Art Classes

One of my newest projects here in Peru is an Art/Drawing class with some of the kids involved in our program. These kids are mostly from rough backgrounds, and they have some history with the law. They've also expressed some interest in art, graffiti, drawing, or some combination of the three.

The classes are supposed to go about an hour and a half, or two hours at most. I always assume that the boys are bored because we're working on pretty basic concepts, and frankly drawing cubes in two point perspective isn't exactly mind-blowing fun. So today after about an hour and a half I wrote their homework on the board and told them to copy it down. I told everyone that class was basically over, but they were welcome to stick around and draw if they wanted. I started to pick up my things, thinking that the boys would welcome my invitation to leave. But they didn't. In fact, they stayed another hour and a half, drawing diligently, page after page, totally focused on the creative process.

I told my sister when I came here that traveling has a weird way of making you grateful for things you never knew you should be grateful for. My example at the time was city parks. My home town is full of places where you can go to run around in the grass, play frisbee or a game of soccer, baseball, whatever. Growing up I never thought to myself, 'golly, I'm sure grateful for these parks!' But you live a few months in a place with no real parks and suddenly you learn to appreciate what you had.

Well, I'm starting to realize how lucky I was to grow up with art classes. These kids are 14, 15, 16 years old, mostly having dropped out of school, and those who are still in school will never get to take an art class. This was especially obviously during class today, when five adolescent boys worked diligently for three straight hours on their drawings. It was like they were starving for some sort of creative output. Even having basic materials like clean paper and pencils seemed like such a privilege to them, and they asked permission every time they needed a new sheet.

In High School I was awkward. Puberty was brutal to me, I couldn't talk to girls, or even get up the courage to look them in the eye. And while I have plenty unpleasant memories from high school, the one place I always felt safe and comfortable was in the art room. Sure there were some weirdos there, in fact, we were all weirdos. And I guess what I never appreciated at the time, but I'm starting to see as a real blessing, was the endless supply of inspiration, materials, and new possibilities.

One of the kids in my art class here is a really good artist, despite having no training whatsoever. I don't have much time left in Peru, but I'm hoping to work with him and get him enrolled in an art school. He lives in a really rough part of town, and it might be his ticket to developing a real career and leaving the slums some day.

Episode I, 2.0

Growing up I was never much of a Star Trek fan, but I had something of an unhealthy addiction to all things Star Wars. I was still buying action figures when I was in high school. I had a long time subscription to the Star Wars Insider Magazine. I enjoyed going to comic book stores and thought the people who worked there were kind of cool (ok ok, I was right about that one). Luckily Episode I came out during my freshman year of high school and it sucked just bad enough for my interest in the Star Wars Universe to wane. I say "luckily" because I was well on my way to one day getting married in a Boba Fett costume. Episode II was worse, and frankly I had a hard time getting through it in one sitting. Things kind of came together in Episode III as several of the actors decided that it might be a good idea to show some emotion once in a while, and we got to see Anakin finally let loose. But really by that time it was too little too late. I'd moved on, seen other movies. It had been years since I'd read the Star Wars Insider, and I was totally fine with that.

After seeing the new Star Trek movie, which was awesome by the way, I started to wonder again why Star Wars had to go and make three lousy prequels. I found myself getting angry at my old friend Star Wars. That's why I have decided to constructively funnel my anger into reconstructing the three prequels with new actors, story lines, and action figure spin off series. Feel free to participate with suggestions and feedback.

EPISODE I, TITLE TBD

Ground Rules:

1. Anakin Skywalker will never ever ever, ever ever be called Annie by anyone for any reason. Ever.

2. The Jedi Council was one of the worst groups of characters ever assembled in the history of modern cinema. Apparently their job was to sit in a circle, occasionally look inquisitively at each other, and say extremely boring things. The new Jedi Council will be a two parts X-Men, one parts Super Friends (with Samuel L. Jackson and Lawrence Fishburn playing the Wonder Twins-type characters), and one part Young Guns:

Basically, if you want to be on the Jedi Council you need to have some sort of personality. Even Aquaman, arguably the most worthless Super Friend of all, had personality. It's not asking that much, really.

