Day of the Quechua Language

It is more than obvious that Peruvians are proud of their Inca heritage. Anything from drugstores (InkaFarma) to soft drinks (InkaKola) is named after the Incas. However, the link between the high culture of the past and the indigenous population residing in Peru today is purposefully obscured. The indígenas grow to believe that their culture, traditions, and language are worthless.

According to the official mantra, Peru is a multifaceted and multicultural country that cherishes difference and its varied cultural heritage. In practice, many city-dwelling, white Peruvians want to have nothing to do with the “dirty” Indians. The rural, indigenous population is underprivileged by any standards. Basic infrastructure is lacking, and illiteracy, malnourishment and disease are widespread. Indigenous ethnicity correlates with poverty.

Until recently, Quechua (with its millions of speakers, the most widespread of Peru’s indigenous languages) had no official status and parents preferred not to teach their children Quechua although it was their mother tongue. Indígenas were treated as second-rate citizens and were told to speak “properly” – in Spanish, that is. Luckily the situation is no longer quite as bleak. Slowly but steadily, Quechua is gaining prestige and is already taught at many primary and secondary schools.

May 27th 1975 was a turning point for Peru’s Quechua-speaking minority: then-president of Peru, Juan Velasco Alvarado, finally gave the Quechua language official status. Despite that advance, Peru is a long way from doing justice to its linguistic minorities. Quechua is only one of the 46 indigenous languages spoken in Peru, and the rest have no official status whatsoever.

On Wednesday May 27th Peru celebrated the Day of the Native Language to hail the linguistic diversity of its peoples. Since Warmayllu promotes the Andean cultural heritage and the Quechua language, we took part in the festivities. Early in the morning, all participants (bilingual schools, NGOs, academies, institutions, and the like) gathered in the Plazuela Belén, comfortably just outside our office. From there, we all headed up to the top of Santa Apolonia hill to make an offering to the Mama Pacha, Mother Earth. The pago consisted of fruit, bread, coca leaves, flowers, potatoes, chicha (a maize beverage), herbs, and the like. A shaman blessed the gifts, made a speech in Quechua, and poured some chicha on the ground to give Mama Pacha to drink. Then a bag of coca leaves went around, everyone picked three and stepped up to place them on the same blanket with the rest of the gifts.












Once Mama Pacha had been satisfied, we paraded down from Santa Apolonia to the Plaza de Armas where the festivities continued with speeches, music, and dance. Listening to all the speeches praising the Andean cultural heritage and demanding equal rights to the Quechua-speaking communities, I was moved to tears. The right to language and culture is a basic human right that should never be violated.

Week of Preschool Education

Last week was the Week of Preschool Education in honor of the 78th anniversary of preschool education in Cajamarca. Nowadays, three years of nursery school (from age two to age five) are part of compulsory education in Peru. Through the Wiñaq Muhu project, Warmayllu works with six nursery schools in the environs of Cajamarca. The project aims to improve the access of under six-year-old boys and girls to an intercultural preschool education and promotes the acquisition of skills that have practical relevance in rural underprivileged areas.

The festivities started off with a parade around the Central Square on Sunday morning. Several hundred preschool teachers and other professionals in education took part. To celebrate the Andean cultural heritage, the Warmayllu group dressed up in shalés, a typical campesina outfit. Our guest star was Don Encarnación, who played the clarín, a three-meter-long wind-pipe instrument. First things first, before the parade moved an inch, we sang both the Peruvian national anthem and the Hymn to Cajamarca, and beheld the raising of three flags: one for the nation, one for the department of Cajamarca, and one for the city. Then we marched around the square to the rhythm of an orchestra.



The Warmayllu delegation with the Wiñaq Muhu flag on the right.



The Peruvian flag and the two flags of Cajamarca.



Don Encarnación playing the clarín.


The following day El Panorama Cajamarquino, the regional newspaper of Cajamarca, dedicated half a page and one photo to the event and, of all the networks that participated in the parade, Warmayllu made the photo! You can see me very clearly in the photo, holding the Warmayllu banderol and marching to the music. My fifteen minutes of fame! :)

The celebrations continued on Thursday with a Noche de Talentos, talent show. We prepared a dance performance, complete with numbers from all different regions of Peru. In between the numbers, Don Encarnación played the clarín. I got to dance the Cajamarcan carnival dance. Having never even heard the music before, I cannot say el baile de carnaval was my particular talent, but the steps were so simple that I probably didn’t make too big a fool out of myself in front of the 500 people who showed up to watch. The best part was definitely dressing up! I wore my hair tied up in braids with colourful ribbons and boasted a festive outfit of the sierra. The skirt came with several layers of woollen cloth and an underskirt, and it probably weighed nearly two kilos.



Soila doing Olga's hair.





Alsides, Diana, Silvia, I, Soila, Mirella, Olga, and Don Encarnación sitting down in front of us.


On Friday, the theme week ended with a festive mass and a cocktail party at the Municipal Hall: more national anthems, flags, speeches, and Peruvian wine. I came to the conclusion that Peruvian wine is not my thing; it’s so sweet I wouldn’t have recognized it was wine if I hadn’t been told.

