Cultural Norms and Expectations- Part 1

We came to Peru with more than an average understanding of cultural norms, but we certainly aren't experts about this culture by any stretch.  This past Saturday, we had an opportunity to participate in two events about which we knew very little but which had CULTURAL EXPECTATIONS for us.  And, of course, they were both on the same day at the same time, which created a bigger dilemma for us. 

One was the first communion of our empleada's son(Alex) and the second was a family fiesta for M's school.

Flor supports her son by herself, and one of the things that is really important to her is education.  She sacrifices a lot to put Alex in a private school. 

 

Cultural side note- there are three main types of schools here, below is an oversimplified summary:

• Public (free but under resourced and not a great launching pad)
• Private and affordable, more or less (this is what M and Alex are in- some are run by churches and some are just private without a religious affiliation, the parents pay tuition, and these are stronger)
• Private and uber-expensive private schools (favored by wealthy people, expats that want their kids to go to college somewhere else and/or whose children will be in school in Peru for the long run)  

Culturally, most of Latin America has a strong Catholic leaning. Alex's school is Catholic, and even though he and his mom attend a Protestant church, he participated in the First Communion along with his classmates.  31 kids took their first communion this past Saturday and we attended.  First Communion is a BIG DEAL here, and unfortunately it was at exactly the same time as M's school party which is an annual event.  We gave her the choice of us having someone else take her to the party for the whole day or coming to see Alex's service and then all of us heading to the party afterward.  She chose the latter because "the party will happen again next year, but Alex only has this once in his whole life."   

 

The service was about 90 minutes long, with the kids proceeding in, singing some songs, having a liturgical call/response, and then the communion.  The church was packed, everyone wore white robes, and after the service we all went to a large courtyard and waited about 30 minutes while the kids got a mini-reception of their own.  Then everyone could go in and take pictures of the kids. 

 

The processional

Alex and his fancy cake

Group picture afterward with some family

 

 

Some of the interesting highlights:

• Professional photographers took pics of the kids as they came in, when they recessed out, and of each kid with their cake.  Then they quickly printed them and had armfuls, which they sold for $2-4 each, just like when you go to an amusement park and they try to get you to buy the pictures they take when you enter the park or go on a roller coaster.  I think there were at least 3-5 photographers so you had a lot of opportunities to pick which picture(s) you liked.
• The kids hand out recuerdos, or remembrances of the event.  Most kids give a card that has their name, the date, parents' names, etc., but some have more elaborate (and expensive) trinkets like a key chain or a small plastic figurine made in China.  I will confess, this didn't really make much sense to me at all, as every kid gave a recuerdo to everyone else and I don't expect that someone would have much use for 15 figurines.  But I might be missing something.  I do recall that when I graduated from high school, I pressed my mom into buying those little name cards which were SO IMPORTANT to hand out with my senior pictures and I still have tons of them in my memory box because they really weren't that important at all.  :)
• The kids all wore white robes with capelets and a sash.  They also had a little bag to carry their recuerdos, but in actuality the parents carried around boxes or bags and handed them out to everyone.  I guess 10 year olds are 10 year olds in every country.

We were honored to be invited to the event and hope we didn't inadvertently mess up some cultural expectation.  In part 2 I will talk about M's school party.

And the Sorting Hat says..... *UPDATED*

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath to find out to which house M was assigned.  Well, everything in Peru takes a little longer than promised, but she was assigned to her house and that meant we got to take another trip to another place and pick up another thing; in this case, her house shirt.

Without further ado, I present to you....the Casa of the Cocodrilos!

King Crocodile

Small logo is also on the front

I really don't know if it's crocodiles or alligators- the translator gives the same word for both, even though they are different animals.  (At least I think so...it's not like I would get any awards for animal knowledge and about all I know about these beasts is they live in different places, both of them freak me out, and Reader's Digest said to run in a zig-zag pattern if you are trying to flee from them.  Just make sure your zig-zags are wide enough not to give them a straight shot at you, they are fast.  I am shooting for 30-50 paces before turning in the opposite zig-zag if I ever find myself in that situation.)

So....the four houses are Crocodile/Green, Lion/Yellow, some bird (Eagle/Red?), and Sharks/Blue (or some other sea creature...hard to tell from the folded up shirt.) UPDATE: Eagle/Red, and Dolphin/Blue. So, what do you think this corresponds to?  Is M in the House of Slytherin?  Clearly, it's not Gryffindor.....

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Interesting Cultural Observation: Traffic Rules

From Dave:

From the files of: 'Yes, some things are different in Peru,' I give you:






Exhibit A... or Exhibit zzzzz



Will they ever stop eating?

