The Invitation: Camila's Next Big Adventure

It’s Sunday and I stand amidst the vegetable sellers in Mercado Grau. I’m sleepy after a late night of karaoke- una noche divertida spent celebrating a friend’s birthday. I’m a bit thirsty, my worn Nalgene water bottle at the bottom of my bag hidden beneath a bag of choclo , too inconvenient to take the time to dig for. We’ve arrived late, the trucks that bring in produce from the chacras are gone by now and the press of people is refreshingly light; I can even feel a breeze coming in through one of the main entrances. It must be the sound that catches my attention first, deafening and vibrant and unfamiliar amidst the mercado’s normal hubbub. Bright red, voluminous skirts and small, elegant bowler hats. A statue. A brass band. I’m not sure why a procession is passing through this market, although someone will later tell me it is because of pentecostés . Cat and I buy our potatoes, yelling to our casera over the volume of trumpets and trombones and clashing cymbals. It’s pointl

Tacna : a city on the edge of the desert. Habitat : a neighborhood on the frontier of the city. TacBloc : the Jesuit Volunteer house with its fair share of water problems. In November of 2017, I first wrote about the struggle of water. Here we are, a year and a half later and big changes have come to our little house: the water tanks have arrived. During my first year as a JV, I remember speaking out during our community meetings, voicing my frustration at the water cuts we were experiencing. Most days in the warmer months, you could expect water to disappear by noon or even earlier. A day without running water might turn into two or three, and we'd find ourselves down to our last bucket of water, crossing our fingers that a trickle would arrive in the wee hours of the morning the next day. More concerning to me was the quality of water coming out of our sink. Sure, we would boil the water in order to kill any bacteria that might have wandered its way into our pots,