Trujillo, Peru: Where Modernity and History Go Head-to-Head

I've been in Peru for just over a month now, and I'm keeping pretty busy! I'm staying in the city of Trujillo, which is on the northern coast and is the 2nd or 3rd biggest city in Peru, depending on who you ask. Trujillo's nickname is "La Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera," or The City of Eternal Spring. I have to say, given the weather this past month, I don't entirely buy that description. It was fairly chilly here, especially at night, but it's getting milder so I'm getting happier.

I should probably explain what I'm doing here: I signed on to be the Program Coordinator for Espaanglisch, a small nonprofit in Trujillo that brings foreign volunteers to teach English classes to adults and children who can't afford schooling. Education in Peru is not free, at any level, so there are a lot of people living in poor neighborhoods who don't attend school. There are a few NGOs working in Trujillo that run free schools in poor neighborhoods, but the government is really doing absolutely nothing about this problem. I have to say, this really hacks me off: I mean, how do you expect a nation to pull itself out of poverty if the people can't become more educated and the government isn't working on it? And all the Peruvians I've talked to have so little faith in the government (I think all but one have used the word "corrupt") that the problem will be even more difficult to fix. More and more Peruvians are relying on private institutions for schooling because the "public" schools are just worthless...this, of course, makes the correlation between wealth and education even stronger and makes educational equity even more difficult to attain.

Anyway, so I'm here to work for Espaanglisch. It's a small program, with only 2 or 3 volunteers a month, but there's still work to do! We currently offer two classes in the evening, 3 nights/week. One class is an English Conversation Class and the other is a Basic English class for teenagers who live in a really impoverished area. The classes are free for youth and for volunteers from our partner organizations. Other people who just want to practice speaking English can come to the Conversation Class, and they pay a really minimal fee that helps us with program costs. In addition to the evening classes, we partner with an organization called SKIP (Supporting Kids in Peru) that goes into public schools in the mornings and teaches English, and also holds English classes in the afternoons at their site in a barrio called El Porvenir. So our volunteers can co-teach SKIP English classes in the mornings/afternoons. Our final program offering is at a free primary school run by an NGO called USDA (Una Sonrisa de Amor), where our volunteers will begin teaching English classes 2 mornings a week to the children there. This is a new partnership that I've established since I've gotten here, so I've been doing the legwork and laying the foundation for our volunteers.

Now, this Program Coordinator position is a volunteer position, so I'm not getting paid anything. My accommodation and utilities are being covered, which is pretty nice since I have my own room and the house has internet. But being the cheapskate that I have become since living in places with extremely low costs of living, I decided to find some paid teaching work on the side to help me cover my living expenses. To that end, I very quickly got a weekend teaching job at El Instituto Cultural, a nearby English language institute with the best reputation in Trujillo. It's a pretty fair amount of work, though, because I teach for 4 hours on Saturdays and 3 1/2 on Sundays and I'm still sort of figuring things out since I got the most cursory teacher orientation ever (here's your classroom, here's how to turn on the computer, don't wear jeans to class).

I also got a gig through a friend of the previous Program Coordinator. This friend runs a private English teaching business, and his teachers go to various locations in Trujillo (mostly companies) and do small classes, generally with business English. So last week I started teaching an English class at the APR Energy Plant in the La Esperanza neighborhood of Trujillo, 3 afternoons a week for 1 1/2 hours each afternoon. I actually enjoy this class because the students are adults and are super motivated to learn.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm also teaching the Basic English class this month, since we only have one volunteer (a total fluke), as well as an evening tutoring session for another student? So my schedule for August has been pretty insane:

Mondays - teaching 3-4:30 PM (private) and 7-9:15 PM (Espaanglisch)

Tuesdays - my only free day, why do you think I'm updating my blog today?

Wednesdays - teaching 8 AM-12:30 PM (USDA), 3-4:30 PM (private), 7-9:15 PM (Espaanglisch)

Thursdays - work with USDA on some of their other projects, 2:15-5:30 PM and 7-9:30 PM

Fridays - teaching 8 AM - 11:30 AM (USDA), 3-4:30 PM (private), 7-8:15 PM (Espaanglisch), volunteer work with USDA 8:30 - 11:30 PM

Saturdays - teaching 4-8 PM (El Instituto Cultural)

Sundays - teaching 9 AM - 12:30 PM (El Instituto Cultural)

Whew. Fortunately, I only have one more week of this and then our September volunteers arrive. Once they do, I can knock the USDA and Espaanglisch teaching off my schedule. Last detail/explanation item: I signed on to be Program Coordinator for 6 months, and I started at the end of July. So I'll be leaving at the end of January/beginning of February and coming back to the States. And if anyone has a month or two to spare and feels like coming down to Peru, just let me know if you feel like doing some volunteer teaching while you're at it!

