TUMBES Y EL TRABAJO (Tumbes and The Job)

TUMBES

I'm now in Tumbes which is perilously close to the equator and therefore much warmer than Chimbote. It's quite perfect at the moment but it sounds like summer could be sweltering. I have a new host family who are lots of fun and have, of course, already had a good old Latin American knees-up.


This is the music group that played at my host dad's 40th birthday. There were also so fab dancers that I didn't get photos of cos I ran out of memory.





My host 'mum and dad' (Frinetd and Luis)




My little brother and sister (Lenda and Sergio)



Me and Frinetd on the balcony outside my room. The top floor is the roof where the dogs and the washing line live (not always in perfect harmony).

EL TRABAJO

I'm working for DISA which is the Regional Health Board here in Tumbes. I really like the people and I think it's going to be an interesting place to work. They do much the same work as the District Health Board in New Zealand probably does - health promotion, regulation, inter-departmental communication, surveys, etc. Yesterday we went for a field trip to a couple of out-of-the-way places to give some presentations to local community groups. I think there's going to be a fair bit of travelling around to different places in the region which is very exciting for me.

The other exciting thing is that they have a big education project coming up and they want me to come up with some songs to teach school students and maybe take some English classes. I'm not sure how this fits into the whole health theme but I think it's kind of like a festival programme with lots of different community-type things going on. With somewhat limited Spanish skills I have to just go with the flow a little at the moment.


This photo is completely unrelated to my job except that I took it in one of the towns we did a health presentation in. I just thought it was kinda picturesque (although the house didn't come out as well as I would have liked).

SOME GENERAL INFO ON TUMBES FOR THOSE INTERESTED

Puyango, the area I live in. This photo is taken from the roof of our house. You can just see the countryside in the distance.



Territory: 4669.2km

Climate: It's sub-tropical with temperatures ranging from 17-36 degrees Celcius. There are periods of rain in the first couple of months of the year. Apparently it only rains in the afternoons though.

Political divisions: Tumbes has three provinces (Tumbes, Contralmirante Villar and Zarumilla) and 12 districts. I live in the Tumbes district which is in Tumbes province which is in the Tumbes region. But my suburb is Puyango (or New Tumbes) which means that I still have to say, 'to Tumbes, please' when I get in a coletivo to go to the centre of the city.

Population: I'd like to tell you the population but it seems to be different depending on what you read or who you talk to. I think this is because it's growing fast. In 1940 there were 25,709 inhabitants and in 2005 (according to the health plan) there were 215,635. I'm told Tumbes City is the smallest city in Peru.
Approximately 90% of the population is urban and it's a very youthful population with only 5% over 65yrs and a third under the age of 15.

Poverty: In 2001 46.8% of the population of Tumbes was living in poverty, with 7% living in extreme poverty.

Main industries: cultivation of rice, bananas (hmm...fried green bananas) and maize, fishing.


My impressions: It's quite a pretty city, especially in the centre - the cathedral and plaza are really classy (photos to come when I feel brave enough to pull out my camera in the area). The centre is nicer to wander around than the centre of Chimbote. There's a few more trees around, which is nice. Like Chimbote (and, I suspect, most Peruvian cities) there's a crazy, hectic chaos to the place. Somehow the population manages to be incredibly busy and rather relaxed at the same time.


TUMBES HEALTH FACTS FOR THOSE INTERESTED


Major health concerns (according to a DISA survey):

• High prevalence of VIH/SIDA (HIV/AIDS)
• High risk of transmission of malaria and dengue fever (don't worry, I'm taking pills)
• Alcoholism and drug addiction

Health-related problems include:

• Poor quality of health services
• Inadequate basic sanitation and environmental contamination

An aside: I used a Ministry of Health toilet in one of the towns we went through yesterday and it was ugly - dirty, no loo paper, the loo didn't flush and there was no soap or water in the tap. I'm not sure they're really leading by example.

PERU SO FAR: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE KINDA WEIRD

THE GOOD:

• Fresh Papaya juice
• Ceviche
• Most of the food, really
• The weather - it's warm, it hasn't rained yet and Peru's attempts at wind are just plain pathetic.
• The dancing (I have video footage but I'm not sure how to load it onto the blog)
• Boys dancing - all the boys here dance, all of them. It's kinda like you're a loser, pansy if you don't dance. And they're good at it and they enjoy it. Very cool.
• The parties
• The music - lots of variety and it's all packed with rhythm.
• The people - apart from the randoms on the street that yell out 'gringa' and random chat up lines as I pass by, everyone is warm and fun and welcoming.
• The mangroves and the private beach - surf the blog for photos

THE BAD

• The poverty - 60% of the population is living below the poverty line. Some families live on 1 nuevo sol a day (50c NZ). I visited a barrio (kinda like a slum) near my house in Chimbote and the houses are entirely too much like the cardboard box houses youth groups make for 40hr Famine sleepovers. Some of them are just made with woven flax-type matting. They don't have electricity or running water and they have a lot of problems with fires.


