Crossing the Peruvian cordilleras, we reach the Callejon de Huaylas, where the mountains impose their presence by shaping the landscape and life around them. In the last week of May 2024, we visited Yungay as part of the remembrance programme to mark 54 years since the earthquake and landslide that buried the old Yungay under the mud. With the Moving Mountains team, we engaged in a series of activities that navigated multiple landscapes of memories and hopes.
Some of these activities took place within the framework of an intercultural exchange between bilingual schools called “If My Town Could Talk”. We paired a year six class from Rhyd y Grug Primary in Aberfan, South Wales, where children learn in Welsh and English, with a fifth grade class from Colegio Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Yungay, where children learn in Spanish and Quechua. Working with Peruvian graphic artist and historian, Jesús Cossío, we sought to capture the childrens’ perspectives on disaster heritage while creating the opportunity for them to learn new languages.
For the first workshop with Jesús we used art to foster multilingual conversations, sharing memories and similarities between Aberfan and Yungay. Two towns that have suffered deep tragedy in living memory, these are also beautiful places that are proud of their local histories and of their settings in sweeping valleys. Full of excitement and joy, the children learned about life and culture in Aberfan with stories animated by English and Welsh vocabulary. In response, they drew pictures of their town to share with Rhyd y Grug students. While they labelled their drawings of the afon, ysgol, lakes, and mountains, they also taught us about the hirkas, mayus and wasis.
For the second workshop, we explored the translation of memories between one generation and another since the fatal earthquake of 1970. We asked the pupils about their families and what they have been told about the tragic event that we were remembering. Their artistic renditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ recollecitons show the Huascarán mountain with his dual character. He is severe and kind, the guardian of Yungay, but also its castigator. The geological features of the region featured prominently in all of their pictures as a source of awe and inspiration. During the break, the children read the messages sent to them from Rhyd y Grug on paper airplanes and responded, using new words in Welsh and English.
For the last workshop, we walked with the children to disaster site that neighbours the school, which is now a memorial park called the Campo Santo. The children were familiar with the park’s major landmarks — a demolished church, the ruins of a bus, surviving palm trees — and were intersted in showing us the wildlife they found there: a frog, some ticks. Later we tasked them with drawing a collective map of Yungay and the Campo Santo. The Santo Domingo pupils took inspiration from the maps we created at Rhyd y Grug. The hermosura of the main square, the lagoons and their love for the town brought new colours and an air of hope into their artwork. The warmth of the children speaks of the care they have for their community, and of how memories of the tragedy resonate as learning and solidarity.
Jesús has been busy making a digital map on the basis of the children’s drawings which will serve as a visual memoir of the day and which we hope will be used as a learning resource in future. Watch this space!