Cambio Puente

I visited Cambio Puente yesterday, the city I’ll be spending the next two years working in. It was strange going from Lima with a population in the millions, to Chimbote with about half a million people to Cambio Puente with a population of about 1,500. Sister Juanita, one of the Incarnate Word sisters stationed in Chimbote who is in charge of the hospice center – where Katie will be working – met with Katie and I after the 7:30 am mass in order to take us there and show us around. First we had breakfast at the sisters’ house, a tamale with a boiled egg inside (weird huh.) and then walked downtown to catch a collectivo which is kind of like a taxi except that it won’t leave until every seat is filled. Once two young girls jumped in, we made our way out to the village.

Whereas Lima smells like smog, and Chimbote smells like fish, Cambio Puente smells like campfire. In Cambio Puente most homes don’t have propane so they have to burn cornstalks or wood in order to cook or boil water for drinking.

As the haze from all the breakfast fires filled the air, Sister Juanita told us some of the things she knew about Cambio Puente.

Cambio Puente has the largest prison system in the area which serves the Ancash region, and since Cambio Puente is so small, the prison is pretty hard to miss. Walking by it, we heard the shouts from what sounded like some guys playing sports, probably football (soccer), and some screaming that sounded a little more sinister. Most of the employees of the large complex come from Chimbote, as most of the people who live in Cambio Puente work as granjeros, or farmers.

Most of the men and women therefore have to leave in the early mornings to work in the fields and are forced to leave their children at home by themselves, sometimes entrusting their two- and three-year-olds with their five-year-old. Some kids rode by us on their bicycles in the park at the town center, the Plaza de Armas, and Sister Juanita explained that there has been a movement to start little head-start programs for the kids who are left home alone during the day. This may even be an area where Women’s Global Connection, the organization I am working for, can help.

There are seven even smaller communities surrounding the Cambio Puente area. So from my understanding, Chimbote is like a Mother city, then Cambio Puente is a much smaller offshoot which has its own associated smaller communities.

Tomorrow I will be going out with a medical team of two nurses who are running a nutrition program for infants and small children. They administer vitamins and fruit chupetes, some kind of fresh fruit that is mashed into a paste and frozen to make a popsicle. By attaching myself to the med. team for a while, I’ll be able to get to know the neighborhood and work on my Spanish. Hopefully this will help my entry into the community so by the time I am ready to help WGC develop their relationship with the women here, I’ll already have some connections made. That’s the plan anyway.