So here are some pictures of Trujillo. At the center of town, as in most South American cities, is the Plaza de Armas:

The plaza is bordered by colonial-style buildings which look like they should be old restaurants or post offices; but in fact, they're offices for businesses such as American Airlines.

At the end of July, Peru celebrated its Independence Day (July 28th). To celebrate, Inca Kola (the omnipresent soft drink here, it tastes like bubble gum and looks like radioactive runoff) held a concert and "Night of Peruvian Food" in and around the Plaza. I have never seen so many South Americans in the same place at the same time. Even the areas around the food stalls were jammed:

In general, I must say that I find Peruvians to be very nice, friendly people. But there was about as much pushing as you might expect at such an absurd, corporate-generated event.

And of course, there was the obligatory enormous inflatable Inca Kola bottle:

There were also a fair number of entertainers in the crowd who looked like they jumped right out of Saturday night Latin American television, like this guy:

Also to celebrate Independence Day, members of the army were dispatched to public locations such as the mall (where I joined a very nice gym) to sit around on their horses and look official.

It worked, I guess, because people were standing around and gawking. It was all very ceremonious until one horse decided it wanted to sit down:

The soldier tried to play it off like he meant for the horse to lie down, but it was totally obvious that he was taken aback by the move. There was also a little military band in the plaza in front of the mall.

And now, a few comments about foods I've tried so far. First, I have to include a shot of Inca Kola since it's freaking everywhere. In some restaurants, it's the only beverage available. No water, no other soft drinks...just bright yellow liquid gum.

I also saw this drink in a grocery store: Peru Cola. This in itself isn't so odd, even if it is strawberry-flavored, but what is odd is that below the word Cola on the label, it states, "Bebida con Fibra Soluble": drink with soluble fiber. What kind of soft drink has soluble fiber?

I've also gotten to try rabbit, I believe for the first time. I went to Huanchaco, a nearby seaside town (more about Huanchaco in a later post), and had lunch at the home of a very nice lady who rents rooms to our volunteers sometimes. She cooked a whole rabbit:

Including the head:

And then did an impressive job of breaking it down:

It was pretty good - well-cooked, not gamy, and it had a distinct flavor. It didn't taste like beef or chicken or duck or any other meat.

I also had guinea pig, or cuy, for the second time last week. The first time I had it was 3 years ago, when I was in Cusco. Here's a picture from that 2007 meal:

And here's a shot of the home-cooked cuy that I had last week.

I live in a house with the founder of Espaanglisch, David, and his aunt Carmen. Carmen is the landlady/owner, and she has a little guinea pig enclosure just off the kitchen. So last week we had one for dinner. The first time I had it, I thought it tasted like chicken. This time I must concur with Carmen, who maintains that it has its own distinct flavor as well. Apparently, the meat Peruvians like best is that of the guinea pig, but they're so small that most people eat chicken most of the time since they're larger easier to eat. I believe this, since on every street block there are at least 2 restaurants selling chicken. Generally it's pollo a la brasa, roasted over a fire:

And it's always served with fries and "repollo," a little salad with iceberg lettuce so white it's basically crunchy water.

One final observation for this post: as my title indicates, I've been struck by the clear and somewhat incongruous juxtaposition of ancient, even prehistoric features to very modern ones in this city. The corporations headquartered in colonial buildings; the military cavalry outside the mall; the casino (there are a TON) and the Radio Shack that are right next to a store selling handmade weavings and crafts:

The street artist in the old park, moving to music from an mp3:

And, of course, the extreme poverty and lack of educational opportunities just a few minutes away from people who have money to burn at casinos or country clubs. I think that maybe I'm seeing this difference very starkly now because the city of Trujillo is much larger than either of the places I've lived in the last 2 years, and elements of its Peruvian history are so present and so different from the attempts at development that are going on.

I'm sure I'll raise this issue again in future posts, but that's all for now. Time to spend part of my free day doing something else!