By Janett Chavarry Garcia
PERU: When Marisa contacted me to write in Latina Lista, I thought a whole week on what topic I could share with you.
I thought about talking about a controversial law where older men or women could have a relationship with people under 18 and it would not be considered a crime and obviously there wouldn’t be a punishment. I’m sure as women you’re interested in that, and I promise to write about that in my next post.
Unfortunately, when I wrote about this law, Peru suffered a big earthquake which all of you know by now. At that moment, my first thoughts were to talk about that and I did.
Nowadays, almost a month after that first post on the earthquake, I find myself wanting to talk about the earthquake again — but this time from another perspective.
Whereas, we still worry about the earthquake and if there are anymore to come, I find I have a question fluttering in my mind: What is the women’s mission in this moment?
Peruvian family in hardest hit area of the earthquake struggles to salvage what they can from their destroyed home.
(Source: BBC)
The images and the news I have heard answer my question.
In my country, almost 55% of families have a woman as head of the household. At the moment of the earthquake and in the consecutive days, I saw a lot of women organizing food drives, collecting water, helping with rescue efforts, protecting their children, trying and succeeding in overcoming the moment.
Since the earthquake, pictures of these kinds of women have covered the frontpages of newspapers and covers of magazines. The pictures were successful in transforming this tragedy and bleak outlook for the country.
The day after the earthquake, two babies were born in Pisco, the city most devastated by the tremors that followed the earthquake.
As a result of the devastation, twelve pregnant women were transferred to Lima. They were able to escape the earthquake to travel to Lima for medical attention.
Now, we have a dozen new members of the next generation. Together with their mothers, they will stand up for their homes and cities.
I feel my question is answered: If these women could overcome dangerous and difficult obstacles, they offer much hope to a country that will need them to rebuild not only the damaged homes but new lives.
Learn more about Janett:
Janett Chávarry GarcÃa was born in Lima, Peru in 1977. It is where she still lives with her parents and three sisters in the same apartment near the city’s town square.
Janett has a degree in Communications from Lima University. These days, Janett studies the development of communications and mass media as it pertains to social issues.
As such, she has worked in human resources, television and has participated in public enterprise projects.
When Janett is not writing for Latina Lista, she loves to spend her free time either curled up with a good book of fiction and her dogs or working in a little exercise by playing volleyball or cycling around Lima.
