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.