-
My Own Brush with a Violent Protest in Lima
After writing yesterday’s tongue-in-cheek post about the U.S. Embassy warning about foreigners getting swept up in political demonstrations in Peru, I realized that I had nearly been caught in a violent protest myself. (To my credit, I had no illusion that it was a folkloric event.) It was in May 2000, when Fujimori was storming his way to a third presidential term, and protesters all throughout Lima, as well as the rest of the country, were clashing with police. El Híjo, El Fotógrafo and I were at a leather store in downtown Lima, three blocks from the presidential palace, when people started yelling in the street. One minute it was a quiet, gray…
-
U.S. Embassy to Tourists in Peru: Don’t Confuse Political Protests with Folk Dancing
Maybe it’s the mood I’m in lately, but I found this recent Warden Message (sent from the U.S. Embassy to U.S. expats in Peru, via email) rather hilarious. The U.S. embassy warns that gringos have been arrested in prior years for inadvertently participating in political demonstrations that they mistook for folkloric events.
-
Vote for Best Just Posts of 2009!
A few days ago, I received a pleasant surprise: two of my blog posts have been nominated for the Best of 2009 Just Posts. Just Posts for a Just World is a highly readable monthly roundtable of blog posts on social-justice issues from around the world. It’s curated by Holly at Cold Spaghetti and Alejna at Collecting Tokens, who wade through the blogosphere each month to find personal posts that “speak to the same thing — the lifting up of our planet and all that inhabit it.” The typical Just Post is candid and compassionate and outspoken, and reads like a real person speaking his/her own mind. I like that. I’m…
-
Peru’s Panettone Is Fake, Says Italy
Peruvians and Brazilians love their locally-made panettone, an Italian-style Christmas cake that’s grown into a multimillion-dollar business for bakers in South America. Now the Italian Cake Industry group wants nonItalian manufacturers to conform to strict baking standards or stop calling their cakes “panettone,” reports Reuters: Keep Christmas cake Italian, panettone makers say Dec 12, 2007 ROME (Reuters) – Italy already has strict rules governing the origin and quality of its wine, while Parmigiano parmesan cheese can only be made in Parma and regulations on “Italian” olive oil are being tightened. Now Christmas cake has become the latest product that the government and manufacturers want to protect from foreign imitations. Italian bakers produce…
-
Peruvian Lord of the Miracles Batting .758, Survey Says
A recent poll by the University of Lima indicated that more than three-quarters of devotees of El Señor de los Milagros say the Peruvian Christ figure has answered their prayers. Nearly 76 percent — 75.8 percent — of those surveyed say that their prayer to or request of the Lord of the Miracles was granted, reports El Comercio. Some of the miracles attributed to El Señor include people being cured of brain cancer, handicapped people regaining use of their legs and sailors being rescued from sinking submarines. The Church does not keep records of these miracles. They are mainly anecdotal. The cult of the Lord of the Miracles reached a fever…
-
Food Businesses Boom in Peru
BBC Online published an insightful overview yesterday of Peru’s booming food industries (“Food business taking off in Peru,” 9/25/09), to coincide with this weekend’s second annual gastronomic fair in Lima. Dan Collyns reports on the growth of gourmet restaurants, artisanal products and food exports, trends that are helping to prop up Peru’s economy in the face of a global economic downtown. (He also notes Peruvians’ preference for fresh, rather than processed, foods, an idea I’ve been harping on lately in this blog.) Peruvians’ love of good food cuts across class, racial and ethnic barriers, Collyns says, and reflects the country’s rich bio-diversity, from its ocean waters teeming with fish, to the…
-
Deadly Negligence: Peru’s Red Cross & Cold Deaths in Andes
At last count (mid August), 514 Peruvians had died of pneumonia brought on by extreme cold this year, most of them children under five. Most reasonable people would call that an emergency. Not Peru’s Red Cross, however. In a bulletin issued August 4, 2009, the Peruvian Red Cross (PRC) issued a general statement about the cold deaths in Puno, noting the low temperatures, the rise in pneumonia cases and the deaths of “113” children (a number much lower than that cited by other news sources in early August). After low-balling the number of deaths, the bulletin explained that the PRC “has been assisting the affected people with medicines, blankets and food items. Additionally, the…
-
Robbers Hold up NatGeo Team at Nasca Hotel (and the place where you don’t want to book a room is…
( Enigmatic geoglyphs in the Nasca desert draw tens of thousands of tourists to southern Peru each year; photo c. RPP)Great timing, criminals in southern Peru. First a Peruvian trucking company diverts 100 tons of UN rice for cold-spell victims to the black market in July. SUNAT seizes three truckloads (32 tons) of hijacked rice in Ica; the rest is still unaccounted for. The rice was intended for malnourished communities in the Puno area, where freezing temperatures have killed more than 433 people this winter. Now armed robbers broke into a Nasca hotel early Friday morning and assaulted members of a National Geographic team filming a documentary on the Nasca lines, making off…
You May Also Like
Remembering Pachacamac
-
Citizen Journalists Respond to Cold Deaths in Andes
These are the things I think of when I read the news reports on deaths in the highlands -- the humble, hard-working people who live at such a remove from the "civilized" world and who can be helped at not that much cost, if only there are willing souls to climb the mountain paths and meet them halfway.
