Healing

How is June almost over? This has been one of the craziest months of my entire life. 

So much has been happening and surely I haven't documented it all. I'm thinking back on all I've done this past month and shocked as to how I possibly fit it all in. For example I saw the catacombs in Lima, did I mention that before?

Today is Thursday and by Saturday we should be able to get Internet, I hate to admit it but I can't wait. 

Today we have a lesson in the morning and are going to visit a nearby town in the afternoon, I think Colcabamba, but not sure, somehow these town names blend into one another in my memory. 

It's fascinating how violence and memory and justice and healing work here. Or work anywhere I suppose. I try to think of it as learning, but part of it being so beyond deplorable makes it something I never want to understand. 

The struggle really seems to be with state institutions in "internal armed conflict" since they are the ones supposedly bringing justice upon themselves... but not. My mind keeps jumping to psychosocial support that is not being offered here as the biggest failure to the affected citizens. Even the health benefits seem to not be working. Not that s/. 10,000 ($3,174.10) isn't a hefty amount of money here, and not that it doesn't help with daily life, but money runs out and somehow the pain doesn't. Money helps, it doesn't heal. 

It becomes even more worrisome when put in the context of generations, of the cycles of violence. Today's children weren't even born until after the Truth Commission let alone during the conflict itself, and yet they are suffering from the scars and pain left behind. We spoke with a psychologist in Hualla the other day who pointed out how she was seeing distance between children and their parents, children who weren't receiving warm and caring love and support emotionally within their families, and the effects that it was having on them. 

To think that a place isn't just broken once, but continually broken, generation after generation is terrifying. What ends the cycle, what teaches us to be cognizant of ourselves perpetuating a cycle so that we can take it upon ourselves to be and end to it. What resources does that involve? How does any of this work? Somehow transitional justice is looking less and less like healing. But shouldn't it be just that? Shouldn't it be justice served for the purpose of transitioning to peace? Shouldn't it be an apology and a processing of healing, of fixing, of moving on, and of remembering with respect. Not a continuation of hurt and pain and destruction of society with a little money thrown your way to hush you up and not complain? I'm not saying it's easy I'm just saying it has to be possible. I think a greater variety of professionals need to come together to work on these transitional justice problems, I really think that lawyers, human rights commissioners, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, social workers, civil engineers, I really think they all need to come together to fix this brokenness. I think there's a place for a wider variety of professionals to be involved in the healing, I really do, and I think currently most places are coming out short on the actually healing.

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When you eat nothing all day, it makes you really enjoy breakfast of fried egg sandwiches and jam. I try to make myself eat two in preparation for the lack of nutrients I get throughout the rest of the day but it's hard so early to eat so much. 

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I started this trip trying to learn a new Spanish word everyday, which I still do, but I've added the challenge of learning some Quechua as well. It's spoken all over and when things need clarified our instructors break it down in Quechua to make sure they really understand. That means something to me, that Quechua isn't just being preserved just because, but that enough people still actually speak it as their first language, and Spanish is difficult, as most second languages tend to be. I want to learn, even though I know how hard it is. I want to know a whole handful of phrases, to hold short and basic conversations like I did the summer of 2014 in Nepali. So here is my beginning Quechua:

Lliclla (pronounced yeeki-ya)- Manta (Spanish), shawl type blanket that is thick and woven and worn around women's back to carry items such as corn, or babies. Sometimes merely worn for warmth (English).

Manan- No

Ari (pronounced arí) - Sí (Spanish), Yes (English).

Munani- Me gusta/ Yo quiero (Spanish), I like/ I want (English).

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We had a great lesson on transitional justice again this morning. I know I keep using this same word, and I hate it, but it's so fascinating. 

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We had a good interview today with the victims association here in Sacsamarca.

Later on we left for Colcabamba where we sort of by accident found pre Colombian/ pre Incan human remains buried in two exposed caves. We were told the bones were from people who lived around 1300 called the Chancas.

We later went to a victims association meeting which was run largely in Quechua and therefore sparsely understood. Quechua is so beautiful to listen to.

We had dinner which included Peruvian French fries, as I will call them, and so two girls ran around to every shop in town and found small packets of ketchup for sale and bought them all, yes dinner was good.

After dinner we looked through the photos on our phones and told stories for entertainment. 

Tomorrow we head to the hot springs. It is crazy how time is flying. Crazy to think in less than a week I'll be settled in Ollantaytambo.

29/06/17