Señor de los Temblores and my expat moment

Posted on April 19, 2011 by wwelvaert under History and culture, Life in Peru

I had one of those expat moments yesterday. Any foreigner who’s spent a significant amount of time in Peru probably knows what I’m talking about. If you’re not familiar, an expat moment is when you go from total elation, “I just love the way of life here”, “I’m so glad I left the rat-race up North behind” to “what the heck are these people thinking” in the span of about 30 seconds. Complete happiness to mindless frustration quicker than you can say Pisco Sour.

Yesterday’s moment came at the annual procession of Señor de los Temblores at the Plaza de Armas (main square) in Cuzco. I’ve written previously about the procession of Señor de los Temblores. This annual procession on Easter Monday attracts tens of thousands to the center of Cuzco. The image of Señor de los Temblores is taken out of the Cuzco Cathedral and carried through the center of the city, with the procession ending back at the Cathedral for the blessing of Señor de los Temblores in front of a crowd of thousands at the main square.

Señor de los Temblores is the patron Saint of the city of Cuzco. It is believed that He protects the city from earthquakes and other harm. The origin of the legend is said to be the devastating 1650 Cuzco earthquake, which was at the time believed to be the strongest earthquake on record. The 1650 Cuzco earthquake continued for a long time only to finally stop when the image of Señor de los Temblores was taken out of the Cathedral and worshipped. Read more about the 1650 Cuzco earthquake here.

Here’s a picture of the procession of Señor de los Temblores by the Cuzco Cathedral:

Señor de los Temblores

Back to my expat moment. I decided to go to the procession yesterday with our “wawacha” (wawa is Quechua for baby, in Cuzco the word wawa is used more often than its Spanish counterpart “bebe”) accompanied by my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. The four of us found a good spot at the corner of the Plaza de Armas, to the side of the Cathedral. Mamacita had to work until 7:00, so we were tentatively going to meet somewhere at the Plaza de Armas. As it happens we didn’t get together with mamacita until after the procession due to the crowd at the Plaza.

The procession of Señor de los Temblores is a powerful experience. Yesterday was a perfect night, a bright moon and an exceptionally clear night’s sky, even for the famously bright Andean sky. There’s a huge crowd, many true believers as well as tourists and curious bystanders. The crowd, the solemn procession, the ring of the famous Maria Angola bell and finally the blessing of Señor de los Temblores all adds up to a moving experience, whether you’re religious or not.

After the blessing the crowd starts to leave. We tried to wait a few minutes to avoid the rush but get swept up in the crowd heading away from the plaza. These kinds of big events aren’t planned as meticulously as they would be in the US or Europe, crowd control is really limited. As we’re stumbling down one of the narrow streets leading away from the plaza there’s 5 or 6 people behind us holding hands or holding a rope so as not to get separated. The biggest guy up front keeps pushing against me and telling me to “Walk” “Walk” “Walk”. Nevermind there’s no way to walk faster in the crowd.

“Walk walk walk”

I’m having a hard time to maintain my footing and I’m carrying a sleeping baby. Next to me was a lady with a baby behind her back in the traditional Peruvian blanket, getting pushed around all over the place. What I didn’t know at that point is that there was a fat drunk guy just bulldozing his way through the crowd a few rows behind us, in addition to the folks pushing their way through behind us. Finally the pushing gets so bad that people are starting to loose their footing and I loose my temper.

I turn around and yell at the guy behind me:

“STOP PUSHING YOU JERK”

I might have even added in my personal opinion about his ancestry and sex habits…

I’m normally a very laidback guy and hardly ever loose my temper. When I do, people are stunned. This skinny soft-spoken white guy just turned into the devil himself. Everyone stopped. At that point the fat drunk guy who was bulldozing his way through slips by us and people everywhere are yelling at this idiot. All the pushing stopped and everyone was able to walk normally.

I felt terrible. I was at the blessing of Señor de los Temblores, I’m not supposed to loose my temper and yell at people but when you’re holding a baby and feel like you’re going to get hurt, nothing will stop you from protecting your baby.

Here are a few pictures of the most recent serious earthquake in Cuzco, in 1950. Pictures courtesy of LIFE:

1950 Cuzco earthquake

Peru presidential elections – Unseriously

Posted on April 12, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

Round 1 of the 2011 Peruvian presidential elections is over. The June runoff will be between Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala (some background about the candidates here).

