A Little About My Peruvian Host Family and House

While in Peru I have been staying with the Ramirez family, which consists of Nelio and Norma and their three children Lucero, age 19; Nicole, age 12; and Gabriel, age 5, Nelio’s sister, Yaki, and on occasion another sister, Goya and her husband Benicio. The house actually belongs to Goya and Benicio but they mostly live in Cusco. Nelio and Norma are building a new house across town but I’ve been told it will be another year before they think it will be finished.

The house is set up in what seems like typical Peruvian fashion, with a parlor or sitting room at the front entrance and a center courtyard which everything connects to. The courtyard in my house is not that large, probably to make space for more rooms. The front of the house is two stories and the families rooms are above the front parlor. The back half I think was constructed as an addition and is actually a four story tower with Benicio and Goya’s room and a second seating area at the bottom, Ian’s, mine and a spare bedroom on the 2^nd floor, two more spare bedrooms on the 3^rd floor, and a laundry drying space with what may be one more bedroom on the 4^th floor. The tower is one of the tallest in the areas and I can actually see it from General Ollanta when I am teaching there.

My host families house, the dentist office is Yaki's

I think the Ramirez’s are fairly well off in Urubamba and their house is one of the nicer in the town. Benicio is a politician and was mayor of Urubamba recently so that makes sense to me and it goes with the house being one of the tallest. By western standards the house is fairly modest with concrete block construction and all the rooms have tiled floors. Somewhat like a vacation rental on the beach. It is clean, no small task in Peru which seems to be built on loose dirt, and quite comfortable and I have my own room with areas to put my stuff.

Nelio is around my age a cop in Puno, which is a 10 or 12 hour bus ride away from Urubamba and the first part of my stay he was not home. He has the month of September off, however, and when he is not being bashed on the head by some drunk, he has been home spending time with the kids and working on their new house across town. Cops in Peru work for the central government and not the townships and it is my understanding that they get rotated from city to city to help prevent corruption, which is why he is so far away from home. He tells me he has one more year of being stationed in Puno before they rotate him out.

Norma is Nelio’s wife and I think around 5-6 years younger than I am. She is rather the glue of the family and takes care of both the house and the kids when she is not taking care of the volunteers. She has her work cut out for her and I am not quite sure how she finds the time to take care of the house, her three kids and still cook meals for lunch and dinner every day for everybody.

Lucero is the oldest daughter at 19 and is out of school and preparing to enter college. Actually in Peru, college is K-12 and university is higher education. During the day she helps out Norma with the cooking and taking care of the kids and I can tell is ready to go off to school and do the kids of things 19 or 20 year olds want to do. But such is the life in Peru and I suspect most of my kids at General Ollanta will go straight into working full time when they get to this age, so she is lucky in that respect.

Nicole is the middle daughter and still in school. She attends LaSalle across the street from the house with is a private school and I am told much better than General Ollanta for an education. She is nice but distant and a bit moody, like I would guess most 12-year-old girls are, regardless of what country they are from.

Gabriel and my camera

Gabriel is the youngest son of Norma and Nelio and also attends LaSalle. He is a whirl wind of activity and constantly fluctuating between being hyper about something and upset. He is cute and into everything, especially if electronics are involved and proof that the electronic device revolution has occurred even in the mountains of Peru. He likes to call me Victor, I guess because they have a cousin named Victor. But it sounds like Be-toe instead of Victor and Norma is constantly correcting him. As a result I call him Charlie when he calls me Be-toe.

Yaki I think is one of Nelio’s younger sisters, but I am still not 100% sure on that. But she lives in the house with us and runs a dental office next door. Yaki somewhat acts as a second mother in the household and helps Norma take care of the kids. She dresses sharp every day and it is not uncommon to hear the compressors going in the house courtyard if she is working on somebody’s teeth.

Goya I believe is Nelio’s older sister but I am not totally sure of that. She tends to live in Cusco with her husband Benicio and they come and go from the house in Urubamba. If there is a schedule to it I have not figured out what it is.

Benicio is Goya’s husband and also comes and goes from the house but less frequently than Goya. He is a politician and was mayor of Urubamba for three or four years. 2011 to 2014 I believe. Most recently he was running for President of the Cusco region of Peru, which is similar to being Governor of a state, but did not win the position and I am unsure if he currently holds an office. His political part is APU, which has signs all over and I thought was a local soccer team until I was later told it was a political party logo.

Ian is the other volunteer living in the house with me and he is 24 and from Switzerland. He is also doing the English teaching project at a school called Valley Sagrado or Sacred Valley. From talking to him it sounds like his school is a little saner than mine is. Ian is a self-described “hipster”, not inaccurate, and will be on the teaching project until October when he then plans on traveling around South America for several more months before returning to Switzerland and continuing college.