water wars

Things have been pretty stirred up here in our neck of Chimbote these past few days.  Apparently, something broke, or something had to be turned off, or something, and what we know for sure is that this whole corner of the city has been without water for five whole days with no certainty of when it’s coming back.

In our part of town, the city water usually comes twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, for an hour or two at a time.  During that time period, most households fill up large tanks, some on the ground and some on top of the roof, for daily usage.  Once in awhile, the water doesn’t show up, so most people have enough capacity to last a day or two on what they have, but not much longer.  Sometimes a specific house or street will go several days without water, but in that case neighbors are quick to share.  In this case, we’re going on six days of no water to an area of perhaps 3-5,000 households (or maybe more), with no forewarning that people should conserve as much as possible. 

We didn’t even notice until day 3 when one of our neighbors commented on it.  We, unlike most households, have a small well in our backyard that fills automatically when the city water comes.  Then we pump it to a tank on our roof, and thus get running water.  So we started conserving – minimal showering, saving sink water to flush the toilet, etc. – and we still haven’t run out completely.

Saturday night, just about the time when everybody had finally run out of water, I walked out of theater practice and saw a huge line up of people with their buckets lined up on the curb.  Several blocks away, a huge water truck was making its way toward us.  It seemed like a good solution, so I went home unconcerned.  A little while later I went with a neighbor family to take buckets to be filled by the same truck.  What I saw when I got there was complete chaos – the hose on the back of the water truck open, with nobody designated to control it, and ten to twenty people pushing and shoving with their buckets to get filled up.  People were yelling, water was being spilled, the truck driver tried to do his best by advancing when it seemed to get too crazy and going to a spot in the line that was more orderly.  But then people would just bombard the water hose all over again, pushing and yelling to get their share. 

My 15-year-old neighbor said to me, “And these people claim to be Christians.” 

I told him, “In the moment of desperation, we forget what it means to be Christian.”  But I don’t know who’s to blame.

Suddenly, with the water hose still open, the truck driver just took off, leaving water spilling out and lots of people with empty buckets behind him.  I suppose he finally just got fed up.  I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.

Since that night, the situation seems to have calmed down a bit.  Other water trucks have been coming to fill buckets, and people have realized that there is enough to go around.  But we still wait anxiously, because when conserving water, sanitation tends to go down, everyone seems a little more stressed out, clothes don’t get washed, plants don’t get watered, etc., etc.  It’s okay, though.  Our lives aren’t being threatened, and hey, millions of people around the world live in worse conditions every day, so I can push my water conservation to the limit for a few days. 

It does make one pause and think, though.  The poverty in Chimbote is not a desperate poverty, but where there is a denial of a basic right, there is undignified living.  So we will continue to fight, so that Jesus may be dignified in every man, woman, and child in Chimbote, in Peru, and around the world.

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Two days after I wrote the original post, today, I am finally posting it, and I am happy to say that the water is back!  Yesterday´s newspaper headline on the front page was ¿Until When? with a huge photo of people waiting with their buckets.  Finally lots of pressure got them to hurry up and fix whatever was broken!

a bit of economics

 My desire to volunteer abroad has always been rooted in a strong belief in a preferential option for the poor. That can mean many things and can be explained in many ways, but for Catholics it comes from our most fundamental call to serve God. While he was alive, Jesus told his disciples very plainly that when they acted concretely with love for the poorest members of their community they were serving him. It all seems a bit abstract, which is the point. I continually fail to grasp this concept, except when I actually live it out. That’s when it becomes so clear.

 

I want to share a story with you with as many details as possible, not to try to stun anybody or make your feel guilty, but just to paint as good of picture as I can of what it’s like. Yesterday I went with two social workers who work for LENTCH, a program for children who are or have been working on the streets (selling stuff, singing or dancing, etc.), to visit some homes of the children. (Side note: I think this is going to be one of my regular activities in addition to the parish work). We paid four soles (Peruvian currency, pronounced SOUL-ace, more to come about that below) to travel up to Villa Leslie, a recently “developed” area of the city, with sand streets, no electricity yet, and limited water access. One of the homes we visited was that of a mother and probably five or six of her ten children, at least three of whom are grown women with children of their own, all living in the same structure. I say “structure” so as not to give you an image of a typical house in the U.S. The walls are made of a woven reed-like material, and two rooms had roofs of the same material. I only saw into one of the two rooms, which had an old, small twin bed with a thin, dirty mattress. The rest was a large open area, serving as the family room, play room, and chicken coop. The turkeys and chickens roam freely among the children, with the rabbits in a hutch against one wall. The mother tells us that the large turkey will bring 200 soles when she sells it. I remember just a few days ago when we were dismayed by the high price of turkey for Thanksgiving.

