Marcelino

Jon: Essentially the first interview we conducted in the Cordillera region of Peru was a farmer in the little village of 'Copa Grande', about 15 Km. up from the valley floor. The dirt road to this little community is heavily rutted and rock strewn, and yet it is the basic life-line of this little 'barrio'.

Claes had met this young farmer Marcelino Cruz Leyva on his trip last year, but Cruz hadn't figured prominently in much of his coverage then. This time, we wanted to capture the reality of Marcelino's life, which is at once brave and back-breaking on one hand, and in peril on the other.

We were scheduled to meet Marcelino at about 2:00 pm in Copa Grande, but ran into him on the road at the base of the mountain, where he was hiking the 15 Km. back home, carrying a 100 Lb. bag of fertilizer on his back up the mountain. We quickly threw his bag of fertilizer in the van being driven by our beloved driver Hugo, and were able to save Marcelino that back-breaking effort.

What you see here is a long-form version of our interview with Marcelino; I'm asking questions off camera, and Claes is recording the audio. We'll use excerpts of this interview in our longer stories. (Many thanks to Luis Fuentes for editing!)

Copa Story, on The World, Dec. 16, 2009

Jon: I am hoping that this posting works: here is a link to the first of our pieces to air on US network radio. The piece is on the Copa Grande climate change, and features rich sound recorded by Claes. The piece aired on the BBC/PRI/WGBH radio program "The World" on Dec. 16, 2009.

Over the Mountains and Through the Jungle...

Claes: Sunday morning. We enter the van and begin the six hour trip east to Bagua. About a half hour outside of Chiclayo we make our first stop, to look at ancient Inca Pyramids.

Jon: This image of the 'pyramid' doesn't really do it justice, since it is more or less 'melted' mud construction, now nearly a millennia old. The area is strewn with trash, and sitting rather ingloriously in the tough little town of Tucume, on the flatlands leading up to the Andes crossing. Still, if you stand quietly for a few seconds, and ignore the trash, the nearby traffic, and the incessant dust, you can imagine Incas walking these streets in one of the busiest and most important provinces of the pre-Pizarro Inca empire.

The trip over the Andes is breath taking. Along the twisting highway there are tiny adobe houses clinging to the hillsides, seemingly perched in mid-air, with thousand-foot drops steps away from the front door. The highway rises and rises, and rises some more - to the point where it seems like either the mountains continue to grow, or you are hallucinating.

Then, the cloud-whipped peaks cool off dramatically, with little spits of rain, and an occasional clap of thunder.

One small tragedy of this part of the trip was that my little Samsung digital camera (which I bought in Malaysia last year), with which I was capturing this spectacular view, was either lost or stolen shortly after arriving in Bagua. I got a lot of this imagery on my back-up flip camera, and on digital video, but that will have to wait until I can do some more editing.

Claes: Up in the Andes, I believe the highest peak was at about 2,500 meters. Just before reaching the peak we stop at a small restaurant for a quick meal. I was craving coffee. And since Peru grows coffee and some people we met claimed that the Peruvian coffee was THE BEST, I was typically disappointed to find that most restaurants only served freeze-dried instant coffee from a jar they put forward on the table.

Claes: It's a beautiful trip up and down the mountain. It's getting rather hot and humid. In the early evening, we finally reach Bagua. And all of a sudden our local producer Jacob shows up on a motorcycle just next to our van. He has made arrangements for us to stay at a local hotel. WiFi or any kind of Internet connection is no option. The rooms are simple, which is fine. But... I think it was when I saw the "electric" shower head in the bathroom that had some interesting green things coming out of it that I got a little concerned. The photo is from my hotel window (trust me, you don't want to see the interior)

Day 7

Claes: Saturday morning and we're meeting with Rocio Valdeavellano and Jose Ricapa from MOCICC, Movimiento Ciudando frente al Cambio Climatico a citizens' movement against climate change. Since we're leaving in the afternoon, they kindly offered to come see us at our hotel.

Claes: Mid-afternoon and we're heading back to the airport. This time to fly for about an hour to Chiclayo a near-coastal city further up north. Looking out the airplane window, it's a barren and dry landscape, with many water canals. Chiclayo is a fairly large city and as soon as we have out suitcaes, we are swiftly taken through the city streets by a very talkative guy - the first of mahy who is offering to take us places. We're checking in at our hotel, which seems to be run by very young folks all around. And the negotiations begin: We were hoping to get a collectivo taxi to Bagua. But before the evening is over, a cousin to a friend to a brother are involved. We end up with a big van, with plenty of room, but very nice.

