I’d like to hear what the nun’s “evaluation” is.

I was under the impression that blue-eyed alpacas have white coats, too, but when I developed my photos from Ausangate I saw that the blue-eyed animal I photographed had both white and grey fur. Therefore the alpaca isn’t albino, per se, which is what I had thought was associated with the blue eyes.

Good question. The issue of hunger is really pressing. There are some excellent NGOs that have been working hard to get food to the people, but their efforts are dwarfed by the size of the problem.

I keep thinking that Peru should emulate the Incas, who built storehouses throughout the Empire to ensure that people would have food during shortages and droughts. Geographical divisions keep certan populations very isolated, but it isn’t impossible to include these communities within a larger solution, as the Incas demonstrated.

Meanwhile, I keep reminded my friends who visit Peru that people here are hungry. If they’re trekking through the Andes, they can bring along bags of rice and noodles and hand them out to people. I have never had any indigenous person get angry at me for giving them food; they recognize its value and are almost always very thankful.

For readers of this blog who want to know more about the conditions that miners suffer in the Andean mines, I can recommend two sources personally.

One is the collection of drawings and commentary by Guaman Poma (1535-1615), who spent 30 years traveling thru Peru right after the Spanish Conquest. His accounts of the incredible abuses perpetrated on indigenous miners are painful to read but impossible to forget. I think his drawings are even more revealing.

Another resource that I recommend is the amazing documentary film The Devil’s Miner (2006), which follows the real-life experiences of two child miners in the mines of Potosi.
Here’s the link to the website:
http://www.thedevilsminer.com/index_new.html

The film literally takes you into the belly of the beast — the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia, where countless generations of Andean people have suffered and died digging out veins of silver. It’s a brilliant, deeply affecting movie that is quite surprising on some levels. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see a great, real film that has also managed to raise more than 1 million Euros for the child miners of Potosi.

_______

Barbara,

Your chronicle made me sad in some way, but I am looking forward to hearing about the stories the Ausangate people told you. How exciting!

You know, I can imagine the poverty of those people! I have seeing it growing up in the central Andes region of Peru, where mining workers die at 45 y.o. and families live like slaves.

Oh my goodness, what would it take for Peruvians –especially Indigenous peoples- to wake up and break from this horrible reality?

When will the Peruvians start building a better nation, where not a single Peruvian family should suffer of hunger and extreme misery, where everyone would have access to decent housing, good education, health care, etc.

Seriously, am I the only one who feels this way? Will the Lima government do something about our people? Some things have to happen in Peru to change it.

For readers of this blog who want to know more about the conditions that miners suffer in the Andean mines, I can recommend two sources personally.

One is the collection of drawings and commentary by Guaman Poma (1535-1615), who spent 30 years traveling thru Peru right after the Spanish Conquest. His accounts of the incredible abuses perpetrated on indigenous miners are painful to read but impossible to forget. I think his drawings are even more revealing.

Another resource that I recommend is the amazing documentary film The Devil’s Miner (2006), which follows the real-life experiences of two child miners in the mines of Potosi.
Here’s the link to the website:
http://www.thedevilsminer.com/index_new.html

The film literally takes you into the belly of the beast — the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia, where countless generations of Andean people have suffered and died digging out veins of silver. It’s a brilliant, deeply affecting movie that is quite surprising on some levels. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see a great, real film that has also managed to raise more than 1 million Euros for the child miners of Potosi.