Most of our friends don’t care much for either candidate. Among other things, Ollanta Humala wants to re-write Peru’s constitution, likely giving more power to the poor and less to business and foreign investment.

I thought I’d have a little fun on my Facebook page and see just how much bad stuff about Ollanta the typical jeans-wearing, iPhone toting, middle-class Peruvian (ie. most of our friends) would believe.

Facebook screenshot Ollanta Humala plans to outlaw Peruvians marrying gringos 🙂

(click on the image for full size)

The people who commented on my silly joke are all good friends and good people (and not all are Peruvian), but it does show how easy it is to plant irrational fear (Glenn Beck anyone?) about anyone whose ideology may not correspond with your own.

The first round election result is fairly interesting, because both Keiko and Ollanta have their followers but there’s also a significant part of Peru’s population (mostly middle class and business establishment) who don’t like either. The fear is that Keiko will bring back more corruption and Humala may upset business and foreign investment to some extent. Peru’s presidential election runoff is almost akin to, say, a choice between Ivanka Trump (daughter of a famous person) and Michael Moore.

My personal input to the Peruvian presidential elections is only this:

1) As a visitor/guest here I don’t care who becomes Peru’s next president. However the Peruvian people choose to govern their country is up to them and I’m privileged to be here as a guest.

2) No matter who wins the runoff, I don’t think there will be a significant change in daily life in Peru. Even though both candidates are seen as potentially having some issues, I think Peru’s society is strong with very close families, reasonable institutions, a fair economy, etc. Politics here can be interesting and colorful, but in my view politics are not that big of a factor in society.

PPK tocando flauta

Posted on April 8, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

I said I’d stay away from politics and that’s still true. However with the Peruvian presidential election campaigns coming to a close you can’t get away from it. The upcoming election (Sunday) does promise to be interesting, with Alejandro Toledo, Keiko Fujimori and PPK (Pedro Pablo Kuczynski) all in a close race for second place behind Ollanta Humala. The 2 candidates with the most votes go to a runoff election in June.

During his televised “closing rally” in Lima last night PPK played the flute as he often does before his stump speeches. Regardless of politics, I’d have to think he’ll get a few extra points for this.

A Cuzco rainbow

Posted on April 4, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

After fussing about the rain a few days ago, we saw the most gorgeous rainbow yesterday: (Click on the picture for full size)

Beautiful Cuzco rainbow

The picture really does not do it justice. This was one of the brightests, most beautiful rainbows I can remember seeing. There’s a second rainbow above, but the inner one was by far the most brilliant. We ran outside and took pictures and showed the rainbow to the little Goose, one of these moments you live for.

Incidentally, Cuzco has a rainbow colored flag. So if you’re in Cuzco and notice a lot of rainbow flags, especially around major holidays and cultural festivals, it’s just that: the Cuzco flag, not the same as the rainbow flag you see “up north” sometimes…

Peru presidential elections are almost here

Posted on April 2, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

Peru’s 2011 Presidential elections are almost upon us. April 10 is the big day, and I believe tonight is the final televised debate between the leading candidates.

Let me say 2 things first:

1) I am a guest in Peru so it doesn’t matter to me who wins or loses. I’m privileged to be here and however the Peruvian people choose to govern their country is up to them.
2) I’m Belgian, so you should never take my advice on any matters of politics or government. When it comes to politics, the only thing we Belgians can say is “Thank God for Italy!”

Having said all that, here’s a few notes about the leading candidates in Peru’s upcoming 2011 Presidential elections, for no purpose other than to show how the candidates come across to a gringo. Official bios, photos, web pages and the like can be found here.

1) Alejandro Toledo: He was Peru’s president from 2001 to 2006 and was first Peruvian president of native Indian (Quechua) heritage, but his politics were free-market oriented. He left office to rather low approval ratings, due to the fact that many felt the macro-economic gains that were made did not extend to all Peruvians. On the other hand, nothing bad or particularly controversial happened during his tenure, which was a welcome change from the late 20th century. He’s considered a strong candidate in the upcoming elections, but I know someone who knows some people who know Toledo and say less than favorable things about him.

