Bienvenidos a Iquitos!

Now we´ve spent our first week here in Iquitos and at La Restinga, and to be honest: It`s freakin´ warm, but we love it!

Iquitos is a larger than expected city in the middle of the Amazonas, where the heath at times is unbearable. According to Wikipedia there live about 371 000 people in Iquitos, but for example in the area of Belen there live "unregistered" families with a number of kids. (Just to mention, we`ve met persons with up to 8 siblings) The people finds us gringos exotic and different, and therefore do not only stare but whistle and yell. Believe us, before we came here we did not know how many different ways one can whistle! However, all the people we`ve gotten to know are friendly, caring and have made us feel welcome.

The transport in Iquitos is mainly motorbikes or motorcars ("motos"), but this does not make the traffic less loud or caotic, frankly the opposite. Iquitos has different districts, but we`ve mostly gotten to know "the central" parts and Belen where we work with La Restinga. (We`re going to write more about La Restinga, Belen and Crea Belen later!). There are no supermarkets as in Lima here, but small shops with groceries such as milk etc., and open markets where they sell the most wonderful fruits. As in many warm countries, a lot of people in Iquitos just "hang around" and do nothing at all. According to Dawn on the Amazon one can estimate that 65% of the inhabitants in Iquitos are without work. There are some tourists here, the majority are Amazon-peekers, but "the hippies" may outnumber them. For there are a lot of what one can qualify as hippies in Iquitos! The nightlife is fantastic as well if one likes move ones hips to the sound of southamerican rythms, and the food and juices - mmmm!

This week we`ve mostly gotten to know La Restinga, the people and how they work. We`ve participated in the activities, helped where we could and tried not to be a burden - which at times is difficult as a white, "nonfluent-spanish-speaking", sweaty norwegian! La Restinga and all the work is truely amazing, and we`re really looking forward to becoming a part of this. This week we also had a lot of preparations to the mothers-workshop on saturday. All the mothers involved in Crea Belen were invited to a workshop that focused on them as women: their senses, their body, their selfimage etc. This was done through games and tasks such as being blindfolded and using your senses, decorating mirrors and writing down goals. Our task was beeing nannies for some of the children with Paulita (a fantastic girl that participates in Crea Belen) so that the mothers could focus on themselves and each other. Afterwards we all had time to just enjoy ourselves with dancing, swiming in the pool, playing football etc.

This was very briefly. We`ll probably write more about everything mentioned when we know Iquitos better.

Abrazos de Maia y Ellen.

Ciao Lima - Hola Iquitos!

 Byebye Lima. Three weeks gone, and we´re ready for la selva!

Peru-Chile and the Inka Kola

Ventanilla

Sick Maia in HSM - sheets

El centro de madres adolescentes - Villa Maria

Boattrip on the pacific ocean

Sitting in a combi - always an exciting experience

Agape project in Huancuan

Liftphoto - a small tradition

The waterpark in Lima the last night.

On the plane, heading towards Iquitos

First ride with a moto - the most common transport in Iquitos

So warm all the time

Cockroaches - our new neighbours

Maia and the Amazon

Centre de madres adolescentes - Villa Maria del Triunfo

Wednesday is fieldtrip-day and we visited another of Strømme's projects here in Lima. This time a home for teenage mothers in Villa Maria del Triunfo, one of the poorer districts.

The center

In Peru, there is a major problem with teenage pregnancies. Lack of sexual-education in schools and the fact that this issue is taboo, plays a big part. Although this is a problem in the whole of Peru, it only exists three other centers like the one in Villa Maria.

The ten girls living at the center in Villa Maria, are between 13 and 18. They have been placed there because their family couldn't or wouldn't take care of them when they became pregnant. One of the girls had been raped by her stepfather and her mother didn't want to throw him out, so then she found a home at the center. The feelings that arrise after something like that happens, are not easy to handle. So the girls recieve psychological help, so they over time can be able to deal with their situation.

The center also has its own kindergarten

In addition this, the girls also have a baby to take care of. On the weekdays the children are in day-care, while their mothers recieve education and training in sewing and making clothes, or cosmetics. The girls also have an opportunity to finish school at the center, as the school won't let pregnant girls attend. The length of the stay varies, from months to over a year. The center works to get the girls reunited with their families or with other alternatives.

Karen and one of the babies

The girls we met were so friendly and happy! Although their situation might be a consequence of abuse, they take so good care of their babies. They are amazing!

Here are some photos from the rest of our week

Ellen and Lars are making taco at Karen and Marit's house

Sunset in Barranco

Boattrip outside "La Punta"

"Las dos caras de Lima"

"Las dos caras de Lima" is translated to "The two sides of Lima". Lima houses more than 9 million people in as much as 43 different districts, which makes it South Americas fifth largest city. As mentioned in a earlier post, we early noticed that Lima has a significantly large difference between its districts. As only a tourist visiting the city for a few days, one most likely only sees the small differences such as quiet streets with big cars (ex. Lince), compared to more crowded and busy streets (ex. Surquillo). Differences such as these are found in all cities, but if you get on one of the buses going to the districts furthest out, you can easily see why Lima is called "the city with two faces".

