Live cuys and potatoes

As I waslked over the bridge leading to the community of Huycho, carring a bag containing 5 live cuys in each hand, a woman wearing the traditional Andean top hat and blue skirt stopped me to ask if I'd bought cuys. It must be a funny sight, a gringa carrying live cuyes. I told her--no, the cuys are Rosa's--my host the previous night. I had accompanied her to the market and now I was helping her carry her things up to her house. The woman asked me what I was doing there, and I told her about our volunteer project. She asked me if we could send volunteers to her community, and I told her our project is just starting, but if we get more volunteers we'll expand. I walked up to Rosa's house with the cuys, back with an empty wheelbarrow and up again carrying carrots, beans, chicken feet, and chicha (a drink made fermenting different vegetables).

Later, as I was having lunch, Rosa's daughter Amelie came to say there was a woman looking for me. I went to the door and Asunta, the woman from the bridge, was there with her daughter. I was going to tell her I can't do anything for her, when I had an idea. She told me she is part of a cooperative making crafts, so I thought volunteers can visit her community over a weekend, spend the night there (they said they can have a bonfire) and learn about Andean craft-making traditions, and buy their products as gifts to bring back home. I need to go and visit her community first, but I think it would be interesting for volunteers, and maybe we can sell their products on our website too!

Together with the volunteer project, we are working on a development project for women in the district of Huayllabamba. There are abandoned houses on the road of the Valley circuit, where about every tourist who comes to Peru passes. The previous Mayor of Huayllabamba had built them for a craft market, which failed because there are other internationally renouned artesan markets on the circuit. Now the houses are abandoned but still in good conditions. Maria's idea is to have an Andean product tasting market. Local women would be given microcredit loans and be taught about microfinance, cooking and nutrition by specialists. They would rotate weekly and sell food to tourists: an entrance fee would be charged to go and taste the different types of Andean potato and potato products (cakes, etc), corn and other foods from this region. Food would also be on sale if, say, you tasted a food and wanted to buy more to eat on the spot or take away.

The mayor of Huayllabamba is enthusiastic about the project but expects us to do everything. Yesterday we talked with an economist who specializes in drafting budget plans for all sorts of projects and he told me all the steps we need to go through. Monday I will talk to the Mayor again so we can get the project going and hopefully have it running by the Northern hemisphere summer, the highest tourist season. In March there will be meetings to distribute milk to women in the communities, and before the meetings we'll talk about the project and see what reactions we get.

I don't know how much this is a grassroots project, as the idea is not coming from the village women, but from a wealthy and educated woman from Cusco, and developed by a relatively clueless gringa (that would be me). On the other hand if an individual is very entrepreneurial and rich of initiative s/he is probably not "the poorest", and also it's much easier to have ideas if you're higly educated in education systems encouraging critical thinking, you've travelled the world, talked to different people and been exposed to all sorts of environments, like Maria and myself.

The main problem, as always, is the funding. Apparently (and obviously) Huayllabamba is not considered the poorest area of the Sacred Valley, which will make it harder to obtain funds, but this is the International year of the Potato, as initially suggested by Peru, and I am going to ask for funding from the FAO for a potato project in Peru...

Random thoughts

Sitting in a tiny internet cafe in Yucay, in the Sacred Valley, I am happy I came to Peru, happy the Mayor of the 5 communities in enthusiastic about having volunteers and about setting up a project for women to sell Andean foods to tourists, happy because I am surrounded by beautiful mountains and wonderful people. It's exactly the opposite from what you'd expect: people in the mountains are very friendly, greet me as I walk in the streets, they ask me about what I'm doing here and want to be part of the project. In the jungle when i say hi they simply stare, when I talk about the project they say ok I'll think about it. I am generalising of course, but the different nature of the mountain vs. jungle people is not my personal opinion, or at least it is shared by many Peruvians.

Since I arrived I've been thinking about the amazing women I've lived with during my time in Latin America, and about my friendship with them and with their maids. Karla, my Nica host mom, is an incredibly strong and intelligent woman, who was supporting 3 kids alone, and while the entire country is going to hell is building a huge extension to her house. Mercedes, her maid and my best friend in Nicaragua, is now pregnant and living in Costa Rica illegally, with her husband who is working in a flower plantation.
Maricarmen is another brilliant woman, who was lucky enough to marry a man who coud finance her project, and now is managing a travel agency, an NGO, and a number of construction projects and pieces of land. Her maid in Cusco, Anna, lived in Italy for 3 years illegally, working as a maid, and then came back out of desperation for her son she'd left here. With the money she'd earned there she built her house here, where she lives now with her mom, her husband, her son, and a daughter they had after she came back. Maria's maid in Pilcopata, Alicia, ran away from her home in Paucartambo (3 hours from Pilco during the dry season) after her brother beat her up for the last time, and escaped to Pilcopata. She was 17 and had barely been out of her house and never out of her parents' sight. She went to Pilco with a friend, began to work in the fields (as she'd been doing her whole life) and now has two daughters of 7 and 5.

