women's choice? "Who said we can't wear tight-fitting clothing? We have the power to decide." Now buy our sanitary pads!

I have been lazy again and will have to update my blog after I get back from my ~weekend excursion~ to Paracas, Chincha, and the general Ica area. I'm not sure if I'll be able to see the Nazca lines because I'm not getting in one of the high-chances-of-death airplanes that fly over them. But some can be seen from hillsides.

Tuesday: Homophobia Sucks

 I spent a lot of today doing research about homophobic violence in Peru for the Lima gay pride parade. This year will be the 10th year in a row that there has been an LGBT march in Lima, which is pretty amazing considering the estimate that one non-straight Peruvian is murdered every 5 days. Inppares is quite involved in the gay pride parade because there is nothing healthy about homophobia or traditional masculinity, and a lot of clinics have a stake in the health of the LGBT community. Much like in the US, HIV/AIDS hits the gay community the hardest in Peru and for the same fear-and-discrimination-fueled reasons: lack of information and awareness, lack of openness and communication, lack of self-care and self-esteem, sexual violence due to mental health issues that are unaddressed such as internalized homophobia, lack of access to partners outside of a tight-knit network because many people are still in the closet, and the list goes on. Not just any public health issue but one of the greatest challenges both for the sake of the whole population and the sake of each individual who suffers from the effects of homophobia.

Anyway, my discoveries were surprising. I had read the other day that the MACHO project from Inppares and The Peruvian Masculinities Network had organized a Kisses Against Homophobia event in the Plaza de San Martin in Central Lima. I thought, oh, that´s cute and neat, because at UNC we do the same thing in the Pit every so often. Peaceful protesters kiss people of the same sex and others hold up posters about how homophobia is damaging to society, and that´s it. But in February, when this event was held in Lima, Peruvian special forces police attacked the protesters, beating, kicking, pepper-spraying, and hitting people with batons. Several people were sent to the hospital, including one young woman who needed ten stitches in her head. I also read that the protesters had started away from the Cathedral, but the police pushed them towards the Cathedral so there would be more of an excuse to attack them, claiming they were provoking and offending church-goers. My coworkers know a lot of the people involved because this was an Inppares event.

This is a video of the attack. At 0:26, my friend and coworker Andre Luis is pushed repeatedly by the police while he´s just peacefully hugging his partner. 

The police. Just a few months ago. What is going to happen at the gay pride march on July 2nd? Thousands are expected to attend. After the police violence, the mayor of Lima and the president of Peru condemned the violence and emphasized that peaceful protesting and demonstrations in Peru is a part of Peruvians´ human rights. Another Kisses Against Homophobia event was held a week later and declared a success with no violence and a higher turnout, even calling it a party that lasted until nighttime. The slogan for the event was ¨Because being gay is not a crime.¨ Additionally, a Holding Hands Against Homophobia event was held in May, designed to include straight supporters and to remember gay victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Two days later was the International Day against Homophobia was honored on May 17th, with which Inppares was also involved. As dangerous as all of this is, I am really proud to be working for this organization and am even considering coming back after graduation or possibly for a career. 


I also collected a number of images and phrases for posters about healthy masculinity for a local university. This is just a rough idea because we´ll need more memorable phrases for a public health campaign to really work, but a few examples of the idea: a good man is not afraid to express tenderness to his children or affection to his male friends, a good man protects himself and his partners by using condoms, a good man never rapes, a good man doesn´t let his friends cat-call at women in the streets, a good man supports his wife in planning their family with contraception, a good man reads to his children, etc.

For lunch I got take-out at the restaurant next to Inppares. My appetizer was causa with chicken and avocado (palta, not aguacate), which was amazing. Causa is like a Peruvian choclo/corn dough formed into either a roll shape or a lasagna-type layer. This is the overhead view.

The main dish was thick noodles with green sauce that tasted like pesto but different, and a meat that I cannot identify but its color indicates it probably came from a cow, and it likely came from a cow organ that Americans don´t usually eat. It was a little too rich for me. Limenos really do love their salt and spices, but so far not too many things have been hot-spicy.

During lunch, we crammed 10 or 11 people into a tiny room with a tiny table, as usual. It´s a really friendly work environment here. Jaikel brought Inca Kola for all of us. <3 I have never liked a soda enough to drink it more than once, but I really love Inca Kola. It's so sweet and the color makes me feel like I'm drinking gold. :D

People at Inppares frequently read the newspapers at lunch. Even in this tiny space at some points we had 5 people reading different papers and discussing the news and the papers over the tiny table. I am always grateful when people explain the stories to me in more detail because I can´t understand all of the vocabulary.

During my workday, I looked out the window and saw a man working on the electric wires. He didn't even have gloves on, let alone a sturdy ladder or a safety harness.

I have been particularly captivated by the protests in Puno, on the Bolivia border, which have been going on for weeks. The Aymaras, an indigenous group in the south of Peru, are blocking roads, shutting down businesses  and government buildings, and at times even damaging property in their protests of the mining contracts scheduled for the south of Puno. (Although the protesters argue that the violence was done by the opposition, I do not know who did it.) Environmental assessments have evidence that these mines would pollute the rivers that run into Lake Titicaca, the world´s highest navigable lake and a massive body of water.

The leader of the protests is an Aymara named Walter Aduviri. People say he is radical in his beliefs but I do not blame him. In fact, he seems kind of like an indigenous hero to me, although his movement hasn't been perfect in terms of peacefulness. I hope the protests will stay peaceful (and be more peaceful than they have been, what with the vandalism). He is the president of the Committe for Defense of Natural Resources in the South of Puno and very smart. He has said repeatedly that the Aymaras are not going to give up until their demands are reached. It is likely that they will have to wait until the current president leaves office on July 28th because he really doesn´t care, whereas the new president is a leftist who might be more able to come up with a compromise. The fact is that the mining industry brings some money and jobs to Peru... but also treats the workers poorly and pollutes everything. And since most of the mining industries are multinational corporations, much of the money earned does not stay in Peru.

If the situation in Puno does not resolve soon, I may not get to visit the area as I have really wanted to. I could try to go to the Bolivia side of Lake Titicaca, which would be awesome but probably more expensive. I´d rather visit more parts of Peru because I'm really starting to love this country. Not the homophobia or the sexism or the corruption or the racism, but Peru. What a beautiful country and a beautiful people. They have a long way to go before their society can be ideal but I have a lot of hope. The Peruvians must have a lot of hope too if they are protesting this much.