Last Friday I spent what I have to say was probably my most interesting and moving day so far. We were invited to go visit a Women's Centre for women suffering from physical and psychological violence/abuse in San Juan de Lurigancho, which is the most populous district in South America, with over 1 million inhabitants. Needless to say, its poverty and unemployment rates are also extremely high, as well as its number of  cases of violence against women.

We all sat in a circle and listened to the women talk about their stories. They each explained what had led them to seeking help at the centre, going back through memories of their husbands beating them and their children, and describing how helpless they had felt at that moment in time. Listening to these stories was not easy; but it must have been ten times more difficult for them to open up to us strangers. One of the women started crying as she described how her husband used to treat her, and I think at that point we were all on the edge of tears.
The one thing that I found extremely interesting and different in the case of this Women's centre was that it tries to decrease violence against women by helping women assert their rights but also by trying to change the mentalities of the men. Therefore most of the women at the centre have actually stayed with their husbands, as they managed to convince their husbands to seek help at the centre, and participate in workshops for example. I think this approach of keeping couples together while tackling the issue of abuse is really interesting (and from what I understood there are probably some religious motives behind it).

We were then invited to walk all the way to one of the women's house, which happened to be right on the top of a cerro (the hills where the slums are built on). It was quite a hike - the hills are really steep and there are no stairs past a certain point - but we made it to her house, which as you can see on the photos was pretty much made out of scraps of metal and wood.
She insisted on feeding us, which demonstrated the "Peruvian generosity"that I had been told about (she gave us what her family was supposed to eat that night), and then preceded to turn on her radio. The women asked us if we wanted to dance, and therefore we did - to the very fragmented sounds that were coming out of the radio and unpredictable volume increases. I nearly stepped on a chicken that was running around in between everyone's legs - probably their next meal. I found the whole situation really hilarious, and at the same time extremely authentic, as there were no fake cover-ups or superficial details - it all felt really honest - which is the general feeling I have been getting from the Peruvians I've met so far.
At it started to get dark we had to start making our way back down the hill, and as everyone hugged in each other to say bye, I felt that we had shared a special moment together and enjoyed each other's company, even if our lives couldn't be further apart. (I know this sounds cheesy but I wanted to write it)

The view from the top

 The house

And the dancing begins...