I need to go meet my hosts for the night, they are going to kill and roast a cuy for me tonight! (cuy=cavia peruviana). But a note about my real reason for coming to Peru, as Stefano suggests--it's not worth it: coca leaves taste disgusting! I tried to chew a few the other day and I had to spit them out immediately...plus they make your mouth numb! Also, I heard rumors about leaf-smuggling aborad from a community near the ones where we work. Apparently most men in the area have been offered multiple times to carry leaves, and when I asked how much they would get paid for it I got a vague answer of--depends on what you do. Scary. Watch "Maria llena de gracia" (Maria full of grade), it's one of my favorite movies, about smuggling cocaine into the US.

Jungle memories and work plans

After the ordeal of a 13-hour bus ride back to Cusco (with 2 flat tires, a broken piece of bus, and 3 stretches on foot because the road was full of landslides and rivers) I am back! Back in a chilly office, wearing a sweater and poncho on top, drinking hot tea to keep warm...and I love it! I love clean feet and no insects, nice hair not curled by the humidity, and the lack of small-town drama which permeates everything in Pilcopata--I am hopelessly a city/mountain girl. It's interesting how adaptable humans are, and yet how we love what we know.

I have lots of work to do, 2 partnerships working out with English organizations, going to the Valley for 3 days tomorrow, Simone (my first volunteer) coming Sunday, all the info to prepare for the NGO website in 3 languages--it's almost ready :)

Great live news: one of the project's we're going to partner with is an English organization linking volunteers to 3 NGOs, one in Cambodia, one in South Africa, and one in Bolivia (and hopefully us). The coordinator of the Bolivia project just emailed me and she turns out to be Italian! She's going to visit us at the end of March, see the project in the Sacred Valley, and travel to Pilcopata with me and Simone on April 4 to see the projects in the jungle...exciting!

Here are some pictures, and hopefully I'll have some time later for some stories from the jungle...

The Jungle

My jungle baptism

Yesterday I came back from the most amazing trip. Monday morning Maricarmen, her son Noicolay, myself, a guide Miguel, and a local family who works for Maria (Americo, Alicia and their daughters Kaitlyn and Vivanda) left Pilcopata in Maria's wooden motorboat--all pictures coming on Sunday, when I'll be back in Cusco. We went down the river all morning, with gorgeous jungle landscapes on the river banks, and thankfully Americo and Miguel who knew the ways 'cos otherwise it's impossible to tell one river from the next. At times we had to get off the boat and push it because the rivers are very shallow (they are not navigable dwith such big boats during the dry season). The boat ride there is dedicated to Lorenzo (he knows why--and his technique was not applied, but almost!)

We reached Palotoa, an indigenous Machichenga community, around 1 pm, and they offered us their school to sleep and cook. In my infinite naivity at first I could hardly imagine how the native must feel, living in their wooden houses, with no electricity, getting water from the river, and living in the middle of the jungle. After spending a few hours there, eating lunch, making juice with the coconas (fruits that look like kakis and taste like lemons) they gave me, swimming in the river, and watching the boys playing soccer, I was wandering what better childhood can a child have. Most people in Palotoa have studies and have been to Lima and Cusco many times, but about 80% return. Understandably.

That night we slept in the school, and it poured rain like I've never seen. The next morning we went upstream by boat for another hour and reached a hotel they build with funds from Manu National Park for sustainable "pro-poor tourism" (this is the politically correct name these days for locally-run tourism benefiting local communities). The hotel is beautiful and so is the place. The natives went fishing and caught 12 huge fish, with which we made a soup for lunch. In the soup you boil the head and tail--and for all the Americans disgusted at teh sight of a fish's head: they made me eat it, saying it's the best part, and I have to admit it tastes good.
In the afternoon we went for a walk in the jungle and we saw two red birds with long tails dancing; then we bathed in the river. At night we ate the fish's bodies: the best I've had in my life, with local yucca (a type of potato). As I provide the western tourist's point of view I got to go on all the the jungle walks, and talk to all the community leaders with Maricarmen, to give them suggestions on how to operate their sustainable tours. And for the advice I was able to give I can only thank my parents for all the travelling I've done, hotels I've seen and tours I've been on.

