14 Mayo 2012 take two

Last night I walked around town with Elvis and Robert collecting signatures for the library petition. I am thinking how good it is for them to see how to make change happen, and to put the two together with one goal. Elvis, un-popular, bigger but slower than everyone else in his class, insecure- with Robert, also a flunky, but not because he is slow, because his family is also alpaqueros and had him moving schools and pulled out of classes the first 10 years of his life, a great artist, popular, funny, athletic, confident. The funny part is they are both amazing artists, and attentive, caring alpaca herding boys. They really only differ in confidence.

I am doing a very bad job of hiding the fact that I am trying to push them to be friends and encouraging Elvis to speak up. But, they are doing it. Working, laughing together, showing me house to house.

These are the interactions that matter. These moments are why I am here. You may not be able to measure it, and you may never see a tangible effect, but these two boys would never otherwise interact, let alone be important staples in a social cause together.

I was able to walk around town last night when parents were coming back from the fields for one reason, and one reason only: Lucia was wo-maning the library.

This morning when I was ripping myself from my sleeping bag, “Luz, te buscan!”

I waddled to the aluminum door and screamed for joy. Lucia, the young woman who has a degree in education and art that started taking flute lessons so she could be the VALE teacher next year when she graduates, is standing there. We embrace. She and I talk about once a month about the development of the project and the advancement of her studies (she is going to university in Arequia). We monitor and motivate one another with a regular coffee and/or crepe. This is the first time we have seen each other since the drama with the Municipality last month.

I serve her her pulled coffee, black (sans 3 spoonfuls of sugar- a peruvian rarity), and she listens to me rant.

“But, Lu, why don’t you take the program and library to a community that isn’t so resistant? Why don’t you take it to the French NGO’s Cultural Center in Corporaque or the American NGO’s Orphanage in Yanque and start working on it’s implementation there?”

She is right, I can feel how right she is, along with everyone else who has wanted to see me stop torturing myself.

“Because those kids have help.” Is the only excuse I can give her.

Then, she answers her own question, “You are going to do everything you can until the last moment so that you know you did everything you possibly could for these kids.”

“I have to do it like that.”

“I want you to know, that after I graduate in December, I am devoted to the VALE program, whether it be here or wherever. I am in. I want it to live.”

We have to secure a salary for this young woman.