Visiting Lima, Part I: The Settlements

In the summer of 2022 I had rather reached my breaking point. A couple years of Covid life had left me depressed and frazzled, and the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June of that year had me in a state of fury. I desperately felt the need to escape the US for a while and separate myself from its toxic political culture and my incessant doom scrolling. I decided it was time to live the digital nomad life for a while. I can work remotely but needed to stay in a similar time zone for work purposes, so I quickly booked 4 weeks in South and Central America starting in August.

I spent the first two weeks in Lima, Peru. Since I still needed to work full time during the week, I only had limited time for exploring the city. I did one of the typical walking tours of the UNESCO Heritage City Centre and visited the famous Larco Museum (which is fantastic if you find yourself in Lima!). As I searched other tour opportunities, I was intrigued by the website of a tour operator called Alternative Peru. They offer “unique, alternative and authentic experiences” with a “focus on local culture and respectful encounters with locals.” In particular their “Alternative Lima” tour offers time spent in one of Lima’s human settlements, with the opportunity to visit with a local artisan, interact with a social project, have lunch at a local family’s house and learn about daily life in this harsh environment. I was a bit hesitant after my traumatizing experience with the Cape Town township tour many years before, but I kept coming back to their site because it sounded exactly like the kind of cultural interaction that I needed at that moment. I finally took the leap of faith and submitted a request on their website for more information.

I quickly heard back from Alfredo, one of their co-owners and lead guide. After a few email exchanges I had booked two tours: the aforementioned “Alternative Lima” tour and also the “Shipibo Community in Lima.”

One of the things that convinced me that this would be a better experience was that it is a private tour. It is just your party; you’re not grouped with other tourists and packed into a van or bus. Since I was a party of one it made it more expensive, but I was happy to pay that premium for a personalized interaction. On a Saturday morning Alfredo and a driver picked me up and we headed off on our Alternative Lima experience. I hesitate to call it a tour; I think a more appropriate term would be “visit” or “cultural exchange.”

One thing to note: by August of 2022 we had gotten rather lax in the US when it came to Covid precautions and wearing masks, but Peru was still being quite rigorous. Masks were mandatory everywhere (in many cases double-masking was required), and you had to show proof of vaccination to enter most businesses. Alfredo explained that Peru had been hit incredibly hard early in the pandemic; nearly everyone had lost loved ones during that time. As we drove through the city we saw many pop-up vaccination clinics with dozens of people patiently waiting to be vaccinated. There was no pushback against Covid protocols; indeed, almost everyone seemed united in wanting to ensure the health and safety of their fellow citizens. It was a refreshing change from the massive political divisiveness around the pandemic in the US.

The Alternative Peru experience was focused on what they call “human settlements.” These settlements started to appear in the 1980s as the city saw an influx of migration from rural areas that had been ravaged by domestic terrorism and violence between the Peruvian government and the Shining Path, the Maoist guerrilla group. According to Alfredo, the settlements are informal (or unauthorized) meaning that they fall outside of government control or regulation. Basically, the people are on their own. They live without basic services, largely work in informal sectors, and are left to police their own. Despite these challenges, I discovered a wonderful sense of community and dedication.

Our first stop was the 2nd largest cemetery in the world, Virgen De Lourdes in the district of Villa Maria del Triunfo. Although only about 60 years old, the cemetery is home to over one million graves. As we strolled through a section of graves, Alfredo noted how many are from the 1980s when so many people were fleeing to the area. Violence and disease took so many lives during that time, and I was saddened at the young ages on so many of the of the markers. Fast forward forty years and the cemetery was once again seeing an influx of new graves, this time as a result of Covid-19.

Like most Latin American countries, a cemetery is not just a place of grief; it can also be a gathering place and even a place of celebration. Alfredo shared a video of Dia de los Muertos in 2013 when more than 1.5 million people visited the cemetery to remember and celebrate their lost loved ones. Even on a random day in August during Covid we saw several groups gathered, and signs of recent ceremonies.