Yesterday morning we walked in the jungle from the hotel back to Palotoa (a 2 hour walk), on which I saw all sorts of gorgeus plants, flowers, and huge butterflies with eyes on their wings (I didn't think they really existed...). Then we came back to Pilcopata by boat and I could not believe my luck in landing this job (it will cost tourists over $100/day to travel to Palotoa). I was lying on the boat in the sun, enjoying the landscape, and talking to Maricarmen about how I could live this jungle life for a while, completely removed from the world, fishing, growing yucca, bathing in the river. She told me about how she worked in communities in the jungle with the priest from Pilcopata for 4 years, she wanted to go and live the easy life in the jungle and the father told her that couldn't be her life, she'd have to work hard during her life, for herself and others. I think the same is true for me. On our way we stopped at an island in the middle of the river, where bananas were growing, and picked 2 bunches (about 200 bananas), then we stopped to try to fish with dynamite in a lagoon (you make the explosive go off under water and it kills the fish around it), but they caught no fish.

We got back to Pilcopata last night, and I don't like it. It will be interesting to work here, but it's not city and it's not jungle--and the bugs are eating me alive. Back to Cusco on Saturday!

200 Km to a different world

Yesterday morning Maricarmen, Nicolay and I took the bus to Pilcopata, our jungle headquarters, capital of the district of Kosñipata, and one of the main doorways to Manu national park. Most of Maria's family lives here: her parents, 2 brothers with wives and kids, aunts, ouncles, etc.
The distance between Cusco and Pilco il 200 km, or 9 hours by bus (because we were lucky). We left at 9 am and by 10:30 I was seriously worried for my life. The landscape is beautiful but the road makes Tanzanian country roads look like highways: entirely unpaved, narrow, windy, carved in the mountain, which during the rain season means you cross a number of rivers and ponds, and pray you don't meet too many trucks coming the other way. At one point we all had to get off the bus for safety because we were crossing a huge muddy pond. Maricarmen was telling me about how once she came with a group of Spanish tourists who were literally crying the entire way. Finally I relaxed and fell asleep, only to be awaken by people shouting "Está cayendo!" (It's falling!)--the mountain, clearly. Some people wanted to get off the bus, but the majority convinced the driver to pass quickly before too much of the mountain fell and blocked our way. And my favourite part of the drive was when a waterfall had formed crossing the road and we drove under it, with the driver tellnig everyone to sit on the left side of the bus to balance it out.
(Now that my parents are probably about to pass out picturing me in that bus, I can tell you I won't be taking that road again during the rain season, so by next time I come to Pilcopata it should have improved significantly).

The jungle is goprgeous, the vegetation amazing. It is significantly poorer that the Valley, mainly because here they only produce fruit and have to import everything else, while there they produce food staples like potatoes and corn. Maria has this brilliant idea, and here's what we are planning to do (if there is local interest and funding): work with the poorest women in the jungle communities and give them microcredit loans to set up a fruit market in the main square of Pilcopata. Most tourists going to Manu national park stop by here, so it would be great to have stalls with all the different fruits with names and all (since you've never seen most of them), and sell juices, jams, fruit cakes, and the fruits themselves. We're planning to do something similar in the Valley with Andean products.

There is a coulpe, Alicia and Americo, who work closely with Maria here, taking care of her house and building the volunteer housing--which is looking great and hopefully it will be ready by April when 4 volunteers will be here. Americo took me by motorcycle to meet some people who live deep in the jungle in wooden houses (one room for people, animals, cooking, sleeping and washing, the river to bathe), to see if they would be suitable for volunteers. It would be interesting if the volunteers worked with them on the farm, but if I plan for the volunteers to survive I don't think they can live there...

We also met the priest, the guy in the shorts and baseball cap. Very different from the Italian idea of a priest. He's quite young and has just arrived here a couple month ago, and he is very active and interested in working with us on the project for women and in setting up an after-school program for kids. He'll start telling people about the project so when we come in April we can start.

In the afternoon I went with Maricarmen by motorcycle to Patria, 8 km from here. We visited her aunt, a little old lady with only one hand, who raised all her grandkids because her kids lived in Japan. She grows coca and was drying some to sell, and showed me her orchard. Her niece thought the automatic association between the coca plant and cocaine hilarious. Most people in these communities grow coca, it's a small plant about 1 m tall, and the leaves need to be handpicked and dried in the sun the next day. If they are not dried properly they become black and cannot be sold. It is then used for tea and as a medicinal plant. It takes various kilos of coca leaves to make 1 gram of cocaine. If you try to fly to the US or Europe with coca leaves you'll be stopped immediately, but if it weren't for cocaine it would be one of the most effective and widely used medicinal plants.

It's going to be harder to work in the jungle than in the Valley, because people are less organised and less eager to receive volunteers. Possibly because in the Valley they've seen tons of volunteers and NGO projects while here there are none.

