The Case for Keeping On

Photo credit: Austin Day

Alto Cayma has been full of visitors lately -- a couple of them mine, a few others from Sweden and England, and the great majority students from three universities in Wisconsin.  

I’ve been watching these students and volunteers as they interact with members of the community and work on their projects, and I’ve felt myself experiencing something that strongly resembles textbook envy.  When nothing seems to be going right in the knitting workshop and all progress forward seems to have been erased overnight, and on the days when I’m forced to tell a knitter that the sweater she’s turned in didn’t come out to the right measurements and must be done over, I find myself looking at these visitors and longing to share in their excitement at the newness of everything and the beautiful simplicity of their budding relationships with the people of Alto Cayma. 

I watch their different projects unfold and I can't help but wonder what it would it be like to start over.  To go to a new place, work with a different community -- maybe right here in Arequipa or maybe on another continent -- and start fresh.  Perhaps a temporary project that doesn't require sustained engagement or participant buy-in, or a plan dealing with food insecurity or environmental issues, or maybe best of all, a program where I can use the knowledge I’ve gained without having to deal with the consequences of the mistakes that were made in the process.

But even as I’ve been musing about these alternate visions of the present and future, I've also been remembering.

Several times over the past few days I’ve caught my mind wandering back to where I was and what was happening in my body at this time last year as the Guillain-Barré Throw Down of 2012 was just beginning.  On that Tuesday I was trying to understand why my legs no longer wanted to carry me up the hill to the workshop.  Thursday I was told I had to get on a plane the next day and was being packed up by dear friends and the Ñañas. Yesterday I would have been passing through Houston, rescued from the airport for a few hours by my heroic tíos, and finally being carried to the car by my family at the Des Moines airport and driven to the hospital.  

But it was Friday’s memories that were the strongest reminder of why I am once again far from friends and family (and feeling even farther as Lindsey nears the due date of her first child and my grandparents steadily age) and instead still trying each day to create an organized and sustainable business model with women whose lives are completely unpredictable in a culture that is not my own.  

On May 31st last year I spent most of the day in the volunteer house trying to conserve my energy and preparing for the long trip home.  As I lay resting, Ñañas came into my room two or three at a time to check on me and squeeze my hand and tell me that I would recover quickly and return soon.  From time to time Andrea would also come in, helping me to sit up then bearing all my weight on her wiry little frame as she walked me to the bathroom and then returned me to my bed and tried to get me to eat. Then when it was time to go, they sat me in a chair by the door and the Nañas formed a line and one by one came forward to hold me tight and whisper fierce words of love and courage in my ear.  Armed with this strength, I made it through the 24-hour journey home and the months of recovery that followed.

This, I realize, is what makes the frustrations, expectations and disappointments that arise on both sides of a long-term commitment worthy of sacrifice. These deep bonds that are forged over time from shared struggle and mutual need sustain us and ultimately are the answer to the question of why we stay put and continue pushing on even after that initial glow of newness has worn away.

I don’t know yet whether the Chiri project will turn out to be what the Ñañas decide they want or need or whether it can ever really be self-sustaining, but for now we’ll continue on, sometimes dragging our feet, often stumbling, but occasionally surefooted as we face the future.

In gratitude to everyone who got me from this home 
to my other home and back to Peru.   Thank you.

Día de la Mujer

I've been struggling the past few months to find a way to transition from last year's updates about my illness and recovery from GBS back to stories of life and work here in Peru, and in the busy first two months back in Arequipa I have found the task a little too overwhelming to take on.  But today, March 8th, is International Women's Day, and what better way to begin again than by celebrating and giving thanks for the incredible women I spend my days working with here in Peru?

When I first landed in Arequipa in 2006, I came with the idea that I was here to do something for someone, to give back through service. With that mindset, what I saw when I met the women of the Ñaña knitting cooperative were people to be helped. And I was, I decided, the one to do the helping.

Life, thank goodness, is a little more complicated than that. 

My simplistic view of the way things were was soon turned on its head as I got to know the knitters and learned more about their lives.  It is true that the Ñañas struggle with great adversity every day.  Some experience life in a constant state of uncertainty, and all deal with inadequate resources, limited options and a good deal of heartache. However, I quickly learned that they do not exist simply as victims, but are instead complex, resourceful, generous women with seemingly boundless reserves of strength and humor.  

Pulling each other to their feet to dance the wititi; speaking sincere words of consolation and encouragement to a recently widowed member of the group; laughing, gossiping or giving advice over their knitting; 

patiently providing knitting lessons to a visitor (in this case, John); 

watching out for each others' children so younger mothers can concentrate on learning a new stitch; proudly introducing me to their traditions and homelands;

piling plates high with potatoes, chuño, cuy, and fava beans and passing a shared bottle of Inca Kola after christening a new roof — these are just a few of the images that come to mind now when I think of the Ñañas. 

Over the years, these women have continued to challenge me and my assumptions of how we relate to one another in a world based in deep inequalities.  I have, as often as not, been the one cared for, the one shared with, the one taught by the very women I came to serve.  

I have come to them in need of consolation or encouragement as often as they have unloaded their worries on me.  They have shown me patience, and demanded patience from me in return.  When I became ill and could no longer stand on my own, they lifted me to my feet and carried my weight on their shoulders.  They've taught me the importance of laughter and forgiveness and, perhaps more than anything, that we must always pull each other back up when we fall and keep fighting.  Fighting and laughing.  

I have been blessed over and over again in my life with amazing women — the mother, sister, grandmothers, and aunts who were mine from the moment I was born, and the friends, tías, abuelas, mamás and ñañas I have found in the years since — and I am grateful every day for their examples of strength, humor, love and chispa.

Feliz Día de la Mujer!

The Score

From the first day I was in the hospital, my nurses, therapists and doctors tried to make it very clear that recovery wouldn't be a straight shot, but would have ups and downs and plateaus along the way.  I always nodded yes, but secretly I wondered if I might be able to get around all that and just continue on a smooth, direct route to recovery.  The answer: A resounding no.  I'm afraid that's just not how it works, kiddo.

To be clear, there haven't been any huge setbacks so far.  Overall progress has continued at a steady pace and I'm definitely stronger now than when I arrived home two weeks ago, but it still feels like my life has become an unending game of tug-o-war against Guillain-Barré, where if I pull too hard or try to extend beyond my limits, Guillain-Barré pulls back and leaves me wiping the dirt off my knees.

There was a day early on when I woke up feeling strong and thought, "Yes!  Today I am strong!  I will completely rebuild my hamstrings!" I strapped on my little ankle weights, laid down on my stomach and proceeded to do all the kicks I could, then tried the different bridging exercises my therapist had shown me and threw in a few bicycles at the end for good measure.  After I managed to get myself up off the floor, I showered, had lunch at a friend's house, came home, and then passed out on the couch with headaches for the next day and a half.  GBS: 1, Emily: 0.

Some days it's pure foolishness; other days it's the heat, or lack of sleep, or a failure to reach sufficient calorie intake that makes things that seemed easy the day before suddenly feel enormously tiring.  Endurance is the name of the game, and when, as one therapist explained it, you've got less gas in your tank, you've got to be smart in the way you use it, but that's hard when you don't know how much gas you've got on any given day and something that might have been within your modest limits the day before is just not a possibility the next.

If past performance is any indicator, I'm probably going to keep losing some battles for a while as I  figure things out, but never doubt it: this war is mine in the long haul.