2) Lucho Castañeda: He was mayor of Lima (home to about 30% of Peru’s population) from 2003 to 2010 and enjoyed generally good approval ratings, easily winning re-election. He implemented the Metropolitano bus system in Lima, which has to be regarded as a great success – although it’s only a small first step in Lima’s transportation solution. Otherwise I don’t know much about Castañeda’s ideology. He’s divorced and conventional wisdom says he has little chance of becoming president without a first lady.

3) Ollanta Humala: He’s the villain of them all, widely painted by his opponents as a “leftist” of the same mold of Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez. Humala narrowly lost the 2006 Presidential elections. He seems to have moderated his stance on some issues like foreign investment, but he remains a controversial figure. His opponents and the establishment in general paint a sad picture of Peru heading for the same abyss as Bolivia under Evo Morales should Ollanta Humala be elected, ignoring the fact that Bolivia has one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America and Evo enjoys high approval ratings. But since when does reality trump ideology in this world? Of all the leading candidates Humala is the only one who’s married to a Peruvian, so at least outside of politics he has good judgement 😉

4) Keiko Fujimori: She’s the daughter of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori. Her father was president from 1990 to 2000, when he was driven out of the country by a popular revolution. During Alberto Fujimori’s regime, Peru saw an end to terrorism and the economic chaos of the 1980s, but his regime was also marked by human rights abuse and corruption, especially in later years. Keep in mind that Peru has a very young population (partly due to the stability that was brought under Fujimori) and something like 20% of the voting public has no adult memory of Fujimori’s presidency. However, there has remained a strong “Fujimori” following and political party in Peru, led now by his daughter Keiko. I don’t know much about Keiko’s ideological convictions, but her VP candidate is ultra-conservative. I guess Keiko has a chance only if someone can be elected president just for being the child of a well-known ex-president. Eerrrgh, wait, where did I see that one before?

5) PPK or Pedro Pablo Kuczynski: He’s Patricia’s favorite, and the favorite of many of her friends as well. I have a PPK poster on the window, but my dog barks at it. It has to be said my dog is one of the dumber dogs you’ll ever meet. In seriousness, PPK is perhaps the most Western of all the leading candidates. He held US citizenship (I think he renounced it before the elections) and has worked on Wall Street. He has a free-market ideology and as minister of economy under Toledo should take some credit for the macro-economic gains that Peru has made. Although I’m not a fan of this ideology (ie. what’s good for business is good for everyone), I have to say that PPK appears to be a thoughtful and reasonable person, and considering his age and previously successful career I would be more inclined to believe that he’s running to serve the country as opposed to running in order to make financial gain for himself and his inner circle.

Finally, it always strikes me how so many politicians no matter where you are would like you to believe the world as you know it would end without their magnificent leadership. Consider this quote from the Ottawa Citizen about Belgian politics, titled No Government, No Problem:

Take Belgium, for instance. It’s a European country riven by ethnic tensions. Its public debt is almost as big as its total annual output and it’s in the middle of a political crisis so deep that this week it passed Iraq as the modern-day state whose politicians have taken the longest to form a government.

Yet the buses run more or less on time, the garbage is collected twice a week, exports of pharmaceuticals, chocolate and beer have gone on without interruption and it can still take about a month to get a new telephone line. Life goes on.

And that quote is more than a month old by now, still no Belgian government, beer exports are still going on fine 😉

Back in Cuzco… and still raining.

Posted on March 30, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

This blog’s been awful quiet for the past month or so because I was on trip “up North”. I was gone for just over a month and was hoping that rainseason in Cuzco would have begun to fade away by the time I got back, but no such luck. I’ve been back in Cuzco since Sunday and we’ve had rain every single day since then. No worries though, another month or so and rainseason should be history. After that the forecast is 70 degrees (20C) and sunny through November.

