Wednesday was our day dedicated to "White-Peruvians" and our service learning experience. We started off with a group presentation on the white population in Peru. We learned again that "whiteness" is associated more with class and not necessarily with race. In Peru, similarly to in the US, Hispanic is a term used for anyone of Spanish decent-who speaks Spanish. Latino is a term used for anyone from Latin America. There is self-identification and then there is how others identify you. Siblings could be identified completely differently. The Zapotec and Mixtec people of Peru described "Cloud People" in their early texts. Renata shared a story with us about how when her mother died, her Grandmother's first comment was "such a shame, she was the whitest" because she was the whitest of all her children and it was a great loss to lose someone of such high class. Her grandmother of course didn't realize the weight of her words and Renata didn't even realize it until later on. Carolyn and Carola's parents are obsessed with sunblock. They constantly lathered it on their kids so their kids wouldn't get darker.

After our morning session, we boarded the bus to the "pink zone" which is like our "red light district". We went to work at a Y program that strives to eradicate child labor. The kids who come there are very poor and work the streets to help their parents provide. As a result, they are often subjected to abuse and miss out on their education because they don't go to school.

When we arrived the volunteer parents and some of their children were already hard at work painting. A mural of kids playing and nature had been sketched on a large cement wall. We put our bags and coats in the program room and headed out to the paint station. There were plastic cups and an assortment of paint colors and brushes available. There were also gloves for us to wear. The artist who did the sketch had put pictures up on the walls next to the sketches as guidelines. We poured some paint in a cup, grabbed a brush, strapped on some gloves and started painting.

It was warm out. The kids and adults slowly warmed up to us and started having conversations with us. Some were dancing and singing. Some kids were playing in the background. As the hours progressed our gloves and the paint started getting sticky. By the end of the day we couldn't separate the brush from our paint-soaked glove, so we ended up running out of gloves, which resulted in people painting without gloves, which made their hands and clothes stained for days. The paint also had heavy fumes. Some of us had to take breaks because the inhalation was so strong. One of the little boys had a crush on Cristina and called her Janis Joplin. He could not stop saying how beautiful she was.

We broke for lunch after a couple of hours. They served us a delicious meal with dessert. The dessert was a pudding-like mouse garnished with a small orange berry on top. I tasted the berry and it immediately brought me back to Ecuador. My host mom used to bring home something similar to edible arrangements. These orange berries were covered in chocolate and they were my favorite thing to eat. They are called aguaymanda and are tangy and tart.

During lunch I got to talking with the artist. He is 18, thin, with spikey hair and glasses. He is very talented and kind and generous. Very curious. He listened very intently when we spoke English and told me he wishes he could speak English so he could communicate better with us. There was something so earnest and longing in his demeanor. He volunteers his time as an artist for the Y because he says the organization does such great things for the kids and community. I really connected with him.

It was interesting to notice that we had a few different flesh-like paint colors, and there were black kids depicted in the guide pictures, yet none of the Peruvians wanted to paint the mural with black people. Definitely a tell-tale sign of the cultural norms and values in the country that we learned about.

After we finished painting for the day, we went upstairs to meet with some of the kids in the program. They were in "class" and introduced themselves to us very cutely. Some were shy - most were super excited and vocal. When we introduced ourselves they tried to repeat our names and cities and liked the way "chicago" sounded - they all said it in unison.They were especially drawn to Anndrea with her height, dark skin, and locks. They handed us little faces with hair that they made for us before saying goodbye with lots of hugs.

It was really great to be able to see more direct service and kids of the Y programs. It was a nice intellectual break for all of us in the middle of the week even though we were all analyzing and processing during the painting too.