#Lima Peru

[reasonsforhope]

Life is hard for neurodivergent people in Peru. Now a grassroots uprising of people with bipolar disorder, ADHD and autism – organised through picnics in the park – is pushing for change at the heart of government.

On a bright summer afternoon in Lima, the capital of Peru, Carolina Díaz Pimentel takes some red and green tape out of her backpack. She’s in a park waiting for people to arrive at a picnic she and her friends are hosting. Guests know that they don’t have to be on time, don’t have to make eye contact, and can leave at any time if they feel overwhelmed. No one will question them.

“We want everyone to feel comfortable. At least this afternoon we want to take a break from the rules that are imposed on neurodivergent people every day to fit in,” says Díaz Pimentel, a journalist and a co-founder of the Peruvian Neurodivergent Coalition (CNP), who is herself autistic and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Hence the coloured tapes. Each attendee will choose one to express their “social battery”. If they choose the green tape, it’s because they want to participate in the activities. Red signals they prefer not to be approached. Everyone wants company, that’s why they are here, but in different ways. And that’s OK. People start to arrive. Several choose red.

CNP is a social initiative that first kicked off in March 2023. It is the alliance of five neurodivergent women who were already making waves by posting openly about their conditions on social media, but who longed to make real-world change. “I used to see this kind of gathering in countries like Mexico and Argentina and was sad to be so far away, until I saw the announcement of a picnic in Peru. Before joining the coalition, I didn’t really relate to anyone. I had good friends, people that care about me, but I knew I wasn’t like them,” says Mayra Orellano, another of the directors, an interior designer with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Today [in March 2024] is the coalition’s fifth gathering. A picnic may not sound like fertile ground for a burgeoning social movement, but behind the bags of cookies and crisps, that is what CNP is doing – campaigning for the rights of neurodivergent Peruvians to be understood and accepted, and to live free from stigma and abuse.

The birth of the neurodiversity movement

The concept of neurodiversity has been around for almost 30 years after first being coined in 1997 in an undergraduate thesis by Judy Singer. Singer, an Australian who is now an eminent sociologist, argued that conditions such as autism, dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are all simply part of the myriad ways in which human brains are wired. It proposed a new way to think about human difference and provided a name for a burgeoning movement. In Peru, however, it remains a concept that few have heard of.

“Neurodiversity is not a medical diagnosis, it’s a political movement that brings us together to defend our rights,” says Díaz Pimentel. When she first started posting about her bipolar disorder on social media in 2017, it was taboo: very few talked about their diagnosis in public. Bipolar disorder remains a stigmatised condition in Peru...

Diaz Pimentel’s commitment is stronger than prejudice, she says. Two years ago, when she received her autism diagnosis, she posted a photo of herself holding a rainbow cake with the words ‘Congrats on the autism’ spelled out in white icing. She wanted to celebrate with her community because she considered it a rebirth: at the age of 29, some of the puzzles of her childhood finally made sense...

From picnics to influencing policy

Neurodivergence is a huge umbrella that describes people with very different conditions. In Peru, this causes confusion and a lack of accurate data. Even in the case of autism, the best recognised of the neurodivergent conditions, the National Registry of Citizens with Disabilities lists some 15,000 people on the spectrum. But according to international statistics on the worldwide prevalence of autism, there are likely more than 200,000 people with the condition in the country. 

María Coronel, the psychologist in charge of the ministry of health’s child and adolescent mental health department, says that clarifying this data is one of the institution’s priorities. She acknowledges that initiatives such as CNP’s can help educate people: “These organisations add to our efforts to detect people on the autistic spectrum and give them the help they need. They have a great ability to reach others because they are telling their own experiences.”

Although CNP has only existed for a year, the group is already influencing government policy. Two congressmen have asked for members’ feedback on bills to protect the rights of autistic people. The state agency in charge of integrating people with disabilities into society consulted them on the appropriate terms with which to refer to neurodevelopmental conditions. And the ombudsman’s office made a video with them to warn about gender bias in autism early detection. (In Peru, 81% of people receiving treatment are male.) ...

Creating a more sensitive society

The CNP community says its work has changed their own lives, but Díaz Pimentel recognises that it isn’t enough. Some experts agree – that the problems are as much structural as they are societal. “In Peru we have a gap in specialised human resources. We need more psychiatrists and neuro-paediatricians. We need more young people to choose these careers,” says Coronel...

