Re-awakened

I thought I had seen just about all there is to see and experience in Huánuco. I expected to quietly finish out my last month in Peru without any major surprises. But this past week has been one of the most unexpected, eye-opening and reaffirming weeks, reminding me why I came here and what it will mean to leave.

The week involved a visit from members of the River Church in San Jose, California. The group of six included a criminal investigator and a forensic nurse, who came prepared to share their knowledge and expertise yet with a deep understanding about how to work cross-culturally.

Their finalized schedule included meetings with police, district attorneys and judges to reinforce the need to advocate for victims of abuse. Evening seminars were organized for primary school teachers on how to identify abuse. Others facilitated Bible studies in the Potracancha jail on how to break down concepts of masculinity.

Law Enforcement

One member for the River Church Community, Mike, is a retired criminal investigator specializing in sex abuse crimes. I had the opportunity to join him and our team of lawyers for a meeting at the Huánuco Police Department. The purpose of the meeting was to give general introductions and also to provide an overview of Paz y Esperanza’s proposal for a sex crimes investigation unit.

In the States, investigation for sex crimes requires highly-specialized training with separate roles in crime scene analysis and interrogation. Here in Huánuco, there is no such distinction, and with that, sex abuse cases do not receive the level of care and expertise they deserve.

Without specialized police, crime scene analysis is done hastily and rarely results in sound evidence. Furthermore, survivors are often re-victimized during the interview process, enduring interrogation that is hostile and demeaning. Such treatment prevents the survivor from giving a concrete testimony and leaves the survivor doubting his or her own innocence.

While I translated for Mike during the meeting, I observed the uniformed men before me. I wondered how each one might handle a sex abuse case. Would he see it as just another one of the numerous crimes that occur in and around Huánuco every day - a name in a file and maybe a bride to gain? Or, would he give the case and the human being it represents, the attention it deserves?

I see police officials walking the streets, driving about in their trucks and motorcycles, and I wonder who and what they are really protecting. However, advancement may be closer than I initially thought.

With recent concerns over safety, our office has now hired a security guard to keep watch. He stands at the front door, patrols the park just outside and monitors the goings on of our small but busy building. He has a tiny desk in the front lobby with a sheet of all our names and photos, to identify who belongs and who might be an intruder.

One afternoon I noticed him sitting at the desk reading some material. After a closer look, I realized he was reading Pacificado, Paz y Esperanza’s quarterly publication of its ongoing work to confront sexual abuse.

He could easily have been bored and read the closest thing in reach. But what’s important is that he was reading it. And maybe, just by observing and protecting the work of our office, he’ll be able to counteract some of the blindness of others in his profession.


House Visits

Later in the week I joined one of our psychologists and two women from the River Church to visit families in the TAMAR Collective, each with children who are survivors of sexual abuse.

The first house we visited was above the city, entering the cerros or hills, where tightly-packed tin and cement homes look as if they’ll slide right down the mountainside if it rains too much.

I know the children well, ages four and nine. The younger, a little girl with pigtails, jumped into my arms before I could barely step out of the office pick-up truck. The ladies who joined us pulled out a fully stuffed bag of fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs and quinoa to offer the family as a gift.

We climbed up to the roof, which I realized was their entire home as another family lives below. The tiny block room taking up a small corner of the roof is where the family sleeps. Two beds are placed along the wall in an L-shape, and baby chickens scurried underneath a small table near the door.

Along with the two parents and their son and daughter is an adopted nephew whose mother recently passed away. He is four years old, the same age as his cousin, but nearly half her size. He is malnourished and has an abscess the size of an orange, swelling inside his right cheek.

He didn’t say a word, as I imagine it’s painful to open his mouth. He simply sat with us, gathered together in the one bedroom, staring beneath giant eyelashes at the giants before him.

Part of me questioned why we were there. There is something very unsettling about viewing poverty simply to exhibit the conditions and observe how desperate the realities are. But I know our visit was more than that.

I can’t describe how happy and smiling the kids were to see us. And also how deeply grateful the father was after my own host father led a prayer of encouragement and empowerment for the family.

The father knows he is poor, making his living selling ice cream and lollipops. Nonetheless, the family did not hesitate to welcome in their orphaned nephew.

As I walked home that afternoon, I felt as stunned and overwhelmed as I did the first time I climbed up those rocky inclines to meet one of the families back in September.

I remember wondering if I’d ever get used to this - empty potato sacks used to cover windows, a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling, mud brick walls deteriorating after each downpour.

But I was wrong to ever assume that I’d “get used” to the realities of poverty. Because the moment I “get used” to it is the same moment that I forget it exists.

The last thing I would want, after spending a year here, would be to leave feeling desensitized and apathetic. I want to stay shocked and disturbed, overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I want to stay awake and constantly re-awakened.