I like it here but I had sensed right when I thought I wouldn't come to Peru to spend a year in Pilco: mountains, cold weather, and the city of Cusco are more for me. I'll download pictures as soon as I can (today my bag fell in the river and the camera got soaked, thankfully it still works!)

PRA: Making Dr. Hall Proud

If you'd asked me 6 months ago I would have told you rural development was not my thing. Obsessive city girl as I am (who wouldn't be after 4 years in NH...), I recognized that many of the urban development issues wouldn't exist if rural areas had basic infrastructure and services, but I wouldn't have wanted to (live) work in a rural area. Maybe I found the perfect solution: living in Cusco, and working in the Valley, reaching out to the heart of Peru, communities where no NGO or project exists, and where the reputation of drunks and troublemakers is not (yet) attached to volunteers.

Today I went to 3 communities in the Valley where we work: Huycho, Huayocari and Huayllabamba. I went alone by bus and I walked I don't know how many kilometers but my legs are hurting like hell (and now I've been sitting for 3 hours).

I went with 2 things in mind, 1) Maricarmen's advice: talk to people, because if you do they are friendly and if you don't they'll think you're a weird foreigner; and

2) Dr. Hall's drillings on Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques for rural development. They like to make us think "development" is a "discipline", so they come up with names, and of course acronymes 'cos the anglophones can't live without, for things that are quite obvious to any illitterate farmer (but for some reason not to the plurigraduated foreigners trying to "develop them"). But I digress... PRA basically means: go to the rural communities, ask the people (not the local authorities) what they need, and have them do it. Try to figure out if they're telling you what they really want and not what they think you want to hear, and try to hear the voices of the most marginilised (i.e. women, minorities, the poorets, etc).

Maricarmen woke me up at 5:40 am and I still don't have it in me to get up that early, but I'm gonna have to get used to it. She took me to the bus station and I got on a bus to Huycho.

I walked to Simone's future host family talking to everyone on the way to see their house better and tell them more about hosting a volunteer, and to get to know the community a bit. With the excuse to ask for directions I started chatting and introduced myself and the project to lots of people. The woman of the house, Rosita, was in Cusco today so we didn't meet, but her husband let me in an dshowed me the house, and their 2 youngest kids Alexandra and Fernan showed me around the community. We went to their grandma's house--too bad I couldn't communicate with her 'cos we don't have a common language...I really need to learn some Quechua! Simone will be working in the fields there and in construction in the neighbouring community of Huayocari--there's is a ton of work to do.

Then I walked to Huayocari and my impression this time was much better, I think we can place volunteers there too. Right now there is no school because of vacation in Peru, but as I walked into Huayocari's primary school a class of kids without teacher starte pointing and yelling at me "Profe, profe!"...which quickly changed to "gringuita" as they took a closer look at me! I asked them where the director was and they pointed to another room across the courtyard. I introduced myself to the director and a few teachers, and they are all enthusiastic about receiving volunteers and they'll also help me find host famlies. The kids were incredibly friendly and excited to have me take their picture.

I walked up to Maria's land and there found Freddy and Onorio working, and Onorio's wife Julia and their 5 kids. Cute, dirty, ragged, shy, sweet, whose growth has been stunned by eating barely potatoes and hiking 1 hour up and down from their house to school every day.
On my way back down to the highway I socialised with a man carrying a huge bag of grass (?) on his back and a woman with two donkeys. I told them I'm going to be working there with volunteers, and my personal version of PRA practiced over and over today: I've only been in Peru for two weeks, so I don't know what projects the volunteers should be doing, you people need to tell me what you want them to do. The woman's name is Lucia, she is 32 and looks 55, lives up the mountain higher than Onorio's house, and wants me to visit her (let me gather my energies...). She has 5 daughers and 1 son between the ages of 15 and 2. How about a volunteer teaching about birth control? Clearly me imposing my western mentality, but probably the idea deserves at least a thought...

I walked to Huayllabamba and was honored to have every single bus and truck driver honk at me. Huayllabamba is definitely richer and bigger than the other communities, paved roads and all. There is the town hall for all 5 communities we work with and others, and the shared priest is ofter there as well. I talked to the mayor's secretary, Miriam, who is about my age and very helpful. She'll help me find host families and set up a meeting with all the community presidents and school directors so I can tell them about the project. Of course as I arrived back in Cusco and told Maricarmen about this she said--no way you'll talk to the community presidents, they'll just try to get money from you and involve you in their dirty politics. She clearly knows PRA without being taught.
The priest is only there from 3 to 5 pm evey day and I didn't want to wait 2 hours for him, so I came back. I took a bus to Urubamba, the distric capital, and on the bus started talking to people again about what they'd want the volunteers to do (with the excuse of askign where the priest lives).