3. Anakin Skywalker cannot start out as a child. There are two very important reasons for this. First, kids can't act. Second, kids are not interesting. They play with blocks, watch cartoons, and laugh hysterically at words like "poo" and "toot." If we're going to watch the development of subsequent fall of Darth Vader, can we please just skip the prepubescent stage?

4. Qui Gon doesn't get to be in the remake as punishment for sucking so bad at everything he did in the original.

More to come soon . . .

Tiempo Libre

The other day I was talking to an older man about the book Don Quijote. 

"Ah yes," he said, "I read that book back when I was in high school. I used to read a lot back then . . . of course, that was before television, when we had more free time." 

This guy probably watches 6-8 hours of TV a day. Little does he realize that TV hasn't taken away any of his free time, it has just changed the way he uses it. 

El Contraste

I've been here in Peru for about five weeks now, and I wanted to share with you a few images that stand out in my mind. In many ways the contrast between the haves and the have-nots is ever-present, but there two times when it was made especially clear.

It was cloudy when I flew into Lima. We spent a good twenty minutes descending until we finally burst through the clouds so I could get a peek at the place I'd be spending the next three months. The very first thing I saw was an adobe shack with a bamboo roof. It was in a general state of disrepair and desperation, conditions that most of us could not imagine. The thing that stood out to me was that everyday modern marvels of aviation fly over the same poorly constructed bamboo roof. The planes overhead contain wealthy tourists, visitors, and people like myself who are lucky enough to study and travel, while the people in the house below could not afford to study or travel, even if it was their one and only desire.

The second image that stands out to me was something that happened just the other day. I was in Mancora, a small surfing town in North of the country, for an extended weekend. The town is full of rich tourists and surfers from all over the world. One morning I was walking along the beach when I noticed a Peruvian woman bathing her two naked children in the ocean. At that very moment an American man and his young son walked by on their way to go surfing. At one point the two children, the American boy in his wetsuit and surfboard in hand and the young naked Peruvian girl who had just finished bathing, were standing side by side. They were about the same size and age, but couldn't possibly have more different backgrounds. There is a sad and interesting contrast in this image between the white man and the native, the rich and the poor, that has deep roots and a complicated past. Even if we change the way we think, can we ever change the effects of centuries of abusive and racist policy?

Food

Peruvians are very proud of their food. When I first got here everyone went out of their way to tell me how great the food is (especially in the North, they say). They would then rattle off three or four Peruvian dishes and tell me how important it was that I try them all. This made me wonder what kinds of foods I'm proud of as an American, and more specifically as an Oregonian. If a Peruvian came to stay with me for three days back home in the States, what would I make sure they tasted before they went home? I've put some serious thought into this, and I think it goes something like this:

Day 1

Breakfast--Homemade waffles with fruit and whipped cream, thick cut bacon and scrambled eggs. 

Lunch--Big Town Hero/Gandolpho's. American's have mastered the art of the submarine sandwich.

Dinner--Barbecued hamburgers, with blueberry cobbler for dessert.

Day 2

Breakfast--Denver Omelet

Lunch--Izzy's Pizza

Dinner--Barbecued Steak Marsala 

Day 3

Breakfast--

Lunch--

Dinner--

I need some help with day 3. Any suggestions??

"Yo no espero nada del estado."

On Wednesday I made house visits with our social worker Joyce.  When the adolescent is still in review, one of the things we do is pass by their house to get to know the family and their living conditions.  Joyce asks about the parental relationship, educational background of the family, and so on.  I've made house visits before, but these were particularly shocking.

