An American in Lima

The devastating 8.8-magnitude earthquake that ravaged Chile on Saturday could easily have happened here in Lima or anywhere else along the Pacific coast.  Sooner or later another big one will hit Peru, as one did in July 2007, and there are only a few ways to increase your odds that you won’t get killed when it [...]

[Read more →]

My bandmates The Three Jacks will be rocking downtown Miami’s Gusman Center tonight to raise funds for Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Remaining tickets are on sale for $15 each, $10 for students.
Sharing the stage will be champion step dancers from the Breffni Academy of Irish Dance. Those of you who saw The Three Jacks in Lima this past May [...]

[Read more →]

Dog at Yungay National Cemetery; Mount Huascaran in background (photo by Barbara Drake 2009)

 Last Sunday, El Fotógrafo, El Híjo and I toured the cemetery above the buried town of Yungay, about 30 miles north of Huaraz. We were with a group of scientists and historians taking part in a glacier adaptation conference, and there couldn’t have [...]

[Read more →]

Just a bit of exaggeration in that headline.
But I’m entitled to gloat about the success of my band last weekend at Auditorio Santa Ursula, in San Isidro. We had two fabulous concerts, Friday and Saturday nights (May 15 & 16), and got loads of people to contribute money to build a hospital in Pisco. Plus [...]

[Read more →]

Laura Bush had an interesting itinerary this past weekend in Peru. I think it merits more public attention than does her husband’s hobnobbing with APEC leaders at the final summit meeting.

Laura Bush looks on as aid worker demonstrates how to decontaminate drinking water in earthquake zone (San Clemente, Peru, Nov. 21)

Of note:
(1) She didn’t come [...]

[Read more →]

This past Monday (October 6), at around 6:50 p.m., El Híjo and I were sitting in the living room when we felt an enormous jolt.
EH leaped from the couch: “Earthquake!”
The rapid shaking last for ten seconds and stopped.
El Fotógrafo emerged from the kitchen where he was cooking a very fragrant Bolognese sauce. His brother was [...]

[Read more →]

August 15, 2007:  It had been little more than a month since El Fotografo, El Hijo and I had packed up the contents of our 4-bedroom house in Florida, stuffed it all in a shipping container bound for Callao, and hopped on a plane to EF’s hometown of Lima.
Everything in Peru’s capital was new and strange to El Hijo and [...]

[Read more →]

Tonight at 8 p.m., my astral self will be hovering over downtown Miami as my good friends and former band mates, The Three Jacks, play a benefit concert to raise funds for victims of the 2007 Peru earthquake. The concert is being held at 8 p.m. at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, and [...]

[Read more →]

In Jean Renoir’s classic film The Golden Coach (Le Carosse D’Or), a troupe of Italian actors arrives in 18th-century colonial Lima, expecting to perform in a luxurious palace. Instead, they find themselves in a frontier town.
“What do you think of the New World?” they are asked.
“It will be better when it is finished.”
 Arriving in Peru’s dusty, disorganized capital [...]

[Read more →]