Dile NO a la Violencia Familiar (Say NO to Domestic Violence)

Arriving to my site on the northern coast of Peru, I was no stranger to Latin American culture: the good, the bad, and the machismo. It did not take long for me to witness the negative impacts of machismo culture in the lives of my students and their families. Male dominance and power is manifested in the division of household labor, decision-making, personal expression, and overall freedom and liberty for the women. Perhaps the most frustrating and extreme example of machismo in my community is domestic violence. Rumors of men abusing their wives and children are a daily occurrence in my volunteer life. However, the men are not the only aggressors; I overhear mothers screaming obscenities and calling their children terrible names. My students tell me horror stories about parents pulling their hair until they bleed and plastic pitchers hurled at their heads. My biggest challenge as a Peace Corps volunteer is watching my beloved community members hurt and batter each other physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

            After witnessing and observing these disturbing behaviors, I struggled to understand how and why people can hurt the people they love. I came to understand that for some families, these occurrences are generational and considered normal. Children observe their mothers endure physical and emotional abuse doled out by their father, and they do the same with their own families later in life, becoming either aggressors or victims. For lack of better instruction and example, abuse is considered to be an effective form of discipline. Children are subjected to violence when they misbehave or fail to succeed in school. Finally, alcoholism is rampant among men and it is not uncommon for spouses to arrive home and become violent after a long afternoon and night of drinking.

            I refused to stand by and watch my students and their families suffer; I decided to dedicate my work for the month of November to awareness and prevention of domestic violence.  My community partner, a professor from the local high school, and I worked with the mayor of the municipality, who agreed to fund and host a campaign against domestic violence.  We began with a parent workshop led by a psychologist and lawyer, who described the psychological and legal consequences of domestic violence, and possible solutions and treatment. The high school students also received workshops, and participated in an art contest to create informational pamphlets to pass out during the final town parade. We took advantage of the annual town fair and the students performed domestic violence-themed skits with the entire town in attendance. My community counterpart and I wrote and performed four “episodes” over the town loudspeakers. Finally, the students and staff from the high school, staff from the health posts, and town officials gathered for a town parade, touting posters, banners, and loudspeakers demanding an end to domestic violence and peace and harmony among families and community members.

            I consider this project to be one of my most successful endeavors during my Peace Corps service. For my students that are victims of domestic violence, it was an empowering experience because they were able to express their frustration and speak out against the aggression. Surveys and commentary indicate that people are better informed and are less afraid to expose and draw attention to cases of domestic abuse. Multiple women and students have requested information and advice on how to denounce the aggressors in their household. Finally, I was amazed at the level of support received from the community members and town officials to complete this project; ultimately, it must be the community who will demand change and make domestic violence unacceptable.  

1 yEaR dOwN

Hey Amigos y Familia,

Sorry I’m a busy Peace Corps volunteer and haven’t updated my blog in a bazillion! I’ll just go ahead and get down to business. My host mom gave birth to a gorgeous little girl named Angeles Valentina, and I had the pleasure/shock of being in the delivery room at the time. We’re talking pushing exercises, breathing coaching, and relaxation techniques… I did all of it but the birthing. That precious bundle of joy came out purple and screaming and I was crying instantaneously. You may ask, and I will answer: Yes I am now TERRIFIED of giving birth. Yes, I have considered adoption. No, I can’t imagine having six children like my mother did. And yes, an epidural could be a woman’s greatest friend. Angeles Valentina is now 4 months old and she’s the fattest, happiest joy in my life. She’s learning to sit up on her own. She wants to taste everything she touches. She’s smiley and giggly and makes my host parents, host brother, and myself go limp with love. She has us all wrapped around her fat little finger. 

My brothers Rafael and Enrique came to visit me in June for 10 days. We explored the touristy spots of Lima, tried all the typical Peruvian dishes at swanky restaurants and street vender carts, and then found our way to the bohemian area of Barranco where we indulged in our first experience with Absinth. No worries, we didn’t hallucinate, but we did have the time of our lives. Next we headed up to the Andes to the city of Hauraz, in the department of Ancash. We climbed a mountain to get to the amazing glacial lake Laguna Churup. After a 4 hour hike up and 2 hour descent, our lungs were burning, our legs were trembling, and we were so hungry we could have eaten a herd of cuyes (guinea pigs). The photos prove how awesome it was. Following our badass hiking in Ancash, I brought the brothers to my slice of life in Peru: San Clemente, Piura; where the sun is always shining, the crops are fruitful, as are the women, and “pescado” (fish) is the word in everyone’s mouth. My little brothers (I say this jokingly because they both tower over me) loved my host family and they loved them back. My host mom cried when they left. The little kids still ask me where my brothers are. The girls are faint at the thought of them. They called them “The Chon Brothers”, like the Jonas brothers and they were pushing each other out of the way to get a photo with one of them, or sigh…. BOTH! To finish out the trip, we bussed our way to Mancora, a beach town where foreigners and Peruvians alike flock to for good ceviche, good surf, and better dancing. You could ask them, but I’m pretty sure they’ll both tell you that Peru showed them a good time.

