Last week, I met with a recent architecture grad who has a passion for urban planning. He spoke of how Huancayo has been haphazardly put together because the developers, who have the money, always win out over the planners.
Huancayo is a cramped city, but living close to each other encourages us to socialize.Dr. Joan Meyers-Levy of the University of Minnesota published a 2007 study in the Journal of Consumer Research on the effects of ceiling height. She found that high ceilings promote freer and more abstract thinking while people in a room with lower ceilings tend to focus on the specifics.
My architect friend suspects that a similar phenomenon happens with cities that feel large and spacious versus smaller, cramped cities like Huancayo. On the positive side, the narrow Huancayo streets encourage residents to be more sociable. Two other elements encourage community interaction:
There are two centrally situated plazas, pleasantly designed with pockets of green and fountains, where people often meet, relax and chat. They hold a flag-raising ceremony and parade every Sunday morning at the main plaza.
One of the principal streets is closed to traffic every Sunday for a 16-block fair with vendors coming in to the city from all the surrounding towns.
What does your environment bring out of its residents and how?
P.S. I’m heading to Ecuador for a 2-week trip to renew my visa. I promise to respond to comments and hit up your blogs when I get back! =)
I was raised in Vancouver, Canada…where the riots happened on June 15th, 2011 after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final. I want to follow up with: “…but my city isn’t really like that.” And it isn’t.
So what happened?
They’re calling it the “Vancouver effect”: out of 200 sports riots, we’re the only city that riots after losing a game rather than winning it.
The result was this:
Over this past month, we’ve seen similar violent disturbances erupt in Huancayo between students from the local university and the police. The students from the Universidad Nacional del Centro del Perú (UNCP; The National University of Central Peru) organized marches and locked down the university to expose the corruption within different faculties and particularly of the Head Dean, Carlos Adauto Justo.
When I spent the last week in extreme pain from stomach cramps and a potential infection, people back home asked me: “When is it enough? Huancayo isn’t cut out for you.” There was the implication that I should move back to Canada.
They think that my severe stomach cramps last week are from parasites. I'm still waiting for the results.Here’s the medical history of my time in Huancayo since 2008:
A biopsy to diagnose a chronic rash on my forehead caused by the burning heat of the sun at this altitude.
Recurring bacterial infections, strep throat and a yellow tongue.
Allergic reaction to antibiotics.
The myriad of negative side effects from different medications.
Tummy troubles from the change in food quality.
Parasites.
It’s difficult for my body to adjust to a new environment. In fact, there’s no promise that my body will ever adjust. Doctors take a trial-and-error approach to treating me because they don’t know what medications may be too strong for my body.
My good blogging friend and favorite shrink, Hajra Khatoon, helped me brainstorm through the predicament with the following questions:
Will you move because of your health – is it that bad that you need to move?
Do you enjoy living there?
Do you enjoy the career you are pursuing right now?
Are you happier here or will be happier back home or anywhere else?
Are you enjoying the experience the stay is offering you — personally, professionally, emotionally?
I'm more likely to get sick from street food in Peru.It’s easier to be happy when you’re feeling healthy, but happiness can also predict health. At the very least, the simpler and relaxing lifestyle I sought and found here in Huancayo helps me manage the pain by making it all worthwhile. Happiness may decrease my chances of getting worse illnesses and may decrease the time I feel under the weather when I do end up getting sick.
Despite the struggles, I’m not ready to go back to Canada.
What’s more important to you — health or happiness?
Many people start their day in Huancayo by picking up something to eat on the street, such as a tamal or bread with fresh cheese and a quinoa drink, and then stopping at the local newsstand to read the headlines.
In Huancayo, reading the headlines at newspaper stands is a typical activity.My vocabulary has expanded from reading Huancayo newspapers. Sports and politics are popular topics; unfortunately, the most common and notable words I’ve learned are: ahorcarse (to hang oneself), violar (to rape) and pepera (women who seduce and drug men at parties, clubs or bars to rob them). It’s true that death and domestic abuse are common here, but it makes me wonder about the media’s influence on what occupies Huancaíno thoughts and on the general mood in Huancayo. Have Huancaínos become desensitized, more afraid or grateful for the life they have?
