By N.C. Aizenman and Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 17, 2007
When news of the massive earthquake in Peru was broadcast on the television set at El Chalan Restaurant in downtown Washington on Wednesday night, the aftershock that rippled through the mostly Peruvian dinner crowd was almost as strong as the ones through Lima.
"It was this scene of just tremendous desperation," recalled Elsa Espinoza, 66, owner of the mom-and-pop establishment. "Everyone was on their cellphone, frantically trying to call their family members. I kept trying to reach my sister. But nobody could get through."
Within a few hours, many had succeeded. But yesterday, members of the area's Peruvian community were back on the phones, this time calling one another to discuss how to raise funds for the survivors.
"When something like this happens in your country and you are so far away, you feel so impotent," said Carlos Blanco, president of Hermandad del Senor de los Milagros, a church-affiliated group of more than 80 Washington area Peruvians that raises money for charitable causes back home. "All you want to do is go there and protect everyone."
Blanco and leaders of several similar community groups said they had called emergency meetings to set a course of action.
Vladimir Kocerha, press attache at the Peruvian Embassy, said that a fundraiser would be held in the area soon but that plans have not been finalized. In the meantime, he urged people to send cash as opposed to goods and to coordinate their relief efforts with the consulates.
"What we want to avoid is a lot of individual volunteerism that enables [scam artists] to take advantage of the circumstances," he said.
The Peruvian government has declared today a national day of mourning, and a Mass for the victims is scheduled for the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in the District on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
The magnitude 8.0 quake rippled streets and toppled buildings, leaving at least 437 dead and more than 800 injured, but casualty figures are expected to rise.
Espinoza's sister, a longtime Washington resident who retired and moved back to Lima less than two weeks ago, escaped unharmed. But Espinoza said that when she finally made contact, at about 9 p.m. Wednesday, "my sister couldn't stop crying."
"She told me, 'I've never seen trees and walls move like that. . . . I honestly thought it was the end of the world.' "
In recent years, governments dealing with similar natural disasters -- including several in Central America -- have asked the United States to grant temporary legal status to current illegal immigrants from their country until the crisis has abated.
Kocerha said it was too soon to say whether the Peruvian government would seek such relief.
The embassy estimates that as many as 120,000 Peruvians or children born to Peruvians live in the Washington area -- a figure substantially higher than the most recent U.S. Census count, which covers only those born in Peru.
Most come from Lima, a sprawling metropolis that is about 175 miles north of Ica and about 125 miles north of Pisco, the towns that were hit hardest by the quake.
Access to public education is fairly broad in Peru, so local Peruvian immigrants tend to be well-educated urbanites. By and large, they work as business professionals, according to the Peruvian consulate, which estimates that their numbers have grown by 50 percent in recent years.
Even as they set down roots here, many remain committed to aiding their compatriots back home, contributing about $45,000 during a recent Spanish radio fundraiser organized by the consulate for victims of freezing weather across Peru's southern Andean region.
Several local Peruvians predicted that even more funds will be raised this time.
Gloria de la Flor, who lives in Bethesda and has family in Miraflores, an upscale suburb of Lima, has promised to send her relatives money to help their gardeners, maids and other workers rebuild their lives in the devastated coastal towns.
"We are going to see little by little what the people need," said de la Flor, who is a leader of a local Peruvian social group and a Spanish teacher in Montgomery County.
Staff writers Pamela Constable and Karin Brulliard contributed to this report.
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