Skipping ahead to August, my best friend Juliane and I took a 7 day trip into the Amazon jungle. I managed to find a cheap tourist package ($35 for transportation, 3 excursions a day, and meals!!!) and we spent 4 days in a lodge with no electricity, giant tarantulas, and a pet duck named Piki. But first we had to experience the jungle city of Iquitos, known for its grilled crocodile dish, other-worldly markets, and loose women. Well, I tried the crocodile and it was delicious, better than chicken.  At the market of Belen (located in a “floating” village that is accessed only by boat during the rainy season), we discovered exotic fruits and enormous fish. And the women were not loose. They were beautiful. Is there a supposed correlation between the two? Perhaps Peruvian women from other places are just jealous. For dinner, we found ourselves at the Yellow Rose of Texas, the most American establishment I’ve found in Peru, even better than Kentucky Fried Chicken. We were served up buttermilk pancakes, chili cheese fries, and chicken fried steak. Now, off to the Jungle Wolf Lodge located deep (4 hours by canoe) into the jungle. With 3 excursions per day, our jungle guide kept us occupied, and ripe and ready to fall into bed at 7:30 pm, when the sunlight disappeared behind the trees and we were left to ourselves in the dark. Excursions included: swimming with pink dolphins, monkey scouting, caiman hunting (Amazon alligators), moonlight search for nocturnal insects, baby sloth hugging, raw larva eating, and tarzan vine-swingin’. You can check out these photos on my facebook: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100480976226682.2784471.10124973

Just because I’ve gushed about all my vacations doesn’t mean that I’ve been slacking off at work, quite the contrary. Let’s start with Club L.E.E.R (READ) “Reading with Enthusiasm, Energy, and Regularity”, a literacy program designed to promote a love of reading and improve reading comprehension skills. The International Book Project, Darien Book Project, and private donors donated over 750 books. A private donor donated 500 of the same 5 books, with the express wish that these be distributed to the children of San Clemente. I use those books as prizes.

 This is easily one of my best projects, if only because my kids come to all the meetings, show up early, and jump up and down to get in the door, pretty much making it a Peace Corps Volunteer's dream. Anyway, my club is pretty basic because I've got about 30 kids coming and I'm usually alone. It is hard to keep kids 6-11 years old and all reading levels entertained and under control. I've gone with the old "sit down and read" approach, with lots of incentive to keep them sitting. My kids love to read, but it helps that we have a sticker/prize system to keep them interested.

 We meet 3 times a week for a little over an hour. Each kid chooses a book and sits down to read it. Once he/she is finished, which I've attached for you, and they fill that out. The books that I received from International Book Project have comprehension questions in the back of the book for the upper reading levels, so the older kids have to answer the questions on the back of the sheet. For each book/sheet completed, they get a sticker by their name on the sticker poster. After getting 3 stickers they get a book to take home for their personal library.

My last claim to fame is the Career Fair that I organized with my host parents for the youth and parents of San Clemente. The objectives of this project were to provide information to youth and their parents about different careers, help students decide which vocation most appealed to them, and start a dialogue between students and their parents about their futures. About 90 students and 40 parents attended! Three universities and twelve professionals presented on a career panel: policewoman, military officer, doctor, teacher, accountant, director of a the school board, obstetric nurse, lawyer, civil engineer, industrial engineer, engineer of fishing industries, and a psychologist. Following the panel, students and their parents were given time to visit personally with the professionals to ask questions and hear their stories. The universities attempted to seduce them with colorful folders, light-up pens, and attractive stationary. The students were euphoric as they passed room to room to hear about all the different career options. I overheard conversations between parents and their children, perhaps the first of its kind: “Son, what do you want to be when you grow up?” or “Honey, do you want to be a police woman?”

It was a beautiful moment for everyone involved. To put it into perspective, most people in San Clemente subsist on 600 soles per month, or about $250 US dollars. Most merely manage to survive. Savings is non-existent and a college education is an unattainable dream. Most people have never met a professional, aside from the nurse at the health post or the teachers of their children. Don’t fret! Fortunately, times are changing in Peru. There are more and more scholarships being made available by colleges and the government. One can also work while studying. There are dozens of technical schools all over Piura that offer 1, 2, or 3 year programs. Unlike their parents and grandparents, San Clemente’s youth has the opportunity to become the leaders and professionals that they so admire. I can’t wait to see what my kids do with their dreams.

PS. Here’s a video that my friends and I made while on our 1 year annual meeting trip in Lima. By the way, I’ll be finishing the Peace Corps in just over 10 months! And my next blog will be about me applying to grad school…. YIKES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXUdz9VcTGI&feature=related

Please help promote literacy in San Clemente, Peru

Hello Friends! As you may know, my big project for 2011 is the improvement of the community library and the creation of a youth center. Fortunately, the municipality has provided a great building and some help with furnishing, but we need help filling our library with books! I am in contact with several NGOs and Tucson schools that are willing to help with books donations and book drives. The International Book Project is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that will provide the books; they only ask that people donate to fund the cost of shipping, which works out to about $200 for 32 pounds of books.

