Day 25

Today I went out to Urubamba to talk to Lily (the director at Kanchay Wasi). I also talked to Holly, who works closely with Lily and is working on projects to improve parasitic infections, education of alcoholism, and nutrition for children. Urubamba is pretty rural and apparently alcoholism is widespread. Despite the fact that ProPeru has tried to hold classes about alcoholism, a lot of them men are in denial about their drinking habits and are resentful that women teach the classes. There is a strong sense of machismo that is entirely too deeply rooted in the culture.

Lily and Holly both referred to Kanchay Wasi as more of a support network for the women and children who attend. Women go on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Children go on Tuesday and Thursday. The volunteers said that everyone seems really happy when they're there so it seems more like a refuge for them. A safe place to get away from whatever realities they may face at home. Kanchay Wasi just set up a room so that women can stay there if they decide to leave their husbands. They also get counseling and legal support if they choose to file for divorce (which is very uncommon and only happens in the most extreme cases). Kanchay Wasi provides different artesan crafts for the women to work on. Afterwards, the crafts are sold. Lily said that the objective is to increase the value of women in the household and give them a little more power by providing an economic aspect.

Alcohol abuse was cited as a major reason for domestic violence, but that is also highly ingrained in the culture. In fact some people are paid in alcohol for the work that they do in the fields.

I really wanted to interview the women there, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. What could be more painful than forcing women to talk about something like being abused? I got a pretty good picture from Lily about their backgrounds. Once again, I find myself wishing that all my research was actually disproving what I thought and knew before arriving. So many people have told me that the problems with abuse have always existed and major education reform needs to take place before any real change can happen. Holly also said that it needs to be a campaign spearheaded by the government and that NGO's can't do it alone. I don't know how effective the Peruvian government is, but this actually doesn't seem to be a priority. And that's hard too because Peru is a developing country and obviously has a ton of economic factors to worry about. Whenever I ask what the solution is, very few people seem to be able to offer any...