[Natalie] Espinoza is also a CNP founder and the only founder who is a mother. She has a five-year-old autistic daughter. Finding a pre-school that would accept her was very difficult. Espinoza is familiar with that kind of rejection. At a former job, she was fired when they found out she has bipolar. She had always performed well, she says, but she was told that a person “on that kind of medication” could not work with them.

“When I found out that my daughter was autistic, there was no mourning or denial, just a desire to hug her tightly because I felt very afraid of what society might do to her. I would like her to grow up in a more sensitive place,” says Espinoza. Dedicating time to the coalition’s work is her way of contributing to that change. Currently its communications reach more than 12,000 people and it has 15 WhatsApp groups. Messages whizzing back and forth help their community in everything from getting diagnoses to finding places to sleep in the event of being evicted from their homes.

So what does the coalition want next? “We want it all,” says Lú Herrera, a lawyer with BPD and the fifth co-founder. They would love to create, for example, a “neurodivergent house”, a place where they can offer shelter to victims of violence, run educational workshops, organise neurodiverse entrepreneurship fairs and provide legal advice on inclusion rights.  “Everything we already do but in a place of our own. 

“You know what else we want to do in that house?” asks Herrera as if reminding herself. “We want to have mindfulness sessions, dance lessons, pottery classes. Activities that will ground us. We neurodivergents struggle so much every day that it would be nice to have a place to rest.”

For now, the picnics are opportunities to recharge, ready for the next conversation-shifting step.

-via Positive.News, March 13, 2024

[paramooreee]

PARAMORE You First • Lima, Peru • 2023

[fashionlouist]

Louis is wearing a Mastermind JAPAN Men’s Zip Pocket T-Shirt in White on stage tonight for FITFWT Lima.

It flaunts an edgy nylon zip pocket adorned with the iconic skull and crossbones logo, providing a fusion of utility and high-fashion aesthetic.

[altverse-invertverse]

My independence day on my mothers side YAHOOO 🇵🇪‼️

[caribbeanart]

Santa Cruz understood the importance of being able to see oneself in their culture and the value of identity. Through her work, she was not only able to disavow the way that Blackness was seen, but she redefined Blackness. She refused to accept the position that Peru and the broader American society continuously forced Black individuals into and, by writing and producing plays, allowed others to reject those roles. [x]

[blueiscoool]

Eight Mummies and Pre-Inca Artifacts Discovered in Peru

Peruvian gas workers made an astonishing discovery beneath the ancient streets of Lima this week — uncovering eight mummies and a number of Pre-Inca artifacts.

“We are recovering those leaves of the lost history of Lima that is just hidden under the tracks and streets,” said Jesus Bahamonde, an archaeologist with Calidda, the company that distributes natural gas to the 10 million residents of Peru’s capital city.

Since the company began expanding its gas line system nearly two decades ago, they’ve racked up more than 1,900 archeological finds — including mummies, pottery, and textiles, Bahamonde said.

In the most recent discovery, the eight mummified males were found bundled up in the trench, wrapped in cotton cloth and tied with ropes braided from vines. Workers found the bodies about a foot below the ground.

Archeologists with the gas company believe the men belonged to a pre-Inca culture called Ichma, which formed around A.D. 1100 and flourished in the valleys around Lima until it was absorbed into the Inca Empire in the late 15th century.

Roberto Quispe, an archeologist who worked in the trench, sad the mummified bodies are likely two adults and six minors.

Lima, now an urban economic hub, has been occupied by humans for more than 10,000 years, from the Pre-Incan cultures to the Spanish conquistadors who claimed the land in the 16th century.

Many archeological finds have proven to be from more recent times.

In 2018, Quispe and other archaeologists working in the La Flor neighborhood found wooden coffins holding three Chinese immigrants buried in the 19th century.

The bodies were found alongside opium pipes, hand-rolled cigarettes, shoes, Chinese playing cards, a Peruvian silver coin minted in 1898 and a certificate of completion of employment contract, written and Spanish and dated 1875.

The eight mummies were found amidst braised chicken restaurants and a road that leads to Peru’s only nuclear power station.

