My long-winded accounts of my investigations into issues for the pueblos jovenes of Arequipa shouldn't lead anyone to think that I haven't been having fun as well.
Last Wednesday Lizbeth and Tessy talked me into acting as a guide and taking a Dutch couple to the waterfalls of Sogay. Those who read my blog when I was last in Peru may remember that I "discovered" this walk as a possible tourist attraction, and had made three trips there.
Lizbeth had already sold the trip to the couple, who said they wanted to do something"different", but couldn't get hold of a guide. I was reluctant to go; I wasn't entirely sure of the route (it was a year and a half since I'd been there), and thought the river might be a little high from melting snow.
However, Rafael, with whom I'd gone there twice previously, said that there were now arrows pointing the way to the falls (just what I had suggested in a blog post at the time) so you couldn't go astray. I also thought it would be a good chance for exercise, to burn off some of that comida arequipeña, as well as a favour to Lizbeth, who is giving me free room and board for the entire time I'm here.
It was quite a good trip in the end. The river wasn't any higher than it had been in September / October, but the rainy reason had left countryside awash with green. The normally arid areas beyond the township of Sogay were ablaze with red, orange and yellow wildflowers, and buzzing with birds and butterflies. The strategically positioned painted blue arrows were also a great help in ensuring we didn't get lost.
I took along Ayda, an apprentice from the Incaventura agency. She is the younger sister of Rivelino, who also worked for Incaventura. Their family is from San Juan de Chuccho, a little village at the bottom of the Colca Canyon, and examplify the new generation of rural mestizo migrants to the Peruvian cities. As an exhibition I saw at a gallery of the San Agustin university said, their parents or grandparents lived a near subsistence existence; while this generation "dances to salsa and reggaeton and is studying computing and English at an institute".
Ayda still posseses a healthy dose of country-girl ingenuity and is subject to restrictively close family ties, but is at the same time very into her clothes and makeup. When Tessy suggested she come on the trip to Sogay, I said that would be great but to make sure to wear some sensible clothes. "It's a trek over rough ground and you're likely to get wet crossing the river", I harrumphed. "Don't think you can just wear tight jeans and flat-soled trainers".
Ayda obeyed my instructions to the extent that she showed up the next morning in leather street shoes and slightly older jeans. But during the walk, although she played the high-maintenance girl ("are we nearly there yet, Simon?"), her country background came out. While I and the tourists struggled along the hot, dusty walk and scramble along the riverbanks, Ayda casually made her way over the rocky bits, across the river, and up the steep and somewhat risky climb to the falls, as if they weren't there.
On Sunday afternoon, we were invited to a "pollada" in the lower-middle class suburb of San Martin in northeastern Arequipa. This is kind of community fiesta, organised by a family or local group, usually held in the street. Fried chicken and beer are served, usually as part of a fund-raising effort.
This particular pollada was supposedly in honour of "la santísima virgen de Fatima", but there was no discernible religious tone to the proceedings - just chicken and beer, plus a performance by a group of mariachis in full costume.
On the way out there, through dusty, potholed streets past houses with peeling paint, I thought that this was one of the less attractive parts of the city, and had a rather depressing feel. But later, as we sat at a table in the middle of a street blocked off by a row of parked cars, enjoying the food and good cheer and laughing at Gerardo's attempts to join a game of football ("no, Gerardo, you have to stand in front of the goal to guard it!"), it occurred to me that these kind of casual, friendly, neighbourhood festivities no longer exist where I come from.
On Monday, which was a public holiday, I took Ayda to eat at La Cecilia, the best known of the typical restaurants to the south of the city at Arancota. These all have big interior and outside patios, and serve huge helpings of traditional Arequipan dishes. On weekends and holidays, they also often have live music.
One of my last trips to Arancota was on my birthday in 2004, and was something of a disaster. I'd picked up a case of food poisoning in Bolivia, and though I'd had a couple of relapses upon eating rich food, thought I was over it.
However, after a long afternoon of scoffing piles of artery-trashing chicharron de chancho (fried pork), litres of beer, and the excitment of the Copa America Peru-Argentina quarter final, I discovered later that night that the bugs in my stomach weren't yet entirely gone. The violent reaction of my metabolism lasted most of the night; it was close to the sickest I've ever been for a short period, as my afternoon's consumption was rejected in, shall we say, both directions. I was eventually cured the next day by a rather execrable "home remedy" cooked up by Hugo to supplement the powerful, unprescribed antibiotics supplied by his nurse technician cousin.
On Monday, though, I suffered no such problems. After being frustrated in my search for lighter items on the menu - arroz con pato and tamales were "weekends only"- I settled for a huge heap of fried chicken. Washed down with plenty of beer and burned off by marathon dancing efforts to the brassy salsa, merengue and cumbia pumped out by the house band, it was all part of a great afternoon.
There's also been several trips to discotheques, and I've rediscovered the joys of dancing salsa, as well as the possibility of going out and doing something other than just drinking.
Today (Saturday) is likely to be my penultimate in Arequipa, and I'm contributing the food and alcohol for another parrillada at Hugo and Lizbeth's place. It's with considerable reluctance that I'm moving on, but I'm just grateful that I've been able to pass such a happy couple of weeks. And I have to remember the original purpose of my trip - more adventure awaits in the jungle.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Friday, May 05, 2006
The Mayor and the Engineer
On the ground floor of the municipality there were a confusing series of offices and counters and a lot of people waiting. We had been advised that we had to talk to the mayor in order to get any action. I was fully expecting us to have to take a ticket to wait our turn to talk to a clerk to make a preliminary appointment with the mayor for some days hence.
I was just looking around to figure out in which section we would have to do that, when Ilona simply bowled up to one of the security guards and said that we wanted to talk to the mayor. "OK, just head up the stairs" said the guard. It turned out that the mayor and the chief engineer hold court on Monday and Tuesday mornings, receiving complaints and petitions from their offices on the second floor.
After being directed to take seats by a smiling woman in the public relations department, we didn't have to wait long before we were ushered into the office of the mayor. On hearing that we there to enquire about Villa Ecologica, the secretary sent us in at the same time as a young woman who turned out to herself be from Villa Ecologica.
The woman was called Julita, and she recognised us. "Hey, weren't you guys in the community yesterday?", she asked, smiling. "In a maroon jeep?". She had been one of the people working collecting scraps of rock in the dust beside the track uphill where we had passed in the 4WD.
The mayor and the chief engineer were both robust, jovial men in their forties. Ilona and I were keen to get straight to the question of the health campaign, but the mayor was already in full flow. "You've come about Villa Ecologica, no?", he said. "You're interested in the water situation, then".
We decided to go with the water, given that the chief engineer Salinas, whom Ilona had spoken with previously, was present. "The problem about supplying water just to Villa Ecologica", said the mayor, "is that it would be a major investment for relatively few people. "Any solution needs to be part of an integrated project that can benefit a greater number of people".
But couldn't it be done relatively cheaply, I asked, and explained the proposal of pumping the water over the hill from the river. "Aha, nice idea", replied the mayor. "But it won't work. The problem is that the river at that point is contaminated. There would need to be a treatment plant installed, which as I'm sure know, costs a lot of money".
I said we had been told that there were no farms or anything further upstream. He said that in fact there were several settlements a way further upstream, including a police camp, whose drains were discharged into the river.
"Anyway", continued the mayor, "we have a better plan, which will bring water to a greater number of people. Wait, let's bring in the whiteboard".
During the lengthy wait while the mayor and chief engineer Salinas hunted down a whiteboard and were accosted by various other petitioners, we chatted to Julita. In contrast to the common image of poor, struggling people from marginal zones, she was bright, positive, articulate and well-informed.
She said she was from the northern jungle, beyond Iquitos, and had left home at age 12, arriving in Arequipa through "a long story of adventure". She said the main issue for Villa Ecologica, apart from water, was that the community was dominated by solo mothers and "abandoned women".
"And I admit - I'm one of those solo mothers", she grinned. "But I only have one child. And I don't see why being a solo mother should make me helpless. There's always something to do, some way to advance. If there's no work, you can always find something to sell. But fortunately, right now the council is supporting our work that you saw us doing".
I said that the work looked pretty back-breaking. "Yes, it's hard work, but at least it's regular", said Julita.
She said that one of the main problems in the community was the sheer number of kids, caused by complete lack of family planning. Women didn't " take care of themselves" (cuidarse is the euphemistic verb employed here to refer to using contraception), firstly, because of a lack of information, and secondly, because their husbands blankly refused. "They think that if their wives want to use contraception it's so they can cheat on them", said Julita. "Right, so then they end up with five, six, seven kids. And then, the husband decides to run off, leaving the woman with all the kids".
Julita said some of programmes supported by NGOs "didn't help", by creating perverse incentives. "You have three kids, you're eligible for getting a latrine built", she said. "Four, and they might help you with a new kitchen. Five, and they might provide you with a house. In other words, there's an incentive to be helpless and dependent. If you stick to one kid, work hard, and try to get ahead, you don't get any help".
By then the mayor and the engineer returned with the whiteboard, and the engineer proceeded to provide a layman's account of the project that they proposed. It involved running a new pipeline from one of the main Arequipa pipelines, uphill to a central high point at 2,700 metres. This would involve the installation of two additional pump houses and the construction of a reservoir on top of the mirador.
From there, water would flow downhill to the five or so pueblos jovenes in Selva Alegre. The engineer Salinas drew a detailed side bar of how things would work in Villa Ecologica. To supply water to Villa Ecologica would require a small "regulatory" reservoir uphill from the township, connecting pipelines, and a reticulated network to supply each house.
The whole project was estimated to cost around $2.5 million USD, while the Villa Ecologica section would cost about $600,000.
This all looked great on the whiteboard, we said, but when was it likely to occur? In fact, said the mayor, the first stage - the pipeline uphill from the main Arequipa supply was already fully planned, and the Arequipan provinical government had agreed to finance it. Construction was slated to start within a month. Municipal elections were scheduled for November, and, said the mayor, "people need to see that we've made a start".
However, for the supply to reach the pueblos jovenes, they also needed to do their bit. "You should never", said the mayor wagging his finger, "give people something for nothing. It leads to unrealistic expectations". As a contribution to the planning for the initial stage, each resident of the Selva Alegre pueblos jovenes had been asked to give 3 soles (about 90c US). So far, the only township not to pay in full was Villa Ecologica, which had collected less than half their designated amount.
Julita shook her head. "It's just that the president doesn't mention this in our weekly meetings", she said. "He talks about other things, but misses this stuff out".
In any case, said the mayor, any progress in Villa Ecologica would require an "expediente técnico" or detailed study of the terrain. The estimated cost would be about $12,000 USD. However, this could be reduced if the municipality could get hold of the mysterious plans of the Villa Ecologica residential area, which were thought to be in the hands of Vladirimo, el presidente.
We agreed to renew efforts to get hold of Vladimiro and ask him about the plans. We also agreed that Ilona would go with the engineer Salinas to the civil engineering department at la Catolica to look for students to help with the studies.
After the elaborate explanations of the water situation, we managed to move on to the question of the health campaign. I explained what we had been told at the university, and pointedly mentioned that the municipality of Socabaya has already arranged their health campaign.
"Right, no problem", said the mayor. "We'll write the letter now" - and he went next door to find his secretary. She wasn't there, but to make sure it would definitely happen, we said that Ilona would come back next morning at 9 am, collect the letter, and deliver it by hand to the university.
Our meeting wasn't yet over, as the mayor and the engineer felt like some more conversation. We talked about politics (the mayor was an Aprista; "if Alan is elected this will all happen quicker", he said). We were given an in-depth explanation of a cheap, environmentally friendly drainage system developed in Brazil and Bolivia and being piloted by the municipality in a nearby villge called Javier Herault.
We then moved on to the etymology of the town's unusual, French-sounding name. The mayor explained that it was named after a 1960s, Che Guevara-type rebel, who had also been a poet. "The town is named in his honour for his poetry, not for being a communist", he laughed. Apparently, young Javier had not been much of a fighter. "He used his rifle like a guitar", explained the mayor. "He lasted about five minutes as a guerrilla".
After more conversation, pleasantries, and exchange of contact details, we eventually staggered out into the sunlight, desperate for something to eat. We had been in the council offices over two and a half hours. One thing you can guarantee about Peru - people love to talk.
In New Zealand, I reckon, the whole meeting would have taken about ten minutes.
I was just looking around to figure out in which section we would have to do that, when Ilona simply bowled up to one of the security guards and said that we wanted to talk to the mayor. "OK, just head up the stairs" said the guard. It turned out that the mayor and the chief engineer hold court on Monday and Tuesday mornings, receiving complaints and petitions from their offices on the second floor.
After being directed to take seats by a smiling woman in the public relations department, we didn't have to wait long before we were ushered into the office of the mayor. On hearing that we there to enquire about Villa Ecologica, the secretary sent us in at the same time as a young woman who turned out to herself be from Villa Ecologica.
The woman was called Julita, and she recognised us. "Hey, weren't you guys in the community yesterday?", she asked, smiling. "In a maroon jeep?". She had been one of the people working collecting scraps of rock in the dust beside the track uphill where we had passed in the 4WD.
The mayor and the chief engineer were both robust, jovial men in their forties. Ilona and I were keen to get straight to the question of the health campaign, but the mayor was already in full flow. "You've come about Villa Ecologica, no?", he said. "You're interested in the water situation, then".
We decided to go with the water, given that the chief engineer Salinas, whom Ilona had spoken with previously, was present. "The problem about supplying water just to Villa Ecologica", said the mayor, "is that it would be a major investment for relatively few people. "Any solution needs to be part of an integrated project that can benefit a greater number of people".
But couldn't it be done relatively cheaply, I asked, and explained the proposal of pumping the water over the hill from the river. "Aha, nice idea", replied the mayor. "But it won't work. The problem is that the river at that point is contaminated. There would need to be a treatment plant installed, which as I'm sure know, costs a lot of money".
I said we had been told that there were no farms or anything further upstream. He said that in fact there were several settlements a way further upstream, including a police camp, whose drains were discharged into the river.
"Anyway", continued the mayor, "we have a better plan, which will bring water to a greater number of people. Wait, let's bring in the whiteboard".
During the lengthy wait while the mayor and chief engineer Salinas hunted down a whiteboard and were accosted by various other petitioners, we chatted to Julita. In contrast to the common image of poor, struggling people from marginal zones, she was bright, positive, articulate and well-informed.
She said she was from the northern jungle, beyond Iquitos, and had left home at age 12, arriving in Arequipa through "a long story of adventure". She said the main issue for Villa Ecologica, apart from water, was that the community was dominated by solo mothers and "abandoned women".
"And I admit - I'm one of those solo mothers", she grinned. "But I only have one child. And I don't see why being a solo mother should make me helpless. There's always something to do, some way to advance. If there's no work, you can always find something to sell. But fortunately, right now the council is supporting our work that you saw us doing".
I said that the work looked pretty back-breaking. "Yes, it's hard work, but at least it's regular", said Julita.
She said that one of the main problems in the community was the sheer number of kids, caused by complete lack of family planning. Women didn't " take care of themselves" (cuidarse is the euphemistic verb employed here to refer to using contraception), firstly, because of a lack of information, and secondly, because their husbands blankly refused. "They think that if their wives want to use contraception it's so they can cheat on them", said Julita. "Right, so then they end up with five, six, seven kids. And then, the husband decides to run off, leaving the woman with all the kids".
Julita said some of programmes supported by NGOs "didn't help", by creating perverse incentives. "You have three kids, you're eligible for getting a latrine built", she said. "Four, and they might help you with a new kitchen. Five, and they might provide you with a house. In other words, there's an incentive to be helpless and dependent. If you stick to one kid, work hard, and try to get ahead, you don't get any help".
By then the mayor and the engineer returned with the whiteboard, and the engineer proceeded to provide a layman's account of the project that they proposed. It involved running a new pipeline from one of the main Arequipa pipelines, uphill to a central high point at 2,700 metres. This would involve the installation of two additional pump houses and the construction of a reservoir on top of the mirador.
From there, water would flow downhill to the five or so pueblos jovenes in Selva Alegre. The engineer Salinas drew a detailed side bar of how things would work in Villa Ecologica. To supply water to Villa Ecologica would require a small "regulatory" reservoir uphill from the township, connecting pipelines, and a reticulated network to supply each house.
The whole project was estimated to cost around $2.5 million USD, while the Villa Ecologica section would cost about $600,000.
This all looked great on the whiteboard, we said, but when was it likely to occur? In fact, said the mayor, the first stage - the pipeline uphill from the main Arequipa supply was already fully planned, and the Arequipan provinical government had agreed to finance it. Construction was slated to start within a month. Municipal elections were scheduled for November, and, said the mayor, "people need to see that we've made a start".
However, for the supply to reach the pueblos jovenes, they also needed to do their bit. "You should never", said the mayor wagging his finger, "give people something for nothing. It leads to unrealistic expectations". As a contribution to the planning for the initial stage, each resident of the Selva Alegre pueblos jovenes had been asked to give 3 soles (about 90c US). So far, the only township not to pay in full was Villa Ecologica, which had collected less than half their designated amount.
Julita shook her head. "It's just that the president doesn't mention this in our weekly meetings", she said. "He talks about other things, but misses this stuff out".
In any case, said the mayor, any progress in Villa Ecologica would require an "expediente técnico" or detailed study of the terrain. The estimated cost would be about $12,000 USD. However, this could be reduced if the municipality could get hold of the mysterious plans of the Villa Ecologica residential area, which were thought to be in the hands of Vladirimo, el presidente.