The beginning is easy 'cos as a foreigner I attract people's interest-- but I'm happy I'm not blonde, that would be too much interest! This is the job for me...and it's going really well on the volunteer recruitment side as well: we are forming a partnership with an English org http://www.voluntaryprojectsoverseas.org/ and hopefully with the Italian (now huge and global) org WEP. Also single volunteers are contacting me because they hear about the project through word of mouth...and we are officially an NGO! Our name is Comunidades Unidas / Joint Communities--website coming soon!

Peru taking shape

The culture, the people, the places are starting to mean more than the beautiful, interesting, or exotic first impression.

Saturday night Maricarmen and I went dancing, and it's amazing how the music doesn't seem to change...the same songs I heard 4 years ago in Nicaragua, and the same 80's classics Latinos seem to love (with some new ones, some Peruvian music, and all the hip hop songs that in Europe and the States have people running to the dance floor, and here have everyone sit down waiting for the next Spanish song...). The place was quite nice, we met some people there who wouldn't let us go home at 3 am 'cos it was too early! They had a live band and the best thing is that men dance (as in: they know how).

Sunday morning we were supposed to get up early to go to the Sacred Valley. Of course after the dancing night we didn't leave the house till late morning, but we had a great day. it was Maricarmen, her son Nicolay, the webmaster working with us Olger, his wife Erica and their baby daughter Kalia, and myself. Olger is a couple years older than me and Erica must be my age: they are both brilliant, intelligent, active...and they are actually adults, there is no doubt in their minds that they want to be parents, that they have to take on responsibilities, and I wonder why in our "developed" world so many people our age are light years away from that.

We went with Maricarmen's car and the views driving from Cusco to the Valley are amazing. First we went to Chinchero, according to Olger, who is a certified tour guide, the most beautiful and authentic craft market in the Valley, at 3700 mts (Don't ask me feet, I'll never learn...). When we arrived we first met an 80-year-old man who hand knits hats: it used to take him 3 months to make each hat, but now hie eyesight is so bad it takes him about 5 months. We had a hard time communicating with him as he doesn't speak much Spanish (only Quechua), but Maricarmen offered to take him to the hospital in Cusco to have his eyes checked; it's probably just a problem of cataract and I hope she'll take him in the next few weeks. He is an amazing artist and his skill will soon be lost.

Then we drove to Urubamba, the Sacred Valley district capital, at the bottom of the Valley, about 1500 mts. There I was baptised to the Peruvian carnival tradition: people throw water, water baloons and foam at each other in the street, so Nicolay, Olger, and random passer-byes decided to gang up against me and I was SOAKED! I got my revenges though, spraying them with foam and spraying foam at random people from the car as we drove away.

From there we went to Huayocari, where Maria and Geoff have their land, and worked adding "soap" (duck and cow dung) to each plant so it will grow better. Farm work is hard! But it was nice, and in the meantime Olger and Erica cooked us a great lunch. People in Huayocari are not very open, I think it will be hard to work with volunteers there: they have lots of internal politics arguments around the access road, bridges, and the local governemtn stealing money. There are also serious alcoholism problems, and I haven't seen any house that seems sufficiently well-off to host a volunteer. Anyway we'll see as I get to know the communities better.

Finally we went to Huycho. The beauty of the place is undescribable: surrounded by green mountains and different kinds of luscious vegetation, facing gorgeous mountains with glaciers. The communitiy is definitely richer than Huayocari, and the people extremely welcoming. I found the perfect host family for Simone, the first volunteer coming in March. They have a nice house with hot running water, bathroom, kitchen, etc. The mother, Rosa, seems very friendly and open, ahd she has worked with volunteerd before. The father Crisostomo was in a very bad accident a few months ago, when a truck ran him and other people over on their way to work. He was lucky to survive, and had to have surgery in his leg placing a piece of metal instead of his femur. Now he is much better, but he still walkes with crutches and obviously can't to any farmwork...so it will be perfect for Simone to help on the farm. They have 2 daughters ages 9 and 7 and a 5-year-old son. I'm excited to work with them, and they are so happy to recieve a volunteer. We pay host families 400 soles (about US$ 140) per month; the volunteer gets a private bedroom, all meals, and a real Peruvian experience.

Also, I'm gonna try to do a socioeconomic study of all the communities, going to each house to see the conditions of the house, how many people live there, what is their job, etc. to try to reach out to the poorest families and see what projects they would like to see in the community and actively involve them.

Peruvian life

La papa es Peruana

What better place to be in the UN Year of the Potato? And I thought there were maybe 2 or 3 types of potatoes...

