Marci Soifer

The holiday season turned over today. The random street markets on a handful of tarped booths were cleared out to make room for regular traffic and Christmas decorations are finding a way down. I have seen more street preformers in the plaza, which I pressume means that even those individuals (like all other Peruvians) have completed holiday vacation and returned to work.

I have been at work for the past two days, and since there is no ¨time off¨ in prison, the women and children remain thrilled to recieve us regularly. They told us that they had a New Years Eve party inside, which was a special, co-ed mixed event. I was glad to hear that the festivities spread all the way inside (and for the record, they did not see fireworks, but heard them), but was left wondering what they have to look forward to in the post-holiday season. The other volunteer (there is only one other now, as the third has returned to the States) has started a regular English class each day for nine women (and tons of others who sit on the periphery listening) at 11 am. Some of the women already know some English from previous volunteers, but they are ready to learn more. There is a woman named Anna, who knits over the English worksheets in her lap, and a woman named Denise, who greets us with a booming ¨GOOD MORNING¨, her favorite English expression (other than Öh my g-d¨, which she says with laughter all the time, and we have no idea where she learned it). The women seem mostly eager to learn, since it is something to do and for some of them, it could help them get release sooner.

There are a few details to the Peruvian prison system that I am now coming to understand:

When someone is arrested in Peru, they must wait for a sentence in prison. This depends on the nature of the crime (and circumstances), could take up to a year, and often takes the full year (even for drug trafficing). There are two types of sentences; one is standard and the other is with benefits. If your sentence is standard, you will have to serve the entire thing, without question. If you get benefits, there are tons of things that you can do during your time to short the duration inside. For example, things like cooking in the community kitchen, listening to the prison psychologist give a lecture (who is actually not a psychologist at all, but a priest who preachs about ways to atone), or taking English lessons could all shorten one´s sentence. This means that if you got a sentence of 15 years for drug trafficing, but your sentence is standard, you would have to stay inside for the full 15 years. And, if someone else committed homicide, they might recieve an 8 year sentence, with benefits. The person who committed murder could spend the time inside doing all sorts of things that the system considers ¨helpful¨, and get our of prison in half of their sentence...4 years. Crazy, huh?

In other news, I am trying to come up with a structured activity that I can implement consistantly each day with the kids, similar to the English lessons with the women. I am finding that since they are little kids, and curious about their surroundings, they would appreciate learning. They want to know what their body parts are called, and the names for animals, colors, and numbers. So, I am trying to come up with a type of activity for 1-4 year olds that I can implement for a few minutes at the same time each day (which will only interupt running rampant, climbing all over me, swinging on the rusty swings, munching on bits of chicken off relatively bare drumsticks, and you know, going to the bathroom, a little bit). At the market today, I bought some coloring books with images I am thinking about copying and labeling for them (yet another example of how I am learning in this process as well). But, I am looking for something more stable than these. The idea is that I could create something that coming volunteers could pick up on, and give these kids some kind of consistancy. Please send any suggestions my way.

This afternoon, I decided to visit the local elderly home. It is in the middle of town, and I was walking past with a volunteer who happens to work there, so we went in. It was actually the most beautiful place that I have been inside in Ayacucho. It is amazing. The facility is huge, with long, tiles sidewalks, well tamed gardens with caged peacocks inside, and an enormous church built in the center. There is a side for the men and for the women, and we went to see the women. There are 23 women living there, and it seems like most of the time, they sit in a clump in the garden. Just the way that many elderly Jewish people speak Yiddish while their spawn speak English, these elderly women spouted Qechua (while the young employees spoke to them in Spanish). So, I didn´t understand them at all, which did not stop them from talking to me or to the wall for long periods of time (to which I just nodded and nodded), hugging and kissing me, and of course, holding my hand. They all wanted to touch my hair, and look at my freckles, which are a real commodity here in Peru. Only a few had teeth, or much hair for that matter. They were all properly dressed in classic indigenous dress, with colorful skirts, sweaters, and black hats, from their hunched over seated positions. Using hand motions (I have gotten so creative at communicating without language), I painted a few extremely soft, wrinkled handfuls worth of nails in a putrid pink they all seemed to LOVE. The oldest women I met was 104, and the youngest in her early 90s. Alas, when the clock stroke 5:30, it was time for bed...amazingly, and the women all piled into their rooms. Some live in single bedrooms, while a few others actually live in large rooms with multiple beds. I loved it, and think I might just have to return on another day. There is definetely some fun brewing from experiences with these ladies.

In the meantime, I continue to email, write this blog that I recently learned that someone is actually reading (which is always fun), dance to the pop music on my IPOD around the bunk beds in my room, make Spanish flashcards to use for nightly drills, wear the ocassional scarf in my hair, brainstorm ideas of what else I can do for my kids, and sample Ayacucho restaurants, bars, and markets, among other things. So, thanks for reading. Let´s make a deal...I´ll keep up what I´m doing, and you keep up what you are doing. Great. In that case, until next time...