Sunday, May 1, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
A sampling of Lima Events aka Sorry I'm behind!!
Why I'm Like an Old Man
4/25-29/11
Because I’m sore! So sore!! Getting up the stairs to my bedroom is such a struggle. (Whenever I hear that word now I hear Bradley’s voice in my mind saying “Struggles!”) Today is Friday, April 29th and I am sooo sore. On Wednesday I went to Escuela Pitbull with Rachel and learned some MMA submissions and takedowns with her from Hector Ibañez, aka the man with a bandage covering half of his face. I haven’t written for far too long, so let me write about this week in a bit of detail.
Monday, the 25th, I met with Jacqueline. I’d met with Sonia on Saturday and pondered my project on Sunday, deciding to basically rearrange my topic again and focus specifically on Uchuraccay, the killing of 8 journalists by comuneros in Ayacucho January 26th, 1983. After meeting with Ricardo Caro I had narrowed my topic down to four events, but I just couldn’t get interested in the other three. Uchuraccay really intrigued me because it’s so controversial (still! Lots of conspiracy theories) and first brought the terrorist violence into the national consciousness. She seemed to really support this idea and gave me some good ideas and advice. I finally feel on track! When I got home I typed up some ideas and to do lists, then called Gustavo Gorriti about a potential interview. Last week Jacqueline gave me his email and he’s responded on Friday that I should contact him at the beginning of the week. I’d expected to go about things leisurely and get myself organized, but when I called at noon, he responded very professionally and a bit brusquely that I should come to his office in San Borja at 1:30!! I flipped out. My stomache was doing flip-flops and I was literally so nervous that I shook, but I almost immediately flew out of the apartment, grabbed a very nice cab, and sat outside in the park next to the address and organized myself, compiling interview questions. I didn’t feel prepared at all. I called Jacqueline in a bit of a panic, but she didn’t answer. Oh well, I figured it out. At 1:30 I approached the guard (man, there are so many guards in Peru, and Latin America. I feel like it’s much more of a career path here than it is in the US), told him I had an appointment with Gustavo Gorriti, and waited in the waiting room.
Allow me to explain who Gustavo Gorriti is. He is a famous Peruvian journalist for Caretas, and he was in the town next door to Uchuraccay, Huaychao, literally the day that those 8 journalists were killed in 1983. He was publically attacked, along with the photographer Oscar Medrano and the writer who recently won the Nobel Prize and headed a commission to investigate Uchuraccay, Mario Vargas Llosa. He was attacked by the press, which thought that he was behind a cover up scandal to blame the comuneros. The media speculated that a special division of the armed forces called the Sinchis had dressed up as comuneros and, in fact, killed the reporters. All this speculation was later dismissed as untrue. All of the articles that I’d been reading about the event, and the book I’d referred to, were all written by Gustavo Gorriti. I was a bit starstruck and terrified all at the same time. He, however, was really helpful and very nice. He joked with me, asked me why I hadn’t brought an apple for my teacher (Jacqueline works for him and was in the room next door), told me he’d been to Santa Fe after I told him that I was from New Mexico, and asked me if I was a part of “The Tribe.” Yes, based on my last name he assumed I was Jewish, so I just went with it. For some reason he also wanted to know the name of my temple in New Mexico, so despite the fact that I do not actually have a temple, I just named Temple Albert. He’ll never know. I recorded a 26 minute interview, thanked him profusely, and then headed home feeling super proud of myself. The week was off to a good start!
Tuesday was a really excellent day. Actually, this whole week has been pretty great, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. On Tuesday I went to the archives of El Comercio, an old and conservative newspaper located in the center of Lima. I had to call ahead, get permission, and make an appointment to go there, but I finally made it! These archives are much more like what I had imagined Caretas would be like. A man, the director of the archives I suppose, set me up in glass walled room. He’d run back into a restricted area and fetch the articles I needed, then oversee me reading them. I was by no means alone in there! It was a bit distracting to have a chatty Peruvian lady sitting next to me, but I finally made some progress! I think I got what I need and finally was able to photocopy. Photocopies! Oy. Copies are generally 10-50 cents, with 50 being at the high end of the spectrum. El Comercio, however, wanted to charge me 2 soles and 62 cents!! That’s absurd. So I had to pick and choose what I wanted to copy, and I ended up with 14 pages. When I was ready to go the man, with his overly magnifying eyeglasses that made his eyes look a bit like Professor Trelawney’s (you know the reference), beckoned me into an empty side hallway so that I might pay him. I followed him and questioned him where I needed to go pay and he just told me, “Here, you pay me. Right here.” He gave me a break and only made me pay him 20 soles instead of 36, but it still felt really sketchy to hand over 20 soles to a strange man in a deserted hallway of this prestigious newspaper. So odd.