Please consider donating to this cause.

1) Here is the link: www.internationalbookproject.org

2) Please include "Elizabeth Salerno, Peace Corp Volunteer" in the notes section.

Thank you very much on behalf of the children of San Clemente.

Summertime and the livin's easy

These are the little babies that hang out outside my window. At any time of the day, I can hear "Senorita Libby! Un ratito..." (give me just a minute of your time). They come to borrow the basketballs that Lee left or to play puzzles or to borrow a book.

It is summer time in San Clemente and I think I could fry an egg on the pavement and then put it on a flavorless, styrofoam-like piece of bread with a bit of avocado and salt to spice it up. Breakfast anyone? But seriously, HOT and with no relief because air conditioning just doesn't exist. I have a little fan that I carry from room to room with me. The women say it will get cooler by the end of March and I am counting the days. For the first time in my life, I am wishing for winter and scarves and sweaters and layers. Despite the heat, I notice that this place comes alive in summer. The heat keeps people inside their homes from 12 to 5 pm, but then everyone comes outside and people sit in front of their houses chatting until 10 p.m. Ice cream men come with their obnoxious horns and women set up little snow cone tables. They have parties every weekend with "junses", which are an activity where someone pays to have plastic products like bowls and tupperwear hung from a tree and the kids come and climb the tree to take the prizes back to their mothers. And no... I haven't quite figured it out yet. In March begins Carnival with water balloon fights and paint smearing competitions. It is all anybody talks about. I'll report back as soon as I find out what all the fuss is about.

Like I said, summer time is party time. I was a invited to the 46^th anniversary of the town of Bellavista, about a 20 minute walk from my site. The night was celebrated with entertainment for the entire community, which included singers, dancers, and artists from the region. Two clowns came and told nearly harmless dirty jokes to the crowd. I was proud to note that I understood about 90% of the jokes, a long way from the blank stare I used to wear when I watched Chilean movies or saw comedians when I was first learning Spanish in Chile; and even later in Guatemala and Mexico, I had trouble with jokes and troublesome cultural innuendos. Now, I can understand a lot of the babble over the town loudspeakers and on the radio. I remember thinking “I’ll REALLY know Spanish when I can listen to it on the radio or watch the telenovelas on TV and understand.” Well…I’m there!

Anyway, back to Bellavista. After the clowns came the famous comedian. He spoke in voices, imitating perfectly a small girl child, a silly little boy, and an angry housewife. Being the only gringa for miles and sitting in the front row I knew instantaneously I would be part of the show. Sure enough, in less than 10 minutes, he’d plucked me from the crowd and started asking me questions, swearing to me he’d marry me one day and off we’d go to the United States. He set me up in a little skit with other participants from the audience. I was to be the wife who finds out about the other woman. He whispers for me to slap him when I find out, and I do exactly as instructed. With exaggeration he stumbles away from my “slap” and blubbers to the audience that he had told me to simply push him and that I had slapped him. The crowd is delightedly shocked by the gringa’s crazy antics (are you noticing a pattern here?!). For days all I’ve heard is “Senorita Libby is it true you slapped the comedian?!”

I had a really hard time after Lee left. I thought I’d be fine, but being that my host mom and brother had left for the south indefinitely and my host dad is always in the city, I’ve been left alone in this little house to fend for myself. For a girl from a family of 8 who lived in a sorority house with 50 other girls and has had multiple roommates at a time, living in a little house in Peru with myself was quite an adjustment. Worse yet, it is summer here and without school in session, I had very little to occupy my time. Thankfully, I’ve more or less adjusted and things have picked up a lot. I’m working in the summer school program in 2 other communities, plus San Clemente, teaching little kids how to like themselves (self-esteem building). I’m also facilitating a youth group.After trying my hand at different topics and finding my teenagers incredibly bored, I tried the sex topic. Within seconds, I had my kids on the edge of their seats and hanging on my every word. Needless to say, I think I’ve found our niche. These kids are anxious to learn about puberty, menstruation, STDs, and birth control. I will gladly facilitate that learning if it means keeping these girls and boys from being teenage parents or getting venereal diseases.

Despite missing my host family, it is nice to be able to cook for myself. I haven’t eaten rice in weeks! I cook with lots of different vegetables and I’ve been filling my extra time with cooking experiments. I know how to cook with eggplant and pumpkin now J I’m also teaching a local woman to bake and sell cakes; call it my own small business project. Being lonely has pushed me out into the community even more. I’ve been visiting more families and making new friends. I still hang out with my same little kids. I really adore them. I swear 10 year olds are my favorite. They are just discovering who they are and they love to participate in activities and answer questions. The girls are still willing to fight with the boys, aka they haven’t succumbed to that machismo inferiority complex as yet and they don’t care if the boys like them or not.

I'll be home in May! Ticket is officially purchased for May 9th through the 19th. Please feel free to take me out to breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner. I prefer Mexican food. Just kidding, but seriously, I want to see everyone! Love you all