It’s been over a month since Maribel and I
had visited a village or done any Promesa Peru activity, so last Friday with
our batteries recharged we decided to check out two of the villages we’d previously
been invited to.
Tùcume is both a large city and a district
in the Lambayeque Region. Within the district is about 25 caserios; all of them
classified as poor thus making their kinder and primary school students
eligible for free government food. In Tùcume there are mototaxi stations that
serve Payesa, Tùcume Viejo and other nearby caserios. I don’t know how the more
distant locations are accessed. Payesa is located about two miles from Tùcume.
By mototaxi it takes about twenty minutes because the road is mostly just a bumpy
dirt path. It gets a little smoother and wider as you enter the town.
The town is tiny…no more than 200 yards
from end to end. They have electricity and water but nothing else. There are no
stores or medical facilities. If they have a church we didn’t see it nor did we
see a central square or park. The blue building in the center of the photo is
school I. E. 10230 “Virgen Milagrosa”. It is the reason we were there. 
Virgen Milagrosa is a primary school with
98 students ranging in age from 7 to 11. Graduating students need to go to
Tùcume or Tùcume Viejo to attend secondary school. There are 6 teachers
including Jose Obregon the school’s director. Inside the 5 classrooms poverty
is evident with some students without shoes and in clothing that has been
handed down many times. Still, the students and the school seemed reasonably
well equipped with school supplies, chairs and tables. When asked how we could
help them their request was modest. They would like storage shelves, two
whiteboards, and some volley and soccer balls for physical education. 
We hadn’t planned on visiting the kinder
school but it was close and the day was young so we stopped by. The building is
old and was cheaply and quickly constructed of dry wall by the regional government
to serve as a temporary facility to relieve overloaded kinders in nearby
villages. There is no water or electricity. The cane structure behind the
school serves as a restroom.
Inside we found 31 students in overcrowded
conditions. Teacher Gloria Damian has been at the kinder for seven
years. She was very frank with us and voiced some frustration with general
conditions. There are few storage shelves so many things are piled in corners
on the floor. There is no whiteboard. The chairs and tables do not belong to
the school. She has been borrowing and returning chairs and tables for seven
years. She said that several years ago an NGO visited and promised to donate
furniture but they never returned. As we were leaving she asked if we could
help. We said we’d try.
This is Julia Maria. She lives across the
road from the kinder. She was shelling peas as we walked past. She invited us
to stop and chat for awhile. For the next 20 minutes we answered a few
questions but mostly listened to her talk about her grandchildren, the village
and her life in it. These are the moments I enjoy most.
Getting to Payesa from Tùcume is no
problem. Getting back to Tùcume is the trick. What you do is start walking and
sooner or later an unoccupied mototaxi will pass by. In the meantime it’s a
pleasant walk with some nice scenery along the way.
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From Payesa we returned to Tùcume and then
took a mototaxi to Tùcume Viejo (old Tùcume). It’s a larger town with a church,
small medical clinic and surprisingly large central park. There is a mixture of
new houses scattered among the old. It’s still small but has the appearance of
looking toward the future rather than the past.
We’d been invited to visit school I.E 10233
“Captain Jose Abelardo Quiñones Gonzales” by the director Andres Alcantara. He
is responsible for the operation of the primary school with 130 students, and
the secondary school with 160 students. They are located in separate buildings.
Many of the 290 students come from 10 different caserios, some walking as much
as one hour.
When visiting the different classrooms we
noticed the signs of poverty were less evident here than in Payesa. We didn’t
see any students without shoes, and most of them were in uniform. The school
was built 55 years ago and is showing its age but is still in serviceable
condition. The furniture is worn but it too is still serviceable.
Because the school is overcrowded a
‘temporary’ classroom was constructed for 5th grade students. It too
was crowded but seemed to be adequate. After some brief discussion the teacher
asked us if we’d like to hear a student recitation. When we replied that we
would, the boy and girl in this photo started talking with each other, but it
wasn’t really talking. It was a combination of talking and chanting, and in a
language I was not familiar with. I thought it might be Quechua, the language
of the Inca, but when they finished we were told they had spoken in Mochik. I
had assumed that language had died out a thousand years ago, but was told that
it was still being spoken by a handful of people in the village of Eten in
1920. In the last few years a body of Peruvian professionals has attempted to
‘rescue’ the language and it is slowly becoming part of school curriculum in
schools on the northern coast.
We had an enjoyable visit at the school.
Andres and his staff were helpful and friendly. When asked what we could
do to help him, he said his number one headache, and that of his staff, the
students and the village parents was the school’s lunch program. The government
donates food for the students, but has given them nothing to cook the food
with. Food is prepared without overhead shelter on a wood fire. Parents take
turns cooking and use their own home kitchen pots and pans to do it, which are
totally inadequate for the number of students. He said it takes from two to
three hours to cook for and feed 290 students, which cuts into class time and
makes it difficult to find volunteer cooks. 
What Andres would like to have is
commercial size/grade cooking equipment like that shown in this photo. The pot
hanging above the man’s head has a 46 liter (12 gal) capacity. The pan hanging to the right has a similar
capacity. Andres says he could use five pots and one pan. To the right of the
man’s head are large wooden handle skimmers. Andres would like four of those. For
his classrooms he would like to replace the eight disintegrating chalkboards
with whiteboards. He asked if we could help. We said we’d try. 
As we were leaving Andres suggested we stop
by the park and look at the ruins of an old colonial church. What a massive and
impressive structure that must have been. It is huge, with walls six feet
thick. We were told it dates back to 1520. Authorities in Tùcume have
apparently recently taken an interest in it and are considering both excavation
and restoration. Walking through this church was a bonus to an enjoyable visit
to Tùcume Viejo.
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Since our visit on Friday Maribel and I
have done some investigating to determine prices for some of the items
requested.
For the primary school in Payesa:
Two whiteboards - $160
Two storage shelves - $65
Total - $225
For the kinder in Payesa:
Five tables and 31 chairs - $825*
Two storage shelves - $65
One whiteboard - $80
Total - $970
* If constructed by a local carpenter. Another option might be to have the
tables built but purchase 31 plastic chairs for $125. We will discuss this with
the director.
For the school in Tùcume Viejo:
Five 46 liter pots - $145.
One 48 liter pan - $31.
Four large skimmers - $15.
Eight large whiteboards - $640.
Total - $831
Smaller miscellaneous items asked for in the
three schools…balls, abacuses, tangrams and other educational material would be
about $100 total.
