During this past weekend, I shared a room with three teenage girls on an organic dairy farm outside of town. We picked flowers, listened to music, danced in the adjacent school house and ate large homemade meals under a veranda over-looking massive alfalfa fields and mountains.
The three young women, ages 13 to 15, are all mothers. They each have an infant under the age of one, the product of rape by a male family member. They share a room at La Granja (farmhouse), living apart from their families while their aggressors are prosecuted in court.
La Granja is an extension of Paz y Esperanza, where the sale of fresh yogurt and cheese provides additional revenue, and a spare bedroom offers a safe haven for three young ladies in need of a home. Paz y Esperanza hopes to extend the girls’ shelter to accommodate more young women in similar circumstances. Once a month, I will stay with the three ladies and their babies, to relieve their tutor, continue their studies and offer some diversion with some creative activities.
I had been anxious about this element of my service here in Peru, wondering if I could move beyond the painful past that these young women have experienced. I remember feeling similar hesitancy when preparing for a theater camp with my dance studio in Albany, where half of the children participating where residents of a group home that removed them from abusive and neglectful parents. Preparing for the two-week camp, a close friend of mine reminded me that “All you have to do is love them.”
It really is that simple.
Before making the trip to La Granja, I made a commitment to myself to look beyond the difficult circumstances of these young women. I came with an open heart, a peaceful mind and my pressed flower kit to share with the girls. I was delighted to encounter three cheerful ladies, with a sparkle very much evident in their eyes and a friendly curiosity toward me that made me feel very welcome.
On Sunday morning we ventured up a steep rocky incline to collect flowers. I followed the ladies to a bamboo hut overlooking La Granja, observing each navigate the terrain with her baby in a backpack sack or a cloth shawl, flip flops and perfect balance, reaching for flowers across deep indents in the ground. I felt like we were Girl Scouts in pursuit of our next badge – a badge like no other – to achieve joy and innocence amidst friends and nature with a baby you never asked for sealed to your chest.
During the weekend, I began to see distinct personalities and interests among the ladies. One was especially engaged in our flower picking excursion and even constructed a pressed flower book, similar to mine, with layers of cardboard and paper and a string of wire wrapped tightly around to press the leaves.
Another young lady took time to be by herself, enjoying the music on her palm-sized radio, washing her hair and feet in the outdoor sink or giggling infectiously with her six-month old son.
The youngest of the girls, who just recently joined the others at La Granja, initially came across as the most shy. However, she proved to be quite a savvy card player, very engaged with her one-month old daughter and skipped happily to and from the lecheria (dairy room) to bring fresh bottles of yogurt to the cosina (kitchen).
I realized my Spanish was improving when I accepted, without hesitancy, the invitation to share a bedtime story with the ladies on Saturday night. I felt suddenly included in their private world and jumped into a story, limiting myself to present tense, and shared a tale of a young girl from the countryside named Christina who wanted to be a dancer. After much resistance, her family finally decided to send her to the city where she could formally study dance. After having a successful dance career, she returned to her community and shared a special dance she had created. The townspeople were inspired by the dance and also by the courage and vision the woman had to follow her dreams. It was decided that the dance would become the official dance of the town, to be shared for generations, because it represented freedom!
On Sunday morning the girls and I had a short devotional were we read Matthew 7:24-25. The verse seemed very appropriate, describing a house with an indestructible foundation, much like the safe home provided for these young ladies.
24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
I left La Granja on Monday morning, crossing the Huallaga River in a blue tin boat connected to an overhanging cable. This is the quickest way to access the main road back to Huánuco, and it provided a fairytale ending to a very fulfilling but emotionally draining weekend. It’s easy to romanticize this rural paradise, with its eco-friendly principals and beautiful scenery. I believe my description is partially a coping mechanism, in order to keep my mind from slipping into dark corners, with images of violence, assault and the denial of humanity.
The three young women, ages 13 to 15, are all mothers. They each have an infant under the age of one, the product of rape by a male family member. They share a room at La Granja (farmhouse), living apart from their families while their aggressors are prosecuted in court.
La Granja is an extension of Paz y Esperanza, where the sale of fresh yogurt and cheese provides additional revenue, and a spare bedroom offers a safe haven for three young ladies in need of a home. Paz y Esperanza hopes to extend the girls’ shelter to accommodate more young women in similar circumstances. Once a month, I will stay with the three ladies and their babies, to relieve their tutor, continue their studies and offer some diversion with some creative activities.
I had been anxious about this element of my service here in Peru, wondering if I could move beyond the painful past that these young women have experienced. I remember feeling similar hesitancy when preparing for a theater camp with my dance studio in Albany, where half of the children participating where residents of a group home that removed them from abusive and neglectful parents. Preparing for the two-week camp, a close friend of mine reminded me that “All you have to do is love them.”
It really is that simple.
Before making the trip to La Granja, I made a commitment to myself to look beyond the difficult circumstances of these young women. I came with an open heart, a peaceful mind and my pressed flower kit to share with the girls. I was delighted to encounter three cheerful ladies, with a sparkle very much evident in their eyes and a friendly curiosity toward me that made me feel very welcome.
On Sunday morning we ventured up a steep rocky incline to collect flowers. I followed the ladies to a bamboo hut overlooking La Granja, observing each navigate the terrain with her baby in a backpack sack or a cloth shawl, flip flops and perfect balance, reaching for flowers across deep indents in the ground. I felt like we were Girl Scouts in pursuit of our next badge – a badge like no other – to achieve joy and innocence amidst friends and nature with a baby you never asked for sealed to your chest.
During the weekend, I began to see distinct personalities and interests among the ladies. One was especially engaged in our flower picking excursion and even constructed a pressed flower book, similar to mine, with layers of cardboard and paper and a string of wire wrapped tightly around to press the leaves.
Another young lady took time to be by herself, enjoying the music on her palm-sized radio, washing her hair and feet in the outdoor sink or giggling infectiously with her six-month old son.
The youngest of the girls, who just recently joined the others at La Granja, initially came across as the most shy. However, she proved to be quite a savvy card player, very engaged with her one-month old daughter and skipped happily to and from the lecheria (dairy room) to bring fresh bottles of yogurt to the cosina (kitchen).
I realized my Spanish was improving when I accepted, without hesitancy, the invitation to share a bedtime story with the ladies on Saturday night. I felt suddenly included in their private world and jumped into a story, limiting myself to present tense, and shared a tale of a young girl from the countryside named Christina who wanted to be a dancer. After much resistance, her family finally decided to send her to the city where she could formally study dance. After having a successful dance career, she returned to her community and shared a special dance she had created. The townspeople were inspired by the dance and also by the courage and vision the woman had to follow her dreams. It was decided that the dance would become the official dance of the town, to be shared for generations, because it represented freedom!
On Sunday morning the girls and I had a short devotional were we read Matthew 7:24-25. The verse seemed very appropriate, describing a house with an indestructible foundation, much like the safe home provided for these young ladies.
24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
I left La Granja on Monday morning, crossing the Huallaga River in a blue tin boat connected to an overhanging cable. This is the quickest way to access the main road back to Huánuco, and it provided a fairytale ending to a very fulfilling but emotionally draining weekend. It’s easy to romanticize this rural paradise, with its eco-friendly principals and beautiful scenery. I believe my description is partially a coping mechanism, in order to keep my mind from slipping into dark corners, with images of violence, assault and the denial of humanity.
