In 12 de Junio, the girls continue to explore the role of Community Investigators.
As part of a series of workshops facilitated by Lauren about self-care and nutrition, we went on a photographic scavenger hunt in search of examples of the five food groups around the community.
As part of a series of workshops facilitated by Lauren about self-care and nutrition, we went on a photographic scavenger hunt in search of examples of the five food groups around the community.
In parallel, I have been working with some of the girls on an individual basis to explore their parents' stories, and the origin stories of the community itself. Considered one of Lima's pueblos jóvenes, or "young towns," 12 de Junio came to exist through what's known around here as the "invasion" of uninhabited mountains.
I have begun a process which I hope to leave in the hands of these girls when I leave Perú in just over a month: interviewing community members, starting with their parents, about how they grew such a community out of the earth.
Lucero and I sat together and considered what questions we might ask her mother, Ana. She wanted to know about her mother's childhood; how she arrived in Lima, and what it was like to have her three children, among other things. Ana spoke of growing up in Ayacucho, in the Andes, in a time of intense violence--and fleeing to Lima with her aunt at age 9. After our conversation, Lucero decided she had even more questions, and plans to record another interview on her own.
Lucero's photos of her mother and little sister.
Jezabeth's mother Flor María recalled the early days of 12 de Junio (named for the day on which the first 100 people came to the mountain)--when the inhabitants themselves worked to carve the dirt roads out of the mountainside, making it much easier to reach their community. Jezabeth later interviewed her father, who shared stories of the community's struggles for electricity and water.
The idea is for these bits and pieces to come together in a multi-dimensional community portrait--an archive of how it came to be, and a rendering of what it is today. But the process is just as important as the shape it will eventually take. In sitting together with me and their mothers as we asked questions, the girls were filled with more and more questions. As Community Investigators, they get to practice making time for deliberate asking and sharing--time we so often regret having neglected when we lose loved ones. They are probing the very composition of the place they inhabit.