Claes: In the evening in Chiclayo, we take a small taxi cab to La Fiesta - yes, the same restaurant as in Lima. Could be the fiesta, or that it's rather early in the evening, but the restaurant is empty. We get terrific service and great food. And as the photograph shows, we empty the plates.

Day 6

Claes: Friday. We had a chance to sleep in a little bit this morning. Since Father Marco Arana could not meet with us yesterday we have scheduled a meeting with him at a restaurant in Miraflores later today. Father Marco lives in Cajamarca and has been an human rights advocate there for many years, sometimes called El Diablo, because he has been very outspoken and vocal when it comes to human rights and the protests against foreing-owned investments in mining and petroleum in northern Peru.

Claes: In the afternoon we meet with Lucien Chauvin, who writes from Lima for Time Magazine and his partner Enrique who is one of the founders of MHOL. After a cpouple of quick interviews we head to perhaps the best restaurant of the trip: La Fiesta not far from our Lima producer Sharon Stevenson's home in Miraflores. The tastiest dish (that, unfortunately, I didn't order) was the slightly heated cheviche (on a banana leaf?) - it was just delicious!

Jon: The spectacular nature of this last warm Ceviche can't be underestimated. It has become a culinary high-point of the entire trip. First, the restaurant La Fiesta is the Lima version of a similar restaurant of the same name we are to visit in Chiclayo, in northern Peru the next evening (where Claes ordered the same dish, which was good, but not up to the standard of the one in Lima).

Second, it seems that every time we discuss the great (and sometimes not so great) food we had, we always find ourselves referring back to that spectacular Ceviche, with two langostinos perched atop. It was simply fabulous, perhaps one of the finest 'marisco' (sea food) dishes I've ever had.

Finally, one of the silly side-stories of our trip: we had planned to take photos of all the fine dishes we ate, for our scrap book, and potentially for stories to produce. And seemingly every time another great dish was set in front of us, we tucked in and devoured the food before realizing that we had neglected to take a photo. In consolation, we have a couple of pictures of decimated dishes, after their demise at the hands of two gluttons!

Day 5

Claes: Thursday morning. And we have a full schedule. First stop is Father Marco Arana - a former catholic priest who has been very active as a human rights advocate in his home town of Cajamarca. And who is now planning to run for President of Peru. On the way there, Sr. Figueroa pointed out "Mi Causa" a restaurant that only serves the delicious and traditional potato dish!

It turned out that Father Arana was not home, though he promised to meet with us the following day.

Jon: This meant we actually had time for coffee. Sr. Figueroa took us to a lovely sidewalk cafe, which we visited virtually every remaining day we had in Lima. It could have been in Paris, Milan or Berlin - great coffee, pastries, soup and sandwiches.

Dr. Richard Smith

Claes: At 11 a.m. we met with Dr. Richard Smith, Executive Director of Instituto del Bien Común. He's a North American anthropologist who has lived and worked with indigenous people in Peru for the past thirty years. An excellent interview on various topics, but focusing on the events in Bagua earlier this year.

Jon: Smith and his work are impressive. He has spent decades tracking and cataloguing the realities of dozens of local communities along the Marañon and other regions of Peru. This has lead to a massive collection of maps that he and his team have compiled. Smith speaks from a firm knowledge of what he is doing, although he also has a warm and witty sense of humor. His insights into the operations of the government and other organizations in the area were a great introduction to what had happened in Bagua last June. I was quite impressed.

Claes: In the afternoon we arrived at MHOL - Moviemiento Homosexual de Lima to meet with Christian and Marie for a story for "This Way Out."

Jon: Claes was kind enough to humor me on this story, coming along to record the audio of the two interviews here. The amazing thing about MHOL was not just that it was the primary advocate for gay rights in the area but that it had been in operation for nearly three decades. My contact, Crissthian Olivera, was genial and smart. His knowledge of the LGBT political scene was significant. But it was president Mary Vargas whose tales of abuse and the heroic work of gay leaders that really moved me. She was both tough as nails and engaging in her recounting of the reality of LGBT life in Lima.

Claes: Decided to try one of the local restaurants for dinner. Passed by a couple of the big, touristy places in Miraflores and ended up at a small Inca restaurant with excellent food (now, was this the second or third Lomo Saltado?)

Jon: It is also clear that the food in Lima is quickly becoming one of our stories. In simple terms: the variety and sophistication of food at least in Miraflores - if not the rest of the city - was a wonderful surprise.