“When the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century they found an entire population living in the three valleys that today occupy Lima … what we have is a kind of historical continuation,” Bahamonde said.

Most of the archaeological sites uncovered by Calidda have been burial sites discovered on flat ground, Bahamonde said.

Aso scattered throughout the urbanized city are more than 400 larger archeological sites, known in the indigenous Quechua language as “huacas,” which are sacred adobe constructions typically found on hilltops.

By Patrick Reilly.

[gothmusiclatinamerica]

"Incinerate," an instrumental piece by Lima, Peru-based post-punk goth act Something Obscura off of 2024 album The Sorrow We Share, released today

[inktr3pid]

Andes

[morritotriste]

aunque el viento sople en tu contra, no quiere decir que debas dar la vuelta

[exploring-the-past]

Tower of Dominican Church, Lima, Peru

Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

[anxiedad-blog]

I'm the park Juana Alarcón de Dammert; There are many young people drinking and smoking. Is November 16th. I want this to be a reminder that I was on Tumblr. I rarely go out to party in downtown Lima.

[paramooreee]

HAYLEY WILLIAMS Live in Lima, Peru • 2023

[roaminandtumbln]

📍huaca pucllana, lima, perú. 19 de diciembre de 2018.

[caribbeanart]

I have known about Victoria Santa Cruz's work about as far back as secondary school but this is truly the most thorough and comprehensive article I've read on her work that does a great job of situating her in a broader, cross-cultural context; or in other words the "why" her work matters beyond borders.

Some powerful quotes that struck me:

"In a 2007 interview, Santa Cruz described how as a little girl, she had been playing with a group of friends when a new girl with blond hair joined them and stated that if Santa Cruz remained, she would leave. Her friends promptly told Santa Cruz to leave, which to her, exemplified who held power and who had the right to wield that power."

The author does a great job building context with this line:

"In the 1960s and 1970s, Black activists in the United States, like Santa Cruz in Peru and Paris, redefined and recreated what it meant to be Black. Black with a capital 'B' is about self-naming, self-defining, and self-determining, which can be seen in the work of Santa Cruz. It is, at times, biographical, exhibiting the arduous process she has endured to form an identity that isn’t controlled or concerned with outdated stereotypes and instead honors a rich heritage inherited and a [sense of self] not founded in shame."

Victoria Santa Cruz is originally from Perú, not the Caribbean, but as I touched on in a previous post, sharing this work is a part of a broader personal initiative to expand the narrative when talking about Latin America and the Caribbean and its diáspora.

[blueiscoool]

Archaeologists Discover 1,000-Year-Old Mummy With Long Brown Hair in Peru

The Huaca Pucllana site is viewed as a Pandora’s Box for archaeologists.

Archaeologists have discovered a 1,000-year-old mummy -- believed to be of an adult individual -- in Peru's capital, Lima.

The mummy, which was discovered at the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site in the upscale Miraflores neighborhood, was found alongside two ceramic vessels and textiles.

The discovery becomes the latest in a string of ancient discoveries made in Peru this year.

"I find it quite interesting that right in the heart of Miraflores, in the middle of the city, surrounded by modern buildings and constructions, an important site is still preserved," said lead archaeologist Mirella Ganoza.

Ganoza noted the mummy had long hair and was found seated with bent legs. The remains of the ancient figure were also found with its jaw and long hair still preserved.

The mummy is thought to date back to 1,000 A.D, belonging to the Yschsma culture, inhabitants of whom lived south of Lima.

"This discovery helps to complement the information we know about the Ychsma culture so far," said Ganoza.

The discovery is the latest in string of century-old discoveries of mummies and pre-Hispanic remains made in Lima, including the discovery in June on a hilltop of a mummy found surrounded by cocoa leaves.

In March, a Peruvian man was arrested and charged for illegal possession of historical patrimony after he was found in a possession of a mummy believed to be 600 to 800 years old in his cooler delivery bag.

The Huaca Pucllana site is viewed as a Pandora's Box and archaeologists anticipate that many more artifacts could be found.

[gothmusiclatinamerica]

"Un viajero" by Lima, Peru-based short-lived post-punk goth band Sor Obscena off of 1989 album Pecado Mortal