We agreed to renew efforts to get hold of Vladimiro and ask him about the plans. We also agreed that Ilona would go with the engineer Salinas to the civil engineering department at la Catolica to look for students to help with the studies.
After the elaborate explanations of the water situation, we managed to move on to the question of the health campaign. I explained what we had been told at the university, and pointedly mentioned that the municipality of Socabaya has already arranged their health campaign.
"Right, no problem", said the mayor. "We'll write the letter now" - and he went next door to find his secretary. She wasn't there, but to make sure it would definitely happen, we said that Ilona would come back next morning at 9 am, collect the letter, and deliver it by hand to the university.
Our meeting wasn't yet over, as the mayor and the engineer felt like some more conversation. We talked about politics (the mayor was an Aprista; "if Alan is elected this will all happen quicker", he said). We were given an in-depth explanation of a cheap, environmentally friendly drainage system developed in Brazil and Bolivia and being piloted by the municipality in a nearby villge called Javier Herault.
We then moved on to the etymology of the town's unusual, French-sounding name. The mayor explained that it was named after a 1960s, Che Guevara-type rebel, who had also been a poet. "The town is named in his honour for his poetry, not for being a communist", he laughed. Apparently, young Javier had not been much of a fighter. "He used his rifle like a guitar", explained the mayor. "He lasted about five minutes as a guerrilla".
After more conversation, pleasantries, and exchange of contact details, we eventually staggered out into the sunlight, desperate for something to eat. We had been in the council offices over two and a half hours. One thing you can guarantee about Peru - people love to talk.
In New Zealand, I reckon, the whole meeting would have taken about ten minutes.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
A Visit to the University
On Tuesday Ilona came round bright and early and we headed off in a kombi to La Catolica university. Though she speaks excellent English, her Spanish is rather rudimentary, so as well as getting interesting information, I would be a significant help to her in her various meetings.
A week or two previously, Ilona had been to the university with the idea of seeing whether they could help with social programmes in Villa Ecologica. She bailed up the rector, who referred her to a woman named (as it transpired) señora Angelica in the multidisciplinary Department of Social Projects. When we arrived, Ilona admitted that she didn't know the name of the person, position, or department we were looking for, but that it was "round about here", as we climbed stairways, crossed courtyards and walked down corridors.
Ultimately we did happen upon the right office and person, entering while a meeting was in progress. The señora Angelica broke off to talk to us. Ilona had told me that the university's response had been quite positive when she suggested a health campaign for Villa Ecologica, and she was hopeful that something would happen soon. But when we spoke to the profesora, she explained the situation more clearly.
In order for la Catolica to undertake a health campaign, it had to receive a formal request from a public organization, preferably the municipality. It could not run a campaign simply because we thought it was a good idea; nor could they take a request from an NGO or even from the Villa Ecologica community association itself.
She said that the day after Ilona's visit, they had rung the Selva Alegre council offices to see whether they would put in a formal request for a health campaign. By mistake, they had rung the offices of the municipality of Socabaya - another poor, outlying area. The Socabaya council had been enthusiastic, and in fact their letter requesting a health campaign promptly arrived the next day.
Later, they had tried to ring Selva Alegre again, and had been put through to the Public Relations department, who had said yes, they would pass the message on regarding a possible health campaign. A week and a half later, no further word had been received from Selva Alegre.
The señora Angelica explained that there were two types of campaigns run by the university. The smaller, "focussed" campaigns were run Mondays to Fridays, and included paediatrics, general practice and dentistry / oral health. "Integrated" campaigns were run on Sundays, and included all specialities. In answer to my confession of ignorance, she explained that campaigns consisted in medical assessments, ordering of appropriate treatments or vaccines, and health education and promotion.
I asked what was the role of the Ministry of Health in ensuring primary and preventive health services to poor communities, and she said that the Ministry was limited to providing vaccines.
For an integrated campaign, said Angelica, it was necessary to have at least 2,000 families. This seemed to me to be a rather arbitrary figure, given that we had just told her that there were about 1,500 families in Villa Ecologica. But nothing at all could happen, she reminded us, until they got a formal request from the municipality.
Ilona seemed a bit frustrated that things weren't moving quite as fast as she'd hoped. I told her that such hoops to jump through were only to be expected; not only was this how things worked in Peru, it was typical of all bureaucracies. The only thing for it was to go and hassle the municipality to write their letter of request.
So we headed off in a taxi, with the intention of trying to talk to the mayor of Selva Alegre.
Categories: Arequipa, South America, Peru
A week or two previously, Ilona had been to the university with the idea of seeing whether they could help with social programmes in Villa Ecologica. She bailed up the rector, who referred her to a woman named (as it transpired) señora Angelica in the multidisciplinary Department of Social Projects. When we arrived, Ilona admitted that she didn't know the name of the person, position, or department we were looking for, but that it was "round about here", as we climbed stairways, crossed courtyards and walked down corridors.
Ultimately we did happen upon the right office and person, entering while a meeting was in progress. The señora Angelica broke off to talk to us. Ilona had told me that the university's response had been quite positive when she suggested a health campaign for Villa Ecologica, and she was hopeful that something would happen soon. But when we spoke to the profesora, she explained the situation more clearly.
In order for la Catolica to undertake a health campaign, it had to receive a formal request from a public organization, preferably the municipality. It could not run a campaign simply because we thought it was a good idea; nor could they take a request from an NGO or even from the Villa Ecologica community association itself.
She said that the day after Ilona's visit, they had rung the Selva Alegre council offices to see whether they would put in a formal request for a health campaign. By mistake, they had rung the offices of the municipality of Socabaya - another poor, outlying area. The Socabaya council had been enthusiastic, and in fact their letter requesting a health campaign promptly arrived the next day.
Later, they had tried to ring Selva Alegre again, and had been put through to the Public Relations department, who had said yes, they would pass the message on regarding a possible health campaign. A week and a half later, no further word had been received from Selva Alegre.
The señora Angelica explained that there were two types of campaigns run by the university. The smaller, "focussed" campaigns were run Mondays to Fridays, and included paediatrics, general practice and dentistry / oral health. "Integrated" campaigns were run on Sundays, and included all specialities. In answer to my confession of ignorance, she explained that campaigns consisted in medical assessments, ordering of appropriate treatments or vaccines, and health education and promotion.
I asked what was the role of the Ministry of Health in ensuring primary and preventive health services to poor communities, and she said that the Ministry was limited to providing vaccines.
For an integrated campaign, said Angelica, it was necessary to have at least 2,000 families. This seemed to me to be a rather arbitrary figure, given that we had just told her that there were about 1,500 families in Villa Ecologica. But nothing at all could happen, she reminded us, until they got a formal request from the municipality.
Ilona seemed a bit frustrated that things weren't moving quite as fast as she'd hoped. I told her that such hoops to jump through were only to be expected; not only was this how things worked in Peru, it was typical of all bureaucracies. The only thing for it was to go and hassle the municipality to write their letter of request.
So we headed off in a taxi, with the intention of trying to talk to the mayor of Selva Alegre.
Categories: Arequipa, South America, Peru
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Villa Ecologica
Driving up through the suburb of Alto Selva Alegre towards the flanks of El Misti, the basic but tidy houses of brick and concrete peter out, and the sealed road comes to an end. You're now entering the zone of the "pueblos jovenes" ("young towns"). These are the Peruvian equivalent of the Colombian comunas or the Brazilian favelas - new, informal settlements populated by the poor and marginalized who have often migrated from rural areas in search of a better life.
On Monday morning we headed up in Hugo's 4-wheel drive to visit one of the newest and poorest pueblitos, called Villa Ecologica. It's common for these shantytowns to bear unrealistically optimistic names, such as the "City of God" depicted in the Brazilian film of the same name. "Villa Ecologica", however, does bear some relation to reality, the name coming from the one-time designation of the terrain in and beyond the settlement as a provinical park.
My introduction to the case of Villa Ecologica was thanks to Ilona, a Polish postgraduate sociology student who came to Arequipa through an AISEC (international student organisation) exchange programme, hoping to work in social projects. Hugo is registered with AISEC to provide work experience to students, and Ilona was put in contaact with him.
As can be Hugo's way, he hadn't been entirely straight with Ilona about what she would be doing, and she ended up involved in boring tasks in the agency office for most of her first couple of months. But Hugo did manage to introduce her to contacts in Villa Ecologica, where he had delivered some of his own well-meaning though sporadic projects, such as organizing a Christmas party and presents for the children of the settlement.
Ilona explained the results of her investigations so far. The one thing which came absolutely on top of the list of areas where Villa Ecologica needed help was, unsurprisingly, water. In a city which scrapes a bare 100mm annual rainfall, water supply is always going to become a problem. The greenness of the valley which so attracted the Incas and the Spanish is largely a result of irrigation from the river Chili, which wends its way down from the sierra.
But as Arequipa has sprawled out the north, uphill towards the slopes of El Misti, the new areas are cut off from the river, and have no easy access to water. Misti, the city's icon, itself supplies no water. At present, the inhabitants of Villa Ecologica make do with communal tanks which are filled once a week by water which is trucked in and costs 48 soles (about $15 USD) for a tankload. They then have to fill up buckets and carry them several blocks to their own dwellings to supply their needs.
Ilona told me that she had gone to talk to an engineer at the Municipality of Selva Alegre about the possibility of connecting the town water supply to Villa Ecologica. She said she was told that this would be a very costly project to supply just Villa Ecologica; the pueblito holds around 3,500 families, of whom less than 2,000 are resident now. The municipality would prefer to undertake a project that could benefit a greater number of people.
There was another possibility. Villa Ecologica backs into a steep hillside. On the other side of the hill, at the bottom of a steep quebrada, is the river Chili. If this water could be pumped the short distance uphill and held in a medium-sized reservoir, it could then be distributed downhill to Villa Ecologica at a moderate cost. Hugo said that while bringing the water from the main Arequipa supply would run into the millions, pumping it over the hill could be done for an estimated $200,000 USD.
Essential to any progress with such a project were proper topographical plans of the area. Hugo said they had already commissioned studies of the hillside from the river to the top of the hill. Two masters students in civil engineering from La Catolica University were also interested in doing a project on the area. In addition, it was thought that a detailed mapping of the township had been commissioned, if not already completed.
Such plans would be vital to any proposal for a project to supply water. Hugo and Ilona understood that money had been collected from the community residents for the studies. But when they had asked Vladimiro, the president of the community association, about the existence of the plans, he had been vague and evasive.
For Villa Ecologica, water was the priority on which everyone could agree. But Ilona had also talked to people such as the señora Beti, teacher at Villa Ecologica's kindergarten, who had different perspectives on the problems of the pueblito. Many of the residents are single mothers who face enormous difficulties bringing up their young children amidst grinding poverty. Ilona was also looking into the possibility of getting La Catolica to run a health campaign in the settlement.
I wanted to see all this for myself, so we decided to head up to the settlement. As we turned off the sealed road to bump our way into Villa Ecologica, we passed one-room houses made of large blocks of stone crudely plastered together and looking just high enough for a short person to stand up. In between were heaps of rubbly rock which may or may not have served as fences, or perhaps were intended for further construction. It wasn't hard to believe Hugo's comment that "this is probably the poorest part of Arequipa".
Most available wall-like structures carried some kind of political propaganda. Although I was assured that the majority of residents were supporters of Ollanta Humala, the dominant piece of graffiti was "Ollanta Asesino" scrawled on several walls, with a variation of "Ollanta Asesino de Policias". The latter seemed to refer to the actions of Antauro, Ollanta's brother, whose "rebellion" in Andahuaylas in New Year 2005, had led to the death of four policemen.
We were initially looking for Vladimiro, to ask him again about the plans of the settlement. But he wasn't at home, nor in the comedor where he is apparently often to be found.
We carried on out of the settlement and up the hill. On a bend of the increasingly rough track, about fifteen people were working in a little infierno of heat and dust, heaping together piles of shattered rock. Hugo said that they were collecting material which would be trucked downhill and used in various construction projects. Despite the conditions, the workers looked in good spirits, and several smiled and waved at us as we drove past.
At the top of the hill we found a spectacular view down to the river and green terraces on the opposite bank, and a small concrete reservoir. Hugo said the reservoir had been put there when the ecological park had been planned for the area beyond the current settlement; water was to have been pumped over the hill for irrigation. The plans were canned when the local government changed.
"But you see - it's obviously a logistical possibility", he said. Initial enquries had been made about whether the reservoir could be used to supply Villa Ecologica if the rest of the infrastructure were in place. Ilona said the council had said no; it was too close to some power lines, which ran just overhead. "Which begs the question why they put it there in the first place - or why they put the power lines there later", she said.
As we came back down the hill, the people working on the hillside waved at us again. One of the men made a drinking motion with his hands. "Did we bring any water?", I asked Hugo. He shook his head. We drove on, embarrassed that we hadn't even been able to offer some simple assistance.
Back in the settlement, we decided to look for the señora Beti. Not everybody in the township was ilooking so positive. A young woman lingering on a corner barely raised her head when we asked for directions. With something between a grunt and whimper, she gestured uphill.
We drove up the hill towards a new-looking building of brightly-painted concrete, which doubles as a chapel and kindergarten. It even had a slightly pitched roof - a definite indulgence in Arequipa.
Kindergarten was just getting out as we arrived. Young women smiled and greeted us, and there were kids laughing and playing with dogs in the dirt. We waited for the señora Beti, who was a tiny woman with a friendly but serious expression.
I said I was interested in writing something about community development in pueblos jovenes like Villa Ecologica, and the obstacles they face. She nodded, nd began to briefly enumerate the social problems of the community. "Domestic violence; solo mothers with no support; children shut in the house all day while their mothers go off to try and make money; alcoholism; children growing up without fathers; juvenile delinquency; lots of health problems", she listed.
Beti didn't have much time at that moment, but she said she would be happy to talk in more detail about life in the community and its problematic issues when she had the opportunity. We offered to collect her and bring her down to Hugo's place when she had more time.
We also agreed to keep chasing after the president, to try and discover the truth about the topographical plans of the township.
Categories: Arequipa, South America, Peru
On Monday morning we headed up in Hugo's 4-wheel drive to visit one of the newest and poorest pueblitos, called Villa Ecologica. It's common for these shantytowns to bear unrealistically optimistic names, such as the "City of God" depicted in the Brazilian film of the same name. "Villa Ecologica", however, does bear some relation to reality, the name coming from the one-time designation of the terrain in and beyond the settlement as a provinical park.
My introduction to the case of Villa Ecologica was thanks to Ilona, a Polish postgraduate sociology student who came to Arequipa through an AISEC (international student organisation) exchange programme, hoping to work in social projects. Hugo is registered with AISEC to provide work experience to students, and Ilona was put in contaact with him.
As can be Hugo's way, he hadn't been entirely straight with Ilona about what she would be doing, and she ended up involved in boring tasks in the agency office for most of her first couple of months. But Hugo did manage to introduce her to contacts in Villa Ecologica, where he had delivered some of his own well-meaning though sporadic projects, such as organizing a Christmas party and presents for the children of the settlement.
Ilona explained the results of her investigations so far. The one thing which came absolutely on top of the list of areas where Villa Ecologica needed help was, unsurprisingly, water. In a city which scrapes a bare 100mm annual rainfall, water supply is always going to become a problem. The greenness of the valley which so attracted the Incas and the Spanish is largely a result of irrigation from the river Chili, which wends its way down from the sierra.
But as Arequipa has sprawled out the north, uphill towards the slopes of El Misti, the new areas are cut off from the river, and have no easy access to water. Misti, the city's icon, itself supplies no water. At present, the inhabitants of Villa Ecologica make do with communal tanks which are filled once a week by water which is trucked in and costs 48 soles (about $15 USD) for a tankload. They then have to fill up buckets and carry them several blocks to their own dwellings to supply their needs.
Ilona told me that she had gone to talk to an engineer at the Municipality of Selva Alegre about the possibility of connecting the town water supply to Villa Ecologica. She said she was told that this would be a very costly project to supply just Villa Ecologica; the pueblito holds around 3,500 families, of whom less than 2,000 are resident now. The municipality would prefer to undertake a project that could benefit a greater number of people.
There was another possibility. Villa Ecologica backs into a steep hillside. On the other side of the hill, at the bottom of a steep quebrada, is the river Chili. If this water could be pumped the short distance uphill and held in a medium-sized reservoir, it could then be distributed downhill to Villa Ecologica at a moderate cost. Hugo said that while bringing the water from the main Arequipa supply would run into the millions, pumping it over the hill could be done for an estimated $200,000 USD.
Essential to any progress with such a project were proper topographical plans of the area. Hugo said they had already commissioned studies of the hillside from the river to the top of the hill. Two masters students in civil engineering from La Catolica University were also interested in doing a project on the area. In addition, it was thought that a detailed mapping of the township had been commissioned, if not already completed.
Such plans would be vital to any proposal for a project to supply water. Hugo and Ilona understood that money had been collected from the community residents for the studies. But when they had asked Vladimiro, the president of the community association, about the existence of the plans, he had been vague and evasive.
For Villa Ecologica, water was the priority on which everyone could agree. But Ilona had also talked to people such as the señora Beti, teacher at Villa Ecologica's kindergarten, who had different perspectives on the problems of the pueblito. Many of the residents are single mothers who face enormous difficulties bringing up their young children amidst grinding poverty. Ilona was also looking into the possibility of getting La Catolica to run a health campaign in the settlement.
I wanted to see all this for myself, so we decided to head up to the settlement. As we turned off the sealed road to bump our way into Villa Ecologica, we passed one-room houses made of large blocks of stone crudely plastered together and looking just high enough for a short person to stand up. In between were heaps of rubbly rock which may or may not have served as fences, or perhaps were intended for further construction. It wasn't hard to believe Hugo's comment that "this is probably the poorest part of Arequipa".
