- Guy selling dolls at Qoyllur Rit’i 2008
The average Peruvian works so hard, for so little.
El Fotografo and I met this souvenir vendor at the Qoyllur Rit’i pilgrimage in May. He was selling little handmade dolls of costumed dancers for 7 soles a piece. That’s about $2.33 each.
They were cute. I bought one.
To get to the plaza where he could sell his dolls, the guy had to travel for hours in a bus or truck to the town of Mawayani, which is about 13,800 feet above sea level.
The good thing about Mawayani is they have toilets there.
Then he had to climb a steep five-mile path up the mountains, ascending another 1,500 feet, to a pilgrimage shrine under a bunch of glaciers.
That put him at 15,300 feet.
The whole time he had to carry his dolls and his sleeping bag and everything else on his back.
Once he got to Qoyllur Rit’i he had to set up camp and find a rock to pee etc. behind because there are no toilets at Qoyllur Rit’i, not really.
Then he had to stand around in the boiling sun (day) or freezing air (night) while thousands of pilgrims danced nonstop in front of the chapel, everyone doing these inscrutable symbolic danzas (ritual dance-dramas) and banging drums. This went on for three days, 24/7, and every once in a while someone would buy one of the guy’s dolls for 7 soles.
If he sold 20 dolls during the pilgrimage, maybe he made 140 soles – about $47.
Then he had to climb down the mountain and catch a ride back to wherever he lived, and that was his three days’ work.
Forty-seven dollars sounds like squat to an American, but if you are a guy in the Andes, where many people earn the equivalent of $3 or $4 a day, $47 is good.
I don’t know. How many people do you know who would climb a 15,300-foot-high mountain and sleep in sub-zero temperatures to make $47 — and not make a big deal of it?
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2 responses so far ↓
1 suddenly susan // Nov 9, 2008 at 11:12 pm
omg. that breaks my heart. it kind of makes the rest of us seem so lazy and entitled.
2 Barb // Nov 10, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Yes, I often feel lazy (and out of shape) in comparison with the people of the Andes. As hard as it can be to visit the highlands (lack of oxygen in the air, no electricity, etc.), I find that the experience is a good antidote to being overly coddled by civilization, where we are “entitled” as you say, but don’t realize it.
BTW: This guy was really happy to earn money by selling his dolls. It was a piece of cake compared to lugging trekkers’ backpacks over the Inca trail, which is his other job.