Day 4

Hugo picked us up at 9, heading for the airport. Turned out that the flight back to Lima was delayed by 1.5 hrs. So we spent the time with coffee and making phone calls to the people we were scheduled to meet in Lima in the afternoon. Eventually the airplane arrived and again we had a spectacular flight.
Sr. Figueroa picked us up at the airport in Lima, and somehow we were just a few minutes late for our appointment with Deputy Environmental Minister Eduard Durand, who is in charge of the government's special climate change agency. Turned out that Sr. Durand was busy and asked us to return at 6 p.m. which gave us a little bit of time to pass by Hotel Senorial to dump our suitcases and freshen up a bit.
A little before 4 p.m. we entered OSINFOR (Organismo de Supervision de los Recursos Forestales y de Fauna Silvestre), the new Peruvian agency in charge of the rain forest, and the bold program to prevent deforestation. Its predecessor - no names - was dissolved, partly due to all the corruption.
Environmental minister Antonio Brack has put forward a plan to stop deforestation in just ten years. A bold plan, but OSINFOR's boss Dr. Richard Bustamante couldn't really explain how it would be done. Especially since there are only some 60 rain forest police...
In the evening, we decided to get a taste of the pollo de brasa of Lima. An upscale version of KFC. And of course a trip to the favorite grocery store, Vivenda, for some treats.

Day 3

Woke up early. Had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel - we were the only guests and treated as royalty.
Hugo and Kate picked us up at 9 and we went to the nearby town of Yungay (that suffered badly in the 1970 earthquake and mudslide). We had an appointment with Miluska Ordonez and Alcide Vilela from NGO ITDG - Soluciones Practicas. We had just started the interview when we could hear police sirens, a marching band, fireworks and people chearing -- another independence day celebration passing by on the main street.
Miluska and Alcide took us along up to Hashao, a small farming village that they are helping when it comes to e.g. water management. We met with a couple of farmers and enjoyed the tremendous views of Huascaran, Peru's highest peak.
Both Copa and Hashao are in the Cordillera Blanca, where you will also find the glaciers. Across the valley is Cordillera Negra, and as the name implies - no glaciers. We convinced Hugo to take us across to visit another village, where we met with Don Alejandro who could tell us about the hardship with less and more erratic rainfall, frost and new pests. He also showed us his "cuy farm" - just like most people in this valley he was keeping guinea pigs that is known as a delicious treat. Some folks say it tastes like duck!
But our late lunch just had to be trout!
In the evening Jon wanted to do some work at the hotel, and I went along with Hugo and Kate back to Huaraz to finish the interview with Kate for the profile on the life of an anthropologist. As darkness fell, Hugo drove me back to Carhuaz, and while his English is about as bad as my Spanish, we had an hour of intense language course on the way back.

Day 2

Early morning wake-up. Taxi to the airport to catch the LC Busre flight to Anta, a small airport in the Cordillera Blanca. The airplane, a twin-engine propeller plan, seating about twenty people. As we arrived we could see North American anthropologist Kate Dunbar and our faithful driver Hugo waiting. A dear reunion.
Hugo took us to the hotel in nearby Carhuaz, where we could dump our luggage. We stopped at the city square in Carhuaz to have a taste of what we were told was the region's best ice cream. Hundreds of people, dressed in beautiful folklore dresses were gathered in the square - partly to pick up a monthly government check. Great footage. But one of the women got really upset with Jon's video camera, and thought it'd be suitable with a small token for the trouble. When he didn't immediately reached for his wallet, she slapped his arm several times. Could have turned ugly!
After finishing our ice cream cups, he headed up the mountain side to Copa Grande, a small farming village that sits at the foot of the beautiful, but rapidly retreating Copa glacier.
Marco was away for the day, he plays in the local band and had a gig playing as a nearby village were celebrating their independence day. We met with Marcelino Cruz, the former president of Copa to talk about the changes in farming and climate. Marcelino is only 34, but in his lifetime he has seen the glacier retreat about two kilometers up the mountain, he told us.
Walked down the dirt road toward the small market, as we were witnesses to a tremendous thunderstorm. Thunder claps echoed between the mountain peaks. Beautiful and some astonishing sounds!
Caught in the rain we returned to the room Kate rents in the Cruz' home to do additional interviews.
Before dusk, Hugo drove us to Huaraz, where we first visited Kate's apartment, and then had a great meal in a restaurant at Plaza de Periodista (yep, the Journalists' Plaza).

Day 1

We arrived shortly after midnight. Sr. Rafael took us on a nightly ride through Lima, passed by several Las Vegas-looking casinos and late-night hang-outs. Checked in at our Hotel Senorial in the heart of Miraflores.
After a few hours sleep, we met with our local producer Sharon Stevenson. The plan was to do some b-roll video - but the haze (or fog?) didn't really allow it. Spent an hour or so on the beach walk, along with paragliders and off-work Limanites.

