An American in Lima

This post originally appeared on August 9, 2008. I like the piece so I’m running it again while I’m on vacation.

Es hembrita?
That’s the first question Peruvians ask me when I’m out walking Lola. It doesn’t matter if the person is male or female, young or old, with dog or without. Nine times out of ten, [...]

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Lola in the front seat, Miraflores

We took Lola on an hour-and-a-half walk along the Malecon in Miraflores last week. By the end we all were pooped, so we hailed a cab and convinced the driver to take the four of us back home to San Antonio.
Lola sat in the front with El Fotografo, squeezed into [...]

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Deli counter, Wong supermarket, Miraflores; photo c. Barbara Drake 2008

I bought Braendt salami from this guy at Wong supermarket a few nights ago. It wasn’t a lot of salami — maybe 100 grams — but my purchase merited a regalo: half a ham/salami/cheese sandwich on whole-grain bread, with lettuce and tomato.
Nice guy, no?

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I’ll be traveling in the United States for the next two weeks, so blog posts will be sporadic.

I have two goals in the United States: (1) Research how Peruvians in the U.S. are coping with the financial downtown; and (2) Avoid getting fat on American food!
If you are a Peruvian living in the United States [...]

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Since I posted yesterday on my response to CNN’s segment on the toxic La Oroya smelting plant, several people who are very knowlegeable about the crisis have left some insightful and useful comments. (Visit my original response here.)
Sara Shipley Hines, who wrote the excellent Doe Run expose in Mother Jones in 2006, points out that CNN’s [...]

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Actress and humanitarian Susan Sarandon hugs a llama pal for Heifer International (Can anyone resist a marketing campaign that features these photogenic Andean camelids?)

This is a charity project I like.
Actress Susan Sarandon is promoting an organization that battles world hunger by donating dairy cows and other farm animals to subsistence farmers. It’s a simple idea and one that really can [...]

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It was with a mixture of anger, grief and hope that I watched CNN’s broadcast of “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines” last Thursday night. Fifteen minutes of the show focused on the toxic contamination of the Doe Run Peru smelting planet in La Oroya, which is one of the 10 most polluted places on earth, [...]

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Stacked to the ceiling in Wong supermarket, Lima

It is December in Lima; therefore, Christmas is coming; therefore, the city is being overrun by armies of panettone boxes.
You may wonder what this Milanese sweet bread is doing in Peru, which does not have a large Italian population.
Don’t ask. It’s Peru. Many decades ago, the dessert bread became coupled in the [...]

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Five years ago, the U.N. General Assembly Declared December 11 “International Mountain Day.”
The celebration is part of an ongoing effort by the U.N. to increase people’s awareness about the importance of mountains to life on this planet, and to build partnerships that will “bring change to the world’s mountains and highlands.”
The Food and Agriculture Organization [...]

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On December 11, one of Peru’s most horrific environmental and public-health disasters will command worldwide attention when CNN debuts the first part of “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines” (Thurs., 9 p.m. ET). The show focuses on the Doe Run Peru smelting complex in La Oroya, in central Peru, where sky-high levels of lead and other toxic [...]

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The accolades for Peruvian food keep rolling in. This time it’s the award-winning food site Epicurious.com that’s predicting Peruvian cuisine will be the hot food trend of the new year.
Peruvian is the new Thai: You thought Peruvian cuisine was all about seviche, maybe? Guess again: Peru boasts culinary influences from Spanish, Basque, African, Cantonese, Japanese, [...]

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Giant porcini mushrooms, figs and blackberries for sale this week at Surquillo Market No. 1, Lima; photo by Barbara Drake

My eye was caught by this remarkable fresh produce for sale at the local market in Surquillo. The porcini mushrooms (”hongo funghi”) are enormous. Black figs like those on the bottom are now in season. Blackberries [...]

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Here is a fascinating story that just surfaced about the Chachapoyas:
An ancient lost city has been discovered in the remote Amazonian rainforest of north-east Peru, archaeologists have announced.
The fortified citadel appears to be from the pre-Inca era and may be linked to the country’s legendary ‘Cloud People’.
The main encampment comprises circular stone houses overgrown by [...]

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I was so absorbed by the APEC brouhaha last month I missed the news that the world’s newest superhero hails from Lima.

Santiago is a viewer-created superhero character who stars in four micro-episodes in Sprint’s online series Heroes: Destiny. 
More than one million people participated in the online series by selecting attributes for a male and a [...]

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