Sincere Outsiders

 Trying to be “Sincere Outsiders”    May 9, 2025

This specific blog is a result of many drafts/attempts to express what has been a decades-long struggle between faith, ethics, and politics while living outside of North America.

There’s a general sense of gravity that is built into growing up into adulthood in the same town and even region of the world (for me specifically in Cambrian Park/San Jose, California). It’s demonstrated in a pre-disposed cultural perspective and comportment one carries. O’Henry novels talk about button-holing a “newbie country-bumpkin” on the streets of New York within seconds of recently landing from somewhere like Oklahoma: The look, the manner – the dress stood out, at least back then. Similarly “gringos” in the mountains of Peru stand out almost as clearly as, say, Mennonites in Mexico or Costa Rica (and God bless, by the way, the Mennonite Cheese of Mexico… yum!). This “plain-view” from the outside is almost as obvious as the Bruce Willis character in “Die Hard with a Vengeance” (1995) walking down the streets of Harlem butt-naked wearing only a sandwich board reading, “I hate N----rs!” We may THINK we are trying to blend in, but OH NO! Not only that but our presence unwittingly exudes a certain arrogance and, dare I say, class position, which especially sets-off the Andean farmer.

Spoiler: We can try to deny this (ie., that which is obvious to everyone else around us) or instead, try to relax and be ourselves within the rubrics of and mercy given, in that culture. This would require a trained stamina as well as an astute use of the Serrano culture and Spanish language mixed as well with many Quechua terms, in order to quickly put bystanders at ease. I must admit I got fairly good at this, but not as well as I had liked, since for several reasons and circumstances, I was never able to become fluent in that variety of Quechua, try as I might and for which I regret. At the outset, denying who you are is by NO means a good step forward!

One example was when we were buying fruits and vegetables in an open market. Our use of selected Quechua words we used to “spice up” our Spanish made the vendors laugh and thus gave us a discount on our purchase. One Limenian woman waiting behind us declared, “Hey! Why are the Gringo’s prices cheaper than mine?” The Quechua woman quickly responded, “Do you speak Quechua?…” [‘nuf said!]

I initially thought that if I could just “live among them” something would rub off. I was half-right: The more we lived in a village, raising our children and contributing in some way to the social and agricultural activities, the more our neighbours got used to us and relaxed around us. But it took time and many life experiences to accomplish this (16 years worth!).

This was also evident when we walked through the nearby communities. They got used to seeing us around and our kids playing with their kids, so several would invite us to come inside to their patio and have some juice and chat. Once you’re invited into a Quechua mother’s kitchen… you are family, not just a guest!

Quechuas are transactional in their relationships. Someone may be an aunt or uncle in their family, hence fully accepted. But what good are they? Do they help in planting or harvests? Can they barter with food or tools or pack animals? Can they tell good stories over a fire? Then they are useful. So then Quechuas can be a bit brazen with outsiders (outsiders by the way also include coastal Peruvians visiting the area). Some ask for money or food, or a ride in our truck or… all three! We struggled basically with how to decline their requests in as polite a way as possible until our landlords, Erpidio and Alquilina, actually became our godparents through fiestas and a few weddings. It was at this point that we finally “fit” into their social structure and were more accepted (well, sort of).

While finishing reading a Quechua story surrounded by farmers in village, a catechist spoke up: “It’s true what Randy says. Our children learn more quickly reading in our own language then later in Spanish. And many love the Bible stories in Quechua too. I also believe, although I’m a Catholic catechist, that many Evangelical neighbors reading these books like them too. I now consider these people as brothers and sisters.” [Note: He said that in public!].

There’s a saying that, I’m not sure if we heard it from others, but we certainly adopted it: The higher you were raised in the mountains, the lower you are in the Peruvian social hierarchy (totem-pole). This cuts across the board, for example within the several varieties of Protestant and Catholic religious communities. That is to say, a priest visiting from the coast can carry more social prestige than the priests who were born and bred in Conchucos Valley. The same was true of Baptist preachers visiting from Lima and preaching in the small house congregations in the district of Cajay. As well, teachers from the regional capital of Huaraz attracted more attention than those even in the provincial capital of Huari. So their self-image in the villages is obviously not that “high”.

This somewhat explains why many neighbors and friends continued to ask us, for the first few years at least, “Randy, why are you REALLY here?” Of course we were able to make them understand our motive and mission, but they never seemed to accept it. Up to this time they never gave real value to reading and writing in their own mother-tongue, so obviously THAT can’t be the reason (or so they thought).

Another thought some had was, “Well Randy and Linda are not really Catholic, even though they faithfully attend Mass every Sunday in Huari. So maybe they are secret-agent Evangelicals trying to convert us!”

But Linda and I had had lots of conversations, not only with the Bishop and many priests and nuns in the area, but also with several of the house Evangelical pastors who drilled us and tried themselves to convert us. Throughout the years this became our “tightrope walk” of faith between the many Quechua communities we visited. When there’s someone unknown around you, there’s fear. Then jealousy brews up, so, instead, we continued to engage with them making ourselves public and well-known rather than hide ourselves hence creating more suspicion.

Aside from some of the social-health and political issues which arose over our 16 years of living in Peru, this religious tightrope probably caused the greatest stress. We were always under some form of scrutiny, but luckily our “compadres” Alquilina and Erpidio, seemed to accept us for who we were. After all, we saw them for hours at a time every day… over 16 years and worked alongside one another. Their daughter, Reyna, and grandkids (Flor, Linda Marleny, and Jossmel Jairo) became our “aijados” (god-children) and were always welcomed at our house. Their family was indeed HOME for all four of us. And I DO NOT DOUBT that, were we to suddenly show up at their front door, they would welcome us with shouts, tears, and open arms.

But regardless of the stress, Linda and I were confident that what we were doing was worthwhile. So we stayed the course: forming a written literature in Quechua of folktales, song books and Bible stories; assisting Dan and Diane Hintz in the process of the New Testament translation, training Catholic catechists as well as coordinating in the training of government certified bilingual teachers to apply a fully bilingual curriculum in the schools that the provincial Education Ministry office had assigned to them. Many Quechua professionals were trained and thousands of booklets in Quechua were printed, published, and used in the small mountain districts and communities. It was a controversial program because it was for everyone of any faith or belief. It wasn’t imposed; it wasn’t in any way misleading nor disingenuous.

It was a gift freely given to every village teacher hence every village and school involved in the program. No strings attached!

When we left Peru in June of 2002, we were heart-broken for leaving “family”, but our conscience was clear and we were overjoyed that, through working with the school system and the many catechists in the area, approximately 130,000 Quechua children became literate and fully bilingual both in Quechua and Spanish.