Leaving Anta

This little snippet of video is only modest quality, taken with my little Webby cam, but it shows the ability to get little clips online pretty quickly.

This was shot at the Anta airport, in north central coastal Peru, as we were getting ready to fly back to Lima. The flight was considerably delayed, which wreaked havoc with out tight schedule. However, when we arrived in Lima, it turned out that the government minister we were to meet was unprepared to meet us - despite earlier communication to the contrary. He kindly agreed to meet later in the day, which gave us a couple of hours to catch our breath and get more work done that day.

This little snippet is just before all that pressure, as we were leaving our Cordillero adventures.

WiFi!!!!

Claes: Four days in Bagua, with no WiFi. Amazing adventures, doing fine and will update blog as soon as we are back in Lima.

Where Have all the Glaciers Gone?

Jon: It's hard to summarize the overall meaning of the trip to Peru with Claes. Certainly, environmental change in that amazing country, was our key story. But we also covered civic violence over resource exploitation, and the booming cuisine scene in Lima. Over the course of two weeks, we recorded 30 interviews, 24 hours of audio, 16 hours of video, and close to 700 photos. For me, the trip was as much a luxury escape from Los Angeles, school, and the weekly drill of my life. The circumstances weren't luxurious, but getting away was. For Claes, this trip shows how he earns his bread and butter. There were so many stories that we followed, but I am only posting this one video as an overview of what we accomplished.

Chiclayo

Claes: it looked rather dry and barren from above the airplane. A patch work of open fields cross-crossed by dried-up watering canals. We're an hour north (by plane) of Lima, in Chiclayo. A cab drive through buzzling city streets to La Fiesta, so far the best restaurant in Peru; had a tremendous combination of causa, cebishe, papa and duck. Tomorrow, a collectivo-cab dur East for five hours to Bagua.

Men to Match the Mountains

Claes: Marcelino Cruz is the former President of Copa Grande, a small farming village in the Cordillera Blanca. We're standing outside of his home, looking at the maize that has yet to grow. And with the magnificent Copa glacier in sight. (The glacier is to the north of the magnificent peak Huascara - above - the highest point in Peru)

Marcelino has lived here all his life, but now he tells us that he doesn't expect his two children to stay. There simply will not be enough water fir them to be able to continue farming the land. At the rate the glacier is melting, Marcelino thinks it'll be entirely gone in maybe twenty - thirty years. And with no water, there's no life in Copa.

Marcelino's thirteen year old daughter Margot is standing by his side, petting the new puppy. She doesn't seem overly concerned about her Dad's prediction of her future.

Just around the corner from where we're standing is Kate Dunbar's rental room. Kate is from Univ. of Georgia and is working on her Ph.D in anthropology. She has been here for thirteen months and has another three to go before her field work is done. I have known Kate since my visit here last December and I think her work on how climate change's social and cultural effects in fascinating.
Kate walks us down toward the center of the village. But we don't get very far before the first thunder clap rolls across the valley. It's a tremendous roaring sound with a long rumbling tail. And it's followed by plenty more. Somehow we disregard these obvious signs are a caught in the rain. We quickly try to cover up ourselves and the electronic equipment and return to Kate's room.

Copa is struggling. Water managememt and drip irrigation are fine ideas, but without a way to store the melt-off from the glacier (or the heavy precipitation) there'll be a lack of water come the dry season. But who will pay for a reservoir? To make ends meet Marcelino is working as a security guard ever night at a rose plantation halfway down the hill. And the central government in Lima can't afford to build one either.

Potatoes at 12,000 Feet

Jon:The British group ‘Practical Action’ was founded in the 1960s with the recognition that many of the aid efforts put forward by the big NGOs were inappropriate for the populations for which they were intended. They set out to find practical and efficient, technologies as a way to wipe out poverty. Forty years later, they have not wiped out poverty, but they have made amazing

Cordillero Blanco's
breathtaking clouds

changes in communities from south Asia, central, eastern and southern Africa, and the Pacific coast of South America.

Claes and I were taken to the Yungay regional office of Practical Action (which was originally named the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) by our stalwart driver Hugo Dextre. At the Yungay office, we met up with one of the directors of the region, Alcides Vilela Chavez, who described the nature of the work they were doing in the Cordillero valley of north central Peru.

