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.

Education Community: There were key education officials who became kindred spirits and lifelong friends (Leonel Menacho Lopez, Eduardo Mendoza Diaz, and Gabriel Ichiparra—to name a few). With such men we dedicated years of coordination, visits to communities, meals, and trail-hikes as well as tears and laughter, sickness and health. I am a better man because of them. To their credit, these men suffered much to collaborate with “the likes of us.” After all, being from a different culture, they risked their social integrity in order to work with me and be exposed to public scrutiny in a very volatile time in their nation’s history (eg., Shining Path terrorism in the mountains).

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.”