Most available wall-like structures carried some kind of political propaganda. Although I was assured that the majority of residents were supporters of Ollanta Humala, the dominant piece of graffiti was "Ollanta Asesino" scrawled on several walls, with a variation of "Ollanta Asesino de Policias". The latter seemed to refer to the actions of Antauro, Ollanta's brother, whose "rebellion" in Andahuaylas in New Year 2005, had led to the death of four policemen.
We were initially looking for Vladimiro, to ask him again about the plans of the settlement. But he wasn't at home, nor in the comedor where he is apparently often to be found.
We carried on out of the settlement and up the hill. On a bend of the increasingly rough track, about fifteen people were working in a little infierno of heat and dust, heaping together piles of shattered rock. Hugo said that they were collecting material which would be trucked downhill and used in various construction projects. Despite the conditions, the workers looked in good spirits, and several smiled and waved at us as we drove past.
At the top of the hill we found a spectacular view down to the river and green terraces on the opposite bank, and a small concrete reservoir. Hugo said the reservoir had been put there when the ecological park had been planned for the area beyond the current settlement; water was to have been pumped over the hill for irrigation. The plans were canned when the local government changed.
"But you see - it's obviously a logistical possibility", he said. Initial enquries had been made about whether the reservoir could be used to supply Villa Ecologica if the rest of the infrastructure were in place. Ilona said the council had said no; it was too close to some power lines, which ran just overhead. "Which begs the question why they put it there in the first place - or why they put the power lines there later", she said.
As we came back down the hill, the people working on the hillside waved at us again. One of the men made a drinking motion with his hands. "Did we bring any water?", I asked Hugo. He shook his head. We drove on, embarrassed that we hadn't even been able to offer some simple assistance.
Back in the settlement, we decided to look for the señora Beti. Not everybody in the township was ilooking so positive. A young woman lingering on a corner barely raised her head when we asked for directions. With something between a grunt and whimper, she gestured uphill.
We drove up the hill towards a new-looking building of brightly-painted concrete, which doubles as a chapel and kindergarten. It even had a slightly pitched roof - a definite indulgence in Arequipa.
Kindergarten was just getting out as we arrived. Young women smiled and greeted us, and there were kids laughing and playing with dogs in the dirt. We waited for the señora Beti, who was a tiny woman with a friendly but serious expression.
I said I was interested in writing something about community development in pueblos jovenes like Villa Ecologica, and the obstacles they face. She nodded, nd began to briefly enumerate the social problems of the community. "Domestic violence; solo mothers with no support; children shut in the house all day while their mothers go off to try and make money; alcoholism; children growing up without fathers; juvenile delinquency; lots of health problems", she listed.
Beti didn't have much time at that moment, but she said she would be happy to talk in more detail about life in the community and its problematic issues when she had the opportunity. We offered to collect her and bring her down to Hugo's place when she had more time.
We also agreed to keep chasing after the president, to try and discover the truth about the topographical plans of the township.
Categories: Arequipa, South America, Peru
Friday, April 28, 2006
Then There Were Two
The second round of voting in the Peruvian presidential elections is now almost certain to pit Alan Garcia against Ollanta Humala. Lourdes Flores' Unidad Nacional party hasn't yet given up, and are contesting the legitimacy of votes from some polling stations, but with all votes counted Lourdes is 0.6 percent, or 60,000 votes, behind Alan.
The two remaining candidates have already made proxy starts to their second-round campaigns, each making visits to the other's stronghold. Alan visited Puno, a region which voted heavily for Humala, while Ollanta appeared in Trujillo, the traditional base of support for Alan Garcia's party APRA.
At present, almost nobody is willing to predict the outcome of the second round, largely because, of the 45 percent of Peruvians who didn't vote for either Alan or Ollanta, many would be loathe to support wither candidate.
For all that Humala is feared for his authoritarian tendencies, there are a lot of people who could never bring themselves to back Alan after his disastrous first presidency. My friends Hugo and Lizbeth are an example. They both voted Lourdes in the first round, but, though they don't have much confidence in what an Humala presidency would mean for tourism, they will be voting for Ollanta in the second round. "We can't stand Alan", they both said. Among other things, they blame him for terrorism getting out of hand in the late 80s.
Another friend of mine and her cousin are taking a different strategy. "Word is that Alan is likely to win", she told me. "If so, they say APRA party members will probably get good jobs. So we've joined the party and signed up to be election observers for the second round. Though of course we aren't apristas - we both voted Lourdes".
Author Mario Vargas Llosa - who really should decide whether he's going to be a public intellectual or a politician - announced his opinion that Unidad Nacional and APRA should form a "democratic alliance" to keep out the authoritarian Ollanta Humala. This would effectively mean handing Lourdes' votes to Alan.
Most commentators think this is a silly strategy that would likely backfire. On the one hand, it would strengthen Humala's battling outsider status. On the other, it does look rather like an attempt at majoritarian strategy to continue the exclusion of the marginalized 30 percent of the population whose vote for Ollanta was more than anything a cry of protest at the status quo. And most simply, it's not exactly in the best interests of democracy to tell people how to vote.
Meanwhile, international figures continue to stick their beaks into Peru's domestic politics. Bolivian president Evo Morales recently called current Peruvian leader Alejandro Toledo "a traitor" to Andean solidarity for his decision to sign a free trade agreement with the US (it still has to be ratified by Congress in both countries).
Toledo responded that Morales' compadre Hugo Chavez himself had betrayed his avowed "Bolivarian" ideals of Andean integration by retiring Venezuela from the Comunidad Andina (CAN) alliance, a move which looks to be matched by Morales and Bolivia.
Yesterday in a press conference Chavez himself had his say. He blamed Colombia and Peru for the erosion of CAN because they had signed free trade agreements with the US. To continue in CAN would allow "susbsidised American goods" into Venezuela through the back door. "Unless", said Chavez, "the next president of Peru - and let's hope that's Ollanta Humala - throws out the free trade agreement".
Chavez had a parting shot for Lourdes Flores. "The candidate who made the free trade agreement a platform of her campaign is now on the sidelines", he said. "Well, Doña Lourdes - five more years".
It remains to be seen what effect this sniping from foreign leaders will have on the Peruvian campaign. Perhaps it will give Ollanta Humala a boost. Or maybe Peruvians will actually summon some of their famed patriotism and decide that no one foreign - be they American or Venezuelan - will tell them how to vote.
Categories: South America, Peru, Peruvian Elections, Lourdes Flores, Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia, Hugo Chavez
The two remaining candidates have already made proxy starts to their second-round campaigns, each making visits to the other's stronghold. Alan visited Puno, a region which voted heavily for Humala, while Ollanta appeared in Trujillo, the traditional base of support for Alan Garcia's party APRA.
At present, almost nobody is willing to predict the outcome of the second round, largely because, of the 45 percent of Peruvians who didn't vote for either Alan or Ollanta, many would be loathe to support wither candidate.
For all that Humala is feared for his authoritarian tendencies, there are a lot of people who could never bring themselves to back Alan after his disastrous first presidency. My friends Hugo and Lizbeth are an example. They both voted Lourdes in the first round, but, though they don't have much confidence in what an Humala presidency would mean for tourism, they will be voting for Ollanta in the second round. "We can't stand Alan", they both said. Among other things, they blame him for terrorism getting out of hand in the late 80s.
Another friend of mine and her cousin are taking a different strategy. "Word is that Alan is likely to win", she told me. "If so, they say APRA party members will probably get good jobs. So we've joined the party and signed up to be election observers for the second round. Though of course we aren't apristas - we both voted Lourdes".
Author Mario Vargas Llosa - who really should decide whether he's going to be a public intellectual or a politician - announced his opinion that Unidad Nacional and APRA should form a "democratic alliance" to keep out the authoritarian Ollanta Humala. This would effectively mean handing Lourdes' votes to Alan.
Most commentators think this is a silly strategy that would likely backfire. On the one hand, it would strengthen Humala's battling outsider status. On the other, it does look rather like an attempt at majoritarian strategy to continue the exclusion of the marginalized 30 percent of the population whose vote for Ollanta was more than anything a cry of protest at the status quo. And most simply, it's not exactly in the best interests of democracy to tell people how to vote.
Meanwhile, international figures continue to stick their beaks into Peru's domestic politics. Bolivian president Evo Morales recently called current Peruvian leader Alejandro Toledo "a traitor" to Andean solidarity for his decision to sign a free trade agreement with the US (it still has to be ratified by Congress in both countries).
Toledo responded that Morales' compadre Hugo Chavez himself had betrayed his avowed "Bolivarian" ideals of Andean integration by retiring Venezuela from the Comunidad Andina (CAN) alliance, a move which looks to be matched by Morales and Bolivia.
Yesterday in a press conference Chavez himself had his say. He blamed Colombia and Peru for the erosion of CAN because they had signed free trade agreements with the US. To continue in CAN would allow "susbsidised American goods" into Venezuela through the back door. "Unless", said Chavez, "the next president of Peru - and let's hope that's Ollanta Humala - throws out the free trade agreement".
Chavez had a parting shot for Lourdes Flores. "The candidate who made the free trade agreement a platform of her campaign is now on the sidelines", he said. "Well, Doña Lourdes - five more years".
It remains to be seen what effect this sniping from foreign leaders will have on the Peruvian campaign. Perhaps it will give Ollanta Humala a boost. Or maybe Peruvians will actually summon some of their famed patriotism and decide that no one foreign - be they American or Venezuelan - will tell them how to vote.
Categories: South America, Peru, Peruvian Elections, Lourdes Flores, Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia, Hugo Chavez
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Nothing Is Ever Quite the Same
April is close to the best time of the year in Arequipa. The skies are permanently sunny - the intermittent cloud and very occasional rain of January - March is gone - but the nights aren't yet as bitterly cold as in June and July. The heat of the day keeps the drifts of breeze warm until even a little after sundown, unlike some times of the year when it starts to get chilly by 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon.
Best of all, the mountains still have a decent amount of snow from the rainy season. On the volcano El Misti there's barely a streak or two, but 6,075-metre Chachani has an almost Alps-like covering, and even the smaller Picchu Picchu range to the east has a layer of snow.
I spent almost six months in Arequipa during my last trip to South America. I fell in love with the place shortly after arriving; in addition to its natural beauty it seemed to have a combination of dignity and joie de vivre which especially appealed to me.
About two hours after arriving from Lima on Friday morning, I felt like I'd never left. A short tour round the workplaces of friends and acquaintances, and I'd received more hugs and kisses than in the entire previous year. My friends Hugo and Lizbeth immediately demanded that I come and stay at their place, and on Saturday night organized a "welcome barbeque" with marinated pork steaks, papa a la huancaina and lashings of sangria and beer.
When I returned to New Zealand, my life here quickly started to seem like a dream. But having returned, the minor changes only serve to underline the familarities.
Some people have put on weight, others have died their hair. One or two have changed jobs. There's been a couple of pregnancies. Ulises, the owner of the Casa la Reyna hostel where I stayed when I first arrived here, was stripping the layers of plaster and paint off the stone facade of his hotel. "It's being naturalised", he said. "Without the plaster the stone can breathe, and it lasts better". My friend Blanca had modified the entrance to her popular internet cafe, put in a new counter, and painted it in bright colours.
Hugo and Lizbeth's house which they share with the families of Hugo's brothers and his mother, has been substantially modified, with new rooms occupying space that was an outside terrace, and an attractive back patio. Their adventure travel agencies have been slowly gaining more business in a static market, and they now also have t-shirts, stickers and sandwich boards featuring the flying-condors design which I used for the Incaventura web page I put together last year (me, a logo designer? Few things have left me more chuffed).
More notably, Hugo and Lizbeth's son Gerardo has undergone a remarkable change. He's still an anxious child, but after a couple of visits to a psychologist, a change of school, and getting his own room, he seems to have conquered the tendency for constant screaming and crying fits, can now speak more or less normally, and can play happily with other kids.
But only one thing is drastically different. As some who read this blog will know, much of my time in South America last year was spent in a long and involved relationship with a girl from Arequipa. It was at times fraught and turbulent but (for me at least) seldom boring
That all finished some time ago, but inevitably colours how I see the place now. Almost everything is infused with memories of the things we did together During the first couple of days here I was hit a couple of times by a wave of sad nostalgia, and a feeling that the way things have turned out changes not only the present, but also how I view the past.
On the other hand, I realised even at the time that I was living in a reality that was romantic, but a little one-dimensional. So distracted was I by the ups and downs of el amor a la arequipeña that a lot of the more interesting concrete features of the place passed me by. Already in my few days here, I've done things that I never managed to get around to when I was with Paola. In a way, I feel like I'm getting to know Arequipa all over again.
Sadly, my travel plans, which I set in stone before coming, mean I don't have much more time here.
Categories: Arequipa, South America, Peru
Best of all, the mountains still have a decent amount of snow from the rainy season. On the volcano El Misti there's barely a streak or two, but 6,075-metre Chachani has an almost Alps-like covering, and even the smaller Picchu Picchu range to the east has a layer of snow.
I spent almost six months in Arequipa during my last trip to South America. I fell in love with the place shortly after arriving; in addition to its natural beauty it seemed to have a combination of dignity and joie de vivre which especially appealed to me.
About two hours after arriving from Lima on Friday morning, I felt like I'd never left. A short tour round the workplaces of friends and acquaintances, and I'd received more hugs and kisses than in the entire previous year. My friends Hugo and Lizbeth immediately demanded that I come and stay at their place, and on Saturday night organized a "welcome barbeque" with marinated pork steaks, papa a la huancaina and lashings of sangria and beer.
When I returned to New Zealand, my life here quickly started to seem like a dream. But having returned, the minor changes only serve to underline the familarities.
Some people have put on weight, others have died their hair. One or two have changed jobs. There's been a couple of pregnancies. Ulises, the owner of the Casa la Reyna hostel where I stayed when I first arrived here, was stripping the layers of plaster and paint off the stone facade of his hotel. "It's being naturalised", he said. "Without the plaster the stone can breathe, and it lasts better". My friend Blanca had modified the entrance to her popular internet cafe, put in a new counter, and painted it in bright colours.
Hugo and Lizbeth's house which they share with the families of Hugo's brothers and his mother, has been substantially modified, with new rooms occupying space that was an outside terrace, and an attractive back patio. Their adventure travel agencies have been slowly gaining more business in a static market, and they now also have t-shirts, stickers and sandwich boards featuring the flying-condors design which I used for the Incaventura web page I put together last year (me, a logo designer? Few things have left me more chuffed).
More notably, Hugo and Lizbeth's son Gerardo has undergone a remarkable change. He's still an anxious child, but after a couple of visits to a psychologist, a change of school, and getting his own room, he seems to have conquered the tendency for constant screaming and crying fits, can now speak more or less normally, and can play happily with other kids.
But only one thing is drastically different. As some who read this blog will know, much of my time in South America last year was spent in a long and involved relationship with a girl from Arequipa. It was at times fraught and turbulent but (for me at least) seldom boring
That all finished some time ago, but inevitably colours how I see the place now. Almost everything is infused with memories of the things we did together During the first couple of days here I was hit a couple of times by a wave of sad nostalgia, and a feeling that the way things have turned out changes not only the present, but also how I view the past.
On the other hand, I realised even at the time that I was living in a reality that was romantic, but a little one-dimensional. So distracted was I by the ups and downs of el amor a la arequipeña that a lot of the more interesting concrete features of the place passed me by. Already in my few days here, I've done things that I never managed to get around to when I was with Paola. In a way, I feel like I'm getting to know Arequipa all over again.
Sadly, my travel plans, which I set in stone before coming, mean I don't have much more time here.
Categories: Arequipa, South America, Peru
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Learning to Love Lima
The sense of being in Peru rushed back as soon I got off the plane. With large queues waiting at immigration, the staff were backlogged because one of their machines was "malograda". As the crowds threatened to back up to the air bridge, the decision was made to open up a couple of extra counters.
"Señorita! Close off that gap between the lines so people don't come through there" one of the immigration officials shouted at a harried assistant. She started to rush off but then stopped. "It is closed" she said in frustration..
When I finally got my turn, the woman at immigration confirmed my flight number and started filling out my form. I noticed she had written "30" on my entry form. "You're only giving me 30 days?", I queried. "Why, how many do you need?", she asked. "Ah, maybe 35, to be on the safe side", I replied. "Hmm, ok, we'll go for 90", she said, proceeding to change the 3s to 9s.
So why didn't I get 90 in the first place? On all the other occasions I've come into Peru I've been given 90 automatically. Something to do with having come in from Chile? Note to Peru: generally you want to at least give gringo tourists the option of staying longer and spending more money.
Driving out of the airport though the port suburb of Callao, the air blowing through the taxi window carried a familiar thickness of humidity, tar, petrol, and fish. The driver steered in wide arcs around potholes, as the odd person wandered aimlessly into the poorly lit streets. I was definitely back in Peru.
In previous conversations with Peruvian friends in MSN Messenger, without exception they emitted cybernetic groans when the elections were mentioned. They had all voted for Lourdes Flores, and were despressed by the prospect of a choice between Alan Garcia and Ollanta Humala. Perhaps not surprising, given that my friends are all middle class, including a language teacher, a law student, a designer, and a number who work in or rely on touism.
However, it seems that in Lima the pro-Lourdes sentiments go beyond the upper crust. I asked my taxi driver Carlos, a native of working-class Callao, who he wanted to win in the elections. "The woman - Lourdes", he said. The young guy on the nightshift at my little family-run hostel in Miraflores? "Lourdes", he confirmed without hesitation.