Urban poverty in Ventanilla

On Friday, while still in Lima, I had the chance to visit two nursery schools in Ventanilla slum, a good one-and-a-half-hour bus ride away from the city centre. After spending a couple of days in the prosperous districts of Lima, it was an eye-opening experience to see the extent of the poverty in Ventanilla. I got to see for myself what I had read so many books about.

A bustling metropolis, Lima is currently home to some eight million people and keeps growing at an uncontrollable rate. Migrants from all over Peru flood its outskirts in search of a better life. However, the grass is not always greener on the other side. Many end up working in the informal sector, taking odd jobs to earn a meagre living.

The slums literally mushroom overnight; they are created “spontaneously”. Homeless migrants organise, choose an empty, barren wasteland, sneak in at night, mark out the plots and raise some sort of a roof on what is to be their house. Little by little, they upgrade the house. The ultimate sign of success is a two-storey home. Authorities tolerate the illegal settlements, because there is no other solution to the acute shortage of housing in Lima.




Ventanilla is located on a hillside in the middle of the desert. Infrastructure lags far behind the housing: The houses do not have running water yet, and cuts in electricity are the order of the day. Paradoxically enough, slum dwellers pay many times more for their precarious electricity than other Limeans do, because it is very expensive to provide basic infrastructure to such far-away communities.




The nursery schools I visited with Cristina were for 2- to 5-year-olds. Warmayllu works with the teachers there, helping them to improve their teaching methods. On Friday, Cristina and I videotaped and photographed the Mothers’ Day celebrations at María Pía nursery school. Together with their teacher, the children had prepared and decorated a piñata (cardboard doll) and filled it with Mothers’ Day cards, candy, and colourful bits of paper. The climax of the festivities was breaking the piñata. All mothers danced around it and took turns at hitting it with a stick. Once it broke, everyone went out for the candies and cards. Then we all had a delicious lunch: maracuya juice, camote, potato, rice and chicken.








In spite the earth floors, outhouses and lack of just about everything, the mood was cheerful. The children seemed happy, and the teachers, caring and motivated. No sign of the stress that characterises many Finnish day-care centres! After all, I guess lots of things we Finns take for granted and consider essential (warm showers, flushable toilets, refrigerators, electric light, etc.) are not really that important.

Unfortunately, not all is happiness and joy in Ventanilla. A conversation I had with two three-year-old girls pulled me up short. They started off by asking me: “When you are grown up, are you going to have a boyfriend?” Amused and somewhat flattered by the fact that they didn’t consider me grown up yet, I answered: “Why yes, of course. Won’t you?” “No, never.” “But why is that?” I was left speechless by their answer: “Because boyfriends are always beating you up.”

Cajamarca calling!

Only a brief update since I don't have much time for my blog right now. I arrived in Cajamarca yesterday after spending one week in Lima. Cajamarca has been love at first sight! The city and especially the countryside surrounding it are incredibly beautiful and the cajamarquinos are very friendly. Everyone at Warmayllu has been particularly helpful, making me feel welcome and at home right away.

Little by little, I start to get an idea of what my work here is going to be like. This morning I went up to the San Juan de Chamis secondary school to meet my students. I made them do an exam Marisca (the former teacher and my boss) had prepared beforehand. I suppose there aren't many gringas up in San Juan de Chamis, because the kids spent more time staring at me than working out the right answers! My colleague Olga and I walked back down to Cajamarca, a two-hour walk in the mountains. I couldn't stop admiring the scenery!

There is so much to tell, but it'll all have to wait for later. I just wanted to post a few lines so you all know I'm fine. Details and photos coming up soon!

Peru, here I come!

Now I finally have time to write my very first blog post! This blog is for all of you who wish to follow with me through my eight and a half months in Peru. I hope to satisfy your curiosity and look forward to reading your comments! :)

Let me first offer a brief introduction to what I'm going to do in Peru. I have been chosen to participate in the Finnish Volunteer Programme - ETVO (www.etvo.fi), and I will do volunteer work for the NGO (Non Governmental Organization) Warmayllu - Comunidad de Niños. Warmayllu seeks to integrate art education and respect for local indigenous cultures within the Peruvian official school curriculum. They work with teachers, students and parents in different parts of Peru. I will join the team in Cajamarca, an Andean city about 850 km northeast of Lima. Please see Warmayllu's web site for more information about the NGO: http://www.warmayllu.org/warmayllu_eng.htm. According to preliminary plans, I will teach English at a secondary school, help with arts workshops, and write some articles for a book for global educators that will be published in Finland next fall.

The countdown has changed from days to hours - I'm 31 hours away from taking off at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. 24 hours and some very long flights later I will land in Lima. Curiously enough, I'm not in the least bit nervous. I guess I haven't quite grasped that I really am leaving! It'll all probably strike me sometime during the flights, or latest when in Lima. However, the fact that it all still seems very surreal doesn't keep me from feeling very, very excited. Volunteering in Latin America has been my dream for years, and now it's finally becoming reality! I'm certain that this will be my most difficult year ever, but I also believe it will be the best. Having spent a year in Spain I know I can adapt myself to a new environment and feel as much at home abroad as in Finland. There will be ups and downs, everyday life, once-in-a-lifetime experiences and hardships. I hope the good days will overbalance the tough ones!