Tonight I participated in my first Peruvian protest. I've seen a lot of protests here through the years, but this is the first one in which I participated. There is a park that surrounds a military office, the Pentagonito (the little pentagon), in the community of San Borja. And the military is now trying to sell the space to developers. I've been going there most mornings to go for runs. It's one of the few "green" spaces in this part of Lima. It's packed in the morning with joggers, walkers, bikers, and there is one corner that has free outdoor exercise equipment and in another corner they have aerobics classes. There is also an open park area. On Sundays they close of some of the streets surrounding the parks so families can come and ride their bikes in a safe environment. It's kind of like the bike/running path along Lake Shore Drive, minus the lake. If you've been to Lima, you know how rare this area is and what a shame it would be for it to become another bunch of condos or strip mall. There are so many cars here and pedestrians do not have the right of way, so it's nice to have a safe place to run. And it's great to see people out exercising. Anyway, people have been signing petitions all week and they decided to have a vigil tonight, which was more like a rally and I went to support the cause. It was a good turn out...some congressmen, the local mayor, an army group opposed to the sale, lots of community members, and even Santa. Now we'll just have to see how effective we were.
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