MAKING A DIFFERENCE
In my hotel room here in Lima I am finally finding the time and the place to write a few pages for a new blogpost after after a few intense days. The farewell from Olmos was beautiful, even though a few tears were shed by the children of our host family with whom we made friends and whom we showed how to ride a bicycle in the last couple of weeks. Now it was time to leave, but unfortunately not for the direction I originally had planned – but we’ll get to this later.
For many reasons, the stay at the Peruvian-German School in Olmos was another special station of my journey through South America and very different to the time and stops that I had before.
This didn’t have too much to do with with the quarantine that was imposed on the country 3 days after the arrival at the school thanks to the Corona virus -classes already had been suspended 2 days before, a day later the curfew started.
The first 2 days we spent here was a weekend, and we spent them discovering the town of Olmos, and soon found out that there was little to be discovered. No activities, no special shops, no go-to-places or bars to really go out. Everything was dusty und the sun was roasting the majority of the day, even with clouds covering the skies. The highlight was our hike up to the top of a hill right besides the town with a great view over the valley. However, the place was certeinly not designed for people hiking up there and enjoying the view, as we were surrounded by antennas and communication facilities. Olmos is the kind of town you wouldn’t come through if you hadn’t to do something here.
As the time in Ecuador came to an end, Barbara decided to join on this next step of my journey, so we got to spend the time and support the project here together. We stayed at the school grounds where we lived and worked with the people that founded and maintained the project. Even though there were no classes there was enough work left to be done. Luckily the school grounds were quite large, so we at least could walk around outside, exercise on the roof of the school building or play with the 2 dogs in the garden. As Olmos hardly offered anything as a town except for a supermarket and a few shops where they sold really good red wine, the curfew and the restriction of movement didn’t really affect us – we couldn’t have been doing anything here anyway and we could still do our shopping to help keep the spirit up. Later it became prohibited to sell liquor, but the neighbours would still sell us a few bottles of beer – one of the upsides of being in a small town.
Back: Juan, Edwin, Narciso, myself, Barbara; Front: Martín, Betsy, Hanna, Rosa & José Martín, Mayory
The group of people that were living here and we worked with were a community with a quite religious lifestyle (Narciso, the founder and headmaster of the school, also is a protestant priest): table prayers before every meal, the reading of bible stories on sundays and holidays and a generally strong belief and deep trust in God could be experienced in almost every conversation. Faith and religion is an important factor here in Peru, and as far as I have seen people here are a bit more conservative than in Ecuador or Colombia. For me it was interesting to witness: the table prayers reminded me of having lunch at my grandma’s house as a child, so it had a bit of a nostalgic feeling to it. As for the masses held or the overall presence of God and him being the only cause and explanation for everything – let’s just say I have other things I believe in and look at the topic differently. Still, we took part in all these moments as we wanted to respect the place and the people here that treated us well and were really nice. Reflecting on all this now from afar, I can say that we all live by similar values – some break them down to a thing they call God, others might call it Karma or positive energy or whatever – and could easily find a common ground. If someone else is responsible for all your actions and the things that happen in your life will be left disputable.
Life in general was simple there and felt a bit like on the countryside: food was basic, we had a lot of rice, sometimes there was a bit of chicken or pork in the mix, along with potatoes and maybe some tomatoes and onions if there were any. The days followed a similar routine: breakfast at 8/8.30am, then the first block of work until lunch at 1/1.30pm, followed by a siesta. At about 3pm work would continue till 5 or 6pm, dinner was served at 7ish. Depending on the sun and the heat hours could differ a little: the sun here in Peru is unbelievably intense and your skin burns in a really short time. It could happen that we would suspend work at 11 because it was just too hot to work outside without shade.