• 4-year-olds driving SUVs (yes, really). I also saw a kid that must have been about 10 years old driving a motorcycle with two passengers.


• Half-dead dogs in the street. There are lots of dogs around and they all look quite pathetic. I really think it'd be kinder to just put them all down before they have anymore puppies.
  
• The rubbish. There is no formal rubbish disposal in Tumbes as far as I can tell (and I think the problem exists throughout Peru). There's a guy who comes around during the week with a cart to collect household rubbish but I don't know what he does with it. As far as I can tell there's no rubbish treatment plant anywhere or and kind of organised landfill. There aren't really rubbish bins in the streets and everyone just drops their rubbish on the ground. As a product of the 'Be a Tidy Kiwi' campaign generation, I have not yet been able to bring myself to drop anything on the ground that's not biodegradable.

Photo: I took this in Chimbote. 'Limpia y Segura' means 'clean and secure'.

THE KINDA WEIRD (I have a feeling this list is going to keep growing at a faster rate than the other two)

• You don't put your loo paper down the toilet, you put it in a little rubbish bin next to the loo. It kinda goes against all my instincts but I think I've got the hang of it now (probably more info than y'all needed but I'm trying to be a thorough journalist)
• None of the streets have names and the shops don't really have signs. If you don't have a guide when you arrive you're kinda screwed as far as finding anything goes.
• I drink beer now
• I also eat seafood...for breakfast (crab omelette yesterday and shrimps and rice today)
• The dancing (yes, I know it was in the 'good' list too): it's always in pairs and you have to wait for a boy to ask you before you're allowed to dance. This isn't usually a problem cos I'm a gringa and have a certain novelty value as a dance partner, but it does annoy me somewhat that if the boys don't feel like dancing much then the girls can't dance. So, the foreign chicks have been gradually forcing their crazy feminist ideals on the local population by unashamedly going ahead and dancing without the blokes. Sometimes the blokes come and cut in when they feel it's getting out of hand.
• There's pretty much no graffiti here other than the government propaganda that covers most of the available wallspace.

CIAO CHIMBOTE

I've left Chimbote and am now in Tumbes (it's on the map right at the top along the coast, on the border with Ecuador).

Here's some photos of my Chimbote family who are absolutely fabulous...

Juan (Papa de Chimbote), Ana (Mama de Chimbote), Johnny (hermano de Chimbote)

Aww...these guys are cute, eh? Xiomara (above) and Bryzet (below) belong to my two Chimbote sisters.

MORE ON FOOD

Having been burned a little in my relationship with Peruvian food I've been hesitant to get too involved too quickly recently. I think, however, I'm ready to tell you all a bit about it.

Here's some food I built up quite a close relationship with...

Photo: Cuy (Guinea Pig) is a delicacy in Peru. I haven't tried it yet but a French girl in our group tried it and said she really liked it. She looked quite guilty when she admitted to it.




WHAT ELSE DO THEY EAT AROUND HERE?


CEVICHE: Raw fish with lemon and onion. You may be surprised to know (having been notoriously anti-seafood for most of my life) that I actually really like this. It's hugely popular in this part of Peru.



TAMAL: This is made of maize and stuff. There's usually an olive or bit of chicken or egg hiding inside, or all three. It's okay, but not my favourite Peruvian dish. I was served it for breakfast which I didn't really feel was appropriate.










POLLO DEL VINO: Hmmm. I'm bringing home the recipe for this one. I'm prepared to try cooking it, that's how good it is.

PLATANOS DE ISLA: Island bananas. Just like normal bananas but pink on the inside. Cool, eh?

JUGO: Juices. Fresh Papaya Juice for breakfast is a fantastic way to start the day. The passionfruit and miembre (no idea what it is in English, it doesn't look familiar - although the lemons don't look familiar either) juices are also good.

CHIFA: This is Chinese Food. But it's not. It's Chinese Food that tastes distinctly Peruvian. I now believe those people that say the Chinese Food we eat in New Zealand doesn't taste like the Chinese Food in China. It certainly doesn't taste the same as Chinese Food in Peru.

PAPAS: There are at least 300 different types of potato in Peru. FYI

CHICHO MORADO: It's a maize drink with sugar. I quite like it. It tastes kinda like cordial but nicer.

PISCO: Peru's answer to whisky. Yes, I tried a wee sip. It was...cleansing. Kinda gets into all the hard-to-reach places.

CHIMBOTE´S FANCY NEW CATHEDRAL AND THE POPE´S MATES

Chimbote´s new cathedral was completed last month and some very important friends of the Pope (can´t remember who they are) have been visiting and there´s been lots of celebration around the cathedral. It was a public holiday last Thursday to celebrate Santa Rosa of Lima (luvvin´the Catholics and all their Saints days) and lots of groups from Chimbote contributed to a huge procession route made up of Las Alfombras de Flores (Rugs of flowers). They were amazing. My host brother was up all night making one for the bank where he works. One of the best pieces of advertising I´ve seen in a long time. The papal procession (priests and priestly hopefuls) then went and trod all over them.





