Flood Followup, Donation and First Lady, and Museum of Gold

14 May 2017

Peru is recovering from 3 months of the worst flooding in history. With 114 dead, many still missing, 240,000 homes damaged and 2,100 schools damaged (and still closed), this has been a disaster of Biblical proportions. Lima avoided the worst of it (we were without water for 5 days), but others were not so lucky. We just started a project to replace all the desks in 10 schools up north in Piura that was hardest hit.

Church Emergency Donations - Call of thanks from Peruvian President

As a result of the floods, church donations and service activities kicked into high gear. Here is a summary of some of our donations and aid here in Peru:

     389 metric tons - food, clothing, mattresses, tents, hygiene kits, blankets
     3,020 - church volunteers donating service by gathering, packing, and distributing aid
     12,000 - hours of volunteer service

Peruvian Air Force transports helped haul the hundreds of tons of emergency supplies provided by the Church to the regions most affected.

After one long weekend of gathering supplies to send to affected regions, they held a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Lima to thank all of the thousands of volunteers. Here is a photo of Peruvian President Pedro Kuczynski celebrating at the Presidential Palace while everyone sang the national anthem. (Church volunteers are in the yellow vests in the photo).

Singing the Peruvian National Anthem, Presidential Palace, Lima, Peru. President Pedro Kuczynski (seen here, center) and volunteers (including several thousand church members in yellow vests) joined in this massive service project. (Photo courtesy of Peruvian Government Press Office).

Last week, President Kuczynski made a point of calling church leaders in Salt Lake City in a video conference to personally thank them for the aid. Church leaders in Peru were among the first called by the government to help out with this emergency.

Video conference from Peruvian President to Elder Henry B. Eyring, First Presidency, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Video conference of thanks for aid given.  (L to R) Elder Carlos Godoy, church area president in Lima; Peruvian President Pedro Kuczynski; president's wife and First Lady Nancy Lange (she is from Wisconson); and Moroni Torres, church area welfare manager (our leader in the humanitarian office) 

Elder Carlos Godoy told us later how significant this phone call was. He said that in the many years of church-provided humanitarian aid worldwide, this was the first time a foreign president had called the church presidency to thank them for the aid given.

Donation of Computer Equipment, Meeting with Peruvian First Lady 

We made a donation of surplus computer equipment this week to a residential senior housing center, San Vicente de Paul, in Lima. This is home to about 140 desperately poor seniors, none of whom have families to care for them and many of whom were found abandoned on the streets. These computers will help center administrators better run the facilities and care for this vulnerable group of seniors.

Computers wrapped up for the donation. We are getting really good at using rolls of plastic film to package donations. We hauled these computers, monitors, and cables cross town by taxi.

It seems like every donation we make involves a delivery ceremony (Peruvians love formal ceremonies, the longer, the better).

Part of the crowd of seniors at the housing center waiting for the ceremony. Many of this at-risk group of seniors were picked up on the streets, abandoned and neglected.

As part of the delivery ceremony, Peruvian First Lady Nancy Lange, wife to President Pedro Kuczynski, made a visit and spoke. (As noted above, she is an American from Wisconsin). They called on me to speak at the ceremony right after the First Lady (always an unnerving challenge for me, especially in Spanish and right after the First Lady).

First Lady of Peru, Nancy Lange, wife of President Pedro Kuczyinski. 

The the ceremony talks ended and the real entertainment started up as a team of Peruvian folk dancers took to the floor. These people are passionate about their culture and music.

Mid-ceremony entertainment - Peruvian Folk Dancers

After the ceremony, we toured the facility, and we chatted with the First Lady (all in Spanish) as part of the tour. She had come to our Area Office in Lima last year and is supportive of our humanitarian efforts throughout Peru. It is good to have a friend like her to help open doors.

Sandy and First Lady Nancy Lange getting the full tour of the facility.

Photo op with the First Lady and directors of the residence center. Its is always a surprise what things will turn up with a simple donation.

Peru's Museum of Gold (Museo de Oro de Peru)

On our day off this week we went to the Museum of Gold, a fabulous and extensive collection. This museum houses an incredible amount of gold artifacts recovered from archaeological digs throughout Peru over the last century.

Museo de Oro - More gold than we have ever seen anywhere in one place.

Wall of gold made from individual plates.

The portion of the museum holding all the gold was in the basement of the building behind heavy bank vault doors. Golden crowns, necklaces, earrings, nose rings, bracelets, goblets, and more were part of this collection taken mainly from grave sites. Ancient Peruvian cultures, pre-dating the Incas by more than a thousand years, perfected metallurgy beyond what was being done in Europe during the middle ages.

Golden mask, more than a foot wide, with cinnabar red coloring (made from mercury). This was recovered in a grave of a noble person in northern Peru. 

Golden gloves and gold chalice recovered from a tomb.

Interestingly, the collection contained no relics from the Incas. The Spaniards took all the gold they could steal from the Inca and sent it to Spain to be melted down. As it turns out, all the other civilizations pre-dating the Inca (Wari, Moche, Nazca, etc.) were gone by the time of the Spanish Conquest. The gold from these other civilizations was buried in tombs that would take centuries more to discover and unearth. Thus we now have their gold to admire while the gold of the Incas is long gone.

Golden icons and effigies buried along with the dead. 

Based on the number of ruins we have seen in our short time here, it seems like most of Peru is one big archaeological dig site.

Ceremonial golden knife. This particular design is found among most of the cultures of Peru, including the Incas

The museum staff was not amused by my request for samples. They just looked at me like I was some sort of crazy American who didn't understand the purpose of a museum.

Street Vendors in the Neighborhood

All through the week and especially on the weekend, we have people going up and down throughout the neighborhood selling things. From knife sharpening, to ice cream, to handicrafts, vendors walk or ride down the middle of the street as they sell from house to house.

These ice cream vendors are found everywhere in Lima.  They blow on noise makers as they peddle down the street with a sound that is like a dying duck. Every time I hear one, it makes me think of a sick animal that needs to be put out of its misery.

Each vendor makes a different noise from the other vendors. You can tell who is out in the street, even if you can't see them, by the sound they make. Some just shout out in unintelligible Spanish what they are selling (such as food, handicrafts, or offers to do yard work). Up and down the streets they roam, like a parade of hawkers or vendors from medieval times.

The knife sharpener man makes a sound with a pan pipe that sounds like a little kid blowing randomly. I want to pay him to sharpen some knives just to see how his contraption works.

Freaky Vultures

We have never figured this out, but there are huge numbers of vultures here in Peru. We have no idea what they are living on - rotting flesh or just garbage. Lots of these birds were hanging around the cemetery we visited two weeks ago (which seems creepy).

Vultures in Lima really liked hanging around the cemetery. Note the crypts in the background.

These urban vultures are just a little creepy. They are everywhere here in Peru.

These vultures are the smaller cousins to the Andean Condor, the largest bird in the world and the national symbol of seven countries in South America, including Peru. We saw lots of these vultures out in the jungle last month. 

Vultures gathering on the Amazon in Iquitos. Maybe they clean up the carrion or just feed on garbage floating down stream. They just seem a little vial and despicable.

So we draw to a close on another week here in Peru. Tomorrow we return to our work of coordinating a host of humanitarian projects that should keep us busy for months to come.