After that I made my way to the Defensoría del Pueblo to see if they might have archived copies of La República, another newspaper that I’m looking into for my paper. Oy, these archives are so disorganized. Caretas, El Comercio, and the Defensoría del Pueblo all just handed me disorganized folders with browned and torn pages spilling out. The more annoying thing is that these pages nearly never have the author or date on them, so I’m not even sure I can use them in my paper. School has taught me that you can never ever use sources that you cannot cite. Annoying! Especially because I found a perfect map to use for my eventual powerpoint presentation but I don’t even know what the source is. Stupid! El Comercio handed me a folder with articles, most of which weren’t even from El Comercio, and La Defensoría del Pueblo handed me a similar folder. La Defensoría del Pueblo didn’t have many articles from La República, but I did find 3-4 articles from January 30 and 31st, 1983. Useful dates! I bought some yummy plantain chips and sat outside snacking when a lady and her daughter came by offering candies. This is often what beggars in Lima and Cusco do. Rather than simply sit and beg for money, they buy a large bag of candies and up the price, offering a candy for 10 cents. She had the particularly yummy lemony candies, so I bought a handful. It’s not much help, but I feel guilty about how it’s become ok for me to ignore women like her on the street. I often don’t have change and they are so ubiquitous. I remember Jason in Nicaragua telling us not to give to people like this because our few cents don’t help them much, it just encourages them to keep begging rather than doing something with their lives. Begging, especially in places like Cusco and Iquitos, is more frequently done by small children because they get more sympathy, especially from tourists. Though those kids get money for their family, they miss out on the education they should be getting.
In the afternoon Rachel and I had quite the adventure trying to get to the IEP, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, in Jesús María. I love that area! I wish that I’d gone earlier! Miraflores is super nice, but honestly it’s a little too swanky for my taste. Jesús María feels more like a real neighborhood, but still nice and colorful. Love it! The IEP is great too, and the first real library, research type area that has been really useful for me. Hooray! On the way back we actually took the correct bus, unlike earlier, and booked it to Pardo´s to eat Pollo a La Brasa. I was in serious need of grocery and both Rachel and I were STARVING by the time we got home. Most delicious ever.
Wednesday morning I organized myself and my notes, as well as the house. I cleaned everywhere and felt so much better afterward. I think I’m a bit of a neat freak. Then in the afternoon I headed over the IEP again and took more really useful notes from books and theses there. Hooray! Then I took the bus back from Avenida Brasil… only it was quite the right bus. I thought it would take about 30 minutes, but about an hour in I realized that the bus was no longer on Avenida del Ejército, but Angamos. I realized where I was, got off, walked two blocks to the metropolitano, got off at Benavides, and booked it home. Rachel wanted to leave for training at 5, but because of the bus mix up I didn’t even make it home until 4:50! Good thing I left the IEP early! I got dressed super quickly, then we headed out to find a cab to Breña. Breña, it should be noted, it not a good area. When we first went to Lima and Rachel went to the gym in Breña Sonia told her not too go, that it was too dangerous…. Obviously that didn’t happen because Rachel now goes there multiple times a week. Haha, Sonia’s warnings have often turned out to be overly cautious. Breña is pretty warn down and dirty, with tons of graffiti supporting Keiko. Keiko! No! Oh please no. When I got there Hector asked me if I like Ollanta or Keiko better… I responded neither, but I suppose Ollanta because I do not trust Keiko. I don’t think I would trust any Fujimori. Ollanta’s no good either, though. Escuela Pitbull, the gym, is tiny tiny tiny; maybe a bit bigger than my dorm room last semester. Teeny! I haven’t done really any exercise since getting to peru, so I was a bit worried. Neither have I ever done MMA. MMA is like wrestling, sort of. I’m not quite sure how to describe it. Rachel did an interview with two nine year old brothers, but first she had to get permission from their drug addict father. This is a different world…. I didn’t quite know what to do while I waited, but I chatted a wee bit with Hector, the owner of the gym, and his wife Livia. They seemed skeptical that I spoke Spanish, but Rachel responded that I was better at Spanish that this was…. I’m not sure that’s true, but I was just quiet because I felt nervous and uncomfortable, ok? When we first arrived two Brazilian fighter, a man and a woman who were both ripppppped, were taking