As we are not normal tourists in Lima, we have traveled to some of the more distant districts with Stromme Foundation to see some of the projects they work with. We went to the Ventanilla district in the north and Vía Maria in the south, and we had to drive quite a while to get to both of them. When driving from the city center you see mostly streets with nice brickhouses with locks in front of the windows and guards in front, or apartmentbuildings also with guards. Here you also find large shoppingcenters with KFC, McDonalds, Pizzahut etc. and the cars are not bought used. Magdalena del Mar (where we live), San Isidro, Miraflores are examples of these districts. When driving further out from the center, you see smaller shops, more sand along the streets, the "motorbikes" arrive and the houses become "less equiped". Callao can be an example of such a district.

One can say that the districts differs step by step. The last step is when you no longer see houses, streets or cars. Instead you see huts made out of woodplates and tinplates, sand sand and more sand, only buses, taxis, "motorbikes" and of course the dogs appear. Stray dogs are found all over Lima, but considerably more in the poorer districts. It is also a great deal more insecure in these districts, at least for us foreign looking (white) people.

These are "las dos caras de Lima" - the huge differences between rich and poor which are mirrored in the districts difference in housing and living. Lima has grown considerably the last years, and this has become a consequence. What`s beeing done, or if something`s beeing done, to improve some districts conditions we do not yet know. Considering the fact that hundreds of thousand live in insecure houses built on sandhills when Peru is volunarable for earthquakes, we both hope that there are some plans and that motherearth is in a good mood....

"Tierra de niños" - Ventanilla

In short, this week has been about learning language. Our Spanish-course takes place at ESAN University and is a course over three weeks. So much to learn and so little time!

Ellen at ESAN

But we have also visited one of Strømme Foundations projects outside of Lima, in Ventenilla. The drive took a little over an hour, but we found ourselves in another world. Strømme supports Tierra de Niños (Children of the Earth) and their projects concerning children and health issues. We visited a kindergarden with so many adorable children! :):) These children learn about anger management and socializing with other kids, through different activ

ities. The parents should be teaching the kids these things, but are usually busy working.

The children made awesome pasta-necklaces for us.

The people from Tierra de Niños also brought us to a family involved in a health project. Women from the area come together and learn about organizing the home in a sanitary and good way. For example concerning clean water, but also how to raise children and the importance of not using violence.

The kindergarden in Ventenilla, full of colors!

The trip to Ventenilla gave us all a reminder of what we are going to do here in Peru, and now we are very excited to get to know La Restinga!

Besides school and field-trips, we have had some sparetime ;) Tuesday Peru met Chile in a very important footballmatch and of course we had to see it! It was shown on a big screen in the center of Lima and thousands of Peruans was there with us. Peru lost, but it was a very exciting game!

Tourists in Lima

Watched a footballmatch with Peru-Chile with Lars and Simen. "God steming!" 

Lars made a hilarious movie of tapes from the game. Watch and enjoy! http://simensays.tumblr.com/post/11442685802

Our first date with Lima.

When arriving in Lima, it at once struck us as a huge and chaotic city with way to many people and cars. This first impression proved to be right. Lima houses more than 9 million people, spread across numerous districts, and it seems that most families have more than one car judging from the traffic. When driving from one place to another, maybe only a couple of kilometers away, you should have at least one hour free because of all the trafficlights, trafficjams and people randomly walking across the road. This of course causes A LOT of "honking" and policiesirens, that together with the traffic and barking dogs makes Lima a loud city as well. And it never sleeps!
 The buses are also quite interesting. They come in all sizes, are always full, you never have to wait more than two second for a new one to come and all have a screaming conductors. They are "un poco loco".

We live in the district Magdalena del Mar with the Aviles, the very nice family of the president of "Tierra de niños", one of the projects Strømme supports. We live in an apartment on the top of a buling, the 17th floor, and the view is fantastic. Our first day we went to the SF office in Lima, where we met all the staff and had a very good briefing. The second day went to ESAN, the univeristy where we`ll have our spanishcourse, and afterwards just hung around in Miraflores which is one of the nice districts close to the seaside. This night Peru also won a fotballmatch against Paraguay, and "había mucha marcha"!

This weekend the Aviles took us first along to the birthdaydinner of a brother. Here everyone spoke "spanish on speed" so things went a little over our heads, but we had a nice time. Although very tired in the end. However, the sunday became interesting when we were invited to a first comunion. In Peru the majority of the inhabitants are catholic, and the first comunion is a big thing judging from what we saw. First there was a long ceremony in church, where we stood up and sat down whenever everyone else did, and believe us - that was a lot of times! Afterwards we went to the home of the aunts and uncle of the girl who had her first comunion with  the many aunts of Patricia Aviles. Here we got to see the peruan hospitality live, cause we never sat without anything in our hands and constantly laughed with all of these cheerful women. A really nice day from within a peruan family.

Other things we`ve noticed which we`ll write more about:
- They eat chicken all the time!
- The difference between the districts in Lima when it comes to poverty are huge.
- The people are extremely different in looks, and we clearly see that they descent from different groups such as indigenous, spanish, arabic etc.
- Maia ate the heart of a cow without knowing it, and they eat guinea-pigs here. (That was only funfacts!)
- Lima is very "americanized" (or "snik-amerikanisering" as norwegians would say)

Nos vemos,
Maia y Ellen.