The school itself was a project of it’s founder Narciso, a protestant priest from this region, who started off some 13 years ago. For 8 years the school is now open, having classes from the 1st to 11th year. Already 200 alumis left so far. The building itself is still or always under construction: on the one hand it’s because there is a consistent lack of money and fundings in this very poor region of Peru and there is no government support, on the other hand Narciso is full of ideas how to expand the types of courses and classes offered. Therefor, a computer room, 2 workshops for wood and metal as well as a large garden with barns to plant fruit and vegetables and to domesticate animals like chicken and pigs are still under construction. One day the place shall become a fully equipped polytechnic school. During my time there I was contacted by a businessman in my network looking for an opportunity to donate and make a difference: thanks to him, the school is now able to buy it’s first 4 microscopes the teachers can now use to show the smallest details of things that surround us to the children. Especially in a very poor region like Olmos / Lambayeque, education often is the only chance children have – that is also one of Narciso’s great beliefs and the reason why he started the school initially.
“Gracias a dios” before dinner
Until the place is finished there is still a lot of work to do, and that’s exactly where we came in. During our time there we tackled all the work we were given together with Juan and Edwin, 2 teachers living on the ground and helping along for the time there were no classes. The first week we cleared and cleaned the garden from bushes, piles of wood and trunks, plastic waste and everything else in the way to make every corner accessible. This was quite tough, the stings of wasps received not included. A treat were definitely the delicious mangos growing there – the taste was so different and intense, it was unreal!
In week 2 we painted the entire upper floor and the downstairs kitchen the staff house. Here, apart from the family that was looking after the place, teachers can be given accommodation for their time teaching here. Once that as done, we took care of the metal roof that was covering the inner school yard. The roof and it’s framework had to go as the yard should be transformed into another garden, where all classes will be planting and taking care of their own little section and therefor need sunlight.
For the last week it was back to gardening work, as a lot of soil had to be moved in order to form a rampart encircling the area where later vegetables will be planted. The wall helps to keep the water in the field after being flooded. In between all that I managed to squeeze in my time for a bit of exercises and I could start taking the video game to the next level. I’m pretty happy with the results so far I must admit!
What made the work here and it’s purpose so special was, that everything we did was having a direct impact on the possibilities the children will have studying here. Unfortunately we couldn’t see the school up and running with classes and pupils due to the Covid-19 crisis, but still it feels very good being able to make a difference for them. The donation of the fundings for the microscopes will be making a difference to their science classes. And maybe me telling you all this might make a difference as there might be further volunteers or donors in the future.
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So far I was perfectly on time in my schedule, I would have spent 4 weeks here with or without the lockdown. But now, at the point where you normally would move on I couldn’t, and it’s absolutely impossible to say for how long the situation will remain like this. The worldwide Covid-19 situation makes a continuation of the journey impossible as all the countries in South America are on lockdown and all borders and airports are closed. The only options I had left were: stay at the school for an undisclosed time, without knowing if and how travelling on after a lockdown will be possible like nothing happened – I doubt it. Especially when you take a possible worsening of the economic situation of the people into account, this can get nasty. Here, economic problems mean that you might have nothing to eat the next day.
Until now I didn’t have problems being a western-like looking foreigner here in South America, but a few times it happened already that families were running away into their houses and locking the doors behind them when we walked along the street. It was funny but at the same time a strange feeling. These risks you have to take into account as well.
The other option was to register for repatriation – an idea I didn’t like at all at the beginning. I just left, why come back now? Why not temporize everything here? Coming home would be a disaster and feel like a massive defeat for me. However, now is not the time to be selfish – and maybe it’s better to be close to your family these days and be there in case they need you. If they need you and you can’t get there because you’re locked down on another continent you’d be probably going up the walls. I took some time to look a the developments and finally registered to the programme, so I’ll be out of here when you read this text.
However, this isn’t the end of my journey: as soon as it’s possible to come back here I’ll be on a plane to South America again, it’s just a pause to do what is the right thing to do. As of yet I don’t know when I can head back again, but it’s pretty likely that I’ll pick it up in Olmos again to help on the project a little more and then continue my original route. It has been great so far and I can’t wait to continue – a return to my old life will certainly not happen just because of this situation.
Thanks for the opportunity to help Olmos! As for the time in Europe bypassing the crisis, I’m already working on a few ideas on what to do while I’m back...