A documentary project on sustainable farming in the Peruvian Andes.
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These newsletters will come out approximately once every few months as the project progresses. Thanks for your interest! The latest newsletter (May 2006): Dear folks, Hannah and I are back from our stint in Peru for a few months to look for funds and enjoy having hot water in the faucets (heck, we even enjoy the fact that there are faucets). We will be in the U.S. until sometime in the beginning of August, when we plan to head back to the wilds and hopefully see some of you there for a visit in the next year (our publicity-person-to-be, Amy, came and loved it... she wants to go back). The latest on the movie plot line is that we are going to be filming ourselves as we try to do what we've learned from the Peruvians. We are getting a chakra (plot of land) and we are going to plant beans (these lovely big Lima beans) and peas (delicious when fresh) and probably corn and potatoes (both usually eaten with cheese). At present Hannah and I can be found in NY, editing when we're not working our day jobs (for now Hannah has the only day job—she's the token breadwinner). We have also handed a seven-disk collection of Peruvian music over to our friend Meara, who will be doing the music for our film. She's going to be making up a mix cd which we will pass along to anyone who is interested—it's so much more than the flutes you hear in the subway. If there's shipping involved we might end up having to charge a little something, but if you are around the greater NY area or somewhere in California you can just pick it up from us. Email me for more info. While Hannah's working I'm going to write some articles to start our series of instructions for everyday peruvian mountain living on the Instructables.com website, which we might do in conjunction with Make Magazine. This is meant to be the start of the project in which we teach a class of about 15 students to make a magazine with step-by-step instructions on how to do things that they do every day, like make cheese or plow with bulls or irrigate corn using the canals—things that are second nature to the older folks but that the kids don't care to learn all that much. This way we'll record knowledge that might otherwise be lost and teach people how to communicate with the developed world at the same time. For that project we're looking for digital cameras (old ones are fine) and maybe a used computer or two (preferably macintosh). If you or someone you know has recently upgraded, please consider donating your old model to our project. Big news for readers: we have mastered newsletters thanks to our friend Dan and now you can subscribe and unsubscribe automatically. If you'd like to unsubscribe from the list, you can find a link below. That's about it for the moment. We hope you enjoy the photographs, and as always feel free to pass along this info to anyone you think might be interested. Andrea Related links Photographs
Top and Bottom: heavy alpaca blankets we brought home, handmade by Señora Victoria. They are such a hit with the family and friends we are thinking we might start a little importing company... How Andrea Lost Her Bag and Got It Back Again I lost my bag of most important things on the combi that goes from Andamarca (my town) to Puquio (a minor but necessary hell hole in the mountains—you must cross it to get to Lima or Cusco). Leaving Andamarca we set all our bags down in a neat little row to be put on top of the combi but when we arrived in Puquio we were minus one. I began asking the bus company lady what I should do. She told me to call Andamarca and see if I my things had been left behind. We called and told them my bag was missing. Meanwhile Hannah tried the internet. She got in touch with someone from Andamarca, but the message got a little garbled on account of the spanish and the fever she had from an illness we all often had but will not describe in great detail. So then we then thought the bag might be in Andamarca and that it might arrive on a subsequent bus. The bus lady said that a man called Mambu had been seen taking care of a black bag and that I ought to look for him, but she couldn't tell me his last name or where I could find him. As I wandered around asking everyone I passed, "Are you Mambu?" I was reminded of the children's book 'Are You My Mother?' in which a baby bird asks many animals if they are her mother. I ended up in front of the locked door of the bus company, Etrapumsa, where I knocked politely with my fist and then when that didn't work, I knocked politely with a can of Leche Gloria (evaporated milk--one of my only remaining possessions as I'd been carrying it in my vest pocket). I got no answer but the people all up and down the street got a good laugh. We gave up after that, and ate food, checked email and then we went to bed. At four a.m. I got out of bed and went into the cold pre-dawn to wait for the first combis from Andamarca to arrive. I ended up outside until six thirty am (that's how reliable the arrivals are) and I never saw my bag or the combi, and the bus company lady was about as helpful as a rotten log. We went to Cusco that day with a fancy new police report to say how my bag just disappeared, and we visited the consulate who took my name and number