From Kitchen Boy:

Dave: Cook and Scullery Maid

The girls have started to eat close to normal amounts of food over the past week.  Some stomach issues seem to have slowed down the pace of consumption.  Just to give you a feel for the pace of cooking when we got here - a journal entry from last week:

~6:00 - Family wakes up (both M and A are remarkably consistent on this)
~7:00 - I serve up a breakfast of oatmeal
~8:00 - "I'm hungry" explains M - so I get out the breakfast food again (I've almost finished cleaning up from breakfast #1) - bowl of corn flakes.
~10:00 - 1st lunch served (I haven't left the kitchen yet) of a green salad, white beans and fruit (afterward, I clean up and prep for the next meal)
~12:00 - 2nd lunch (at a school festival) - M has two sandwiches and a drink
~1:00 - M: "I'm hungry."   D: "Here's a glass of milk - the next meal is in the works."
~1:30 - K: "I'm hungry" (getting out food as I'm in the midst of the final touches of...)
~2:00 - 1st supper: bean and beef soup with rice
~4:00 - M: "I'm hungry" - snack
~6:00 - 2nd supper - something like a quarter cow and a field of corn - I forget
By 9:00 I've finished cleaning up and prepping some of tomorrow's food - anyone interested in being hired as a cook?

But now I'm in the kitchen only half the day, so that's good.
There's a bit more to every part of the process, including using Kilol (http://www.kilol.com.co/) to kill various things that apparently live on the fresh fruits and vegetables here.  Learning each day.

(Ed. note: Apparently, adjusting to high altitude can bring an increase in food consumption as your body works to produce additional red blood cells.)

Manikin Life

If you are a manikin, there is no reason you shouldn't put Peru on your travel schedule.  In fact, when you are done living wherever you might start out, you can always be assured of a home here.  It's not just Arequipa, either.  Dave and I noticed this trend on our two previous trips to Peru. 

We think that Peru is where manikins come to live out their final days.  Enjoy the samples below and then hop over to my Facebook page to see the whole album.

Hi, there!  Nice to meet you. 

My eye?  Oh, I'm not sure where I left it.

Let me out!  Let me out!  And give me some shoes.

Reunión a la escuela OR Parent/Teacher Conferences

So Miss M has been in Peruvian school all of two weeks (mind you, of that two weeks, there have been 7 school days, 1 holiday, 1 wind day with no school, and 1 day classes were cancelled due to a transportation strike.)   And yesterday, the school told us they wanted to move her up a grade because she already has all the things in Año 4 down (numbers and letters, they have worked on 1 through 5 for the past two weeks) and more importantly, because a kid who signed up at the beginning of the school year but never showed up came in last week and wanted to start.  Keep in mind, we're three weeks into second semester and they haven't heard from this kid's parents until now.  :)   Anyway, we reviewed the curriculum (not that hard, outside of the fact that it's in Spanish which is the same problem she has now), found out there is another English speaking girl in Año 5, and M is just 3 weeks past the age cutoff for the school year anyway.  So, it looks like she is going to be moving on up.  Uniform.  Fortunately, the same for both grades.   Today, I had a reunión urgente (or IMPORTANT) meeting.  I assumed this was a parent/teacher conference 1:1 with her teacher, but it ended up being an all parents meeting entirely in Spanish.  Turn on your listening ears, K-girl.  Thankfully, Dave came along to the school and took the girls home so I was free to concentrate. An hour later, it wrapped up and then I had a few questions about things.  So, about thirty minutes after that (I let the Spanish speakers go first, knowing I would be kind of long), I headed back for home.   What was the meeting like?  Well, the first part was like a public service announcement about limiting our kids' TV, video game, and computer time and the dangers of overdosing on those.  Check.  We don't have a TV or video games and computer time is pretty minimal.  Next, the teacher talked about the importance of bringing your kids to school on time and picking them up on time.  School starts at 8am- please bring your kids in by 9am at the latest.  And parents who have been picking your kids up at 2:30 or 3:30 when school ends at 1:30?  Well, that is bad for the kids as they are hungry and tired and bad for the teachers who have enough work to do.  Check.  We get our kid there on time and it's never occurred to me to pick her up two hours late.   Then, the teacher talked about an upcoming all school event in a couple of weeks (I get the impression it's either a fundraiser or families contribute donations/buy things so the rental fee is covered).  Anyway, I followed well enough to sign up to donate a homemade pie (hey, some skills are transferrable- I plan to make an Apple Pie in the style of the United States.  Hopefully that goes over well.)  But I didn't understand the part about chickens and bingo.  Could you win chickens as bingo prizes?  As it turns out, no.  Each family is expected to buy 5 chicken meals at the event.  They cost 8 soles each (about $3 total) and so it would be about $15 per family for the event.  We've only got three and a half full plate eaters, so hopefully Dave brings his A-game.   A portion of Thanksgiving Pie-Fest 2011   Also, I learned that the kids need to wear their colored t-shirts.  We have a white t-shirt for her uniform and that's it.  I asked the teacher about that and she said I have to ask in the office.  Turns out they have 4 or 5 different colors of t-shirts which are assigned by a super special group of teachers who picks what you get.  Yellow, for example, is a yellow shirt but also the lions group.  This completely reminds me of Hogwarts and the sorting hat.  The special teachers were in a meeting when I stopped by the office, so we have to wait until Monday to find out if M made it into Gryffindor.  And then I've got another thing to go and buy.  At least the mom of the kid who is starting is buying M's next set of textbooks and swapping for the ones we already got for her for Año 4!  And she can take all the things I already bought up to Año 5, even though they are the wrong color for that age, so I don't need to spend the next week doing school shopping list round 2.  Just another day in the life.