The ‘solutions’ described by the Vilela were deceptively simple, and had to do with a careful recycling of animal poop into not only usable fertilizers, but also a kind of liquid protection against frosts, which could destroy a family’s crop and livelihood. It’s important to remember that the majority of the farming in this area is for family consumption. A relatively small portion finds its way to regional markets – although that is changing

The tiny village of Copa on Cordillera Blanca

What this means, however, is that these indigenous farmers cultivate their crops of several varieties of corn and potatoes to provide food for their families. Much is preserved and used in times when other food stuffs aren’t available, but the importance of these two crops – and their dozens of variants can’t be underestimated.

It’s been said that the Eskimo have 30 words to describe snow. The descendents of the Incas who live in the Cordillero valley, likewise, have doesn’t of names for the many varieties of potatoes and corn. Tonight at dinner, we had two varieties, for example: mote – which is essentially toasted popcorn that hasn’t really exploded; a crunchy shell and a floury interior served with the mild queso blanco of the region, and cancha, a steamed white corn with red onions, and a slice of tomato.

The high points – literally – of the day, were the visits to two of ITDGs projects in the area, one on the eastern side of the mountain range, the so-called Cordillera Blanca, for its snow, sun, ice and water. We stopped in the tiny farming village of Huashao, where local farmers were rotating crops of a number of varieties of corn, as well as managing water in a drip irrigation scheme that used plastic bottles. Huashao being on the ‘Blanca’ side of the valley, is seen as being somewhat better off than their compadres on the other side of the valley, the Cordillero Negro. In the tiny settlement we

Our erstwhile driver Hugo Dextre:
he smoothed out the bumpy roads

visited, our interview subject spoke eloquently and knowledgably of the shifting dynamics that controlled their communities. He then showed us the Cuy, 8 inch long Guinea Pigs, that are a staple and delicacy of the regional diet.

To reach either of these communities (they couldn’t really be called cities) required Hugo to navigate massive ‘hueco’ (pot holes) filled rock and dirt roads, many kilometers into these mountains. Most of the people who live in these mountain settlements have to walk the steep mountains daily to get the fundamentals of their lives. This is a tough way to live. The folks we spoke with seemed moderately happy, the aid workers at ITDG were consumed with the passion of their work, and clearly there is economic development here. But it’s still a tough life.

I came away really liking these people, and mostly being blown away by how hard they work and what they have to overcome to survive.

(L t R)Claes, Miluska Caldas,

Jose Vasquez, Alcides Chavez and me

Lomo Saltado

Claes: Lomo Saltado - a first taste of Peru, at dinner after our first day in Lima. Low hanging clouds, or was it possibly a marine layer, prevented extensive video recordings, but Jon did an excellent stand-up and we got some great images and audio of para-gliders nevertheless.

Leaving early tomorrow morning for the Andes, an "my" village in
Cordillera Blanca - Copa Grande. The village is home to maybe five
hundred people who live at the foot of a beautiful, but rapidly
retreating glacier.

Copa sits at about 3,500 meters above sea level, and although
there are certainly places at higher altitude, I remember how just
walking down to the market in the center of Copa was... well, let's
just say - not effortless.

Adelante a Lima!

JON: We arrived in Lima a bit after midnight, and the cool, moist air of Callao - Lima's port - felt good after 8 hours on Lan Chile. Not a bad flight, however, and the food reminded me how bad we have it in the land of US air travel, where it seems American airline companies have complete disdain for their passengers.

Lima is much more modern than I expected, with lots of late night café's and what appears to be the latest arrival, Las Vegas-like casinos. Long stretches of the city, coming into Miraflores, where our hotel is located, have pint-sized versions of Vegas style clubs, with lots of neon, uniformed door men and the like. Oh, and of course, the promise of instant riches. It would be easy to criticize these garish pleasure palaces, but it would be mighty hypocritical. They appear to be serving their purpose here: separating people from their money.

I've only been here less than two hours, but I am left with an inescapable
reflection. It was here, in this city, 41 years ago, that I first saw the
world outside the US. It was the first city off the North American
continent where I ever set foot. Traveling with Fr. Paul Meineke, I was all
of 15 years old. A young boy traveling abroad with an elderly priest
probably just couldn't happen today, but of course, that was a different
time.

Nonetheless, it leaves me with a bit of nostalgia, thinking that this was
where I first experienced the wider world.

It's after 3:00 am, local time; I'm beat. Off to bed.

Time to get going

The last late supper at IHOP before leaving.

Jon: Claes took this picture of me out side the window of the South Arroyo Pkwy. IHOP on the Thurs. before our Sat. departure. We are sitting with our friend Kevin MacLaughlin, checking out 'gadgets' - enthralled with Mac technology and late night cuisine in Pasadena.

One Week To Go!

Claes: Just one week before we're leaving for Peru. Still a lot of practical things to fix, interviews to set up and hotels to book. But we're on our way!

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