 

On the positive side, this family had been selected by LENTCH to receive a prefabricated wooden house, and we were there to deliver to news that it will be delivered next week. While the social workers were explaining this to the mother, one of the children came in from behind the house and told us that the neighbor girl (also part of our program) had been bit on the leg by a dog. When she finally came in we saw the gash, not huge but definitely cause to worry. Long story short, I ended up cleaning it, with a bit of water (generally not clean), soap, and a T-shirt rag. As I wiped the wound as rigorously as I had the heart to, Lourdes remained expressionless. I knelt there in the sand, trying to block her leg from the wind, wiping the blood, thinking there was no way I could get all the dirt out of her wound, hoping the dog didn’t have any diseases, wondering what was the likelihood that her mother would take her to the hospital, picturing the large bottle of peroxide and tube of Neosporin sitting unused in my own home, balancing the soap on my leg so as not to drop it in the sand as well. When we contemplate the crucifixion of Jesus, we wonder, what would I have done if I had been there? Surely I would have done something to help, we think. What a shame that I wasn’t there to wipe Jesus’ tears. I tell you, Jesus is crucified every moment of every day. That’s why we have a “preferential option for the poor,” but we only generalize with a title like that to make it more accessible. We really have a preferential option to wipe the blood from Lourdes’ leg.

 

So I didn’t begin this blog entry intending to go into all that… but sometimes it’s best to let flow whatever seems to be coming! Part of a preferential option for the poor is the attempt to walk in solidarity with communities living in poverty. We could talk about the philosophy of solidarity for hours, but I merely want to highlight part of it from a very practical point of view!

 

Most families here make small amounts of money each day, so most things can be bought in tiny quantities. We try to purchase our food daily in small quantities to practice this type of living as well. To give you an idea of money here, we (my community) came up with the following list. The Peruvian currency is called the Nuevo Sol. The exchange rate right now is 2.77 soles to one dollar, so one sol is about $0.36. Seems like very little, but (thank goodness) a little sol can go a long way!

 

Things you can buy for 1 nuevo sol

• 10 medium-sized tomatoes (1 kilo)
• ¼ kilo of oatmeal (about 4 cups)
• ¾ kilo of rice (about 5 cups)
• 1 kabob of anticuchos (beef heart, fire-grilled to order)
• 10 individually-wrapped Halls
• 9 pieces of bread (freshly baked twice daily)
• 5 eggs (gathered from the chickens on the roof)
• 8 mini bananas
• 1 order of French fries from the street vendors (cup of oil included, haha)
• 1 avocado
• 2 trips to a public restroom (if you want toilet paper)
• 1 one-way trip downtown in a colectivo (a car with a set route that picks up passengers all along the way)
• 1 one-way trip to the church in a moto taxi
• 2 oz. of raw fish for ceviche (Chimbote’s most famous dish, look it up)
• 1 hair clip
• 1 glass of freshly-squeezed fruit juice (mango, strawberry, pineapple, etc., take your pick)
• 3 pieces of poster-sized paper
• 4 picarones (a delicious fried snack with the texture of a funnel cake but smaller and made with squash and sweet potatoes)
• 2 roses
• 2 packs of chicken bouillon (2 cubes each)
• 2 rolls of toilet paper
• 20 mini lemons
• 1 hour of computer time in an internet café
• 1 ice cream cone (one scoop in a cake cone)
• 1 2-minute conversation via cell phone
• 5 small white candles
• 2 “besos de moza” (“young man’s kiss,” a chocolate filled with marshmallow cream)

Thanks for reading :)  Blessings to you all during the holidays!  I would love to hear from you!