Although Peru is a largely Catholic country, many of the graves were also dotted with traditional indigenous plants such as the jade plant which symbolizes abundance and good fortune, aloe vera which is used to chase the evil spirits, and San Pedro (Huachuma) to protect the land. One of the small chapels in the cemetery looked like it had trash on the floor, but it was actually leftovers from a ritual performed by a shaman during which sweets and sweet alcohol are offered to Mother Earth.

This grave has all three of the traditional plants guarding it: The jade plant in the middle brings good fortune, the aloe vera plant in the upper left wards off evil, and the tall slender San Pedro cactus protects the land and has hallucinogenic properties that hold the keys to heaven.

Our next stop was the home of a local artisan, Señora Balvina. She and her family were among the millions of displaced people who escaped to Lima in the 1980s when she was 4 years old. They fled after her 16-year-old brother was captured by Shining Path terrorists and never heard from again. To this day they don’t know what happened to him; he may have been killed or possibly forced to join the militia. She had a small display of her crafts, and I purchased a coin purse and key ring. She used to sell her crafts through a local NGO called Bridge of Hope, but in a mean twist of fate the organization had been forced to shut down during Covid.

Before our next stop we picked up our local guide Eveli who lives in one of the settlements. I appreciate the fact that they employ a guide from the community we are visiting; someone who can give a voice to the local residents and tell their story. Eveli is not only their local guide, but also the coordinator of the local non-profit organization Grupo Jugando Aprendo. The organization focuses on advocating for the rights of children and adolescents, and runs a community center for local kids where they have access to activities, computers, and mentors. Since our visit was on a Saturday the center wasn’t open but you can get a feel for their activities on their Facebook page.

In an example of how this type of engagement can benefit the local community at a micro level, Alfredo related a story of past tour participants who had talked at length with one of the students who aspired to be a cook. They ended up sponsoring his cooking school fees and he is now studying to be a chef. It may be a drop in the bucket overall, but for at least one young person this interaction may ultimately change the course of his life.

The most meaningful visit of the day for me came when we visited sector Nueva Rinconada, in the zona of Pamplona Alta. Here we met Señora Ninfa and enjoyed a delicious lunch at her house. She is a remarkable woman who, like so many others, fled to Lima as a teenager after seeing her father killed by terrorists right before her eyes. She still carries that trauma, but has become a leader in her immediate community of about 20 families. Together with other local women she started a soup kitchen and now she is working as a volunteer for “Vaso de Leche”, a government-supported initiative that provides breakfast for poor children and elderly people. Kids start showing up at her house at 6:00 AM everyday for breakfast before they go to school. She is also a dedicated campaigner trying to bring running water and sewer service to her community.

She had prepared a lunch of rice and chicken for Alfredo, Eveli, and me, and together we sat in her small covered kitchen area to chat while we ate. This was where the differentiation between a “tour” and a “visit” was most clear. We had a relaxed, comfortable interaction where she was just as interested in learning about my life as I was about hers. I got to hear about her family, her work, and she showed me the embroidery work that she does. And although you’d think a woman who is a community leader and involved in so many projects might need a little alone time, she confessed that she loved having our company because she gets lonely. The loneliness epidemic can affect anyone, even those who are surrounded by other people. I wondered if perhaps part of her appreciation came from being able to interact with someone who didn’t want anything from her, who she didn’t need to take care of. Just conversation with someone who took a genuine interest in her. She is the kind of woman who just radiates kindness, and I’ll admit that our visit did a lot to help heal the jaded bitterness in my heart that had led me to Peru in the first place.

I would have loved to have stayed the rest of the afternoon with Señora Ninfa, but eventually it was time to move on to our final destination. We visited another home, this time chosen because of its view of Lima and the start of its “Wall of Shame.” The Wall of Shame was a response to the development of the informal human settlements. Construction began in 1985 in order to put physical separation between the settlements and the wealthier neighborhoods of Lima. Just as in the US (and other parts of the world), this wall isn’t just about physical separation, though. It’s about social, racial, and ethnic polarization. It’s about defining “the other.” It cuts off the neediest people in Lima from services and employment. It’s a reminder that the fight for social justice is a global fight, and one that might be right around the corner from you wherever you are if you just look for it.

The start of the "Wall of Shame," separating the poor areas from the wealthy areas. The spot of green to the center right is a sports field at a wealthy high school.