Speaking of weather, I had some interesting weather on my trip. First I spent a few days in Lima which has hot beach-going weather during the Southern hemisphere summer. Then I was off to Quebec City, where there was about 2 feet of snow on the ground and I saw 3 snowstorms in 10 days:

Quebec City in winter

After Quebec City I headed North to Iqaluit in Nunavut, Northern Canada. Temperatures in Iqaluit were about -27C (-17F) during the day with even colder wind chills. I admire the local Inuit who live there. (Inuits are the native population of the Artic regions, we used to call them “eskimo”, but I think that’s a bad word now)

Frozen Frobisher Bay

After Iqaluit the temperature got about 10 degrees warmer every day for the next 3 days of my trip. First I flew out of Iqaluit to Greenland:

Preheating the airplane in Greenland

Compared to Iqaluit, the -16C (3F) temperatures in Sondre Stromfjord (Greenland) actually felt mild! Then I flew over to the East Coast of Greenland where the forecast 15 MPH winds turned out to be 35 MPH gusting to 50 MPH by the time of my arrival, so I diverted to Reykjavic (Iceland), which was supposed to be my next stop anyway. The next morning I took off amid snow showers in Reykjavic, but when I arrived in Egilsstadir on the East coast of Iceland, the weather was just beautiful:

Landing at Egilsstadir, Iceland (BIEG)

Finally on to London. I landed in London in rain and low ceilings, but the next day it was sunny and mild, an unusually beautiful day for mid-March:

A beautiful day in London

In case you’re wondering about the reason for the trip: one of the things I do occasionally to stay gainfully employed is to deliver airplanes. Small, personal or business type airplanes. Typically someone buys an airplane in the US and needs it delivered to Europe or another area of the world. I take an airline flight out of Lima to the US to pick up the airplane, deliver it where ever the final destination may be, then take another airline flight back. For most trips I can be back “home” in Cuzco in about 2 weeks, but on this last trip I ran into some delays and was gone about a month.

Read more about the fun and adventure on my flying blog. 😉

Cortesia

Posted on March 2, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

Not many popular artists come to perform in Cusco. A lot of well known acts come to Lima, but rarely to Cusco. This past week was an exception: the popular Venezuelan duo “Chino y Nacho” came to Peru. You may never have heard of “Chino y Nacho” up North, but they have a number of hits and are very popular here in South America. Here they are performing one of their recent hits, “Mi Niña Bonita”:

(sorry, I noticed after I posted this that their videos are only on youtube directly)

I had to leave town for a work trip just a few days before “Chino y Nacho” came to Cusco but I decided to buy 2 tickets anyway, so Patricia could go with her sister or a friend.

My cousin Monica:

One thing I should mention is that it is still common to have large families in Peru and a generation or two ago, large families were the norm in Peru. Patricia has a big family on both her mother and father’s side. Like in most families, we’re closer to some family members than others. Likewise, it’s not unusual here in Peru to be close to someone who’s technically a distant relative.

Monica is one of Patricia’s cousins, 17 or 18 years old I think. We’d probably refer to Monica as “distant family”, I’m not sure if Patricia had even met her up to a few years ago. We’re not close but I occasionally run into Monica in town and we were always very friendly and cordial.

A few days before the concert I decided to stop by “Mega”, the big store near our house, and buy 2 tickets to “Chino y Nacho”. As I was walking up to “Mega”, I spotted Monica out in front of the store. She was dressed very nice to attract attention and had a stash of “Chino y Nacho” flyers in her hand. With her was a boy selling tickets. Nothing unusual, you often see young women dressed nice or flashy to attract attention and sell or promote something in front of a store. We talked for a while and I bought my 2 tickets to “Chino y Nacho” from my cousin Monica and her friend.

Normally I would never buy something like that in the street in Peru. There’s a huge “informal economy” in Peru, street vendors sell anything from ice cream and candy to books, arts, crafts, pirated DVDs, you name it. Something like tickets I would normally never buy in the street, because there’s a lot of fake or pirated stuff out there. I even asked Monica, “These aren’t “bamba”, are they?” (bamba=fake). But I bought her tickets anyway, you know, she’s my cousin…

I gave the tickets to Patricia and instead of being happy she was mad at first, because she didn’t want to go to the show without me 😦

Then I left for my trip to Lima and the US and all was well. However, a day before the concert Patricia called all excited and asked how much I paid for the tickets. I told her the story, all proud and happy that I had bought the tickets from her cousin who had sold me two S/.65 tickets for S/.60 a piece.

“Noooooooooooo!!!”

“You paid S/.60 for free tickets!!!!”