photos and filming footage for a fight that they will have against two Peruvians in a couple days. After then the Peruvian opponents arrived and did the same. Then we began our class. It was Rachel, three or four Peruvian teenage boys, and me under the direction of Hector. Hector speaks quickly, but he is even harder to understand because he has a huge square bandage places directly over his mouth… Rachel explained most things to me in English, actually. Part of the warm-up included somersaults and backwards somersaults. I remember in gymnastics I could never to backwards somersaults, but I did them. Hooray! We learned various takedowns, which are like expert tackles, and submissions, which sort of involve getting the opponents limbs all tangled in an uncomfortable position that they cannot escape from. You get them there and hope to inflict pain basically until they tap out. It’s a bit like Uncle. I went against Rachel, but literally had no foundational knowledge. I think having done rugby I caught on fairly quickly, but I NOT prepared for the last part of practice in which Hector had Rachel and I “roll” in front of a circle of about 10 peruvian strangers. We were basically trying to get the other person down in a takedown or submission. Hardly fair since Rachel is really good at this and I literally had no idea what I was doing, but I actually did have a good time. Hector seemed impressed by the fact that I did Rugby too. Rugby is not a word that Peruvians can say. Neither is Claire actually, which is why I just say Clara. Easier for them. I felt uneasy in the middle of that ring with such an audience, but I did it and I think you need to learn to laugh about these things. As we were rolling they kept trying to say rugby over and over again, and in my mind at the time I thought they were just commenting and laughing at the fact that I do rugby. I get super defensive about that because I hate people assuming that I can’t do things, and that is most people’s reaction when they find out I play rugby. Yes I’m small, yes I’m bubbly, but don’t discount my ability please.
At the end Rachel did another interview, and then Hector walked us to the street corner to get a taxi. Apparently he always does this with Rachel because Breña really isn’t a safe area.
Thursday – aka soreness attack! So sore! Going up and down the stairs in killer. I’m sore in my neck, my back, my thighs, my upper arms… Everywhere! I finally got a hold of La Republica on Wednesday morning and got an appointment to go to the archives on Thursday. Their archives are what I imagined archives would be, finally! Old and a bit disorganized, but spacious and studious. Loved it! They allowed me to take photos, which was a nice change from El Comercio… After that I went to Caretas for the last time to double check that I had what I needed and had some real awkward conversations with Miguel, then headed home. For some reason I decided to walk up the eight flights of stairs to our apartment…. Why I do not know, but it seriously contributed to future soreness. Stupid! I worked and read about the Royal Wedding, which was great I’m sure, and procrastinated a bit.
Today, Friday the 29th, I’m sitting in a Starbucks reviewing notes and starting to write. I chatted with Marina the other day as I was skyping with Norah, and she seemed shocked that SIT was basically asking us to write a thesis in one week in another language. Yes, Marina, thank you for stressing that, but I’m well aware. I’m avoiding thinking about all the stress that next week will undoubtedly hold. Oy vey! I’m sure my paper will not have the best writing or the best grammar, but the simple accomplishment of writing a 30-40 page research paper in Spanish will feel good. I’m not even sure how much the grade of this paper will count or if my grades will even count at Conn, but I’ll do the best I can. Rachel is ambitious and writing her paper twice; once in English, and once in Spanish so that she can give it to Escuela Pitbull as well as promoters in America. I think one paper is enough for me! I have at this moment written about 2 pages of my paper. Well, at least I got a little bit of progress before I started procrastinating by writing this blog. Sorry I got so far behind and I know that these long posts are hard to trudge through. I missed all of last week too… I’ll get to that eventually.
The Iquitos girls arrived in Lima yesterday and though I have not seen them yet, I’m excited to celebrate Leah’s birthday tonight with them! Hooray! I’m glad that we can lighten the mood after a tough couple of weeks both academically and socially. I leave Lima next Thursday the 5th, and then I leave Peru for good on Sunday, May 15th. Only a little more than two more weeks. I wonder how I will feel about leaving and what I will miss about Peru. Oh! Another accomplishment of the week: Julie, Nate and I definitely have a place to live over the summer! Hooray! I can’t wait, it’s going to be super fun to be reunited with them.