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Peru's potato passion goes global
By Dan Collyns BBC News, Ayacucho, Peru

At harvest time in the highland village of Paucho, the first crop of potatoes are baked in a hole in the ground covered with hot rocks, in a ceremony called Watia - a homage to Pacha Mama, or Mother Earth. For thousands of years, the potato has been the staple diet of the people of the Andes. It was first cultivated on the Altiplano of modern-day Peru and Bolivia, and Peru still has some 2,800 varieties of potato, more than any other country.
Like many people, I took the humble spud for granted, but after the launch of the UN Year of the Potato in Ayacucho in the Peruvian Andes, I am repentant at my lack of reverence for the third biggest food staple in the world.
Boost consumption
I have never seen a vegetable invoke such high passions and poetry.
It was the theme for a seamless succession of carnival floats, colourful costumes, and traditional dance and music. All this was punctuated by cries of "la papa es Peruana" - "the potato is Peruvian", just in case anyone forgot. Despite this, consumption of the potato in Peru has dropped to half that of many European countries, with many Peruvians turning to rice or bread. But internationally high food prices, especially wheat - 80% of which is imported in Peru - are causing hardship for the country's poor, who make up almost half the population.
Peru's agriculture minister, Ismael Benavides, says the native potato is the answer. The government is trying to boost its consumption by encouraging more people to eat bread baked with potato flour, starting with schoolchildren and prisoners.
"When I went to the UN in October to launch the International Year of the Potato somebody from an Eastern European country, Ukraine I think, said to me 'I didn't realise that potatoes came from Peru'. That showed me that we had to claim our place," Mr Benavides said at the festival.
"The potato is very important in the diet worldwide and in this age of rising commodity prices... a number of countries, such as China and India, are looking to double or triple their production."
Marketing tactics
Can Peru benefit from this projected surge in consumption?
"The paradox that we find today is that it is precisely those communities which have developed and given the world the potato are some of the poorest communities in the Andean chain," says Pamela Anderson, director of the International Potato Centre, based in Lima. "So part of what we do at the International Potato Centre is to take the native potato and really begin seriously and systematically marketing it, so that these small, poor farmers can use the native potato as a pathway out of poverty." The International Potato Centre is working with the government to drive the internal consumption of native potatoes, which come in a rich variety of colours, shapes and flavours.
The idea is not only to help poor rural communities, but also the 70% of Peru's population that lives in urban centres. "The price of bread has gone up and I just don't have the money to buy it as I used to," says Hermelinda Azurin, who supports her two daughters working as a maid in Lima. "A kilo of potato bread is 3.4 soles ($1.16) whereas normal bread has gone up to 5.40 soles ($1.84) in my neighbourhood. A kilo of potatoes is just 70 centimos ($0.23). Nowadays we eat potatoes every day in my family."
The Peruvian government is also looking at exporting native potatoes. They are exotic-looking, organic and have vitamins and amino acids that regular white potatoes do not have.
"We feel the quality of this product should have a market abroad, especially as we are opening markets with the US, Canada and we hope soon with the European Union," says Mr Benavides. "These would fall under what is called fair trade, so we feel there's great opportunities for these potatoes, native in particular."
'Infinite variety'
But it is precisely those new markets and free trade deals which many Peruvian farmers believe will mean they will have to compete unfairly with agricultural imports.
Mario Tapia, an agronomist who specialises in Andean crops, says a lack of investment in infrastructure is one part of the problem.
"The potato yields are not so high because there is not high investment in the production, so to compete with farmers who have subsidies in their own countries will not be fair for those farmers in the highlands," he says.
With or without an export market, the government plans to boost the internal potato market and give technical assistance to the 1.8m potato growers in Peru.
In the gastronomic world, the native potato has enthusiastic advocates. Peruvian restaurateur Isabel Alvarez says its "infinite variety of colours, textures, shapes and flavours" has prompted positive reactions in Europe. "The potato is a world in itself, and it is a gastronomic world which we've only begun to explore," she says. With gastronomic plaudits and its spiritual place in Andean culture assured, the question remains: can Peru's gift to the world now be used help those who gave it to us in the first place?

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7231148.stmPublished: 2008/02/08 14:34:52 GMT© BBC MMVIII

Destiny, bricheros and medicinal plants

As Maricarmen and I sat at the Irish pub the other night, she looked at me and said, "You know, it was destiny that you'd end up here". "I know--I said--I absolutely wanted to stay in London and I spent 3 months looking for jobs tehre. The first job I applied for in Latin America was this one".

