Collaboration… My experience.
From 1986 to 2002 my wife, Linda, and I worked with SIL International under a Peruvian
Education Ministry contract to analyze, transcribe, and translate Quechua texts
and stories, as well as to assist the local school system in the overwhelming
task of creating a bi-lingual education curriculum for their K-12 students. A
further contract with the regional bishop of the Catholic Church ensued, as
well as a translation and publication of the New Testament in Quechua for this
specific mountain region (Conchucos Valley). This was all accomplished in 16 years of
living in this version of “Middle Earth” at 10,000 feet in the Andes.
I’d like to describe for you how “collaboration” in the above
tasks – working alongside and in coordination with others—was not merely some
strategy in an attempt to “manipulate” others into getting our work done:
Collaboration WAS the work itself!
While some would exalt the linguistic work of “translation,”
the process of community transformation
continues to be imminently more purposeful. Literacy and translation are a means
to a much greater end.
These aforementioned tasks were the realized “objectives and
goals”: The “what” of our lives during some of the most tumultuous times in
Peru’s history. But “how” these had been
accomplished had to be learned as we went. It had to be earned as we met with
the many people who were at first so suspicious of outsiders, specifically of this
Canadian family.
The International
Community. From the beginning, there were many who worked with us and got
us to Peru and further assisted in our settling into the high alpine village of
Cajay. Wycliffe/SIL administrators and trainers prepared us in many ways,
the impacts of which we only now are realizing. Many who had had decades of
experience in cross-cultural development service graciously passed on the
“nuggets” of their wisdom in the forms of key strategies and past stories and
examples. As we ourselves eventually joined the ranks of “the experienced” it
was our turn to then share our stories with others. This in fact is a
traditional method in collaborative leadership—shared mentorship and I’m proud to have been a part of it.
During the first phase of settling into this new country, it
was both a joy and a frustration working with the enclaves of expatriates
living in various regions of Peru. There were all kinds. From anthropologists, development workers,
missionaries of every religious ‘ilk’ fathomable (quite a diversity actually!),
to medical, academic, even political professionals. The camaraderie among this group varied, depending on the academic
training, socio-political frame, as well as religious and economic lifestyle
choices one adhered to. Some sought out and “settled into” these ‘camps’ of
foreigners (some would call them ghettos)…
often resulting in a forging of fidelity and continual social commitments to
reconnect. For us as expatriate linguists and field personnel those from SIL
Peru ground personnel in Lima, Huaraz, and even in Pucallpa played a vital part
in our lives ).
However most ‘die-hard’ development field workers with whom we associated (SIL, religious or otherwise)
attempted to live on the edge of what
we then called going native – a
commitment to take on some if not all of the cultural traits of those around
us. It was in our training; it was in
our blood. I still contend that this remains an admirable characteristic for
service to others. The problem is, as the saying goes, “A leopard can’t lose
its spots”… a gringo can’t become a Quechua regardless of talent or
training. However I now believe this struggle was for us a well-disguised
blessing; one which had forced us to change strategies in mid-stream in order
to more focus on those around us, rather than investing the many years
necessary to become fully native ourselves
(fully fluent, acclimated, and accepted with a fuller Quechua mindset and culture).
Although we lived in our village setting for 14 years, our intent was to
train-trainers and allow the communities and their infrastructure to themselves
decide on the direction, method and even outcome of the tasks and projects: I
am so thankful we made this choice of “equitable” collaboration. We were able
to not worry about who got the credit, rather
to simply work with and hone others’ skills once given permission to do so.
By far the
greatest challenge and learning in collaboration for us lay within two camps of
people. These were the people we were to spend the majority of our professional
lives with in the Peruvian Education community and the Peruvian Catholic
community. Al Shannon and James Wroughton, Jr. were critical mentors and
trainers for us in this regard. They each acted out their heartfelt passions
and even political philosophies and ideologies in amazing ways, which convinced
Linda and me to follow in like manner becoming more sensitive to the needs of
these two communities in focused service to them. As a result, by 2002, 400
catechists and 130 public school teachers became fully equipped to train their
communities in reading and writing in Quechua. The basic strategy was to come
alongside these communities in order to listen, learn and “pitch in” where we
could.
Catholic Community: Father
Máximo Luna Julca became the priest in charge of overseeing the New Testament
translation in South Conchucos, as well as promoting the Quechua reading and
writing classes in the communities. After years of working together our lives
and hearts bonded together, “beating to the drum” of the hope that, becoming
bilingual and biliterate in Quechua and Spanish, these communities would then prosper
and find their destiny. Of course many priests and catechists collaborated as
well, but none were as dedicated as he. As well, the Tyrolian-Italian bishop, Monseñor
Dante Frasnelli Tartar, required constant debriefings and reports. At first it
was to convince him of our sincerity, then of the validity and success of our
efforts, and lastly to rejoice in how much the communities enjoyed reading and
writing in their mother tongue, finally
celebrating the publication and dedication of the New Testament in Quechua.
“Quechua family
style” living: Finally I’d like to talk about the collaboration which most affected us personally as a family. It
was the everyday life in the village of Cajay, Huari, Región Chavín, where we
became more and more closely associated, then “knit-together” with the family
Aguirre Jara (Alquilina, Erpidio, Reyna and Lucho and their children, Flori,
Linda Marlene, and Jairo). Renting their family adobe/mud-brick home for a sack
of rice per month (yes!), we slowly restored it, collaborating with Erpidio
along the way (from mud to cement floors, to plaster walls, to a full outside
toilet, to hot/cold running water, and finally to a fully electrified house!).
Within the first two years of living in the community we were accepted to eat
with them… in their kitchen (a great
honour!) while the quinea pigs and chickens scurried about the floor picking up
on the crumbs and bits of leftovers. Later on we were accepted as padrinos and an official part of the
family, taking part in the annual agrarian cycles of planting and harvesting
the potatoes, wheat, and corn.
This San Franciscan would therefore say,
“I left my heart in…
the Andes of Peru.”