Oh, and I feel like an old man since I ache all over and move slowly like an old man, if that wasn’t clear enough.
Au revoir!
xoxo,
Claire
Monday, April 18, 2011
Lima pt. 5: Jacqueline Fowks
4-18-11
Today, for the first time, I met with my ISP advisor, Jacqueline Fowks. She is a spirited, young academic that works at the PUCP and corresponded with a local news channel to cover the recent elections. She kind of reminded me of Gretchen Heefner, actually. This last week I struggled on my own to proceed with my research, but ultimately felt like I lacked direction and guidance. I emailed Jacqueline most days and requested help from her, Sonia, and various other sources. The thing is that other people’s project deal directly with people. Other students can find their answers through experience or inquiry, while I’m attempting to answer my own questions through extensive reading in archives, talking to academics, and historical research. Therefore I’m much more alone in this project than any of my peers. I don’t even know if I’ll do any interviews at all.
Spending time languishing in the small, dusty archives really stressed me out, especially when I repeatedly failed to find even any mention of the internal conflict (with even fewer mentions of campesinos). Talking to Jacqueline today alleviated so many of my fears and it felt so encouraging to talk to an academic that supports this project. Although she can’t provide me with answers, she can provide with with avenues to find them myself. She critiqued a lot of what I’ve done, but cut down a lot of my work. For instance, I think that I will no longer even look into events occurring in Lima, with Grupo Colina, attacks against police or politicians, or anything occurring in the selva. Actually, I think I might cut out the entire decade of the 90s from my search because most reported events were terrorist attacks committed in urban areas like Miraflores.
My facebook status today is, “Recently I’ve felt that I’m recreating Bel Canto in my own life.” I don’t know how many of you have read Bel Canto, but it is a book written by Ann Patchett about an embassy that’s taken over by “unnamed quechua terrorists” and centers on the experience of an opera singer that is one of the hostages. I was forced to read the book in high school because my high school, that brought in amazing speakers fyi like Martha Nussbaum, brought Ann Patchett to speak to us for a Common Time. Ann Patchett, first of all, is very full of herself and hearing her talk made me dislike the book even more. It took my mom like two years to get through that book. Anyway, I enjoyed what that book taught me about singing and Opera, topics that I found applicable to my high school life. Currently I find myself again thinking about Bel Canto. At the time Ann Patchett said that she based the book on an article she’d found from the 90s about an embassy overtaken by terrorists. She did not name then, nor in the book, the country. The event that she, in fact, wrote about was the 1996 hostage situation in Peru that lasted for four months of the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Peru. Members of the MRTA, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, came to the residence during a large party being held and took everyone hostage. The let most women go within the first few days, but kept quite a few people hostage for four months. What the news fails to mention is that they took the place hostage because they demanded the release from prison of about a hundred MRTA members held in prison.
Fujimori’s dictatorial government organized Operación Chavín de Huantar in which they essentially dug tunnels to the residence, killed all of the MRTA members, and got the hostages out of there. One of the people actually at this party was Alejandro Toledo, which I find fascinating. Fujimori’s brother was also a hostage. There’s a video of Fujimori inspecting the residence the day after this operation and he just walks past the bodies of MRTA soldiers with disgust and no vestige of human sympathy as he ascends the stairs. It’s a fairly powerful scene. (Fujimori’s the one in prison for human rights violations and his daughter might be the next president of Peru. Shit. Several Peruvians have told me that their’s is a family of bandits and robbers hungry for power.)
You all probably don’t care about all this historical stuff, but Ann Patchett’s a crap writer, even if she picks interesting topics. She claimed to have thought of so many things on her own, but it’s obvious that she had to do extensive research not only about opera, but also about the events at the ambassador’s residence and the Peruvian political climate. Why did she leave the country unnamed? Why did she so obviously refer to Quechua speakers and politicians of Japanese heritage which OBVIOUSLY refers to Peru. I remember Ms. Bernard hated her for her flagrant misuse of Opera terminology. Oh I miss Bernard…
Anyways, our director Sonia is coming to Lima today as a stopover to go visit the girls in Iquitos. I’m glad that I have progress to show her and a clearer idea of where I might proceed from here. I feel much more organized and relieved about this entire project and I might actually create an end product that I find both interesting and important.