In the morning I talked with Juan, the young guy who manages the hostel, about travel into the jungle. He had travelled quite extensively in the "ceja de selva", the area between the Andes and the jungle proper, and had gone downriver for one day, but not as far as Iquitos.
He dismissed the dangers of drug traffickers and terrorists. "Really, the provinces are tranquil", he said. To be honest, there's much more danger here in Lima than in out there" (almost certainly true).
"Forget about being robbed or whatever", added Juan. "What you really have to watch out for in the jungle regions is the women".
My plan for the day was to secure a ticket to Arequipa for the following night, and make a visit to the Mueso de la Nacion, which houses many of the archeological treasures of the pre-Incan and Incan eras.
On the way out to the bus station, my taxi driver was a jovial guy named Leo. "Watch out for las charapas (women from Iquitos and around)", he warned me when I told him of my travel plans.
I asked him how business was. "Hmm, some days good, some days bad", he shrugged. It's hard making money. We have the cheapest taxis in South America. And the most expensive gasoline in South America. Everything here is expensive", he grumbled.
Leo was my first encounter with a non-Lourdes voter. "Alan Garcia's the man", he said, giving the thumbs up. "Ollanta would be a disaster. Nationalisation? That's crazy. It'd scare away the foreign capital. You're a foreigner, you want to invest here; you're not going to do it without security, guarantees".
But didn't Alan already have his turn at being president, I asked cautiously. "Ah, he's changed. He's matured" said Leo confidently.
Later, on my way out to the Museo de la Nacion, I saw a piece of graffiti scrawled in big, awkward letters on an underpass. "Alan hasn't changed", it proclaimed.
The musuem had a fantastic collection of artefacts, particularly from the pre-Incan cultures. By then the jet lag was kicking in a little, so my stamina waned, and I'll probably go back on my next trip to Lima. I was already enamoured of the extraordinarily lifelike and expressive ceramics produced by the 7th-century Moche culture, which I had seen in Chiclayo. But what grabbed me most on the museum visit were the carved stone pillars and feline heads from the BC-era Chavin de Huantar de culture.
With a centre in the Huaraz area, this was the first "horizon culture" in Peru which unified people over a significant area through government and religion. Its stone artwork shows great skill and control, revealing a striking, almost demonic, iconography.
The musuem was a somewhat surprising place to meet my first Ollanta Humala voters. I got to talking to two women in the forties, Rosa and Cristina, who were also looking at the artefacts. Rosa lived in London, and had ended up teaching continuing education classes on Peruvian culture. She said she was "catching up"; she'd never taken that much of an interest in her country's cultural history until she found herself teaching it to foreigners.
Cristina said she lived in the poor shantytown area of Comas and was a trained physiotherapist. I asked if physiotherapy paid reasonably well. More or less, she said, but she also worked in preventative health, and that was definitely on a voluntary basis. I imagined that such work must be really necesary and valuable. "That's right", said Cristina. "That's why we're very much supporting Ollanta".
"Oh yes, she's in love with Ollanta", said Rosa. She even has a picture of him" she said, searching in her own purse. Unfortunately the picture of Ollanta was nowhere to be found.
Politely, I didn't press them on the question of what specific actions they thought Ollanta Humala would take to improve life for people in the pueblos jovenes.
From the bus station to the musuem and back to the hostel, I travelled in kombis, the mainly antiquated minibuses and vans which roar along the streets, stopping wherever there are passengers to pick up. They dominate Peruvian cities, and Lima in particular, to such an extent, that I feel if you're not confident travelling in them you'll never really get a feel for daily life in the city. You can't take taxis forever.
I didn't do that great on my way out to the musuem, and it took me three tries to get to the right stop. Lesson learned: if you want someone to point out your stop, you really need to remind them more than once. But on the way back to Miraflores (minimum two kombis), I got it right first time.
Miraflores and San Isidro might be what the women in the museum called the "snooty" parts of Lima, but they're still democratised by the endless stream of kombi vans belching smoke and bouncing frenetically along the worn streets, the young assistants leaning out the open doors and shouting out their destinations.
Lima is huge, incomprehensible, polluted and dangerous, and appalls even most people who live there. At the same time it's diverse, exciting, friendly, and especially in April while the sun is still shining, has an odd sense of hope. Once you settle into its rhythms a little, the dominant impression is of constant, frenetic movement. After it stops frightening you, it's an energizing place, and you may even feel that you're beginning to like it.
Categories: Lima, South America, Peru
"Señorita! Close off that gap between the lines so people don't come through there" one of the immigration officials shouted at a harried assistant. She started to rush off but then stopped. "It is closed" she said in frustration..
When I finally got my turn, the woman at immigration confirmed my flight number and started filling out my form. I noticed she had written "30" on my entry form. "You're only giving me 30 days?", I queried. "Why, how many do you need?", she asked. "Ah, maybe 35, to be on the safe side", I replied. "Hmm, ok, we'll go for 90", she said, proceeding to change the 3s to 9s.
So why didn't I get 90 in the first place? On all the other occasions I've come into Peru I've been given 90 automatically. Something to do with having come in from Chile? Note to Peru: generally you want to at least give gringo tourists the option of staying longer and spending more money.
Driving out of the airport though the port suburb of Callao, the air blowing through the taxi window carried a familiar thickness of humidity, tar, petrol, and fish. The driver steered in wide arcs around potholes, as the odd person wandered aimlessly into the poorly lit streets. I was definitely back in Peru.
In previous conversations with Peruvian friends in MSN Messenger, without exception they emitted cybernetic groans when the elections were mentioned. They had all voted for Lourdes Flores, and were despressed by the prospect of a choice between Alan Garcia and Ollanta Humala. Perhaps not surprising, given that my friends are all middle class, including a language teacher, a law student, a designer, and a number who work in or rely on touism.
However, it seems that in Lima the pro-Lourdes sentiments go beyond the upper crust. I asked my taxi driver Carlos, a native of working-class Callao, who he wanted to win in the elections. "The woman - Lourdes", he said. The young guy on the nightshift at my little family-run hostel in Miraflores? "Lourdes", he confirmed without hesitation.
In the morning I talked with Juan, the young guy who manages the hostel, about travel into the jungle. He had travelled quite extensively in the "ceja de selva", the area between the Andes and the jungle proper, and had gone downriver for one day, but not as far as Iquitos.
He dismissed the dangers of drug traffickers and terrorists. "Really, the provinces are tranquil", he said. To be honest, there's much more danger here in Lima than in out there" (almost certainly true).
"Forget about being robbed or whatever", added Juan. "What you really have to watch out for in the jungle regions is the women".
My plan for the day was to secure a ticket to Arequipa for the following night, and make a visit to the Mueso de la Nacion, which houses many of the archeological treasures of the pre-Incan and Incan eras.
On the way out to the bus station, my taxi driver was a jovial guy named Leo. "Watch out for las charapas (women from Iquitos and around)", he warned me when I told him of my travel plans.
I asked him how business was. "Hmm, some days good, some days bad", he shrugged. It's hard making money. We have the cheapest taxis in South America. And the most expensive gasoline in South America. Everything here is expensive", he grumbled.
Leo was my first encounter with a non-Lourdes voter. "Alan Garcia's the man", he said, giving the thumbs up. "Ollanta would be a disaster. Nationalisation? That's crazy. It'd scare away the foreign capital. You're a foreigner, you want to invest here; you're not going to do it without security, guarantees".
But didn't Alan already have his turn at being president, I asked cautiously. "Ah, he's changed. He's matured" said Leo confidently.
Later, on my way out to the Museo de la Nacion, I saw a piece of graffiti scrawled in big, awkward letters on an underpass. "Alan hasn't changed", it proclaimed.
The musuem had a fantastic collection of artefacts, particularly from the pre-Incan cultures. By then the jet lag was kicking in a little, so my stamina waned, and I'll probably go back on my next trip to Lima. I was already enamoured of the extraordinarily lifelike and expressive ceramics produced by the 7th-century Moche culture, which I had seen in Chiclayo. But what grabbed me most on the museum visit were the carved stone pillars and feline heads from the BC-era Chavin de Huantar de culture.
With a centre in the Huaraz area, this was the first "horizon culture" in Peru which unified people over a significant area through government and religion. Its stone artwork shows great skill and control, revealing a striking, almost demonic, iconography.
The musuem was a somewhat surprising place to meet my first Ollanta Humala voters. I got to talking to two women in the forties, Rosa and Cristina, who were also looking at the artefacts. Rosa lived in London, and had ended up teaching continuing education classes on Peruvian culture. She said she was "catching up"; she'd never taken that much of an interest in her country's cultural history until she found herself teaching it to foreigners.
Cristina said she lived in the poor shantytown area of Comas and was a trained physiotherapist. I asked if physiotherapy paid reasonably well. More or less, she said, but she also worked in preventative health, and that was definitely on a voluntary basis. I imagined that such work must be really necesary and valuable. "That's right", said Cristina. "That's why we're very much supporting Ollanta".
"Oh yes, she's in love with Ollanta", said Rosa. She even has a picture of him" she said, searching in her own purse. Unfortunately the picture of Ollanta was nowhere to be found.
Politely, I didn't press them on the question of what specific actions they thought Ollanta Humala would take to improve life for people in the pueblos jovenes.
From the bus station to the musuem and back to the hostel, I travelled in kombis, the mainly antiquated minibuses and vans which roar along the streets, stopping wherever there are passengers to pick up. They dominate Peruvian cities, and Lima in particular, to such an extent, that I feel if you're not confident travelling in them you'll never really get a feel for daily life in the city. You can't take taxis forever.
I didn't do that great on my way out to the musuem, and it took me three tries to get to the right stop. Lesson learned: if you want someone to point out your stop, you really need to remind them more than once. But on the way back to Miraflores (minimum two kombis), I got it right first time.
Miraflores and San Isidro might be what the women in the museum called the "snooty" parts of Lima, but they're still democratised by the endless stream of kombi vans belching smoke and bouncing frenetically along the worn streets, the young assistants leaning out the open doors and shouting out their destinations.
Lima is huge, incomprehensible, polluted and dangerous, and appalls even most people who live there. At the same time it's diverse, exciting, friendly, and especially in April while the sun is still shining, has an odd sense of hope. Once you settle into its rhythms a little, the dominant impression is of constant, frenetic movement. After it stops frightening you, it's an energizing place, and you may even feel that you're beginning to like it.
Categories: Lima, South America, Peru
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Layover in Santiago
If this trip is intended to be arduous and challenging, I guess I'm easing my way in. Right now, I'm ensconced in Lan Chile's VIP lounge in Santiago, during a 7-hour layover before my flight to Lima.
As everyone was moving into the transit lounge, someone from Lan was handing out fliers saying they've "extended their VIP access" to all their passengers, andfor only US $18, we too could enjoy the comfy surroundings, showers and free internet.
After having a wander round the transit area and figuring that I would probably spend close to that much on food and internet anyway, I decided to go for it. After just taking a hot shower and getting myself cleaned up, I've confirmed that it was a very good idea.
Didn't get much sleep the night before leaving, and then the trip to Auckland, check in etc took up the rest of the day. The flight to Santiago was, once again, sleepless, due to the overheated cabin (what is it with Chilean travel companies and wacking up the heating?), a bit of turbulence just when I was dropping off, and I think the fact that that the Airbus jets which seem popuar with all and sundry now, have significantly less space than the Boeings ("cattle class" seems appropriate).
Some of the sheer magic of travel seems to have gone for me now. I used to get a tremendous buzz just getting on any plane that was leaving the country, but up till now it's all seemed pretty routine. However, some of that may be due to the fact that I'm not yet on the way to my final destination.
On the way over, sat next to an Argentinian girl who had been coaching the junior Argentinian women's aerobic gymnastics team at world championships in Japan. She was a full-time phys ed teacher as well, and was heading back to start work again tomorrow morning, massive jet lag and all.
I thankfully will be spared any commitments to early morning activity for the present. I will try and make the most of my time in Lima by going to see the gold museum, so will be pushing though a bit until I manage to grab a night bus to Arequipa (hopefully Thursday). Then, dios mio, am I going to sleep. Perhaps a nice quiet double room at the Casa la Reyna hostel, putting off Hugo and Lizbeth's invitation to come and stay at their place for a couple of days...
I'm hoping that my posts will gradually get more interesting from here.
As everyone was moving into the transit lounge, someone from Lan was handing out fliers saying they've "extended their VIP access" to all their passengers, andfor only US $18, we too could enjoy the comfy surroundings, showers and free internet.
After having a wander round the transit area and figuring that I would probably spend close to that much on food and internet anyway, I decided to go for it. After just taking a hot shower and getting myself cleaned up, I've confirmed that it was a very good idea.
Didn't get much sleep the night before leaving, and then the trip to Auckland, check in etc took up the rest of the day. The flight to Santiago was, once again, sleepless, due to the overheated cabin (what is it with Chilean travel companies and wacking up the heating?), a bit of turbulence just when I was dropping off, and I think the fact that that the Airbus jets which seem popuar with all and sundry now, have significantly less space than the Boeings ("cattle class" seems appropriate).
Some of the sheer magic of travel seems to have gone for me now. I used to get a tremendous buzz just getting on any plane that was leaving the country, but up till now it's all seemed pretty routine. However, some of that may be due to the fact that I'm not yet on the way to my final destination.
On the way over, sat next to an Argentinian girl who had been coaching the junior Argentinian women's aerobic gymnastics team at world championships in Japan. She was a full-time phys ed teacher as well, and was heading back to start work again tomorrow morning, massive jet lag and all.
I thankfully will be spared any commitments to early morning activity for the present. I will try and make the most of my time in Lima by going to see the gold museum, so will be pushing though a bit until I manage to grab a night bus to Arequipa (hopefully Thursday). Then, dios mio, am I going to sleep. Perhaps a nice quiet double room at the Casa la Reyna hostel, putting off Hugo and Lizbeth's invitation to come and stay at their place for a couple of days...
I'm hoping that my posts will gradually get more interesting from here.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Peru Elections
The Peruvian elections went off without too much of a hitch last Sunday 9 April. As counting began, the early trends confirmed what the most recent polls had shown. While Ollanta Humala was looking to get a clear 30-31 percent of the vote and go through the run-off, things were super tight between Lourdes Flores and Alan Garcia.
Exit polls showed both would get about 24-25 percent, with the margin between them less than the margin of error. Lourdes led early, as the votes from the cities came in first. Then, after about 50 percent was counted, Alan surged into second place. He moved to 1.0-1.2 percent and stayed there. Then, when about 80 percent of the vote had been counted and the tension was rising....everyone went on holiday.
Yep, it's one of those things you've got to love about Peru. The most important political event for five years, but not a patch on the Easter church services and all day bbqs. Only on Good Friday itself did the vote count not progress at all, on the official site of the electoral commission, ONPE. But over the whole of the weekend, the total vote count has managed to rise from 84% to 89%.
To be fair, many of the later votes will be coming in from remote rural areas, and from overseas.
As the count slowly climbs, Lourdes has begun to make up some ground, and is now less than 1 percent behind Alan. A lot depends on the impact of the overseas votes, where she has about 60 percent support (as opposed to 24 percent overall). There's an estimated total of 185,000 of overseas votes to come in, but over half of these have now been counted. On my back of the envelope calculations, it won't be enough for Lourdes Flores to overtake Alan.
Interestingly, 137 Peruvians in New Zealand voted (for Peruvians, voting is compulsory). There were 112 in Auckland and 25 in Wellington. Overall, Lourdes Flores received 76 percent of the valid votes. However, in Wellington 17 out of 20 valid votes (85 percent) were cast for Lourdes, and no one at all supported rabble-rouser Humala. Who said Aucklanders were more right wing?
After bitching and sniping at each other in recent times, it now looks like Lourdes and Alan may be building bridges, in order to try and shut out Humala in the second round. El Comercio reported that their two parties are tentatively looking at some kind of front which sets "democracy against authoritarianism".
I'll try and squeeze in an opinion piece on all this amidst my snappy, regular (let's hope) updates on my travels.
Exit polls showed both would get about 24-25 percent, with the margin between them less than the margin of error. Lourdes led early, as the votes from the cities came in first. Then, after about 50 percent was counted, Alan surged into second place. He moved to 1.0-1.2 percent and stayed there. Then, when about 80 percent of the vote had been counted and the tension was rising....everyone went on holiday.
Yep, it's one of those things you've got to love about Peru. The most important political event for five years, but not a patch on the Easter church services and all day bbqs. Only on Good Friday itself did the vote count not progress at all, on the official site of the electoral commission, ONPE. But over the whole of the weekend, the total vote count has managed to rise from 84% to 89%.
To be fair, many of the later votes will be coming in from remote rural areas, and from overseas.
As the count slowly climbs, Lourdes has begun to make up some ground, and is now less than 1 percent behind Alan. A lot depends on the impact of the overseas votes, where she has about 60 percent support (as opposed to 24 percent overall). There's an estimated total of 185,000 of overseas votes to come in, but over half of these have now been counted. On my back of the envelope calculations, it won't be enough for Lourdes Flores to overtake Alan.
Interestingly, 137 Peruvians in New Zealand voted (for Peruvians, voting is compulsory). There were 112 in Auckland and 25 in Wellington. Overall, Lourdes Flores received 76 percent of the valid votes. However, in Wellington 17 out of 20 valid votes (85 percent) were cast for Lourdes, and no one at all supported rabble-rouser Humala. Who said Aucklanders were more right wing?