The first home was built of adobe with dirt floors.  There were large gaps between the sugarcane roof and the walls.  Four chickens were wandering around the living room, bobbing their heads and looking around as if it were their first time in the house.  There was an opening in the back wall, and I could see other animals just outside.  As we talked to the adolescent's mother, one of the chickens paused in the middle of the living room and crapped all over the floor.  Several minutes later three more chickens came down from upstairs.  The house, we find out, has electricity (a single wire runs up the wall and across the ceiling to a bare lightbulb), but no water or sewer.  Both parents dropped out of school in the first grade, and the mother can neither read nor write. 

About ten minutes away in taxi there's a Starbucks, where people spend more on a frappuchino than this familiy will make in two days. 

My point isn't to fire up a pity party.  There are people in this world who don't even have adobe houses or a single lightbulb, and we sat around and felt sorry for people who had less than us we wouldn't accomplish much.  These are deeply rooted problems that cannot be solved with a telethon, or sad Christian Children's Network commercials.  Thirty cents a day may help feed a child, which is a more than worthy cause, but what is being done to make sure these problems aren't being perpetuated to the next generation, and the next, and the next . . . ?

Perú, hasta ahora

There are a lot of interesting things I could tell you about Peru. The food is good, the traffic is unbelievably terrible, and for some reason the Jonas Brothers have managed to catch on here. 

But there are other less quirky, and much more tragic observations. The streets are littered with garbage, 70% of the police force is corrupt (not to mention corruption higher judicial and political levels), many streets aren't paved, and the ones that are are littered with wide and deep pot holes, etc. As I walk to and from work everyday and I see all of these problems in play, it is hard not to feel overwhelmed with the task at hand. I find myself wondering what I would do if I were the President, the Mayor of Chiclayo, or even the Chief of Police. I've only been here a week and a half, and I'm certainly no expert when it comes to political or social science, but it seems to me that if Peru, or any other country for that matter, wants to improve on its current state, the only true long term solution is to invest heavily in its young people. 

Here's the thing: every government ends up spending money on young people. If you ignore the needs of children and adolescents, you end up building juvenile detention centers, hiring more judges, paying more defense attorneys, expanding the police force, and so on. The adolescents who were ignored at the front end will pass through the system, learn to fear the police, develop no real life skills, contribute little if anything to society, and many will never really leave the penal system, costing the government a fortune in the process. This type of investment does make sense for anyone involved, not for the government and certainly not for the child. 

The alternative would be to invest heavily at the front end, to develop preventative programs for young people where they can develop skills and a sense of self worth. This would include investing in the community, encouraging various outreach programs and making sure that adolescents feel they have a place in society. The idea is to get creative when it comes to finding solutions to these problems. For instance, Chiclayo has a lot of kids who have dropped out of school in order to work and support their family. They also have a major problem with littering and garbage in the street. The government, or a private non-governmental agency, could start a series of after-school jobs that involved trash collecting. 

There are a million reasons why this would work. First, the agency would have to pay well, which would make the trash collecting jobs highly desirable. A 15 year old kid who works his hands to the bone driving a mototaxi all day long will be lucky to make $20 a week here. What if he found out that he could make $40 a week by picking up trash for 2 hours a day after school (which only amounts to $4 an hour)? These types of jobs would only go to at-risk children who would have to drop out of school otherwise. Now we've found a way to keep those kids in school, clean up the streets, and plant a seed of change in the culture that says its ok to litter. 

There are problems with my idea, of course. But the idea isn't to find fool-proof solutions that will solve all our problems right this second, the idea is to be having ideas, to be thinking of new and creative ways to approach these issues. Maybe there is no government agency who is going to hire kids to clean the streets, but what about a neighborhood coalition pooling together some money to hire a couple of troubled kids to clean their streets? What if each of us invested just a little bit of time to think about solutions, or to ask a local school if they needed volunteers? Maybe an increased effort on our part is the solution. 

It's not a sexy solution with photo-ops and ribbon cutting ceremonies. It won't present immediate results, which of course doesn't bode well for elected officials whose eyes are fixed squarely on the upcoming elections. But investing in our young people is the best way to make sure that we have a better tomorrow. I'd love to hear what you think.