The major headlines of my life right now are:
“Strep Throat Hits Twice.”
“Playing Catch-Up Daily But Finding Balance.”
“Huancayo Celebrations and Me.”
“Fulfillment from Growing Friendships with People all Over the World.”
These are the headlines in Huancayo. What are the headlines in your life?These headlines are the thoughts that automatically come to me when I highlight what’s been happening in my life. It’s a form of self-talk that, as Janet Callaway describes, can powerfully program your subconscious mind to help or hinder you. Your self-talk reinforces your way of thinking whether you are empowering yourself with optimism and positivity, or putting yourself down.
What are the major headlines of your life right now? Are they empowering you or holding you back from positive change and growth?
“Ahora sé que el tiempo es la única manera que tenemos para comprar nuestros sueños.” — Lucho Quequezana (link in Spanish) [I now know that time is the only means we have to buy our dreams.]
Lucho Quequezana's life changed when he was first introduced to the Peruvian panpipes in Huancayo.Lucho Quequezana’s life changed when he moved from Lima to Huancayo at 11 years of age and found that his new schoolmates didn’t play soccer in their spare time; they played the Peruvian pan pipes instead. As he too learned to play the pan pipes, he slowly fell in love with his country and its music. Lucho would eventually travel all over Peru to immerse himself in regional music and master various Peruvian instruments from the charango (a small lute originating from the newly conquered Spanish Peru) to the quena (a traditional Andean flute).
Lucho’s parents forced him to bury his dream of becoming a musician, so he filled his life with his studies instead. In Lima, he studied Communications and ended up teaching at one of the best universities in the country, the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. It was a comfortable life, but his love for creating traditional Peruvian music continued simmering in his heart, seeking a revival.
Lucho Quequezana united musicians from different cultures to create Peruvian fusion music that they now share around the world.It was a day like any other that Lucho decided to dedicate his life to his passion. The first step was winning the UNESCO Aschberg Bursary for Artists to organize a musical project in Montreal, Canada. Though he lacked the language, Lucho was still able to somehow express his big heart and his big dream to share and teach Peruvian music to musicians around the world, fusing cultures, sounds and rhythms. He eventually united artists from Turkey, Canada, Venezuela, Vietnam, China and Colombia to form the group, Sonidos Vivos (Living Sounds). Their first concert in Canada was a sold-out event and lauded as the best performance and best project of cultural fusion in the history of the UNESCO. Sonidos Vivos has since toured worldwide, acclaimed by music critics and winning not only awards, but also the hearts of people all over the planet, people who are now eager to play Peruvian instruments and hear more Peruvian tunes.
Lucho continues to tour with Sonidos Vivos and teach Peruvian music internationally. He has shared extracts of his compositions with Cirque du Soleil and has also produced a documentary of his group’s story and journey. Meet the multicultural members of the band and get a taste of Peruvian fusion music in this short promo clip of Sonidos Vivos’ world tour last year:
When and how have you valued time over money? How has music played a role in your life?
Elio Osejo and Sarah Ellen Roberts had us thinking about labels that others impose on us, but what about the labels we have for ourselves?
I usually visit the local bakery in the morning to buy non-fresh bread (because they don’t make bread until the afternoons – what’s up with that?)
My favorite bakery provides a wide variety of breads.Some mornings, my favorite bakery has no bread at all. Heading over to a local family-owned corner shop, I ask if they have bread.
“Chino o francés?” the plump store lady asks me. Chinese or French?
“Oh, I’m Chinese,” I say.
She was talking about the type of bread I wanted.
Besides feeling ashamed that I was so full of myself, the incident had me thinking about our instant reactions to labels and how we identify ourselves.
What are some labels you may unconsciously and automatically identify with? Are you hearing only what you want to hear? Are these labels hindering your growth or empowering you?