xoxo,
Claire
Lima pt. 4: Homesick
4-17-11
Today, Sunday the 17th, I gave myself a break from my ISP work and stress. I instead stressed about apartments for the summer and my CELS internship. I’m actually very worried that I won’t see my family over the summer and that the emotional toll of my internship might wear on me. I’ll work with victims of domestic violence and human trafficking. I’ve never met someone who’s gone through something like that! Am I unprepared for this? I had to fill out some CELS paperwork and write an essay for it and I just felt all this pressure weighing down on me. I talked to my mom and she made me feel much better. She and dad are leaving to visit Julie in Paris on Wednesday. I know I only have about a month left here, but at times it seems like an insurmountable amount of time. Lima is so Americanized in so many ways I don’t want to deal with another language, another culture, or another culture’s bureaucracy anymore. It’s so Americanized that it just makes me crave being in REAL America where I understand how things work and I don’t have to try so hard all the time. Eventually we figured out a lot of my dilemmas about summer and the apartment, but it was a stressful day nonetheless. I had to prepare to meet Jacqueline and Sonia too and I feel like I’ve not gotten nearly enough accomplished on this project. The stress never ends.
Xoxo,
Claire
Lima pt. 3: Archives & Yuyachkani
4/15-16/11
So Friday the 15th I again woke up early and prepared myself to go to Caretas. I cleaned up that house a bit and then I went on my way. On the bus I sat next to an old man who asked me for directions. He was from Lima! He thought I was Peruvian too. Limenans don’t immediately assume I’m American, unlike Cusquenans. It’s an odd feeling knowing I don’t stick out as much, but still strange. I told him that I had no idea; I’d only been in Lima for a week. I once again stopped in the Plaza to collect myself and my passport, only this time a random guy sat next to me and struck up a conversation. He was a strange one. He asked to borrow a pen and then asked if I knew English because he was studying for a Spanish exam. His name was Bruce Jotain, neither of which are Peruvian names. He explained that he chose the name Jotain because he wanted to have a last name of “something” in another language. First he chose Latin, “Alquid,” but then for some reason later on chose Finnish instead and came out with the name “Jotain.” Bizarre. It weirded me out a bit that he didn’t use his real name and so I asked him what his real name was, which he did not provide. This particular forward Peruvian man asked me for my email rather than my phone number, so I gave him my secondary email that I don’t check very often. Apparently he’s studying English and will be an elementary English teacher and he told me that he doesn’t want to live in Peru, but in Europe or the US. Interesting. He thought I was Colombian?
I then went to Caretas and picked up where I’d left off the day before. I researched for quite a long time, and then when we had to move for the janitors again I talked to Miguel about music and politics. He told me that he voted for Castaneda and he asked me to go to lunch again and Lauren had said that I shouldn’t pass it up, so I accepted. They were lacquering a cabinet so I spent most of the afternoon trying to read on the couch but suffering from a headache from all those chemicals and Miguel’s distractions. I did find some interesting articles though, so I’m glad that I felt like I’d progressed.
At three we left and went to lunch. When Peruvians, and Spaniards actually, ask you out to something they take it upon themselves to pay for you. Therefore, he took me to…a grocery store. We sat and talked for a long time but god he asked me some silly things. “Have you ever been to a grocery store before? Have you ever tried juice? Have you ever tried watermelon? “ Yes, of course I have. I made it clear that I have a boyfriend, but I think I need to say it again cause he was flirting tooooo much for my taste.
That night we went out to Barranco and most of the discotecs were playing Huayno. They don’t even play huayno is cusco’s discotecs. What is this? Not danceable music at all. However, I did dance around sillily with these two girls. Damn, they had quite the arsenal of silly dance moves. We’d put our fingers on the top of someone’s head and they’d have to go to the middle of the circle and do some moves, then we’d do the same to the next person. We’d spin in circles; form a line, tons of silly stuff. I had fun dancing around with them and I was relieved to find out that they have to defend themselves from the advances of creepy men just as much as we do! Oh god, in the first bar we went to there was this creepy unibrow man, probably about 35, who went out to pick up girls with his uncle and his elderly dad. What? All three of them sort of pinned us at the bar and talked to us in English. He boasted about being a Cosco manager in California. Ok? We really didn’t want to talk to them.
