There and back again #2

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy has had special meaning for us as a family of four: Linda, Randy, Greg, and Tim. We read this and Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia most nights before bed, looking out from the balcony of the tapyal styled adobe-roofed, two-storey house we rented from 1987 until 2002 for a sack of rice a month. Mud floors, mud walls, but to this day our boys STILL call this hovel their home, at 10,000 ft in the hamlet of Cajay.

And it was Tolkien's image of Middle Earth with which we compared this high alpine valley of corn, wheat and potatoes, potatoes, and more potatoes. After our first drive through the 1 km. long tunnel into Conchucos Valley, we realized we had entered a different culture; a different plane of existence-- Chuqui-Quechua !

And it seemed a justifiable hideaway from the world below. The national panic and poverty at that time was at a critical stage. President Fujimori had implemented his famous "Fuji-Shock" measures while the Shining Path guerrillas had just set off a series of coche-bombas (car bombs) in the Miraflores financial sector of Peru's capital of Lima, leaving all high-rises with their windows shattered and strewn on the streets below. Certainly we asked ourselves, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" Still we were determined for we had a quest: To render that dialect of Quechua into print and turn as many as possible into readers in their own tongue: A thing unheard of at that time and considered a "useless" venture. 

When we first set foot and began living in the village of Cajay, many villagers wondered why. No, rather they began to speculate. For each night we would search our short-wave radio for news from anywhere around the world. Hence if one day we listened Radio Havana, our neighbours considered us Cuban. The next night it was Russian, but they then stopped when we tuned into Radio Beijing! Many also assumed I was homosexual: I was old enough to have children, but our sons hadn't arrived yet! That was soon rectified however and the men HAD then to get me away from the village during the day, while they were in the fields (no telling what I might do while they were away!).

We were enigmas. We had no skills which were typically valued by the culture. We couldn't farm, or raise animals, or cook Quechua food. We couldn't even speak Quechua, but we wanted to teach literacy! What a waste! Rather than able to provide a service to anyone, it was WE who were in need of them! We began to realize that this was the greatest gift of all-- our need-- for it made us into requisite learners and listeners. It also made us vulnerable and those closest to us knew this very well.