My Piuran Life

The 12 year old professional chess players of rural Piura

We have been adopted into a family of multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-personae people employed by the Peace Corps. A large black man with dreadlocks from South Carolina with a generous heart simply known as “JA” has taken a liking to us, as he is our roommate, and kindly invited us into his world of Peace Corps friends. Elena, a wordy, eccentric girl with a boyfriend teaching English here is also nearby. It is nice to have friends here who speak English and can join in the celebration of July 4 with some grilled hamburgers, deviled eggs, and home-made pasta salad: a highly prized American mean in the land of chicken and rice.

It is a world of chaos here; it is the Wild West, South American style. The breath of fresh air and sigh of relief one may receive when catching glimpse of a marked police car when traipsing through a bad neighborhood is nonexistent here; the police are participators in the untamed world of drug exchange and theft, merely with a uniform to disguise their intentions. Men whistle and hiss at me no matter how conservative I choose to adorn myself. My senses peak at the presence of danger all hours of the day; whether it be fear of the children pick-pocketing me in the market, or that I may err in my taxi choice at night and receive violent repercussions, or simply that I may be trampled by a combi whizzing by.

The streets have a separate paradigm. The taxis have no obligation to heed the sparsely located stop signs or traffic lines, adhering only to their version of order: a short honk of the horn before passing through an intersection. Surprisingly, the chaos produces no extraordinary number of traffic collisions, yet each time I enter a cab I am prepared to see my life pass before my eyes at least three times, as a foreboding wreck is inches away at each intersection. Cabs are small but agile through the packed streets, but there also exists a cheaper alternative in transit with the moto-taxis: each time I crawl in and sit, I feel as though my measly 125 pounds may fall through, as I observe my only support is a wooden bench built onto the back of a motorcycle. Public transportation has not been forgotten here, a Combi, as it is called, runs routes (though where these routes are determined or publicized I do not know) and will fit as many persons as can stand to sit on top of each other. Most Combis are recycled, old buses with few remaining seats, those of which are torn and tattered; the door remains constantly open and people simply jump on and off whenever they please for 70 centicimos.

Typical restaurant/house in Piura

It is a dirty city. The dust from the desert blows in my skin, my hair, my fingernails wherever I go. The city has no definite infrastructure; the buildings lack finish, the streets are poorly paved with mixed concrete and pebbles (which evokes frequent rolled ankles while running and walking through town), and strange smells of rotten foods or uncleanly boutiques fill the polluted air.

The list of rules our government imposes upon is extensive, to say the least, and this is a more stark realization when I travel to countries in which no regulation exists! There are no city limit excitations – Chickens and goats run wild throughout neighborhoods. The FDA has no power here – family-operated restaurants flood the streets, popping up in every home with a couple tables and chairs on a dirt floor are served from the family’s kitchen in the back of the house. No Health and Human Services corps comes here to check that public places are providing safe water to drink. And OSHA would have a fit watching the construction proceed in the city, with rickety wooden ladders and rusted tools that make a standing, but not stable buildings.