Las Alfombras de Flores (Rugs of Flowers) in the Plaza Mayor in front of Chimbote´s cathedral.



Priests and trainee priests


The rugs are made up of whole flowers and crushed up flowers. I was given a lengthy explanation in Spanish but I didn´t quite catch enough of it to reiterate it.

Apparently the pretty picture of Peru is not entertaining enough in its own right. So here´s my evaluation of the country so far...

CHIMBOTE
I´m in Chimbote until about 15 September for Spanish lessons.
See if you can find it on the map.

LA COMIDA (The Food)

This is a very important topic of conversation in Peru. Everyone wants to know what I like and don´t like and what we eat in New Zealand and how it´s cooked. I don´t have the heart to tell them that my personal cultural cuisine consists mostly of peanut butter sandwiches so I´ve just been making stuff up. I do, however, speak the language of dessert and this is very big in Peru - the sweeter the better, so I´m optimistic that my pavlova will go down well. (Although apparently my host family had a girl from Belgium stay last year and she made a cake that made them all sick the next day - dodgy foreign food, eh!)

I´ve really enjoyed pretty much everything I´ve eaten but it hasn´t been kind to me - I got quite sick over the weekend. Almost half of our group has had stomach trouble. I managed to get a fever too and a visit from the doctor.


EL AMBIENTE (The Environment)

The houses here are constantly under construction. They´re made of brick and people seem to just add another floor when they have the money and the inclination. There are piles of rubble and half-built abandoned houses all over the place, even around the fancier houses. It´s the kind of thing that would cause all sorts of complaints about depreciating house prices if it were New Zealand. The rubbish and half dead dogs also do little to increase the general desireability of the area.

I´m staying in Nuevo Chimbote. It´s an area that was created in the 1970s when they discovered that the ground that Chimbote was built on was not actually terribly safe in earthquakes.

The houses are designed to be cool in the Summer. My house is three stories high and only has external windows at one end of the house. There are two atrium type holes that go through the middle of the house to provide a bit more light, but the house is still dark and you need the lights on during the day.

Photo: The houses here are constantly under construction. People just add another floor when they have the money and the inclination. So far the weather´s always been overcast in the morning and it clears up and is sunny at midday, almost dead-on everyday.

LA GENTE (The People)
Everyone I´ve met has been so friendly and genuinely interested in learning about other cultures. It´s customary to kiss once on the cheek when you greet or farewell someone. This can be time-consuming. I quite like it though. It´s a nice kind of connection. I´m thinking of instigating when I return to NZ. So maybe you guys should start practising now. Guys just shake hands with each other but get to kiss the girls.

There are 12 people from AFS studying Spanish in Chimbote. Most of them are European. Peru seems to be particularly popular with the Belgians. Apart from our Spanish teacher, who is Ukrainian, we seem to be the only gringos (white people) in a city of 600,000 people. There were a bunch of Italian priests and some important cardinal type guy who´s a good mate of the Pope, but they´ve gone now. People constantly stare at us in the streets. So far I´ve just been staring right back cos I reckon they look kinda weird and different too but it´s starting to get a bit tedious.


LA LENGUA (The Language)

Well, it seems my English is getting worse but I don´t think this is a sign that my Spanish is getting better. All the Europeans speak English and I´ve started speaking like they do so I´m starting to sound a little bit ESOL.
I feel like my Spanish is improving but my host mum keeps pointing out to everyone that I really speak very little Spanish.


EL TIEMPO (The Weather)

Probably pretty much the same as New Zealand is right about now, maybe a bit warmer. Everyone keeps saying that Tumbes (the place I´m going to next) is very hot. My Spanish teacher keeps using the word ´insoportable´ (yes, Iain, it is only supposed to have one ´p´ - it´s Spanish).


LA TRANSPORTACION (Transportation)

This is something else we could instigate in New Zealand. The taxis here are like buses. They have colectivos that have little stickers in the windscreen that says where they´re going and you can wave them down anywhere along the street. If a driver has a spare space he drives along honking, with his arm out the window indicating with his fingers how many spare spaces he has. They´re really cheap - about 75c for a 10min trip to the centre of town. There are also motos which are kinda like motorised tuktuks. You can get a taxi (I think they have another name that I can´t remember) too, which will take you right to your door and are safer at night, they´re a bit more expensive but not much.

Photo: The moto is the little blue thing and the white car is a taxi - sure it´s only the size of a hatchback but you can 7 people in one of these things.

They don´t seem to have many traffic lights. They have pedestrian crossings but I think they´re just for decoration, just like most of the other road markings. Everyone drives crazily, no indicating, just randomly pulling out in front of others. They are, however, actually quite courteous drivers and there doesn´t seem to be any road rage. Everyone just kinda drives around each other.