a painful truth

This happened on our last home visit at the Pumamarca community. As usual, we (only Jane, Alvin and Linda) were on our way to pick up our social worker Iris at the foot of the hill up to Pumamarca. Iris was already there in deep conversation with some locals. She came over to our van, greeted us in a hurry and started telling us a horrific story of a domestic violence that just took place that afternoon. Our spanish is still not good enough to follow exactly what Iris was saying and in the next few minutes, a local Pumamarca lady walked over to the van with fresh blood covering all over her and her clothes. We were shocked at the sight of her...cheeks and eyes swollen, bleeding nose and hands, and her blouse and skirts covered in blood. She was crying uncontrollably, telling Iris and Jane that her husband has just beaten her up. He was drunk and beat her up when his meal was not ready. Immediately, we took her to the nearest police station to file a report and to our surprise, her husband was already there in the station. First we thought he was there to confess his disgusting/shameful actions but to our horror he was there telling the police that his wife had done something wrong and that's the reason for the beat-up. Apparently the husbands can always claim that the wives either stolen or cheated on them and husbands can get away with domestic violence. What disgusted us most was the attitude of the policemen. They didn't seem to care and told us to come back the next day. We ignored them and brought the lady to an emergency ward for check-up as we suspected that she might have fractured cheeks, and we need a medical report to file a complete report against the husband. The visit to the emergency ward was quite an experience too. The nurse was reluctant to do much since she was engrossed in her novel. Iris had to chase up a doctor and insist before the nurse would agree to stitch up a very deep cut on one of the lady's finger. What surprised us more is that we had to go to the pharmacy counter to purchase the drugs, needles, thread, gloves, etc... for the nurse and bring them back to the her before any treatment would be done. This is the procedure regardless of what condition a person is in!!! An X-ray was also performed to check if the lady had any fracture in her cheekbones. When the film was ready, we realised that the 'practising' doctor took the X-ray from the wrong angle! Such a crazy place! Next, the nurse told the lady that she must have provoked her husband to get such a beating, in a tone which disgusted all of us. The nurse also refused to get the doctor to have a look at the X-ray film, giving the excuse that she could not get hold of him. We had enough of the place and decided to take the X-ray film and the lady out of the emergency ward to seek help somewhere else.

Alcohol and domestic violence are major issues in the under-privileged community. Males are dominant and they seems to have the right to beat up their wives for the smallest reason. What disgusted us most is the attitude of many (the locals) towards domestic violence. The value of life in this country is very different when compared to developed countries.