An American in Lima

yo vinifano, tu vinifanas, él vinifana…. “Parents have homework tonight,” El Híjo announced smugly as he dumped the cuadernos on the diningroom table earlier this week. He turned to me and El Fotógrafo: “You have to Vinifan them.” EF and I counted up the stack and groaned. Nine school notebooks to cover in clear, toxic-smelling [...]

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MIT students and residents of Ventanilla, Peru work on the bicilavadora, a novel, inexpensive bike/washing machine. Photo / Gwyndaf Jones Forward-thinking inventors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a “green” washing machine that runs on pedal power, mountain-bike gears and no electricity, making it ideal for rural and impoverished communities. Last month, MIT students [...]

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  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 [...]

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My eyes popped when I saw this image on Boing Boing, taken from Zeraga’s Flickr pool via Street Use:  In Perú from Huánuco to Tingo Maria, where the road from the Pacific coast across the Andes finds its way towards the Amazon lowlands. This is near the top of the last mountain pass. From there, [...]

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  Justina weaving on her hand loom, in Pacchanta We spent about 45 minutes talking with this lovely Quechua-speaking woman, who lives with her children and mother-in-law in a small village called Pacchanta. It’s on the trekking circuit around Nevado Ausangate. Justina earns money by weaving textiles on her handloom. The day I met her [...]

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El Fotografo can’t kick this chest cold he’s been suffering from for three weeks. Not even the schlep to Santa Eulalia last weekend could knock it out of his system. So I decided to try a home remedy on him that I read about in Suite 101.

Now EF’s lying in bed swathed in poultices and blankets, just four feet away from me, and the room reeks of Indian food.

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