This is the story of how I got this job: Lauren, the previous volunteer coordinator, went back to Canada to do her master's, so she posted ads on a few websites advertising the vacancy. They recevied lots of applications, and had no time to look at all of them, especially since Maria's English isn't that good. Finally she told Lauren to pick the 5 or 6 best ones and send them to her. Maricarmen liked my cover letter because she could understand most of it, and she emailed 4 people (amongh which myself) whom she wanted to interview. All 3 emails except for mine came back to her as incorrect address.

I've been here a week and I'm learning about all sorts of herbal remedies: when I was sick Maria gave me a mate of oregano, peppermint, celery and yerba buena. I think celery is also used to cure menstrual pain. And if you eat a piece of garlic with salt with every meal for one month during the summer you won't get sick all winter. Scared you'll smell of garlic? Just eat one spoonful of yougurt and the smell is gone! You can cure virtually everything with herbs, in Lima there is a hospital in which doctors (=people with a degree in medicine) cure everything, including HIV using only plants.

And a warning to all foreigners coming to Peru: watch out for bricheros/as. I'm sure they exist in all of Latin America, or probably all of the developing world, they just don't have a name. Bricheros/as are men or women who will seduce foreigners, making up all sorts of elaborate and believable stories about their life, with the goal of getting the foreigner to support them, eventually marry them, and hopefully bring them to their country.

Oh, and watch out for aliens as well, they have made contact with people in Cusco repeatedly! I guess if I were an alien I'd pick Cusco too: it's high enough to be visible from outer space, and quite nice :)

Machu Picchu FOR SALE!

What's the best way to invest in the economic and social development of Peru? Hmmm...how about privatizing its archaeological sites, i.e. selling them (to foreigners)? This must be the brilliant and farsighted logic of Alan Garcia's government.

Today's general strike in the whole region of Cusco is to protest against two laws about the privatisation of Peru's heritage sites, currently being discussed by the government.

Foreigners (especially Chileans) have been buying large pieces of land in Peru ever the last few years: land in the Sacred Valley now costs about US$4 per sq mt..and it's gone up! Impoverished Peruvian farmers are forced to sell their land to foreign investors for ridiculous prices. Telecommunications and transport have already been privatised (beyond any neoliberal economic rethoric, this means poor people cannot afford them and stay without). The next step would be to sell the management of the country's heritage sites.

If you think you've seen a strike you should have seen this one. NO ONE was working (except vendors selling food to the protesters): no buses, taxis or cars of any sort were to be seen in the streets, all cafes, restaurants and shops were closed, including the market. Maricarmen and I went to the protest, everybody was in the streets marching, protesting, or just hanging out.

"El Cusco no se vende, el Cusco se defiende!", or a few that would be good in Italy too: "Alan, grosero, vende tu trasero!" and "Urgente, urgente, otro presidente!". The strike will go on untill the law is banned for good. Worry not, I think the Cusqueños have it in them to preserve their heritage and their businesses.

...And an interesting BBC study for all the no-globals who enjoy all the benefits of globalisation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7230202.stm

Varie

The (real) Inca Sacred Valley

Is it bad when poverty doesn't shock you--and you wonder if it's because you've "seen worse" or you've simply become numb to it? Or is it worse when it does shock you--because it means you're unaware of what goes on in the world? I guess it's good I'm not traumatised, or how am I going to help the volunteers process what they see? But is it really normal that a baby sleeping in a wheelbarrow in a mud house full of dirty pets does not shock me?

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Today, finally Maricarmen and I made it to the Inca Sacred Valley. Saturday we couldn't go because it got too late doing stuff here in Cusco, Sunday because I was so sick Saturday night and Sunday I could barely lie down straight, and yesterday because I was recovering and working here (we updated the website with pictures and info, and soon we'll be an NGO with the name Comunidades Unidas and our own webpage!).

Today we drove to the Sacred Valley (with a 2 hour delay because the woman guarding the garage was not there so we couldn't get the car) and it is AMAZING. The beauty of the place is unbelievable--and I haven't seen any of the Inca ruins (I'll take a day trip on a weekend). First we went to Racchi, the only community higher than Cusco in altitude...the mountains have this wave crest shape, with glaciers on top, and so many shades of green. It may sound strange, but these mountain lands are extremely fertile and within a very small area you have different climates and can grow different crops, from corn to potatoes, cabbage, onions, etc. Most people are farmers, and they own a plot of land since a land reform of the 1970s. However, they are still quite poor (by conventional western definition of the term, I guess), they work the land in very traditional ways with no modern machinery or technology and many communities have no electricity.