 

 

.

Transportation Strike!

I assume that in the future, a transportation strike won't necessarily seem quite so odd to us.  In fact, protests are such a part of life here that it's sometimes part of the preschool curriculum.  But for this week, the transportation strike of combi (small bus) drivers was novel and new and also meant that Miss M didn't have school. 

She and I took advantage of the break to walk downtown in search of some specific items- containers for homemade puffy paint and some waterproof fabric for the girls' dining room chairs.  Success on both fronts!  On the way, I decided to take a few pics of our day-to-day life.  Here's the Plaza de Armas, which is in the center of downtown.  Pretty, huh?  And also normally populated. 

Miss M talking on her pretend cell phone.

We continued on to try to find the fabric and plastic squeeze bottles.  The stores here tend to be clustered.  Meaning, if you can find one person selling curtains, the whole street of shops is selling curtains.  Same with baby clothing, hooks for the wall, light bulbs, kitchen things, and plastic ware.  It's not entirely exclusive, but the last time I was out I found the fabric I wanted at a fabric shop but made into an apron- they sold only the apron, not the actual fabric and I didn't understand where they said I could get the fabric itself or what it was called.  No stores near that store sold the fabric, either, though they were all fabric shops. Today, we struck gold.  I found one shop and knowing there must be more, we continued on to see if we liked their patterns better.  The first shop emerged on top, and we had just stepped back into the shop when we heard muffled voices through a bull horn and saw a dad sprinting down the street with toddler in arms.  We retreated to the back of the store while the two shopkeepers moved toward the door.  They glanced back at us and started to close up the wrought iron gates (very normal here- we've got two gates between the street and our front door).  They didn't lock the gates but just stood watching as the protest parade made its way down the street.  Police decked out in riot gear walked along the edges and people were carrying banners and flags.  We stayed in the shop until the parade passed and I still don't know what the actual protest is about- the shopkeepers said it isn't because they want more money.  I couldn't actually see any of the banners to read them and I had no chance of understanding the amplified voices.

Shopkeepers closing the gates.

Well, we continued on our merry way, found some squeeze bottles, and walked back through the Plaza de Armas.  At least, that's what we tried to do.  Remember the relative openness when we first passed by?  Well, now the plaza was PACKED and getting through looked like it would be a bit tricky.  Then, we heard the garbled voices again and the parade had circled back and was pouring into the plaza!  The police peeled off and stood on the side while the protesters moved into the center. 

Police waiting near the Plaza de Armas.

 

M and I did the only thing left to do.  We went into an ice cream shop and shared a cone while we waited for the crowd to thin and checked out the action.  Everything seemed pretty straightforward- some speeches over the loudspeaker, people selling food and beverages to the bystanders from little mobile carts, and enough action to keep a 5 year old occupied (now that she had gotten over her fear).  The police were watchful but not concerned and the whole thing broke up with people streaming out of the plaza within an hour or so. 

Plaza packed with protesters!

With a face like that, no one will bug us.

Our house is opposite from the direction most people were going, so once we were two blocks from the Plaza it was smooth sailing.  Oh, but look....here are three combis picking people up.  Isn't there a strike today?  While there was much less combi traffic than usual, we saw plenty going on our walk in and out of downtown. 

Some combis were still running.

All in all, we were just fine and had a memorable interaction with our first protest march.  Oh, and the puff paint squeeze bottles?  We're two for four that actually work.  But that was enough to get one painting done after the first painting was wrecked by an exploding bottle.