On Saturday the 16th I woke up early once again and headed to the archives. I started out the day with lots of progress, but hit quite a few roadblocks as the day progressed. Miguel sitting so close to me in this space was distracting and taxing, because I can’t chat, I have to read and he wouldn’t allow me to do that. Oy, he gave me a book of poetry. Oh god, this is horrible. I procrastinated quite a bit. It’s interesting but not necessarily useful to me that the majority of articles I’ve read barely mention the Andean zone, nonetheless people who live their or suffer violence there. The articles in Caretas all focus on the economy, politicians, elections, attacks in Lima, etc… with maybe one sentence in every few issues about gente andina. It was interesting to read about the hostage situation at the Japanese ambassador’s residence, but I just kept thinking about Bel Canto. I have noticed that they never ever use the term indigena, and rarely use the term campesina. I think those are old fashioned terms and now they use comunero, poblador, or gente de las Alturas. That’s all well and good, but I don’t feel like I’m making progress! I gave up after a while (Miguel left early, thank god) and went home. I did, however, take some photos of articles that might be useful. I had a stressful hour after that man convinced me that they’d erase all of my photos, so I sort of just slipped out. See ya later Caretas.
That night we went to Yuyachkani again. Yuyachkani is the theater group that we did a workshop with the first time we came to Lima. Ukuku!! This performance was the play they were readying back then. Whoa! It was incredible. It was incredibly patriotic and emotional, but simultaneously highly critical of Peruvian official’s and what has occurred in recent years. It told a story, but without a plot. It was maybe the most innovative use of a black box theater that I’ve ever seen.
First you walked in and the space was set up like a museum. You walk around reading the walls and information they’d posted about the war with Chile in the late 19th century, on to Velasco, and the PCP-SL (Sendero Luminoso) and the corruption of Fujimori and Montesinos. In the center is a small, empty stage elevated above the crowd. All of a sudden you’re startling into realizing that the mannequins in front of those displays are, in fact, actors. They blasted the sound of trains passing and just as the sound stopped, the actors yelled the same words about memory simultaneously. They then made their way through the crowd to the stage and began the play. I’m not sure if I can fully describe this piece, but I found it really impactful. Is that a word? The stage broke apart into five pieces and could be wheeled around. So the story constantly changed, with actors in different costumes, in different parts of the space: elevated, at the same level as the crowd, or high above looking down from a large window. They hoisted up an enormous tattered Peruvian flag and the proceeding scenes all happened under its shadow. They danced, sang, yelled, played accordion, bared their chests, burned wood, poured water, threw paper into the air, blasted music, charged into the crowd making us scatter, wore clothing with words and forced us to come close and read, wore stilts and masks, etc. At times it almost felt like a circus, but a circus of political awareness and with the intention of a certain message. It was highly interactive and I loved that the audience was so much a part of the piece. You never knew from when direction they might come so you had to be alert and aware of yourself, prepared to spring out of your place. I cried at one point and I’m not sure I can even explain why. It was so incredibly patriotic and emotional, reflecting the suffering and history of Peru just as it reflects the disappointment with Peruvian politicians. At least as the limenan press ignores Andean people and their struggles, this theater company will NOT forget it and they do all they can to remind everyone.
xoxo,
Claire
Lima pt. 2: Caretas Archives
4/13-14/11
Sitting in the cramped corner of a tiny, dusty archive in a broken chair with a stack of papers as a desk, I realized something about myself: I have a mathematical mind without a head for numbers. I realized that the reason I like history is that there is a definitive answer. Sure, historians argue and disagree, but there is an overall understanding and set interpretation of events. That interpretation might be wrong entirely because history is, afterall, written by the victors, but at least there is something that seems like a set answer most of the time. Current events, on the other hand, drive me nuts. Everyone puts in their two cents and their own opinions creating a climate of confusion when all I want to know is what is going on. That’s what I always crave from the news, a clear answer. I’m realizing more and more how much the adult world lacks clear answers and how often you really need to figure it out for yourself and live with the mistakes you make. Not a world for perfectionists!
