Alto Cayma - Slow and Steady

It does not matter how often I come back to Peru and the community of Alto Cayma - I really just can't get enough of the people and the beauty that is the Andes Mountains.

Today is Sunday, a traditional day of rest and recuperation in most of the world. Yet, in the Pueblos Jovenes of Alto Cayma, people are busy with work. In fact, the work never really stops for the people of this area.

Many of the extremely impoverished communities will have 7-day work weeks. This morning for example, there was a steady stream of people walking down the only paved street in Enace (Enace is the name of a Peruvian government owned construction company that built a large housing project in the Alto Cayma communities in the mid-1990's; the details of the Enace project is the stuff of political legend and is far too complex to mention in this post; if you follow the URL hyperlink of Enace - you will be directed to an interesting article dating back to 1999; the people of this sector of Alto Cayma collectively refer to their area as "Enace" - even though the construction company and the houses they developed have long since departed.) toward the more "developed" sectors of Alto Cayma (Alto Cayma is a very typical Pueblo jovenes - in that there has been years and years of "invasion" into the area; and as time passes and people become more established in their lives, they are able to leverage more economic opportunity for themselves and their families). I asked my friend Adon where everyone was going - as it seemed strange to me to see so many people out and about on an early Sunday morning.

He told me that people were headed down the hill to the houses of the "more established" members of the Alto Cayma community. He told me that they were going to work in the morning hours - helping with cooking, cleaning, laundry; and then, in the evening they would track their way back up the long hill to perform all of the same chores in their own homes. I asked him if people ever get a chance to rest - he laughed and said "when we are dead."

And so goes the lives of people living in desperate poverty - each day is a set of challenges that many of us never have to consider. Each day can be filled with the challenging scenarios of how to get their basic needs met. Yet, in spite of this constant struggle - the people are vibrant with life.

Yes, poverty is all around - and yes, this poverty can (at times) seem a bit overwhelming. And, there is hope. The one thing we can never loose sight of in the work that we are doing is the hope. The hope that people all over the world share - that tomorrow will be "better" than today.

This week HBI will be helping to organize and facilitate a 3-day staff retreat in Alto Cayma. Our goal is simple - to help the Mission of Alto Cayma continue to bring hope to people living in extreme poverty. People with so much hope - that their optimism is infectious. People who have so much to teach us about the true blessings of life.