After bitching and sniping at each other in recent times, it now looks like Lourdes and Alan may be building bridges, in order to try and shut out Humala in the second round. El Comercio reported that their two parties are tentatively looking at some kind of front which sets "democracy against authoritarianism".
I'll try and squeeze in an opinion piece on all this amidst my snappy, regular (let's hope) updates on my travels.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
The Daily Minion
Unfortunately, over the last three weeks I haven't had a chance to add to or update the Daily Minion. I'll be in South America for the next six weeks, and it's unlikely that I'll be able to add anything during this time either.
But there's plenty more material in the pipeline, and when I get back I will make a big effort to get it finished and on the site. So for those of you who have visted the site and found any level of interest and amusement, don't worry - it will be carrying on after a brief interlude.
But there's plenty more material in the pipeline, and when I get back I will make a big effort to get it finished and on the site. So for those of you who have visted the site and found any level of interest and amusement, don't worry - it will be carrying on after a brief interlude.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Corporate Reform 101
My recommendations for increasing productivity and output quality in the public and private sector:
1. Fewer meetings
2. More time spent doing actual substantive work
3. More time spent discussing and debating one-on-one with workmates, people in other parts of the organization, external clients, and people in the same or related fields.
4. More time (at least 10 percent) spent reading, understanding, critiquing, and learning from your team mates' work.
5. NEVER skipping scheduled exercise or other enjoyable, sanity-enhancing activities for routine or internal meetings.
6. Fewer meetings
7. Fewer meetings.
8. Fewer meetings.
In about five years, some Chicago business theorist will discover these simple rules and publicise them in a mega-selling book, which will be acclaimed throughout the developed world.
1. Fewer meetings
2. More time spent doing actual substantive work
3. More time spent discussing and debating one-on-one with workmates, people in other parts of the organization, external clients, and people in the same or related fields.
4. More time (at least 10 percent) spent reading, understanding, critiquing, and learning from your team mates' work.
5. NEVER skipping scheduled exercise or other enjoyable, sanity-enhancing activities for routine or internal meetings.
6. Fewer meetings
7. Fewer meetings.
8. Fewer meetings.
In about five years, some Chicago business theorist will discover these simple rules and publicise them in a mega-selling book, which will be acclaimed throughout the developed world.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Peruvian Politics 102
The previous post introduced the three main candidates for the presidency of Peru and described something of the political dynamic between them. In the last couple of days before the polls, extra edge has been added to the campaign, with Ollanta Humala saying that if Lourdes Flores wins the election "she won't last a year in power".
To the protests that he was inciting a revolt, Humala added the clarification that "the people" would rise up because of the continuation of failed neoliberal policies under Flores. But he has been roundly condemned for these statements by the media and other politicians, including fellow presidential rival Alan Garcia, who said Humala "needs to learn some democratic manners".
To round out the picture of the Peruvian election, it's necessary to mention a couple of the minor candidates.
Valentin Paniagua
Interim president from 2000-2001 folowing the resignation of Fujimori. Peruvian writer Herbert Morote, in his acerbic lament Requiem por Peru, mi Patria, says while imagining the damning assessment awaiting each corrupt and incompetent Peruvian president when they reach heaven's gate:
"We'll pass over Valentin Paniagua, who had little to do in barely a year that he governed following Fujimori. Panigua was a transitional president and apart from calling elections didn't do anything else. I lie, he also named the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [on the Shining Path insurgency], whose work is the most important that has occurred in all Peru's republican history.
Praised be God! Thinking about it again, reflecting carefully, perhaps the best thing for Peru is to have presidents that only last a year and don't do anything"
Paniagua is a centrist candidate whose party is called Frente del Centro. In recent polls, he has maintained a steady 6-7 percent. This is irking the supporters of Lourdes Flores, who feel he is splitting the middle class vote. In the 2001 elections, he did a Ralph Nader and allowed Alan Garcia to pip Flores at the post for second place and a place in the run off. In 2006, as Alan's poll numbers make a late surge, the same may happen.
Martha Chavez
If the description of Peru's election so far seems like a soap opera of recurring characters seeking revenge or redemption, the one name missing is that which dominated the 1990s - Alberto Fujimori.
Martha Chavez is effectively Fujimori's candidate. Her party is called Alianza por el Futuroo, but she is also affiliated with Fujimori's Si Cumple party. Her running mate is Santiago Fujimori, Alberto Fujumori's brother.
Fujimori himself tried to register as a candidate for the presidential elections, but the constitutional court ruled that this was not permissible, as there is a congressional ban on him holding office for ten years.
In November 2005, Fujimori, who has been in self-imposed exile in Japan, flew to Santiago in Chile, via Mexico. There, he was detailed by the Chilean police on request from the Peruvian government, and extradition proceedings have begun against him to face accusations of corruption and human rights abuses. These are no tlikely to be resolved for a good six months.
Meanwhile. Martha Chavez is maintaing 7 percent support in the polls, while her Alianza por el Futuro party has risen to 16 percent in the congressional election polls.
Since then however, it has all been downhill.
There have been scandals relating to the discovery of an illegitimate daughter whom Toledo refused to acknowledge; allegations that Toledo's party Peru Posible forged membership signatures before the 2000 elections (there's a rather odd law that political parties have to have a certain number of members to be allowed to field candidates); the appointment of a highly unpopular politican as foreign minister; criticisms of the presidential salary.
When I was in Peru it was de rigeur for everyone from politicians and the media, to striking street marchers, to the opportunist "rebels" in Andahuaylas, to demand the resignation of Toledo. His approval rating dropped at one stage to 7 percent, the lowest for an incumbent Peruvian president.
Yet to the outsider, none of the criticisms of Toledo seemed that damning. His sins seemed to have a touch of the Clintonesque - in the context of the country's history hardly the worst indicment.
Rather than especially bad or even incompetent, Toledo's main failings seem to be that he is weak, naiive, and out of touch. In his book, Herbert Morote tells an anecdote of seeing Toledo attend a conference in Madrid with international business leader; rather than promote the potential of investment in Peru, Toledo recounted his life as a child and how his suffering gave him solidarity with the poor. Says Morote, "it was like he was making an election speech in the town square".
Toledo's time in power is rather summed up by his reaction to the discovery of a fifth leak (within fourteen months) in the flagship gas pipeline from the Camisea field in Cuzco to Lima. Toledo said that if the international consortium which constructed the pipeline could be shown to be responsible for the failures, "they'll have to pay" -- conveniently overlooking the point that the time to play hardball on quality control with the consortium would have been while the pipeline was being built.
Nevertheless the dissatisfaction with Toledo probably has less to do with the man himself than with Peruvians' impatience with their lot in life. Overall, things haven't been that bad in the last five years, which have seen the return of democracy, a free and vibrant press, macroeconomic stability, and average economic growth of 4.7 percent per annum - close to the best in Latin America.
Unfortunately, this hasn't flowed through to provide much benefit to the population. Unemployment, high prices for basic goods such as petrol, rampant crime, poor infrastructure - these remain the realities for most.
Better can surely be achieved, though no politician will be able to deliver more than slow and incremental improvements - Peru's problems go muc deeper than quality of its leaders. Yet the flip side of the hero to zero complex suffered by Peruvian politicans is that the population still expects and demands transformative change.
In order to be successful, the new Peruvian president needs to not only convince the people that this is unrealistic, but that they themselves are a crucial part of any set of solutions. In about 24 hours, we'll have the first idea of who is likely to have that task.
Categories: South America, Peru, Peruvian Elections, elecciones peruanas, Lourdes Flores, Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia
To the protests that he was inciting a revolt, Humala added the clarification that "the people" would rise up because of the continuation of failed neoliberal policies under Flores. But he has been roundly condemned for these statements by the media and other politicians, including fellow presidential rival Alan Garcia, who said Humala "needs to learn some democratic manners".
To round out the picture of the Peruvian election, it's necessary to mention a couple of the minor candidates.
Valentin Paniagua
Interim president from 2000-2001 folowing the resignation of Fujimori. Peruvian writer Herbert Morote, in his acerbic lament Requiem por Peru, mi Patria, says while imagining the damning assessment awaiting each corrupt and incompetent Peruvian president when they reach heaven's gate:
"We'll pass over Valentin Paniagua, who had little to do in barely a year that he governed following Fujimori. Panigua was a transitional president and apart from calling elections didn't do anything else. I lie, he also named the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [on the Shining Path insurgency], whose work is the most important that has occurred in all Peru's republican history.
Praised be God! Thinking about it again, reflecting carefully, perhaps the best thing for Peru is to have presidents that only last a year and don't do anything"
Paniagua is a centrist candidate whose party is called Frente del Centro. In recent polls, he has maintained a steady 6-7 percent. This is irking the supporters of Lourdes Flores, who feel he is splitting the middle class vote. In the 2001 elections, he did a Ralph Nader and allowed Alan Garcia to pip Flores at the post for second place and a place in the run off. In 2006, as Alan's poll numbers make a late surge, the same may happen.
Martha Chavez
If the description of Peru's election so far seems like a soap opera of recurring characters seeking revenge or redemption, the one name missing is that which dominated the 1990s - Alberto Fujimori.
Martha Chavez is effectively Fujimori's candidate. Her party is called Alianza por el Futuroo, but she is also affiliated with Fujimori's Si Cumple party. Her running mate is Santiago Fujimori, Alberto Fujumori's brother.
Fujimori himself tried to register as a candidate for the presidential elections, but the constitutional court ruled that this was not permissible, as there is a congressional ban on him holding office for ten years.
In November 2005, Fujimori, who has been in self-imposed exile in Japan, flew to Santiago in Chile, via Mexico. There, he was detailed by the Chilean police on request from the Peruvian government, and extradition proceedings have begun against him to face accusations of corruption and human rights abuses. These are no tlikely to be resolved for a good six months.
Meanwhile. Martha Chavez is maintaing 7 percent support in the polls, while her Alianza por el Futuro party has risen to 16 percent in the congressional election polls.
None of this entirely makes sense without the context provided by the incumbent president:
Alejandro Toledo
Toledo provides another version of the familiar Peruvian story of a leader arriving with great expectations but proving to be a big disappointment
Toledo's story is a rags-to-riches fairytale of an indigenous kid from an impoverished family in Chimbote who worked as a shoeshine boy before winning a scholarship to school in the United States and eventually to Stamford University. He got a PhD in economics and later worked for a range of international organizations, including the United Nations, World Bank, and OECD.
In the 2000 and 2001 elections, Toledo led the democratic opposition to the corrupt and authoritarian Fujimori regime. After eventually winning the 2001 election run off against Alan Garcia, he had a 59 percent approval rating; not only did he seem to have the technocratic credentials to run the country, he was also an indigenous "cholo" who had broken into the white-dominated world of Lima politics.Since then however, it has all been downhill.
There have been scandals relating to the discovery of an illegitimate daughter whom Toledo refused to acknowledge; allegations that Toledo's party Peru Posible forged membership signatures before the 2000 elections (there's a rather odd law that political parties have to have a certain number of members to be allowed to field candidates); the appointment of a highly unpopular politican as foreign minister; criticisms of the presidential salary.
When I was in Peru it was de rigeur for everyone from politicians and the media, to striking street marchers, to the opportunist "rebels" in Andahuaylas, to demand the resignation of Toledo. His approval rating dropped at one stage to 7 percent, the lowest for an incumbent Peruvian president.
Yet to the outsider, none of the criticisms of Toledo seemed that damning. His sins seemed to have a touch of the Clintonesque - in the context of the country's history hardly the worst indicment.
Rather than especially bad or even incompetent, Toledo's main failings seem to be that he is weak, naiive, and out of touch. In his book, Herbert Morote tells an anecdote of seeing Toledo attend a conference in Madrid with international business leader; rather than promote the potential of investment in Peru, Toledo recounted his life as a child and how his suffering gave him solidarity with the poor. Says Morote, "it was like he was making an election speech in the town square".
Toledo's time in power is rather summed up by his reaction to the discovery of a fifth leak (within fourteen months) in the flagship gas pipeline from the Camisea field in Cuzco to Lima. Toledo said that if the international consortium which constructed the pipeline could be shown to be responsible for the failures, "they'll have to pay" -- conveniently overlooking the point that the time to play hardball on quality control with the consortium would have been while the pipeline was being built.
Nevertheless the dissatisfaction with Toledo probably has less to do with the man himself than with Peruvians' impatience with their lot in life. Overall, things haven't been that bad in the last five years, which have seen the return of democracy, a free and vibrant press, macroeconomic stability, and average economic growth of 4.7 percent per annum - close to the best in Latin America.
Unfortunately, this hasn't flowed through to provide much benefit to the population. Unemployment, high prices for basic goods such as petrol, rampant crime, poor infrastructure - these remain the realities for most.
Better can surely be achieved, though no politician will be able to deliver more than slow and incremental improvements - Peru's problems go muc deeper than quality of its leaders. Yet the flip side of the hero to zero complex suffered by Peruvian politicans is that the population still expects and demands transformative change.
In order to be successful, the new Peruvian president needs to not only convince the people that this is unrealistic, but that they themselves are a crucial part of any set of solutions. In about 24 hours, we'll have the first idea of who is likely to have that task.
Categories: South America, Peru, Peruvian Elections, elecciones peruanas, Lourdes Flores, Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Peruvian Politics 101
On Sunday 9 April, Peru will go to the polls to elect a new President and Congress. Since there will almost certainly not be a clear majority for any candidate, a second round of voting for president is expected to take place on 7 May.
It's a significant time for Peru; after all the turmoil of the last twenty years, it will be a substantial achievement for the process to run calmly, produce a clear set of results, and deliver an orderly handover of power.
Beyond that, the election will have a major influence on how the country develops over the next five years. There are fairly stark political differences between the presidential candidates, and the eventual outcome will give weight to one of the competing visions of the overall political and economic direction of South America.
The presidential candidates in Peru and their parties are:
Lourdes Flores Nano
The candidate for the Unidad Nacional party, Lourdes Flores is hoping to follow the example of Chile's Michele Bachelet and be the second woman elected president of a South American country. Described by some as a "right-wing conservative", she is in truth more of a pragmatist and a social liberal. Her policies and even some of her language appear to be modelled on those of Alvaro Uribe, the popular centre-right president of Colombia.
In congress since 1990, Flores distinguished herself by being among the staunchest opponents of Alberto Fujimori's constitutional coup in 1992 and a consistent critic of the Fujimori administration. In the last five years she has generally supported the neoliberal, trade-oriented policies of Alejandro Toledo.
Though she was a clear leader in polls as late as December 2005, Flores has gradually been overtaken by Ollanta Humala (see below). The latest poll shows her second, on 27 percent. However, on a head-to-head basis with Humala - likely to be the case in the second round of voting - polls have her preferred by 53 to 47 percent.
According to a poll reported by Peruvian TV station 90 Segundos, of those who say they will vote for Lourdes Flores, only 7 percent are motivated by a belief that she will combat corruption. Twenty-one percent say they will vote for her simply because she is a woman, while 39 percent favour her proposed policies.
She promises to modernize the armed forces, create 650,000 jobs per year through mixed public and private investment, and lift tourism from 1,200,000 to 2 million visitors per annum. Her contribution to the obligatory rhetorical bashing of traditional enemy Chile has been a call to beat Peru's southern neighbour at its own game by strengthening commerce and "winninng the war of globalization".
Her campaign to date has focussed on an exhausting schedule of streetside meet and greet sessions in different parts of Peru. She danced the marinera (the national folk dance) in a visit to the north coast, and got down to reggaeton in the jungle city of Pucallpa.
Despite these efforts, and her clear, concrete policies, critics say that she is struggling to shake off her image as the "candidate of the rich" and to connect emotionally with majority of poor, marginalised Peruvians.
Ollanta Humala
Formerly a lieutenant colonel in the Peruvian army, Humala is head of the Partido Nacionalista, but for the election he and his candidates are running under the banner of the liberal Union por el Peru.
Along with his father Isaac and his brothers Antauro and Ulises, Ollanta Humala is a founder of the "etnocacerist" movement, which combines promotion of power for indigenous people with economic nationalism.
Widely described as a "left-wing populist", Humala sees himself as being in the mould of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and newly elected Bolivian leader Evo Morales. In January he attended the visit of president-elect Morales to the presidential palace in Caracas, where both Chavez and Morales pledged their support.
He promises to "stamp out" corruption and restore dignity to the Peruvian armed forces, which he says have been corrupted by involvement in drug trafficking and domination by graduates of the CIA-influenced School of the Americas (where he himself trained). He opposes foreign control of economic resources in Peru (especially by Chile) and proposes renationalization of key industries, beginning with the most recently privatized.
However, he has stressed a commitment to South American integration and "brotherhood", and boasted of his meetings with Chavez, Morales, Kirchner (Argentina) and Lula (Brazil) - pointedly, of course, leaving out Chile.
Humala has a chequered military and political history. In 1992 he commanded a unit near Tingo Maria during the struggle against the Shining Path, where it is alleged that he involved in human rights abuses. Investigations into this matter are ongoing.
In 2000, he led an "uprising" against Fujimori in the sierra of the Tacna region, along with about 60 other soldiers. Hugo Chavez recently called this a "quixotic" effort, but others have suggested that it was a piece of grandstanding, at a time when Fujimori's government was already crumbling.
Antauro is currently in jail, after his own abortive "uprising" in Andahualylas in January 2005, which I wrote about at the time (there's also some further background on etnocacerism in that post), in which four policemen and one rebel were killed.
Ollanta, who was at the time a military attache in South Korea, gave a rather extraordinary interview to the BBC (here, in Spanish), in which he appeared to both distance himself from the actions of his brother and also justify them.