We stopped to talk to a family who hosted a volunteer last year, and gave the daughter a ride to the market at Huallabamba. On the way we stopped at Hurubamba, the district's capital...it's interesting to see palm trees growing at about 1800 mt! We had lunch in a small shop whose owner is going to rent us a room where I will stay when I go to visit volunteers in the Valley communities. (For about 75 euro cents you get a lunch of vegetable soup and main course of rice and vegetables).

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Finally we arrived at Huycho, where Maricarmen and Geoff have a piece of land, and we were looking for Onorio, the man who had the key to the field. They told us he lived further up the (amzingly beautiful) road. Of course the road was impossible by car and we walked about half an hour up the mountain, asking directions to people along the way, who told us--in Quechua--to keep going up. I'm going to sign up for a Quechua course together with Maricarmen tomorrow. Today was my first day in the field, and I realised it's not a linguistic extravagance of mine, it's going to be a matter of communicating with people. We met one woman who didn't speak a word of Spanish, various people who used it just to communicate with us, and every single person in the communities speaks it with this strange foreign accent (just like me...).

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Eventually we saw Onorio working in the corn fields. Poverty might not shock me, but generosity will never end to shock me. First he gave us fruit (a fruit I'd never seen before, with orange seeds with black seeds inside them) and we walked to his house. The house was 2 floors, made of mud bricks, with a million dollar view. When Onorio knocked a little boy opened the door and another came to look out of the window. We walked in and there was the baby sleeping in the weelbarrow, he opened his eyes, looked at us, and fell back asleep. We set on a little wooden bench in the patio where dogs with tiny newborn puppies and cuy roamed around, and 8-year-old Ferdinan was washing potatoes and wanted to cook some for us. His 11-year-old brother Cristian brought us hot mate (herbal tea) and Onorio gave us this vegetable, which in my ignorance is best described as a giant zucchini (prob 5 kg). I realised that the Peruvian etiquette in these situation is just the same as the Nicaraguan one: you take a few sips (or bites) of whatever you're offered, and you give the rest to the kids.

We walked back down to Maria's land and I learned Onorio has another son who was working in the field and a baby daughter his wife had taken to the fields with her. And still I ask mysefl: what are we doing? What's wrong with the way these people live their lives? But there's the risk of becoming very condescending here. I'm going to elaborate more on these thoughts once they're better elaborated in my mind...

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I think I found a good host family for my first volunteer coming next month, but I still need to check everything out better. Oh, and we're not going to Pilcopata (the jungle) this Friday, because the roads are so bad because of the rain that it took Freddy 3 days to come by truck with the materials for Maria's door for their house in Huycho!

Saturday Shopping

I'm gonna let the pictures do all the talking...

The Navel of the World

Love at first sight

I have this love at first sight thing with places. Either I love them immediately, like I did Matagalpa and London, and they become part of me for ever; or I might get to appreciate them, but no matter how much time I spend there, I never feel at home (like Durham, and Iringa). And I Love Cusco. Some luxuries I hadn't dared to hope for, like wireless internet in my bedroom definitely help my unconditional love ;)

Today I worked like a banker (almost), till 9.30 pm...there is definitely a lot to do! The office is in the ground floor of the house, and there is me, Maria, an accountant and a web person. It is great, and also strange, to have a job. I don't dare call it a real job, because I suppose in real jobs you don't need your employer to name and explain every food you eat 'cause you've never seen it before, and you don't walk around the city taking pictures "for the website"...anyway it's great to (almost) get paid to do what I've been doing for the past few years for free!

Maricarmen and her husband Geoff took me for a walk downtown Cusco around noon, and it is undescribable! It is surrounded by beautiful green mountains, over 5,000 meters high. The city itself is gorgeous, the Spanish architecture, and little streets, and the indigenous culture is alive and well, not just here for the tourists (who are not here in this season anyway). I keep having problems with my camera, but more and better pictures are coming soon! The central market is impressive, the amount and size and variety of fruit and vegetables is unbelievable! Pumpkins the size of Cinderella's carriage, and so many different kinds of potatoes...the pictures shows a stool where we had carrot juice which a woman made right in front of us of huge carrots and other fruits I don't even know. An entire jug for 4 soles (less than 1 euro).

Tonight I went to the Irish Pub in the Plaza de Armas (you can look up as many pictures of the Plaza de Armas as you want, but they don't even remotely do it justice). The pub is one of the gringo hang-out spots in the city, can't say I was impressed (with the place or the Cusquena beer), but it was a nice evening. I really like Maria, she is very nice and down to Earth, and she seems hard-working and very committed to her work.

Tomorrow we are going to the Inca Sacred Valley so I can see the communities we'll work with there. And Sunday we'll be back to see the carnival celebrations! Next week we'll go to Pilcopata for a couple weeks to talk with communities there and set up the volunteer projects.