Day 2: we woke up and had breakfast made by Claudia’s grandmother. It was very light and simple because, like other Latin American countries, lunch is the most important meal.
The house was big, which fit many generations of the family. The grandfather lived there too, and he was a well-known folklore music pan-flute player in the country. He makes the pan flute from bamboo and wood that he has to get directly from the rainforest, and to make one is a several month process. He was a very funny and engaging guy, always seeing the positivity in things and always joking around.
In the house you will find some unique things you can’t find in the U.S., but that are characteristic of Peru. All of the outlets require 220-240 V plugs, so if you directly connect an American plug (which is 100-120 V), it will fry your electronic device. So, we used converter for everything–cameras, laptops, bettery chargers, etc.–until we found out last day in Lima that actually some of our electronics (like the Lenovo laptops Wentworth gives us) can be plugged into any outlet with a voltage of 100-240 V, so didn’t need the converter!
We later ate an amazing lunch before we headed to visit Luis “Lucho” Chavez, a literature professor at BU, who is “Chirimotino” (from Chirimoto, the village where we were heading to do work) and very passionate about developing his village. Here’s the amazing grand lunch I previously explained. The dish I refer to in the video I later learned is called Lomo Saltado–probably my most favorite meal in Lima.
At the meeting, we had very deep, passionate discussions around the importance of economic development in the region, what does Chirimoto bring to the Peru socioeconomically, how to enable community to develop economy, political issues and factors that may be obstacles towards economic development and how to relinquish that, and opportunities and areas for growth for the village. This really pumped me up.
After our meeting, we the boys headed out to the nearby parks. At one park, a local passed us and mumbled repeatedly “yo no robo” (I don’t steal), and I initially didn’t understand. We thought he was a drunk local actually tricking us to calm down so that he can steal from us, but once he got closer, we found out that he was actually upset we were taking pictures in the park. His reasoning came out of pride and protection of his community. He said we could have been anyone–tourists, reporters, developers, etc. and could potentially do anything with those photos, when we return to our home country. that could exploit, offend, or harm their community and he did not agree. In addition, he repeated that they wouldn’t rob us, rather they recycle bottles, so we should respect their actions in that sense and their sincerity by stopping the photo-shooting, so we honored that wish and left. What he said really resonated with me. Taking one picture of anywhere you travel means you are taking away with you that piece of community from the people that live there; especially since you don’t even belong to that community, you have really no validity in taking that digital representation of what means home to them–if they don’t allow you to. That’s why when traveling, it’s always recommended to ask the person from that area for permission to take a photo, because taking it might be against their opinion. This is always a touchy issue and lesson to learn about traveling and engaging with different communities–make sure that whatever photo you take has meaning to it, otherwise, why ar you taking the photo in the first place?