and tut-tutted us back out again. She thought for sure my bag had been stolen, which is what most people thought. I went back to Andamarca, still kind of bummed that I'd lost my leatherman and my sleeping bag and my dollar copy of Earthly Paradise by Colette (my favorite book). We went all the way back to Andamarca and I began telling everyone in town that my bag was missing in case someone decided to help me out and tell me what I ought to do. I got many suggestions, most of which consisted of making the bus company pay me something. However, I knew that the bus company couldn't pay me what the things I had lost were worth. I had lost my digital camera, my passport, my rain gear. Total net worth of said bag was approximately one thousand dollars, which is what a family here earns in 2-4 years. The big break finally happened like this. The other bus company told me to talk to the teacher up at the high school who had his own radio show in the next town over, and could spread the word fast. So we went up there and chatted and he took down my information (missing bag: reward offered) while about five people stood around and asked me questions. And then I talked with our friend William Zelada, who is a police captain, and he questioned the bus company lady in Andamarca. Their conversation went like this: That was the interrogation. Then we all ate tuna fruits on the side of the road and shot the breeze. Nothing happened for a couple of days. We went to Puquio again and dropped Amy off on a bus from there to Cusco, and came back. That night we went to the scissor dance competition in town with Pelayo, one of our good friends. Andamarca is famous for its scissor dance--a dance performed by young men who shake a special non-functioning pair of scissors to the accompaniment of a harp and two violins (or sometimes two harps and four violins). They compete against each other in ritual dance competitions that last sometimes for days. On the way to the competition we were stopped by one of the three water alcaldes (mayors) who I had met way back in August at the water festival. "Pelayo," he said, "didn't this girl here lose a bag? My shepherd saw another shepherd find a bag up in the pampa and it had a camera in it." It turned out that Pelayo was somehow related to the guy who supposedly found the bag, which must have just fallen off the combi as we drove. The next day Hannah and I went up to find my bag with Zelada (the policeman), the town doctor (he didn't have anything else to do that day) and Pelayo. We went to the house of the shepherd and spoke with his señora (and pet the kitten whose whiskers were curled from sitting too close to the fire) and they brought out my bag. My bag! But it was missing the camera and some other few things, so we asked the señora where to find them. She didn't know, but her husband would be home soon and she told us we ought to ask him. We settled down to have some oranges with everyone in the house while we waited, and talked politics and about how frightening their dog was (smaller than a teacup but barks like a doberman on helium). Soon the boys got impatient so we got in the truck again and drove up to the pampa to look for the shepherd. We trolled along the roads looking for our man, who was reputedly tending a flock of sheep, not alpacas or llamas (and that is how we found him--lots of alpacas up there, not so many sheep). We stalked out over the sagebrush plain for our meeting with the man of the highlands. Alfredo Flores was chewing a wad of coca leaves so black I think he must have been on it for at least a month. He didn't know about my bag just at first, but when we told him we'd already seen it he asked, "Now, aren't those documents kind of important?" But he would tell us nothing about the camera--"What camera? It didn't have a camera." That's when Pelayo broke in with some heavy negotiations in Quechua and after a few minutes everyone heaved a sigh of relief when Pelayo told the boys, "Oh, his son Coki has the camera." I had no idea what they were talking about, but the boys all say not to worry because they all play soccer with Coki and he's a fine chap. We headed back down to the house with the rancher in tow and we gave him his reward: 50 soles, a plastic bag full of grain alcohol and a big 2 liter bottle of Andina Kola. A little later that afternoon, Zelada dropped off my camera and my iPod charger (must've thought they went together). We heard later from two more people, one of whom was the woman who had 'bought' my camera—for ten soles (three dollars). She wanted her money back. We also spoke with a chap who had been offered my bag for sale; thirty dollars. He said he had told Alfredo Flores, "Oh, isn't that the bag the girl from Cusichaca lost? You should bring it back to her." Well, whether or not Alfredo Flores wanted to be honest he ended up being so, thanks to all the people in Andamarca who wouldn't buy my things (at a bargain price). It meant a lot to me that in a place where supposedly they would rip you off the minute your back was turned we got most of the things back. It seems to signify that we are indeed well loved in the town of Andamarca. Or at least they love us más o menos. bus photograph and photo of Hannah by the campaign posters are © 2006 Amy Deneson |
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