According to Catholic tradition, the devotion of the “Via Crucis” or “The Way of the Cross” honors the last few hours of Jesus’ death. It consists of a spiritual pilgrimage, acknowledging 14 stations or shrines that depict distinct events beginning from Jesus’ death sentence to his crucifixion and burial. The phrase “via crucis” or “way of the cross” is also used to symbolize all the obstacles we need to overcome when we try to achieve a certain goal.
The fifth Via Crucis station commemorates when Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry the cross.Along with thousands of other Peruvians across the country on Good Friday, we did Huancayo’s version of the Via Crucis. In Huancayo, the 14 stations are set up on a winding path around a hill with a giant metal cross adorning its peak.
Other than the typical route where you pray and leave a rock at each shrine along the way, there are two other ways up the hill. You can ride a taxi up the winding path, speeding by each of the shrines, or hike directly up the hill, bypassing all of the stations. The latter is the fastest route up, but it’s also the more torturous path because of the steep incline of the hike. As an afterthought, it could be an experiential way to signify Jesus’ suffering during the Passion.
Most people took the direct shortcut up the Via Crucis hill.Joining the majority, we tightened our shoelaces to huff and puff our way up the hill via the direct shortcut.
In undertaking this mini pilgrimage today, I realized that living in Peru has become somewhat of a pilgrimage for me in the sense that I was drawn to a place that was meaningful to me and the journey has been transformational, endowing me with insights and understanding. Although I haven’t taken the typical route and I sometimes feel like I’ve chosen the tougher passage, I have also discovered more and more people along this path who have motivated me and helped remind me of the value of my choices. In the blogging world, I would especially like to thank Janet Callaway, Sherry Zander, Rowena Bolo, Karen Swaffield and Diana Simon.
They say that when you return home from a pilgrimage, nothing is ever the same again.
In early October, I posted about the widely publicized and public demolition of Rústica, a Limeño restaurant/club that was on the verge of opening for the first time in Huancayo as a section of the sole mall in the city. The political drama surrounding the incident was more intricate and complex than I originally thought.
After the demolition a couple months ago, Rústica is now as good as new.Update: Rústica is now fully-functioning and a popular hang out spot for those who have a little extra money to spend. The ground-level is a karaoke bar and club while the second floor is a scrumptious restaurant (my favourite dish is the pizza).
It turns out that the person responsible for the October demolition was Jorge Rodríguez, a provisional mayor who was probably taking advantage of the limited amount of time he would be in power. People agree that the mayor before him, Freddy Arana, was generally a good mayor. He just had some big people in government who weren’t on his side.
This is what Rústica looks like from inside of the mall.When Arana was usurped, Rodríguez was appointed in his place but knew that he would only be in the position for a few months because the national mayoral elections were coming up. When the Rústica opportunity arose, he jumped at the chance to make a name for himself. He called the national press and rallied his men to demolish instead of giving Rústica time to respond to the government’s demands regarding the licenses they needed. It became obvious that it was a set-up when all of the press left after Rodríguez felt he had achieved his goal; the journalists didn’t even stick around to hear Rústica’s side of the story. They were probably being paid to be there. Only one set of journalists stayed – an old man and his son who were taping for a local channel.
For months, there has been a lot of excitement over a new restaurant/club that would be opening at the end of September – it’s part of a chain from Lima called Rústica. The construction of the 2-storey building attached to Huancayo’s only mall had been going strong for around three months and faced a main street (Giraldez); people would peek through the cracks around the huge Rústica banners and imagine the yummy food they would have, the live bands they would see, the pizzazz, the action.
During the last week of September, people were handing out Rústica brochures on Giraldez Street inviting everyone to its inauguration on the 30th of September. The blessed day came, I headed over to the restaurant after work in the evening to take part in the festivities, and… there was nothing going on. Everything was as it was before, as if construction hadn’t finished yet, but this time there was a wall of police officers standing at the entrance with their human-tall shields they usually use for strikes and riots.
We heard in the news the next day that Rústica failed to obtain a government license to sell food and liquor on the premises. The inauguration date was postponed until October 7th. We waited patiently.
