WHO EVER HEARD OF CHICLAYO?

 

By now everyone knows as much about the new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, as they think they can, and one of the new pieces of the puzzle of his most active life, was his long stint in Peru.

  “Greetings … to all of you, and in particular, to my beloved diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, where a faithful people have accompanied their bishop, shared their faith,” he said in Spanish, standing on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica for his first speech as the leader of the Catholic Church.

 Those who have followed this Blog over the years know what this country means to mean, most importantly the people. 

In past Blogs (June 2013) I briefly mention CHICLAYO, where the future pope was Bishop. Not only do I know Chiclayo, but I have stayed there on two occasions, with the mother of our friend, Elaina in Piura.  I could do many blogs on the wonderful and sometimes funny things that happened when in that most friendly city and surrounding area from sea to mountains.

(Photo of Elaina's family.  She is in blue, her mother seated to her right and her brother and his wife and their two daughters)

Chiclayo, with more than 800,000 people, is the main commercial hub of Peru’s northern Pacific coast, with highways linking it to the Andes mountains and Amazon region. The city is located a little less than 9 miles from the Pacific Ocean and is the capital of the Department of Lambayeque*. Its surrounding lands are agriculturally productive, but despite its economic impact, Chiclayo faces social problems, with roughly 20% of its population living in poverty. (Photo below shows fishermen still using reed boats to catch fish).

After a year, the future Pope left to finish his doctoral degree and serve briefly in Illinois. But he soon returned to Peru, serving as a missionary in the northern city of Trujillo. He stayed there through the remainder of the 1980s and 1990s, amid civil war between the government and various militant groups – primarily the Maoist guerrillas of Sendero Luminoso, or “Shining Path,” who aimed to install a communist state, devastating the whole country.

 The violence hit other regions more severely, but Trujillo and the surrounding area were home to car bombs, sabotaged electrical grids and brutal military dragnet operations. Father Prevost accompanied Peruvians through some of the darkest days of the country’s history.

As the country transitioned away from the civil war period, which ultimately left nearly 70,000 dead, Father Prevost remained in Peru. During the 1990s, President Alberto Fujimori’s government built a polarizing legacy by undermining democracy and citizenship rights. The future pope lived in Chiclayo for nearly 10 years when he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023, after obtaining Peruvian citizenship.

 The new Pope thought so much of his time in Chiclayo, that he has made a young man from Chiclayo, Edgard Rimaycuna, his new secretary.

*Peru is divided into both geographic and political divisions. Geographically, it's split into three main regions: the Costa (coast), Sierra (highlands), and Selva (jungle). Politically, Peru is divided into 25 regions and one province (Lima). These regions are further subdivided into 196 provinces, which are then divided into 1,891districts. 

This can be confusing and maybe more info than you need or want: Piura is the northernmost department (with its capital the city of Piura) Lambayeque is the second-smallest department in Peru, but it is also its most densely populated department. It has three provinces and 38 districts.  Its capital is Chiclayo. 

In top photo  we are eating a meal of cuy, which is guinea pig. Before you turn your noses up, let me tell you it is better than chicken, a lot like rabbit, which I love. Whenever I ate it, it was fried, but it can also be broiled, roasted or even made into a fricassee. 

Guinea pigs originated in the Andes and are an important culinary staple in the peoples of Peru and Bolivia. Peruvians consume an estimated 65 million guinea pigs each year. The animal is so entrenched in the culture that one famous painting of the Last Supper in the main cathedral in Cusco shows Christ  and His disciples dining on cuy. 

One must remember that much of western Peru is desert (or mountainous) so there is not the land for large livestock, and in many cases the people are too poor to raise such stock. Cuy require much less room than traditional livestock and reproduce extremely quickly and they can be raised in an urban environment. Both rural and urban families raise guinea pigs for supplementary income, and the animals are commonly bought and sold at local markets and large-scale municipal fairs. Guinea pig meat is high in protein and low in fat and cholesterol.