As usual, Patricia was right: the tickets say cortesia (courtesy) right on them. There’s no price printed on them. They are free tickets. I should have known…

Turns out Monica was working as event staff at the concert and somehow “obtained” a stash of free tickets, which she subsequently sold to unsuspecting fools like me. Probably most people were smarter than me (not difficult to do), noticed that they were free tickets and “bought” them at a significant discount. It wouldn’t be unusual for someone to get a few free tickets and sell them at half the value of a paid entrance, but S/.60 for S/.65 tickets??? To your own cousin!!!!

Oh well, live and learn. There is so much “bamba”, pirated or otherwise useless stuff in the “informal economy” in Peru. Never buy tickets in the street in Peru, not even from your own cousin 😉

Featured: Don’t land in the Pisco!

Posted on February 19, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

I finally got my Peruvian pilot’s license a few weeks ago. I’d worked off and on over the past 6 months to convert my licenses. Didn’t have time or money to work on my license full-time, that’s why it took so long. Plus everything had to happen in Lima… that’s one of the bad things about Peru, when you live in the provinces you have to go to Lima for practically any significant government issue.

Anyway, here’s a teaser from my flying blog about taking the flight test for my Peruvian pilot’s license:

Coming back to the checkride, as we were doing maneuvers just north of the “Rio Pisco”, about 10 miles north of the Pisco airport, the DGAC examiner cuts the engine. All 105 mighty horses in the Cessna 152 decided to quit on me at the very same instant.

We were at 3,500 feet at the time. I looked to Pisco airport in the distance and realized I couldn’t make the airport. I told the examiner I’d land on some green fields I spotted nearby.

…

For all the excitement go read “Don’t land in the pisco!” Since you’re reading this, you already know it all ended well 😉

Wendy Sulca: Peruvian teenage pop/folklore starlet

Posted on February 7, 2011 by wwelvaert under History and culture, Life in Peru

I hardly watch TV, but recently it seems like every time a TV is turned on in the room, there’s some show or feature with Wendy Sulca.

Wendy Sulca was a Peruvian child singer who became popular on YouTube and Peruvian TV shows. Now she’s becoming a bit of a teen starlet.

Wendy Sulca is typically introduced as “niña de folklore” and she signs traditional Huayno music, but in my opinion she’s really a pop/folklore crossover. Here she’s singing a Spanish version of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.

Wendy Sulca’s most recent hit is “In Tus Tierras Bailare” (in your lands I will dance), where she sings together with La Tigresa del Oriente (The Tigress of the East), and Delfín Hasta el Fin. Alma Guillermoprieto wrote an interesting review of “In Tus Tierras Bailare”.

Some people make fun of her childish voice (according to Wikipedia she’s only 14), but I like her posture and composure on stage, she’s very engaging with the crowd or camera.

According to Wikipedia, Wendy Sulca was born in San Juan de Miraflores, a poor area of Lima. In the official video of her popular song “La Tetita” you see her in the traditional folkloric dress in small towns in the Peruvian countryside, but life in San Juan de Miraflores is nothing like that.

Ticos are dying

Posted on February 5, 2011 by wwelvaert under Life in Peru

The Tico is a small car that was produced by Daewoo. In the 1990s, thousands were imported to Peru, mostly for use as taxis. I don’t think Ticos would be street legal in the US or Western Europe (although I have seen some in Poland), but here in Cusco the fact that they are so small and maneuverable actually made them quite handy.

When I first visited Peru in 2005, it seemed like 80% of the taxis in Cusco were Ticos. You see many of them in other parts of Peru as well, but I think Cusco was like the Mecca of Ticos, because the narrow city streets were perfect for the Tico. In Lima you see some Ticos, but when you’re on a major highway like the Via Expressa, riding in a Tico is pretty scary.

Considering that most Ticos are used as taxis and circle the potholed streets of Cusco 12 or 14 hours a day, it’s quite surprising that they have lasted this long. However, the Ticos are really showing their age now.

This Tico has seen better days

Most Ticos are not quite in as bad a shape this one that I saw parked along the Panamericana highway, but when I’m hailing a taxi I now often pass up a Tico to wait for a better car…

In the years since I’ve been visiting Peru, Ticos are noticeably becoming a smaller part of the taxi fleet, with more and more new cars taking their place – mostly Toyota, Suzuki, some European brands as well as the Chinese brands such as Chery and Jac.