It’s the morning of October 7th. On the way to work, there’s a commotion at the Rústica site. Police officers are once again in the area, this time actively keeping the public at bay, forcing everyone to cross the street away from the action. Government officials enter Rústica and out comes a single lady, the sole representative available at 9:00am in the morning. They want to demolish the building, but why? Maybe they weren’t able to obtain a license to sell on time? Maybe the government was never planning to grant Rústica this license? We overhear part of the conversation – they needed another license for building on top of the sole wheelchair path to the mall?
The lady yells in desperation: “Esperen! Esperen!” (Wait!) She asks them to wait for her boss to arrive, but the front end loader is already advancing. The truck is already breaking the frame of the front entrance. Other government construction workers throw bricks at sections of glass where the truck isn’t able to enter. There’s more kerfuffle – a guy is pissed that the police officer is shoving him to get out of the way so he drops his bag to start a fight, a lady says that her things are inside the construction (now demolition) site and she wants entry but the officer continues to push her aside like the others.
Here in Huancayo, the people come together. Every Sunday morning, for example, there is always a huge gathering of the public at the central plaza for the izamiento (the patriotic raising of the flags – the national flag of Peru, the flag of Huancayo, and the flag of the representative institution of the week). Each flag is held in preparation by three different groups of people. It is beautiful to see these groups coming together in their respective uniforms – the national police, municipal government officials, and elementary/secondary school students. The event is always followed by the march of the national police accompanied by the army (who has their own band) and usually another parade by students.
A good discussion starts with people who have tons of ideas.It was like this – a coming-together – when we hosted a two-day workshop for infant specialists in and around Huancayo. Our goal was to bring together a varied group of “specialists” to brainstorm, share, and discuss ideas for a pilot program we intend to develop and implement with the sixty infants whose development we have already assessed in months earlier. Imagine a university professor, project supervisors of NGOs and regional government programs for children and families, their field workers, nurses, daycare teachers, and mothers (one a librarian and the other a market vendor) putting their heads together to identify key issues and come up with potential solutions.
It was, in fact, one of the primary themes that emerged from the workshop – the call for interdisciplinary teamwork. There was already a lot of good work going on and many pre-existing programs set up by different institutions for different needs, but the lack of unity between these institutions meant that a lot of babies-at-risk were lost in the transitional phases and there was often a complete absence of support for infants during their key years of development (from 0-3 years of age). Better interdisciplinary action also meant that mothers needed to be trusted and encouraged to be more involved. We witnessed an interesting dynamic enfold during the workshop as it became clear that the professor was dominating group discussions and often used academic or theoretical speak whereas we were looking for practicality and utility. The mothers later divulged that they felt out of place and uncomfortable asking questions or sharing their opinion.
We had our workshop moderator take more control over the professor’s comments while publicly encouraging the mothers to speak up. We were missing out on so much – the mothers had so much share. There were grave concerns regarding prenatal care; many mothers were preoccupied that they had irreversibly damaged their children’s development solely because they had fought with their husbands or had been crying too much during the months of pregnancy. The mothers also admitted that they continued with their traditional customs. For example, though medical professionals recommend against the customary practice, farming mothers in the sierra (living in the central Andes mountain range) still typically enfold their newborn babies tightly in layers of cloth so that they are immobile. The babies are enrolled this way daily in a certain position – upright with arms down and fingers splayed – before the mothers head out to the fields so that no damage is done from all the movement incurred while the mothers engage in physical labour, carrying their babies on their backs. This method also protects the infants from the harsh cold of the elevation and it is said that these babies also grow up physically stronger.
As we wrapped up the workshop, the participants came to the joint conclusion that there was a need to go back to the basics, to rediscover the value of the Peruvian and Huancaino culture. Just as we brought together people of various backgrounds, levels of education, and life experience for the purpose of the workshop, so too we realized that we needed to mesh the different types of knowledge uncovered – the known and the foreign, the theories and the practicalities, the science and the beliefs, the modern and the traditional. It seems that growth and positive change can occur when there is dialogue and humility.