His campaign has involved many large public rallies, at which he rouses the crowds with stirring rhetoric.
As he has developed his candidacy, Ollanta Humala has been at pains to distance himself from some of the more extreme pronouncements of his family. His father Isaac openly embraces a racial politics, promoting power for "the brown race", and has called the childless Lourdes Flores "an old maid", while his mother Elena has made violently anti-gay remarks. Antauro has contented himself with suggesting that the current president, his wife, and the prime minister "should be shot".
Ollanta has reportedly told his parents to stop making public pronouncements, and groaned at a press conference that "sometimes I wonder if Antauro is actually an enemy".
However, Antauro was today (6 April) recorded as saying from his jail cell that the distance established between himself and Ollanta is "strategic" and that "[their] objective is the same".
The Lima-based media views Humala with fear and loathing. News and current affairs outlets openly warn of his authoritarian tendencies and his "threat to democracy". They reacted with some horror to the perceived subtext of Humala's suggestion that, under his presidency, media would be enlisted as "allies in the battle against corruption".
However, this is all rather counter-productive, as it simply cements the reputation of Humala as an outsider who is distinct from the traditional political class.
Neither the finger-wagging of the Lima elites nor the human rights abuse allegations have defused the visceral response of Humala's supporters, who simply see an underdog that shakes his fist on their behalf at the rich, white, and poweful. His appeal is especially strong with voters who are poor, uneducated, and male.
The 90 Segundos poll found that of those who would vote for Humala, the most popular reason was "because he will address corruption" (29 percent), while all of 1o percent would vote for him simply because he is ex-military.
Alan Garcia
Former president of Peru, 1985-90. Garcia, known to all and sundry in Peru simply as "Alan", is the the leader of the APRA party. Founded in 1924 by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, APRA is the oldest of the Peruvian parties. Originally Marxist, now turned social democratic, it was periodically banned up until 1979.
When APRA and the fresh-faced, 36 year-old Alan Garcia were elected in the 1985 polls, there was a wave of optimism, and he began his term with the support and hopes of a large proportion of the population.
Instead, his term was an unmitigated debacle, characterized by hyperinflation of a cumulative two million percent, the intensifying of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorist insurgency, human rights abuses by the military, a 20 percent fall in Peruvian GDP, and an estimated additional five million Peruvians dropping below the poverty line.
Among other achievements, funding allocated for a desparately needed mass transit system in Lima "disappeared", and the project has only recently recommenced.
Meanwhile, Alan Garcia managed to enrich himself. Some allege that during the 1990 elections he and APRA clandestinely backed Alberto Fujimori in the second round of voting against the first-round winner, author Mario Vargas Llosa, whose party had promised to investigate allegations of corruption against Garcia.
But following Fujimori's auto-coup in 1992, charges were re-opened against Alan Garcia. He escaped to Colombia, where he remained until 2001, when the statute of limitations was deemed to have run out. Forty-eight days after arriving back in Peru, he ran as a candidate in the presidential election, where he won 48% of the vote (Peruvians being tigers for punishment) and was narrowly defeated by Alejandro Toledo.
This time around he has averaged around 21 percent in the polls, consistently in third place, though in a late surge there's a chance he could push Lourdes Flores out of second spot. Most polls show that in a run-off between Humala and Alan Garcia, Humala would win easily.
His greatest claim to fame in recent times was when during a protest march he allegedly kicked the backside of a poor homeless man who got in his way. This was siezed on by many as a truer representative of his personality than his stirring oratory, and "la patada (kick) de Alan" is frequently referred to in discussions of Peruvian politics.
Though the media tends to present him as a failed and petulant buffoon, he is definitely viewed as the lesser of two evils when compared to Humala. Not only is it assumed that he and his party learned their lessons from the disasters of the 80s, but more importantly he is a known quantity, a stable and predictable part of the political establishment.
In my next post, I'll look at the possible influence of the minor candidates, and the legacy of the outgoing president, Alejandro Toledo.
Categories: South America, Peru, Peruvian Elections, elecciones peruanas, Lourdes Flores, Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia
It's a significant time for Peru; after all the turmoil of the last twenty years, it will be a substantial achievement for the process to run calmly, produce a clear set of results, and deliver an orderly handover of power.
Beyond that, the election will have a major influence on how the country develops over the next five years. There are fairly stark political differences between the presidential candidates, and the eventual outcome will give weight to one of the competing visions of the overall political and economic direction of South America.
The presidential candidates in Peru and their parties are:
Lourdes Flores Nano
The candidate for the Unidad Nacional party, Lourdes Flores is hoping to follow the example of Chile's Michele Bachelet and be the second woman elected president of a South American country. Described by some as a "right-wing conservative", she is in truth more of a pragmatist and a social liberal. Her policies and even some of her language appear to be modelled on those of Alvaro Uribe, the popular centre-right president of Colombia.
In congress since 1990, Flores distinguished herself by being among the staunchest opponents of Alberto Fujimori's constitutional coup in 1992 and a consistent critic of the Fujimori administration. In the last five years she has generally supported the neoliberal, trade-oriented policies of Alejandro Toledo.
Though she was a clear leader in polls as late as December 2005, Flores has gradually been overtaken by Ollanta Humala (see below). The latest poll shows her second, on 27 percent. However, on a head-to-head basis with Humala - likely to be the case in the second round of voting - polls have her preferred by 53 to 47 percent.
According to a poll reported by Peruvian TV station 90 Segundos, of those who say they will vote for Lourdes Flores, only 7 percent are motivated by a belief that she will combat corruption. Twenty-one percent say they will vote for her simply because she is a woman, while 39 percent favour her proposed policies.
She promises to modernize the armed forces, create 650,000 jobs per year through mixed public and private investment, and lift tourism from 1,200,000 to 2 million visitors per annum. Her contribution to the obligatory rhetorical bashing of traditional enemy Chile has been a call to beat Peru's southern neighbour at its own game by strengthening commerce and "winninng the war of globalization".
Her campaign to date has focussed on an exhausting schedule of streetside meet and greet sessions in different parts of Peru. She danced the marinera (the national folk dance) in a visit to the north coast, and got down to reggaeton in the jungle city of Pucallpa.
Despite these efforts, and her clear, concrete policies, critics say that she is struggling to shake off her image as the "candidate of the rich" and to connect emotionally with majority of poor, marginalised Peruvians.
Ollanta Humala
Formerly a lieutenant colonel in the Peruvian army, Humala is head of the Partido Nacionalista, but for the election he and his candidates are running under the banner of the liberal Union por el Peru.
Along with his father Isaac and his brothers Antauro and Ulises, Ollanta Humala is a founder of the "etnocacerist" movement, which combines promotion of power for indigenous people with economic nationalism.
Widely described as a "left-wing populist", Humala sees himself as being in the mould of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and newly elected Bolivian leader Evo Morales. In January he attended the visit of president-elect Morales to the presidential palace in Caracas, where both Chavez and Morales pledged their support.
He promises to "stamp out" corruption and restore dignity to the Peruvian armed forces, which he says have been corrupted by involvement in drug trafficking and domination by graduates of the CIA-influenced School of the Americas (where he himself trained). He opposes foreign control of economic resources in Peru (especially by Chile) and proposes renationalization of key industries, beginning with the most recently privatized.
However, he has stressed a commitment to South American integration and "brotherhood", and boasted of his meetings with Chavez, Morales, Kirchner (Argentina) and Lula (Brazil) - pointedly, of course, leaving out Chile.
Humala has a chequered military and political history. In 1992 he commanded a unit near Tingo Maria during the struggle against the Shining Path, where it is alleged that he involved in human rights abuses. Investigations into this matter are ongoing.
In 2000, he led an "uprising" against Fujimori in the sierra of the Tacna region, along with about 60 other soldiers. Hugo Chavez recently called this a "quixotic" effort, but others have suggested that it was a piece of grandstanding, at a time when Fujimori's government was already crumbling.
Antauro is currently in jail, after his own abortive "uprising" in Andahualylas in January 2005, which I wrote about at the time (there's also some further background on etnocacerism in that post), in which four policemen and one rebel were killed.
Ollanta, who was at the time a military attache in South Korea, gave a rather extraordinary interview to the BBC (here, in Spanish), in which he appeared to both distance himself from the actions of his brother and also justify them.
His campaign has involved many large public rallies, at which he rouses the crowds with stirring rhetoric.
As he has developed his candidacy, Ollanta Humala has been at pains to distance himself from some of the more extreme pronouncements of his family. His father Isaac openly embraces a racial politics, promoting power for "the brown race", and has called the childless Lourdes Flores "an old maid", while his mother Elena has made violently anti-gay remarks. Antauro has contented himself with suggesting that the current president, his wife, and the prime minister "should be shot".
Ollanta has reportedly told his parents to stop making public pronouncements, and groaned at a press conference that "sometimes I wonder if Antauro is actually an enemy".
However, Antauro was today (6 April) recorded as saying from his jail cell that the distance established between himself and Ollanta is "strategic" and that "[their] objective is the same".
The Lima-based media views Humala with fear and loathing. News and current affairs outlets openly warn of his authoritarian tendencies and his "threat to democracy". They reacted with some horror to the perceived subtext of Humala's suggestion that, under his presidency, media would be enlisted as "allies in the battle against corruption".
However, this is all rather counter-productive, as it simply cements the reputation of Humala as an outsider who is distinct from the traditional political class.
Neither the finger-wagging of the Lima elites nor the human rights abuse allegations have defused the visceral response of Humala's supporters, who simply see an underdog that shakes his fist on their behalf at the rich, white, and poweful. His appeal is especially strong with voters who are poor, uneducated, and male.
The 90 Segundos poll found that of those who would vote for Humala, the most popular reason was "because he will address corruption" (29 percent), while all of 1o percent would vote for him simply because he is ex-military.
Alan Garcia
Former president of Peru, 1985-90. Garcia, known to all and sundry in Peru simply as "Alan", is the the leader of the APRA party. Founded in 1924 by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, APRA is the oldest of the Peruvian parties. Originally Marxist, now turned social democratic, it was periodically banned up until 1979.
When APRA and the fresh-faced, 36 year-old Alan Garcia were elected in the 1985 polls, there was a wave of optimism, and he began his term with the support and hopes of a large proportion of the population.
Instead, his term was an unmitigated debacle, characterized by hyperinflation of a cumulative two million percent, the intensifying of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorist insurgency, human rights abuses by the military, a 20 percent fall in Peruvian GDP, and an estimated additional five million Peruvians dropping below the poverty line.
Among other achievements, funding allocated for a desparately needed mass transit system in Lima "disappeared", and the project has only recently recommenced.
Meanwhile, Alan Garcia managed to enrich himself. Some allege that during the 1990 elections he and APRA clandestinely backed Alberto Fujimori in the second round of voting against the first-round winner, author Mario Vargas Llosa, whose party had promised to investigate allegations of corruption against Garcia.
But following Fujimori's auto-coup in 1992, charges were re-opened against Alan Garcia. He escaped to Colombia, where he remained until 2001, when the statute of limitations was deemed to have run out. Forty-eight days after arriving back in Peru, he ran as a candidate in the presidential election, where he won 48% of the vote (Peruvians being tigers for punishment) and was narrowly defeated by Alejandro Toledo.
This time around he has averaged around 21 percent in the polls, consistently in third place, though in a late surge there's a chance he could push Lourdes Flores out of second spot. Most polls show that in a run-off between Humala and Alan Garcia, Humala would win easily.
His greatest claim to fame in recent times was when during a protest march he allegedly kicked the backside of a poor homeless man who got in his way. This was siezed on by many as a truer representative of his personality than his stirring oratory, and "la patada (kick) de Alan" is frequently referred to in discussions of Peruvian politics.
Though the media tends to present him as a failed and petulant buffoon, he is definitely viewed as the lesser of two evils when compared to Humala. Not only is it assumed that he and his party learned their lessons from the disasters of the 80s, but more importantly he is a known quantity, a stable and predictable part of the political establishment.
In my next post, I'll look at the possible influence of the minor candidates, and the legacy of the outgoing president, Alejandro Toledo.
Categories: South America, Peru, Peruvian Elections, elecciones peruanas, Lourdes Flores, Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia
Monday, March 27, 2006
South America Again
Casual readers of this blog might wonder why it's called "South America Bidsta". Ok, so actually it's a bit of a dumb name and I should probably change it at some stage.
"Bidsta" is me; one of those blokey monikers your friends give you. Originally I called the blog "Bidsta Blog": back in 2003 I was still among the first few million early adopters of blogging, so it still seemed like a less than completely lame idea to put "blog" in the title.
Then, when I was in South America (where I spent a year from April 2004 - April 2005), I decided to add Google's Adsense code to my site, in the hope that I'd get a few visitors who'd click on the ads and make me a few cents from my blogging (yes, I should have known better...). It then ocurred to me that if I added "South America" to the title of the blog, Google's robots would figure that my posts were mostly about SOUTH AMERICA and post appropriate ads - probably about travel to said continent.
People who visited my site would then be so intrigued by my fascinating tales of life in Peru and elsewhere, they'd probably want to think about going there. Aha! - they'd look to the top of the page to find a travel agency offering adventure tours. Click! And I make nineteen cents US.
A nice, naiive theory, spoiled by the fact that Google seems to have made a big experiment out of how it applies ads to people's pages (my posts on South America now have ads for travel there - many months after anyone might have read them). In addition, about 1 percent of people visiting a website tend to click on the ads, no matter how relevant they might be. And finally, at that stage I hadn't figured out how to publicise the blog to anyone but my friends and family (most of whom had forgotten who I was by late 2004), and had got a bit sporadic with my posts amidst my commitments to romance and adventure amidst the towering Andes etc etc.
With the results that my insightful updates on Peruvian politics and dashing tales of trekking im the wilderness were read by a total of about three people. Which kind of cut down the percentages at ad-click time.
Now, I've been back for about a year and have posted (ranted, perhaps) on all kinds of things, with a recent trend towards complaining about getting woken up in the morning. Though my AdSense clicks are a lost cause, my average traffic has gradually climbed, thanks to my links into Technorati, a handful of regular readers, and oh, all of about three people who have been so kind as to exchange links with me. I should be refining my position as a boutique pundit on New Zealand affairs.
But, at this pivotal moment, it turns out that I'm actually going to South America again. Yes, on the 18th of April I fly out from Auckland, bound for Lima.
This will be quite a different trip from last time. Then, I spent a year with the general goal of meeting people, making friends, learning something about the culture and history , and ticking off as many tourist highlights as possible.
It worked out pretty well. Like many before me, I was enchanted by the beauty and joie de vivre of the city of Arequipa in southern Peru, which I ended up making by base and my home for about six months.
I walked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and did the Death Road and Salar de Uyuni in Boliva. I climbed 6,000-metre mountains and trekked though the remote back country of the Andes. I went rafting and horse riding in Argentina, visited the coffee-growing centre of Colombia, and explored the ruins of the Lambayeque, Moche, Chimu, Wari and Nazca cultures on Peru's desert coast. I compared the nightime carrete, juerga and rumba in Santiago, Lima, Cali, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. I met the taciturn natives of Lake Titicaca and the staggeringly beautiful girls of Cordoba.
At all times I stuck strictly to the moutains, deserts, canyons, coasts and cities. Although if you look at a map of South America you will see an enormous green swathe which takes up almost a third of the continent's land mass, I did not once set foot in the Amazon. In my total of eighteen months spent in Latin America I've never yet been into the jungle. I admit, I'm a little squeamish about it.
But this time I'm biting the bullet. After a week to ten days catching up with friends in Arequipa, I intend to head back to Lima and then make the arduous and mildly dangerous trip across the Andes and into the lowlands, all the way to the frontier town of Pucallpa, which is the end of the road.
From there, it's by boat, four days down river to Iquitos, a city of 500,000 people - the world's largest with no road connection. This, I understand, is a trip you probably want to do once; most people who can afford it take the plane. Hot, dirty, crowded, terrible food, surrounded by beggars and thieves, I'll almost certainly suffer, and will probably regret ever deciding to do it.
Jungle tours can be arranged from Iquitos (and I understand it has quite a nightlife), but you're still not fully in the virgin Amazon. So I plan to take another boat even further downriver, to Leticia. This is small town, actually in Colombia, but right at the point where the borders of Colombia, Peru and Brazil meet. If you were really motivated to do so, this is probably a spot you could disappear and erase your identity.
Leticia is a backwater with almost mythical status; a kind of lost Macondo in the steaming jungle. I've read a bit about the area, and am eager to see it for real.
From Leticia there really is no way back unless you want to spend a week plugging upriver. So, assuming I've got that far and haven't been struck down by malaria, I'll grab a spot on a local plane into Bogota. What Garcia Marquez derided as a grey and serious city should be very welcome after my sojourn in the insect-ridden Amazon. From there I fly out to Santiago (ci-vi-li-zacion! as the bus driver called out when we crossed the Bolivian frontier into Chile on my last trip) for three days, then finally back to Enzed.
There's a lot I want to achieve on this trip. Just for a start, to properly record some of the many colorful, larger-than-life stories my friends and acquantainces from Arequipa tell so eloquently. And to finally get hold of a decent selection of CDs of the huaynos, chicha and tecno-cumbia that, for me, makes Peru Mexico's rival in richness of musical culture and its superior in originality.