-
Peru’s Politicians Lock Horns with Scientists, Deny Crisis as Water Shortage Looms
Above: Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson gives two good reasons why loss of Peru’s glaciers is “alarming”; July 7 Adapting to a World without Glaciers, Lima (photo by Jorge Vera 2009) By Barbara R. Drake LIMA, PERU: Peru’s Minister of the Environment Antonio Brack Egg told international glacier experts and other climate specialists last week that Peru cannot be expected to avert the country’s pending water shortage on its own and that regional and local administrations must bear responsibility. Peruvian Minster of the Environment Antonio Brack Egg at Adapting to a World without Glaciers conference, July 7, 2009, Lima Peru (photo Jorge Vera 2009) “When we speak about these subjects…
-
Blogging & Social Media, Festivals, Sacred Rituals, Religion, Money, Economics, Politics, Peru's Andes Mountains
Blogging about Greed and Injustice in Cusco
Many thanks to Alenja and Holly of Collecting Tokens for including my rant on the archbishop of Cusco as a June “Just Post for a Just World.” The Just Posts roundtable highlights “posts about topics of social justice and activism in all shapes and sizes,” writes Alenja. She adds that “Holly and I are pleased to share this wealth of posts that inspire and move and make us think.” I am honored to be part of the June roundtable, and I encourage everyone to check out Collecting Tokens’ recommended readings. I’ll be adding that “Just Posts” logo to my left sidebar as soon as I figure out the code. 🙂
-
Archbishop of Cusco to Evict More Local Restaurants
Screw the locals, screw the poor, screw the backpackers, screw anyone who wants to eat healthy Peruvian food at decent prices.
-
Needless Deaths in the Andes
A front-page article in Sunday’s El Comercio exposed the criminal indifference of local and state governments to the deaths of children in the Andes. Some Peruvians are outraged at the country’s indifference to the preventable deaths of children in the Andes, as this widely circulated cartoon shows. Others shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s Peru.” This year alone, 144 children under age 5 have died of respiratory disease brought on extreme cold in the high sierra, reported El Comercio. Thirty-five of the young victims were from Puno, where temperatures plummeted to -15 degrees C in the last 21 days. (Note that temperature extremes — winter getting colder, summer getting hotter and drier — are an expression…
-
How Far Does a Dollar Go in Peru These Days?
In the last 180 days, the dollar has been gaining in Peru, as this chart shows. Back in September ’08, the dollar was trading at 2.97 Peruvian soles; by March 3, 2009, that rate had spiked to 3.26 soles, leveling at 3.14 by March 17: chart courtesy Exchange-Rates.org Actually, the strengthening of the dollar began before September. In the last 12 months, the sole has depreciated 12.64% against the U.S. dollar, reports the Wall Street Journal. That trend is encouraging for Peruvians and expats who keep their money in dollars. I know I whined in October that the dollar was tanking, but my complaints were short-sighted. If I haven’t been paying enough attention to…