So, about those archives. Wednesday the 13th was a bit of a bust, but I went to the defensoría del pueblo and looked at archived copies of a newspaper called El Diario. I felt overwhelmed. I took the Metropolitano to the center for the first time with Lauren and figured out where to go to find Caretas. It is literally in the plaza de armas in the center across the way from the Palacio del Gobierno and the Cathedral.This topic is so huge. I freaked out several times that day and emailed Sonia and Jacqueline several times, and they did what they could to help me. I ended Wednesday night feeling very homesick and worried, despairing about my project, about how much I wanted to go home, and disappointed with myself.
Thursday the 14th: I woke up early, around 7:30, and prepared to go to the archives of Caretas for the first time. Everyone else in my house has made such progress meeting with people and going out into the city, but I haven’t felt like I’ve achieved any of that. Thursday was the first time that I felt I really went out there, into Lima, on my own and met people on my own. I took the crammed Metropolitano in the morning rush, walked a couple blocks from the Jiron de la Union stop by the Metro to the center, and stopped to rest at a bench in the plaza. I sat to collect my passport from my backpack and to arrange myself for this. I didn’t know what to expect! I went to the discreet front door (however discreet a gold door can be) and explained that I’m a student doing a research project. I requested to be let into the archives. The man at the front took my passport, then directed me to the second floor. I went up narrow, colorful stairs and found a secretary on the second floor. She told me that I needed to go up one more flight. So I turned around and went up one more set of ill-lit stairs. However, when I arrived on the small, quiet landing I did a full circle and found no archives. I also found no people. On the left I saw a small elevator with a red door, ahead a door that said only authorized people allowed, a small rickety couch and closed doors to my right. What to do what to do. I sat down and pondered, hoping someone would appear with a sign proclaiming, “ARCHIVES!”…but sadly that did not happen. I plucked up my courage and knocked on the door straight ahead.
A man with a pock-marked face answered me as I stuck me head through the door. I explained my project to him, and to my surprise he seemed to blink without recognition when I mentioned the armed internal conflict. “You mean terrorism?” her asked. She he had me sit back down on the rickety bench as he went to retrieve some files for me. I sat and waited quietly for a good half hour before he returned with a large stack of disorganized files about terrorism in the 80s and Uchuraccay. I sat on the couch reading for a while before they invited me to sit in the archives themselves. Well, sort of. There’s a large-ish table at the back, but they were holding a meeting, so I sat in the tiny room in the front within about a foot and a half of a young guy named Miguel. If you can imagine an old desk chair with the seating crumbling apart, that’s what I sat on. I repeatedly had to jump out of the way because I sat directly in front of two bookshelves and there was zero floor space for people to skirt around me. I also had to spring out of the way to let a janitor sweep, then mop the floor. Lima is a very dusty place and the archives are correspondingly dusty. Then again, I think archives are always dusty.
So about Miguel. Oy, he’s chatty and a journalism student. He wouldn’t leave me alone for a while, which I dearly wanted because my time in the archives is so limited. Peruvian men are so forward. Within minutes he had asked my first and last name, where I was from, my phone number, where I live in Lima, if I wanted to go to lunch, what I am doing in the archives… etc. I politely declined. I’ve discussed with Lauren before how, speaking in Spanish, we act far more politely than we maybe should at all times. Then again, I’m never polite to the people sticking tickets in your face in the plaza de armas in cusco. I hate those guys and I’d sooner yell at them, which I have actually done before. Even though I found Miguel distracting, it was nice to actually speak in Spanish, which I haven’t really been able to do since coming to Lima.
If I’d written this post days ago as I should have done, the tone would be very different. Today I feel calm, but at that point I felt incredibly frustrated and annoyed. The main reason for this was Peruvian institutions and their lack of CLEAR ANSWERS. One person would tell me that I could photocopy articles, another person would tell me that there was no photocopier, another would tell me it was free with a photocopier from another area, another would tell me that it cost 50 cents per page. I asked if the archives would be open next week during semana santa: One person told me, “of course! We’re the news, we never close,” another told me that they’d be open Monday but no other day, and another told me that they’d be open. I eventually found out that they will, in fact, be closed. Come on people! This is where you WORK! Why don’t you know these things? I asked if I could photograph articles instead of photocopying since I can’t spend that much money: Two people said of course, another told me that it was absolutely prohibited and that I’d have to pay anyways and that the people at the front door would take my camera and delete all of the pictures on it….. I just took discreet photos after that. This country lacks any clear answers! I can comply easily if only people tell me how I’m supposed to behave! Urgh. Very frustrating.
xoxo,
Claire