Adventure to the slums

Today was an adventure, we were going off on a placement visit to ASPED Peru, a new organization that I found (see other post to read about it).  It is in another part of town called Distrito de Independencia (District of Independence), and does work in the nearby slums and shantytowns.  So let me tell you, it was a very different part of Lima than I have seen so far.

The entrance to a shantytown "Asentamiento Humano 14 de Diciembre"

Let me tell you the first thing I learned about Distrito de Independencia (called just Independencia most of the time).  Lima is wonderfully tourist-friendly.  At major corners there is a booth called iPeru, which offers free directions and tourist information, including giving out free maps.  So I went to the iPeru booth this weekend and asked for a map of Independencia.  To which the lady replied, “where?”  “The district of Independencia,” I replied.  She wrinkles her nose and pulls out a huge map of Lima.  Now you have to understand, Lima is so big that if you want a map of all of Lima, it shows only major roads and highways, and there are blown up maps for each of the districts.  The big map showed the location of each of the districts, and after some searching, she points to the location of Independencia relative to the rest of Lima, and asks me “what do you want to go there for anyways?”  That was my first indication.

Slum housing built into the hills

The second adventure was in finding the address of the NGO.  I found not one, not two but three separate addresses for the place.  Their website has a map that is not slightest in the least bit, if you feel like map hunting, two of the addresses I was given were Tupac Amaru and Calle Sucre.

Perrito

Third, the taxi.  We called a taxi but we hit a retardedly long detour.  We were driving along the highway, and I wasn’t really paying that much attention, but we got off on an exit, and started driving through a not-nice part of town, where the roads weren’t even paved.  I assumed we must almost be there, after like half an hour of sitting in traffic we got back on the highway, and I looked behind us to find out that the highway was a pile of dirt.  So it was a half-hour detour on a bumpy dirt road.  That was fun.  The driver then took us to the right general area, and then we had to stop and ask for directions three times before finding the place, having the people come out to wave at us, and have the driver keep going.  I’m like “what are you doing?”  Apparently he couldn’t find the house numbers so he kept going.

Entering the slums