In addition, I want to push my comfort boundaries a bit and dig a bit deeper into learning about people's lives. Last time I thought I figured out quite a lot about what makes Peru tick, but I didn't really scratch too far beneath the surface. This time I will be attempting to tear myself away from another round of pisco sours and flirting with the cute girls dancing merengue, and do some of the possibly difficult, tiresome and unpleasant work of understanding the place better
It's the Peruvian elections on the 9th of April, and what will almost certainly be a second round of the presidential vote in May when I'm there. This will be a fairly pivotal moment, not only for Peru, but for helping define the overall direction of South America and its political future for the next five to ten years.
I'll try and post on that while I'm there, as well as providing regular updates on my trip into the jungle (and apologies if I'm making it sound like Heart of Darkness). In the meantime, in the next few weeks expect a couple of (possibly rather serious) posts on South America, and in particular that strange bundle of contradictions and absurdities which is Peru and its political life.
Categories: South America, Peru, Colombia
"Bidsta" is me; one of those blokey monikers your friends give you. Originally I called the blog "Bidsta Blog": back in 2003 I was still among the first few million early adopters of blogging, so it still seemed like a less than completely lame idea to put "blog" in the title.
Then, when I was in South America (where I spent a year from April 2004 - April 2005), I decided to add Google's Adsense code to my site, in the hope that I'd get a few visitors who'd click on the ads and make me a few cents from my blogging (yes, I should have known better...). It then ocurred to me that if I added "South America" to the title of the blog, Google's robots would figure that my posts were mostly about SOUTH AMERICA and post appropriate ads - probably about travel to said continent.
People who visited my site would then be so intrigued by my fascinating tales of life in Peru and elsewhere, they'd probably want to think about going there. Aha! - they'd look to the top of the page to find a travel agency offering adventure tours. Click! And I make nineteen cents US.
A nice, naiive theory, spoiled by the fact that Google seems to have made a big experiment out of how it applies ads to people's pages (my posts on South America now have ads for travel there - many months after anyone might have read them). In addition, about 1 percent of people visiting a website tend to click on the ads, no matter how relevant they might be. And finally, at that stage I hadn't figured out how to publicise the blog to anyone but my friends and family (most of whom had forgotten who I was by late 2004), and had got a bit sporadic with my posts amidst my commitments to romance and adventure amidst the towering Andes etc etc.
With the results that my insightful updates on Peruvian politics and dashing tales of trekking im the wilderness were read by a total of about three people. Which kind of cut down the percentages at ad-click time.
Now, I've been back for about a year and have posted (ranted, perhaps) on all kinds of things, with a recent trend towards complaining about getting woken up in the morning. Though my AdSense clicks are a lost cause, my average traffic has gradually climbed, thanks to my links into Technorati, a handful of regular readers, and oh, all of about three people who have been so kind as to exchange links with me. I should be refining my position as a boutique pundit on New Zealand affairs.
But, at this pivotal moment, it turns out that I'm actually going to South America again. Yes, on the 18th of April I fly out from Auckland, bound for Lima.
This will be quite a different trip from last time. Then, I spent a year with the general goal of meeting people, making friends, learning something about the culture and history , and ticking off as many tourist highlights as possible.
It worked out pretty well. Like many before me, I was enchanted by the beauty and joie de vivre of the city of Arequipa in southern Peru, which I ended up making by base and my home for about six months.
I walked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and did the Death Road and Salar de Uyuni in Boliva. I climbed 6,000-metre mountains and trekked though the remote back country of the Andes. I went rafting and horse riding in Argentina, visited the coffee-growing centre of Colombia, and explored the ruins of the Lambayeque, Moche, Chimu, Wari and Nazca cultures on Peru's desert coast. I compared the nightime carrete, juerga and rumba in Santiago, Lima, Cali, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. I met the taciturn natives of Lake Titicaca and the staggeringly beautiful girls of Cordoba.
At all times I stuck strictly to the moutains, deserts, canyons, coasts and cities. Although if you look at a map of South America you will see an enormous green swathe which takes up almost a third of the continent's land mass, I did not once set foot in the Amazon. In my total of eighteen months spent in Latin America I've never yet been into the jungle. I admit, I'm a little squeamish about it.
But this time I'm biting the bullet. After a week to ten days catching up with friends in Arequipa, I intend to head back to Lima and then make the arduous and mildly dangerous trip across the Andes and into the lowlands, all the way to the frontier town of Pucallpa, which is the end of the road.
From there, it's by boat, four days down river to Iquitos, a city of 500,000 people - the world's largest with no road connection. This, I understand, is a trip you probably want to do once; most people who can afford it take the plane. Hot, dirty, crowded, terrible food, surrounded by beggars and thieves, I'll almost certainly suffer, and will probably regret ever deciding to do it.
Jungle tours can be arranged from Iquitos (and I understand it has quite a nightlife), but you're still not fully in the virgin Amazon. So I plan to take another boat even further downriver, to Leticia. This is small town, actually in Colombia, but right at the point where the borders of Colombia, Peru and Brazil meet. If you were really motivated to do so, this is probably a spot you could disappear and erase your identity.
Leticia is a backwater with almost mythical status; a kind of lost Macondo in the steaming jungle. I've read a bit about the area, and am eager to see it for real.
From Leticia there really is no way back unless you want to spend a week plugging upriver. So, assuming I've got that far and haven't been struck down by malaria, I'll grab a spot on a local plane into Bogota. What Garcia Marquez derided as a grey and serious city should be very welcome after my sojourn in the insect-ridden Amazon. From there I fly out to Santiago (ci-vi-li-zacion! as the bus driver called out when we crossed the Bolivian frontier into Chile on my last trip) for three days, then finally back to Enzed.
There's a lot I want to achieve on this trip. Just for a start, to properly record some of the many colorful, larger-than-life stories my friends and acquantainces from Arequipa tell so eloquently. And to finally get hold of a decent selection of CDs of the huaynos, chicha and tecno-cumbia that, for me, makes Peru Mexico's rival in richness of musical culture and its superior in originality.
In addition, I want to push my comfort boundaries a bit and dig a bit deeper into learning about people's lives. Last time I thought I figured out quite a lot about what makes Peru tick, but I didn't really scratch too far beneath the surface. This time I will be attempting to tear myself away from another round of pisco sours and flirting with the cute girls dancing merengue, and do some of the possibly difficult, tiresome and unpleasant work of understanding the place better
It's the Peruvian elections on the 9th of April, and what will almost certainly be a second round of the presidential vote in May when I'm there. This will be a fairly pivotal moment, not only for Peru, but for helping define the overall direction of South America and its political future for the next five to ten years.
I'll try and post on that while I'm there, as well as providing regular updates on my trip into the jungle (and apologies if I'm making it sound like Heart of Darkness). In the meantime, in the next few weeks expect a couple of (possibly rather serious) posts on South America, and in particular that strange bundle of contradictions and absurdities which is Peru and its political life.
Categories: South America, Peru, Colombia
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
The "Man Drought" Strikes Back
Last August I posted on the so-called New Zealand "man drought". Uncovered by an opportunistic Australian who had read off some numbers from the 2001 census, this "drought" involved an apparent demographic gender imbalance in the 20-49 age group.
It was quickly seized upon by the print media, TV, watercooler chatter, and people like my flatmate's 24 year-old friend who rang her up and asked anxiously: "Did you hear? There's a man drought in Wellington!" (with a tone that might have been suitable for "earthquake" or "bird flu epidemic"). [Postscript: I saw said friend at a party a few weeks later, surrounded by at least four eager and jostling males].
Though I had some personal perspectives and theories on why the "drought" was becoming an instant cultural myth, my initial priority was to post on its lamentably dumb, credulous treatment in the media. I was going to do a follow up, but as time went by, figured it was maybe too silly a topic to waste the effort on.
But now the man drought is back in the news. "New Zealand women settle for less" shouted the headline in last weeks Christchurch Press. Supposedly a trend has been identified of women "marrying down", by choosing partners of lower educational, and sometimes economic, status, because of a lack of eligible men.
The resident expert is again boffiny Wellington economist Paul Callister, who appeared in print and on TV last time around spouting off about the future dynamics of relationships.
He has been contracted by the Department of Labour to investigate the demographic imbalance. Among his findings are that, surprise surprise, the "man drought" has been overhyped. The gap in women and men in the 20-49 age group is actually more like 33,000 rather than the 53,000 depicted by the 2001 census.
But he thinks he has uncovered a drought of sorts - one of smart blokes:
Callister said the most significant finding of his research was a 10 per cent increase in the past two decades in highly educated women marrying men with fewer qualifications and, in many cases, lower-paid jobs. This had happened largely because of a lack of eligible partners of equal educational or economic status, he said.
The Press article eagerly extended the metaphor of scarcity , talking of "slim pickings" for women. Predictably, Michael Laws got uncouthly in on the act in the Sunday Star Times, commenting that "the man drought...has had the effect of single women searching out any male with a pulse in an attempt to copulate and breed".
But as appealing as the idea might be to some of scores of frustrated women casting around for well-educated men (someone point them out, please), I just don't buy it.
Assuming that the statistics actually have the significance that's claimed, how's this for an alternative interpretation? Maybe New Zealand women, increasingly likely to be well-educated and with independent means, are simply indulging their existing inclination to partner up with the rugby players, farmers and tradespeople who our culture constantly tells us are the only really acceptable Kiwi blokes?
But in fact there is reason to suspect that the meaning of the stats has been twisted. To know what the significance is of 10 percent more highly educated women "marrying down", you'd have to know some other facts, including what the overall increase has been in highly educated women over the last two decades. If, as is likely, this has increased by more than 10 percent, the number of women "marrying down" might have increased, but not the proportion.
In other words, highly educated women are no more likely to "marry down"; there are just more of them. So it's not about a paucity of men at all - but the fact that there's more girls with degrees.
Seen this way, the discussion appears to be less about what is still a dubious and poorly quantified gender imbalance, and more a somewhat sexist insecurity about disturbance to the natural order of things.
Categories: New Zealand, man drought
It was quickly seized upon by the print media, TV, watercooler chatter, and people like my flatmate's 24 year-old friend who rang her up and asked anxiously: "Did you hear? There's a man drought in Wellington!" (with a tone that might have been suitable for "earthquake" or "bird flu epidemic"). [Postscript: I saw said friend at a party a few weeks later, surrounded by at least four eager and jostling males].
Though I had some personal perspectives and theories on why the "drought" was becoming an instant cultural myth, my initial priority was to post on its lamentably dumb, credulous treatment in the media. I was going to do a follow up, but as time went by, figured it was maybe too silly a topic to waste the effort on.
But now the man drought is back in the news. "New Zealand women settle for less" shouted the headline in last weeks Christchurch Press. Supposedly a trend has been identified of women "marrying down", by choosing partners of lower educational, and sometimes economic, status, because of a lack of eligible men.
The resident expert is again boffiny Wellington economist Paul Callister, who appeared in print and on TV last time around spouting off about the future dynamics of relationships.
He has been contracted by the Department of Labour to investigate the demographic imbalance. Among his findings are that, surprise surprise, the "man drought" has been overhyped. The gap in women and men in the 20-49 age group is actually more like 33,000 rather than the 53,000 depicted by the 2001 census.
But he thinks he has uncovered a drought of sorts - one of smart blokes:
Callister said the most significant finding of his research was a 10 per cent increase in the past two decades in highly educated women marrying men with fewer qualifications and, in many cases, lower-paid jobs. This had happened largely because of a lack of eligible partners of equal educational or economic status, he said.
The Press article eagerly extended the metaphor of scarcity , talking of "slim pickings" for women. Predictably, Michael Laws got uncouthly in on the act in the Sunday Star Times, commenting that "the man drought...has had the effect of single women searching out any male with a pulse in an attempt to copulate and breed".
But as appealing as the idea might be to some of scores of frustrated women casting around for well-educated men (someone point them out, please), I just don't buy it.
Assuming that the statistics actually have the significance that's claimed, how's this for an alternative interpretation? Maybe New Zealand women, increasingly likely to be well-educated and with independent means, are simply indulging their existing inclination to partner up with the rugby players, farmers and tradespeople who our culture constantly tells us are the only really acceptable Kiwi blokes?
But in fact there is reason to suspect that the meaning of the stats has been twisted. To know what the significance is of 10 percent more highly educated women "marrying down", you'd have to know some other facts, including what the overall increase has been in highly educated women over the last two decades. If, as is likely, this has increased by more than 10 percent, the number of women "marrying down" might have increased, but not the proportion.
In other words, highly educated women are no more likely to "marry down"; there are just more of them. So it's not about a paucity of men at all - but the fact that there's more girls with degrees.
Seen this way, the discussion appears to be less about what is still a dubious and poorly quantified gender imbalance, and more a somewhat sexist insecurity about disturbance to the natural order of things.
Categories: New Zealand, man drought
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Kiwi towns
Apparently, John Cleese trashed Palmerston North on his website, describing it as "suicide capital of New Zealand" after his recent visit here.
While Manawatu luminaries naturally feigned surprise and outrage, NZPA columnist Belinda McCammon thought it an opportune moment to dredge up all the nasty things that celebrities (from Charles Darwin on) had said about NZ (I don't know; you try and be a smart ass, and find that you've actually taken a literal tone...)
Cleese was hardly being original, anyway. PN is the currently accepted whipping-post for NZers wanting to dump all their fears about being provincial and backward onto a single place.
I forget exactly who was the recently returned NZ author, exiled in Europe for many years, who wrote in a column in the Dom Post that: "Those who grew up in Palmerston North dreamed of escape. Those who gew up in Fielding dreamed only of death".
Invercargill, immortalised by Keith Richards as "the asshole of the world", has now been rehabilitated somewhat. It seems you can't stay rock bottom for too long before you become edgy and avant garde.
A litle while ago a fashion-conscious friend of mine even suggested it could be a hidden gem. "Study journalism at the tech nearly for free; do a diving course; fresh oysters; great walking tracks on your doorstep; Queenstown and Central Otago just up the road", she listed with growing conviction. Mind you, she did grow up in AshVegas.
It's all put me in the mood to make a new "best and worst list". New Zealand is a country where urban development often seems to have been treated as an afterthought, and NZers and foreigners alike have long written off particular places as unbelievably dull, sterile and provincial (until recently, foreign travel writers often did this to NZ towns and cities en masse) . Yet it's not all bad - there have always been spots with some charm and flair. And other places with potential that sadly hasn't been realised.
Having travelled around most (though not all) of New Zealand in several tours with a folk-rock covers band, I've also been a keen observer of how the atmosphere and character changes from place to place.
Here are my picks and special mentions:
Ugliest town: Very hard to go past Huntly. Kind of Hull-on-the-Waikato ambience. Has a depressed and slightly creepy feeling. There was a fuss a couple of years ago when a motorway extension was being built in the area and local Maori claimed that a taniwha was being disturbed. Not hard to believe. Drive past the area aptly known as Long Swamp, not far north of Huntly, and you get the distinct impression that several mean-spirited taniwhas lurk nearby.
Honourable mention: Blenheim - I haven't been there for a few years, and people tell me that all the sauvignon blanc money that's poured in has changed the face of it a bit. But it would be a slow process prettifying a place which seemed to have made a serious study in defying the surrounding natural beauty by being as featureless and dull as possible.
Most attractive town: no obvious winner. Of course, New Zealand is full of diverse and dramatic natural beauty. Some of the urban spots which haven't squandered the benefits of their settings, and have even added to them, include: Paihia and Russell, Picton, Akaroa, Arrowtown, Clyde, Lyttelton, Oamaru, Hanmer and Martinborough.
Most underated: 1. Cromwell - before it became Pinot Noirsville, there was an austere charm to Cromwell, nestled in its desert setting under the Pisa Range. Most of the old stone town centre was drowned when the Clyde Dam created Lake Dunstan, but some of it is still preserved. Less well acknowledged, the new town was innovative (for NZ) with its "greenway" which ensures swathes of green public space between the residential crescents and cul-de-sacs.
Summers are actually hotter than in neighbouring Alexandra, and the general atomsphere is much nicer. There's a lazy rural feel and people are open and extra friendly. Though I'm still not sure about those giant fruit...
2. Westport - walk down Wesport's main street and it feels like you're stepping back thirty, or even fifty years. It has an uncontrived nostalgia, almost a sense of being forgotten. With almost everywhere these days featuring compulsory snappy cafes with fusion cuisine and latte, there's something comforting about heading down to the tearooms for a greasy mixed grill with shoddy filter coffee. The fact that, since its heyday, change has always come slowly to this remote spot, gives it a lingering sense of history. It's got a lush, mild feel, and is on the doorstep of some wild, beautiful scenery.
As a touring band, it would have to rank among the top few places we ever played. At the Black & White pub, gigs were genuinely wild, as locals and folk in from the bush mixed with backpackers sensing this was one place they could throw off their inhibitions and have a truly good time.
Most overrated: 1. Nelson. Don't get me wrong, the natural setting is absolutely outstanding, between the sea and three different ranges of mountains. The layout of the town is attractive enough as well, with its greenery, cathedral set amidst gardens, and the white hospital on the hill. But the cold, snobbish ambience is exactly what you'd expect if you took Christchurch, with all its stratified reserve, and shrunk it to one seventh its size.
2. Motueka - again, the sun and scenery flatter to deceive. This is Timaru with grapefruit. Stay around too long and you start to hear the banjos being plucked.
Biggest failure to take advantage of natural attributes: Napier and Hastings - the only real natural drawback of the twin Bay cities is that they're a bit isolated. In their favour is a decent port, perhaps the best climate in New Zealand, historic wealth from the hinterland - now with international prominence for its Bordeaux-style red wines - collective population great than Dunedin, and the silver lining of having to start afresh after the 1931 earthquake.
