Shereef’s Kiva Blog

Posts Tagged ‘chiclayo’

The asymmetrical nature of development constantly creeps through my mind. Material wealth, infrastructure and opportunity tend to pool rather than flow. This holds true across urban and rural landscapes. Certain areas remain tranquil while others rush with the flow of commerce and ambition.

Hostal la Carmen, my current home, can be found on the south bank of just such a pool – Avenida Pedro Ruiz. I bear witness to the strident realities of urban economics every day…and every night.

5:30am, when empty streets make for better acoustics and that passing bus may as well have been inches from my face

My room is on the fourth floor and faces north, higher than any other building on this side of Chiclayo. Somehow a perfect acoustic dome is formed from street level to the corner to the right of my bed. And all night long, the city reminds me that although I may sleep, it remains very much awake. I could not capture pictures of these events, but I thought it might be more fun to write a timeline.

• 8pm – 10pm: Colectivo promoters chant to fill cars during the evening rush (pimentelpimentelpimentelpimenteLLL…)
• 8pm – 10pm: Circling vultures screech their beautiful macabre lullabies just before heading to the cathedral’s bell towers to sleep
• 9pm – 2am: Private security guards intermittently blow rape whistles to scare off potential robbers. After 2am they generally fall asleep in the doorframes of the shops they are protecting
• 12am – 3am: Gunshot man walks around firing off what sounds like a pistol into the air, but really it could just be some sort of firework made exaggeratedly nightmarish by the hour
• 12am – 4am: Dog packs hold epic battles for primacy over the empty colectivo lot and the stretch of Pedro Ruiz in front of it
• 4am – 6am: A mattress squeaking at varied but repeated rhythms from the building next door betrays the lovers’ perceived privacy of the dawn hour
• 5am – 6:30am: A lone garbage truck with a belligerent diesel engine slowly makes it way down the street with the driver banging a loud bell to alert people that he has arrived to take away their refuse
• 3:30am – 6:30am: Roosters sound at regular intervals possibly as some form of karmic retribution considering all the chicken I eat here

This nightly symphony has left me with a very comical case of insomnia. Last night I embraced the new reality and went to bed early in order to wake up for a run just after today’s sunrise. Ah sunrise, the perfect lull in noise that occurs when the nocturnal orchestra sets down their instruments before the swell of vendors, traffic and pedestrians can rise up and fill the quiescent void with turmoil.

sunrise heralds an hour of respite

**To those of you who automatically receive emails when I post: pictures and slideshows do not survive the transition from html to text. You have to visit the site in order to get the full content.

With only three weeks remaining in my Kiva Fellowship, I have begun to pay an exceptional amount of attention to the unnoticed loose threads of life in Chiclayo. I believe that the potential people have for adaptation has the unfortunate consequence of casting the exceptional into the molds of the acceptable. Establishing normalcy sometimes means overlooking noteworthy idiosyncrasies, especially in urban landscapes with an endless source of … quirks.

I have photographed a series of them below and written descriptions for each – just click on the photo.

I decided to name this post ‘the apothecary’ because their presence has been the most ubiquitous and consistently disregarded as ‘normal.’ But honestly this must be totally unique: having carts with mortars & pestles, elixirs, herbs and steaming vats that can be used and combined into any kind of panacea on request, located at every street corner after sundown.

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10.17.09 – the apothecary

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One of my first posts was titled ‘recession proof’’ in which I described the resilience of micro-businesses and the integrity of micro-lending. This time around, I want to detail a theme I had only painted with large brushstrokes.

Although EDPYME Alternativa’s borrowers are scattered throughout the region, I live in Chiclayo and it has become the backdrop and the context of my life. To me, one of the most fascinating parts of this small city is the dearth of big box stores. In their absence exists a constant buzz of small-scale commerce.

Let me describe this vibrant economic landscape. In the center of the city, around the main plaza, there is a mixture of restaurants and shops devoted to clothing and electronics (especially cell phones). As one ventures further from the center, the streets become organized by economic themes.

Although that string of stores on Cuglievan is far less efficient than Home Depot, it encourages competition, diversity of selection and keeps more people employed. One of the strangest paradoxes of a modern economy is the contradiction of scale: with efficiency at a large scale less people can do more. Progress becomes self-defeating if people do not have the jobs and incomes to keep on buying from the big box stores!

The hectic flow of social and economic interactions in Chiclayo keeps people interacting with one another, asking for advice and building a community. And on a personal level, it is way more fun to walk through high energy markets and themed streets asking where to find that one little thing than to navigate down the well-marked aisle 3.

*King Kong is the most rich dessert imaginable: a layer of thick caramel, a layer of candied fruit preserves (generally pineapple) and a layer of cake – cut into rectangles, circles or squares