Yet Napier and Hastings have divided themselves rigidly along class lines, carried on internecine squabbles over infrastructure, and ended up creating a rather dull place which has little cultural, economic, educational or political impact on the New Zealand scene.
Honourable mention: Whangarei - warm, lush, surrounded by unique mangrove swamps, native bush and bird life, and island-dotted bays and beaches so beautiful they make you weep, you'd think the town could have been inspired to do better. But again, class differences and poverty are the strongest impressions.
Please post your own views of the best and worst of NZ's towns. I realise there's a distinct South Island bias in the ones I've mentioned here. Some parts I haven't really visited at all include Southland, Eastern Bay of Plenty and East Cape. And some of my judgements are based on more fleeting impressions than others, so feel free to vehemently disagree.
Categories: New Zealand, New Zealand towns
While Manawatu luminaries naturally feigned surprise and outrage, NZPA columnist Belinda McCammon thought it an opportune moment to dredge up all the nasty things that celebrities (from Charles Darwin on) had said about NZ (I don't know; you try and be a smart ass, and find that you've actually taken a literal tone...)
Cleese was hardly being original, anyway. PN is the currently accepted whipping-post for NZers wanting to dump all their fears about being provincial and backward onto a single place.
I forget exactly who was the recently returned NZ author, exiled in Europe for many years, who wrote in a column in the Dom Post that: "Those who grew up in Palmerston North dreamed of escape. Those who gew up in Fielding dreamed only of death".
Invercargill, immortalised by Keith Richards as "the asshole of the world", has now been rehabilitated somewhat. It seems you can't stay rock bottom for too long before you become edgy and avant garde.
A litle while ago a fashion-conscious friend of mine even suggested it could be a hidden gem. "Study journalism at the tech nearly for free; do a diving course; fresh oysters; great walking tracks on your doorstep; Queenstown and Central Otago just up the road", she listed with growing conviction. Mind you, she did grow up in AshVegas.
It's all put me in the mood to make a new "best and worst list". New Zealand is a country where urban development often seems to have been treated as an afterthought, and NZers and foreigners alike have long written off particular places as unbelievably dull, sterile and provincial (until recently, foreign travel writers often did this to NZ towns and cities en masse) . Yet it's not all bad - there have always been spots with some charm and flair. And other places with potential that sadly hasn't been realised.
Having travelled around most (though not all) of New Zealand in several tours with a folk-rock covers band, I've also been a keen observer of how the atmosphere and character changes from place to place.
Here are my picks and special mentions:
Ugliest town: Very hard to go past Huntly. Kind of Hull-on-the-Waikato ambience. Has a depressed and slightly creepy feeling. There was a fuss a couple of years ago when a motorway extension was being built in the area and local Maori claimed that a taniwha was being disturbed. Not hard to believe. Drive past the area aptly known as Long Swamp, not far north of Huntly, and you get the distinct impression that several mean-spirited taniwhas lurk nearby.
Honourable mention: Blenheim - I haven't been there for a few years, and people tell me that all the sauvignon blanc money that's poured in has changed the face of it a bit. But it would be a slow process prettifying a place which seemed to have made a serious study in defying the surrounding natural beauty by being as featureless and dull as possible.
Most attractive town: no obvious winner. Of course, New Zealand is full of diverse and dramatic natural beauty. Some of the urban spots which haven't squandered the benefits of their settings, and have even added to them, include: Paihia and Russell, Picton, Akaroa, Arrowtown, Clyde, Lyttelton, Oamaru, Hanmer and Martinborough.
Most underated: 1. Cromwell - before it became Pinot Noirsville, there was an austere charm to Cromwell, nestled in its desert setting under the Pisa Range. Most of the old stone town centre was drowned when the Clyde Dam created Lake Dunstan, but some of it is still preserved. Less well acknowledged, the new town was innovative (for NZ) with its "greenway" which ensures swathes of green public space between the residential crescents and cul-de-sacs.
Summers are actually hotter than in neighbouring Alexandra, and the general atomsphere is much nicer. There's a lazy rural feel and people are open and extra friendly. Though I'm still not sure about those giant fruit...
2. Westport - walk down Wesport's main street and it feels like you're stepping back thirty, or even fifty years. It has an uncontrived nostalgia, almost a sense of being forgotten. With almost everywhere these days featuring compulsory snappy cafes with fusion cuisine and latte, there's something comforting about heading down to the tearooms for a greasy mixed grill with shoddy filter coffee. The fact that, since its heyday, change has always come slowly to this remote spot, gives it a lingering sense of history. It's got a lush, mild feel, and is on the doorstep of some wild, beautiful scenery.
As a touring band, it would have to rank among the top few places we ever played. At the Black & White pub, gigs were genuinely wild, as locals and folk in from the bush mixed with backpackers sensing this was one place they could throw off their inhibitions and have a truly good time.
Most overrated: 1. Nelson. Don't get me wrong, the natural setting is absolutely outstanding, between the sea and three different ranges of mountains. The layout of the town is attractive enough as well, with its greenery, cathedral set amidst gardens, and the white hospital on the hill. But the cold, snobbish ambience is exactly what you'd expect if you took Christchurch, with all its stratified reserve, and shrunk it to one seventh its size.
2. Motueka - again, the sun and scenery flatter to deceive. This is Timaru with grapefruit. Stay around too long and you start to hear the banjos being plucked.
Biggest failure to take advantage of natural attributes: Napier and Hastings - the only real natural drawback of the twin Bay cities is that they're a bit isolated. In their favour is a decent port, perhaps the best climate in New Zealand, historic wealth from the hinterland - now with international prominence for its Bordeaux-style red wines - collective population great than Dunedin, and the silver lining of having to start afresh after the 1931 earthquake.
Yet Napier and Hastings have divided themselves rigidly along class lines, carried on internecine squabbles over infrastructure, and ended up creating a rather dull place which has little cultural, economic, educational or political impact on the New Zealand scene.
Honourable mention: Whangarei - warm, lush, surrounded by unique mangrove swamps, native bush and bird life, and island-dotted bays and beaches so beautiful they make you weep, you'd think the town could have been inspired to do better. But again, class differences and poverty are the strongest impressions.
Please post your own views of the best and worst of NZ's towns. I realise there's a distinct South Island bias in the ones I've mentioned here. Some parts I haven't really visited at all include Southland, Eastern Bay of Plenty and East Cape. And some of my judgements are based on more fleeting impressions than others, so feel free to vehemently disagree.
Categories: New Zealand, New Zealand towns
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Melbourne
I spent from Tuesday evening to Friday afternoon last week in Melbourne on work-related business, and it was my first visit there. What a great city! It's a place which comes close to living up to the platitudes from the tourist brochures.
The first thing you notice, coming into the city centre from the freeway which sweeps in from the airport, is the mix of grand, aspirational architecture, Victorian and modern. Walking around at ground level, you then discover the generous areas apportioned to well trimmed and watered parks and gardens.
Trains and trams loop around the central quadrant and out to their suburban spokes with what seems like unflappable logic, leaving the inner-city traffic thin and tolerable. Wandering through the CBD, you find both shady Old World backstreets with little cafes, and futuristic multi-level plazas and galleries hedged between skyscrapers.
The weather was great, too: clear and sunny all four days, and heating up later in the week. It hit 34 degrees on Thursday and 35 degrees on Friday. I find genuine heat invigorating; it speeds up the blood and makes you feel more alive. If Wellington could manage just a few weeks of such hot weather every year it would be a much more atractive place.
When visiting a new city, I can't help trying to find points of comparison with places I already know. My first impressions were that the generously broad sidewalks shaded by drought-resistant oak, maple and plane trees had touches of Argentinian cities like Cordoba and Mendoza. Something of Toronto, too, in the evidence of forward-thinking urban planning to integrate the historic and the modern, plus the wide choice of excellent food.
Later I saw little old pubs that would fit seamlessly into a London street, and 19th-century apartment blocks which gave a distinctly Parisian feel to some areas (part of Collins St in the eastern CBD is actually known as the "Paris end").
People have often told me that Melbourne is "like Wellington", both in ambience and weather. Well, maybe it's the obvious trans-Tasman comparator, if we assume that Auckland chases after Sydney. And both places have a good standard of coffee. But beyond that, I don't really see it.
The overall feel is more like how Christchurch would be in its wildest, most grandiose dreams - if only it had the imagination. As for the weather, Melbourne is known to be fickle by Australian standards, but let's face it, they're not quite the same as New Zealand's. Suffice it to say that if Wellington ever had a minor heat wave like Melbourne last week, it would be unprecedented.
Of course, there wasn't enough time to get a real feel for the ambience and personality of the place, but as far as I could tell it had a confident, friendly vibe. The conference dinner on Wednesday was a small but riotous affair at a cheery Greek taverna which rolled out Atkins-sized quantities of meat, fish and cheese, tempered by lashings of artery-clearing red wine.
On Thursday evening I went out with some fellow conference attendees for dinner and what we thought would a quiet drink or three in an inner-city Irish pub.
About 10:30pm the place was invaded by an entourage of orientation-week students from Monash University. They had a theme of "the Commonwealth Games" for their party, and there were many risque variations on athletes, netballers and hockey players.
For the next couple of hours the students swarmed through the pub indulging in flesh-baring, cross-dressing, and gratuitous public displays of canoodling, while we all sat there feeling old. Apart from the fact that some of the students didn't look a day older than twelve, I was a bit perturbed that they seemed to be having the kind of uninhibited, decadent fun that we dreamt about, but never quite managed, during my time at university.
Is this generation more liberated and in touch with their hedonistic impulses? Or do Australians just have a better time?
With most of Friday free, I had a chance to wander further. I walked down Flinders St to Flinders St station, cavernous and painted in creamy yellow, preserved in its Victorian pomp, and with a palpable aura of nostalgia despite the throngs of people which still pass through it.
Across the road I admired the rather daringly Cubist buildings of Federation Square, which include the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. I crossed the Yarra River, looking upstream to the floodlight towers of the MCG, and walked a little way into the Alexandra and Victoria gardens in the "Yarra Green Belt". I strolled a way down the riverside promenade of glass towers, nouveau riche bistros and boutiques on Southbank and crossed the bridge back to Flinders St.
I didn't make it far out of the central city area. The tourist guide (as well laid out and coherent as the city itself) and acquaintances had suggested a trip either north to retro Brunswick or south to trendy St Kilda. But there wasn't really time.
My one indulgence was a free guided tour through the Victorian Parliament. I thought it might give me some insight into a city which gives the strong impression of never having been short of money, nor afraid to spend it.
The Parliament buildings form a broad, slate grey-edifice fronted by a row of Doric columns. They are made of Grampian stone, named after the hills in eastern Victoria from which it is sourced. Inside is a rather breathtaking opulence; ornate vaulted ceilings are lined with genuine 23-carat gold leaf.
Our tour guide Tony explained the sweet irony which accompanied the establishment of the colony of Victoria. On July 1, 1851 the state gained its independence from New South Wales, which had been "robbing us blind". Six days later, gold was discovered, the start of a forty-year rush which pumped wealth into the region.
The houses of Parliament were started in 1856, and this year is their 150th anniversary. The original design was even more grandiose, and called for the eventual replacement of the vaulted ceilings by huge glass domes. But by the 1890s the gold was running out, and further construction was canned. In fact, the buildings have never been completed to design. Apparently, Premier Jeff Kennett had a plan to finish them off in 1996, but balked at the $300 million cost in an election year.
I left thinking that Melbourne was well summed up by the name of the state of which it is the capital. As far as I could tell on my brief acquaintance, it seemed to have grown up in accordance with distinctly Victorian philosophies. Conservative in the sense of wanting to preserve tradition and believing in a hierarchy of values, but embracing progress and modernity. Materialism tempered by a strong sense of the public good.
I'm not sure that any New Zealand town has consistently struck that balance - though I also suspect that none has been quite so rich.
Maybe Melbourne doesn't have the "edge" and sense of excitement of the few truly great cities. And I've no idea what kind of job you need to be able to live anywhere close to the centre. But with its strikingly cheap public transport, along with everything else going for it, my impression is that it's close to the most complete and liveable city in Australasia.
NB - will add photos to this post later in the week.
Categories: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Wellington
The first thing you notice, coming into the city centre from the freeway which sweeps in from the airport, is the mix of grand, aspirational architecture, Victorian and modern. Walking around at ground level, you then discover the generous areas apportioned to well trimmed and watered parks and gardens.
Trains and trams loop around the central quadrant and out to their suburban spokes with what seems like unflappable logic, leaving the inner-city traffic thin and tolerable. Wandering through the CBD, you find both shady Old World backstreets with little cafes, and futuristic multi-level plazas and galleries hedged between skyscrapers.
The weather was great, too: clear and sunny all four days, and heating up later in the week. It hit 34 degrees on Thursday and 35 degrees on Friday. I find genuine heat invigorating; it speeds up the blood and makes you feel more alive. If Wellington could manage just a few weeks of such hot weather every year it would be a much more atractive place.
When visiting a new city, I can't help trying to find points of comparison with places I already know. My first impressions were that the generously broad sidewalks shaded by drought-resistant oak, maple and plane trees had touches of Argentinian cities like Cordoba and Mendoza. Something of Toronto, too, in the evidence of forward-thinking urban planning to integrate the historic and the modern, plus the wide choice of excellent food.
Later I saw little old pubs that would fit seamlessly into a London street, and 19th-century apartment blocks which gave a distinctly Parisian feel to some areas (part of Collins St in the eastern CBD is actually known as the "Paris end").
People have often told me that Melbourne is "like Wellington", both in ambience and weather. Well, maybe it's the obvious trans-Tasman comparator, if we assume that Auckland chases after Sydney. And both places have a good standard of coffee. But beyond that, I don't really see it.
The overall feel is more like how Christchurch would be in its wildest, most grandiose dreams - if only it had the imagination. As for the weather, Melbourne is known to be fickle by Australian standards, but let's face it, they're not quite the same as New Zealand's. Suffice it to say that if Wellington ever had a minor heat wave like Melbourne last week, it would be unprecedented.
Of course, there wasn't enough time to get a real feel for the ambience and personality of the place, but as far as I could tell it had a confident, friendly vibe. The conference dinner on Wednesday was a small but riotous affair at a cheery Greek taverna which rolled out Atkins-sized quantities of meat, fish and cheese, tempered by lashings of artery-clearing red wine.
On Thursday evening I went out with some fellow conference attendees for dinner and what we thought would a quiet drink or three in an inner-city Irish pub.
About 10:30pm the place was invaded by an entourage of orientation-week students from Monash University. They had a theme of "the Commonwealth Games" for their party, and there were many risque variations on athletes, netballers and hockey players.
For the next couple of hours the students swarmed through the pub indulging in flesh-baring, cross-dressing, and gratuitous public displays of canoodling, while we all sat there feeling old. Apart from the fact that some of the students didn't look a day older than twelve, I was a bit perturbed that they seemed to be having the kind of uninhibited, decadent fun that we dreamt about, but never quite managed, during my time at university.
Is this generation more liberated and in touch with their hedonistic impulses? Or do Australians just have a better time?
With most of Friday free, I had a chance to wander further. I walked down Flinders St to Flinders St station, cavernous and painted in creamy yellow, preserved in its Victorian pomp, and with a palpable aura of nostalgia despite the throngs of people which still pass through it.
Across the road I admired the rather daringly Cubist buildings of Federation Square, which include the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. I crossed the Yarra River, looking upstream to the floodlight towers of the MCG, and walked a little way into the Alexandra and Victoria gardens in the "Yarra Green Belt". I strolled a way down the riverside promenade of glass towers, nouveau riche bistros and boutiques on Southbank and crossed the bridge back to Flinders St.
I didn't make it far out of the central city area. The tourist guide (as well laid out and coherent as the city itself) and acquaintances had suggested a trip either north to retro Brunswick or south to trendy St Kilda. But there wasn't really time.
My one indulgence was a free guided tour through the Victorian Parliament. I thought it might give me some insight into a city which gives the strong impression of never having been short of money, nor afraid to spend it.
The Parliament buildings form a broad, slate grey-edifice fronted by a row of Doric columns. They are made of Grampian stone, named after the hills in eastern Victoria from which it is sourced. Inside is a rather breathtaking opulence; ornate vaulted ceilings are lined with genuine 23-carat gold leaf.
Our tour guide Tony explained the sweet irony which accompanied the establishment of the colony of Victoria. On July 1, 1851 the state gained its independence from New South Wales, which had been "robbing us blind". Six days later, gold was discovered, the start of a forty-year rush which pumped wealth into the region.
The houses of Parliament were started in 1856, and this year is their 150th anniversary. The original design was even more grandiose, and called for the eventual replacement of the vaulted ceilings by huge glass domes. But by the 1890s the gold was running out, and further construction was canned. In fact, the buildings have never been completed to design. Apparently, Premier Jeff Kennett had a plan to finish them off in 1996, but balked at the $300 million cost in an election year.
I left thinking that Melbourne was well summed up by the name of the state of which it is the capital. As far as I could tell on my brief acquaintance, it seemed to have grown up in accordance with distinctly Victorian philosophies. Conservative in the sense of wanting to preserve tradition and believing in a hierarchy of values, but embracing progress and modernity. Materialism tempered by a strong sense of the public good.
I'm not sure that any New Zealand town has consistently struck that balance - though I also suspect that none has been quite so rich.
Maybe Melbourne doesn't have the "edge" and sense of excitement of the few truly great cities. And I've no idea what kind of job you need to be able to live anywhere close to the centre. But with its strikingly cheap public transport, along with everything else going for it, my impression is that it's close to the most complete and liveable city in Australasia.
NB - will add photos to this post later in the week.
Categories: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Wellington
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