Category Archives: Life in Peru

Our life in Cusco, Peru.

2014 Peru Election storylines

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Yesterday Peru went to the polls and elected a new crop of regional and municipal leaders. There are plenty of story lines out there if you’re into that kind of thing. Just look for #MadeleineOsterling or #CastanedaLossio, read about the influence of cocaine cash or the soap opera around Gregorio Santos. One of the more interesting story lines is how practically none of the elected local and regional candidates have any affiliation with the supposedly “national” parties in Lima, in other words, central government is extremely weak.

Rather than talk about politics on a grand scale, you know I prefer the personal side of things, so I’ll share a personal election story.

Last week Mamacita Linda was late coming home from her job. She’s been working in a town about an hour outside of Cusco. Upon leaving her job, Mamacita Linda and her coworkers couldn’t immediately get to their driver because 2 political candidates were having their “closing rally” and the streets were packed. Eventually a large group of moto-taxis with flags for one of the political candidates passed by. Mamacita Linda and her friends waived down one of the moto-taxis and asked if he’d give them a ride to the terminal where their driver was waiting. The moto-taxi said he couldn’t, that he was participating in the political rally.

Always the economist, Mamacita Linda asked: “Wouldn’t you rather make a few $ than to participate in this rally?”

To which the moto-taxi driver replied: “I have to participate in the rally. This candidate paid for each of us a tank of gas so we are supporting him.”

There you have it. People gave their lives for the right to vote. Nowadays in Peru, your vote is worth about 2 gallons of gas.

Double Espresso

Posted on by under Life in Peru

If you don’t have everything you want in life, ask yourself, how many friends do you have at the grocery store? This isn’t my original idea and making a friend or two at the grocery store won’t make you rich and famous overnight but most anything we want to achieve in life starts with breaking the ice and obtaining the trust of a perfect stranger. Need a new job, looking for a relationship, trying to get your business plan funded? Chances are, it involves making friends or acquaintances with perfect strangers.

All this to say a couple of years ago we had a baby-sit during the summer whom I met through her older sister, a checkout girl at our local grocery store. They were from a rural town (Sicuani) and the older sister worked 60+ hour weeks (10am to nearly 11pm 6 days a week) for a salary of less than $300 / month, to make a little money for her family and save up for school. This is not unusual in Peru, workers feel like they have no better choice and very often maybe they don’t.

Tomorrow regional and municipal elections are held here in Peru. Frank Bajak wrote a good article about how Cocaine cash is polluting Peruvian politics. There practically aren’t any ideologies or party lines in Peruvian politics any more, it’s just a rush to get in and steal.

“Politics has lost all ethical sense. Now, it’s just about being a pickpocket”

I often wonder, what if the middle class would have the self-confidence to demand better, to stand up to their corrupt and incompetent leaders. By and large, it seems as if the working class and middle class suffers from a sort of misplaced desperation, instead of demanding better they’re just dying to “get in” with the local elected leaders and get a piece of the pie. As if they don’t believe they can do better without resorting to the established way of corruption and incompetence. I often think it’s about self-confidence, all the way back to the kids education: the so-called “good schools” here don’t encourage critical thinking or standing up for yourself but they are very strong about falling in line, discipline and rote memorization.

One day when Anna, our old babysit, was getting ready to go back to school in her town I was at the Plaza de Armas and decided to have a cup of coffee with her. A new Starbucks had just opened up. We went inside and I said to Anna, one day you’re going to walk in here with all of your friends, and they’re going to be all nervous-nellie, staring at their feet because they feel out of place here, fumbling around because they won’t know what they want. They’ll be looking up at all these gringos and city-slickers ordering Frappuccinos as if those people are really somebody.

And I told her: “Don’t you dare to act like that. Hold your head up and look everybody in the eyes. Walk straight up to the counter and order a double espresso.

She replied: “I don’t even know what that is.”

I said don’t worry about that, I’m sure you’ll like it. Then we walked up to the counter and ordered 2 double espressos. Anna was only 14 and I don’t know if she understood what I was trying to tell her. I told her to never look down because of where she was from. When in doubt, hold your head up straight and order a double espresso. Let people know you don’t take stuff from anybody.

* * *

Brianna Nayaraq

Just a pretty picture of my baby goose.

A bit more on corruption in Peru

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Yesterday this article popped up on my Twitter feed. Other than the headline number of $3.5B in estimated annual corruption, the part about corruption in regional governments is eye-opening:

“…corruption in Peru’s regional governments have been in the spotlight with a number of regional presidents detained over accusations that they misused and profited from public funds … currently 22 of the 25 regional presidents are being investigated over allegations of corruption.”

Talk of corruption in Peru always reminds me of a conversation I had with a Peruvian friend of mine in the US, just before I left my job at GE to spend more time in Peru. My friend lives in the US but his father lives in Lima. Since we were both in aviation and my friend’s father was an officer in the Fuerza Aérea del Perú (FAP or Peruvian Air Force), my friend arranged for some introductions for me with aviation businesses in Lima.

One day before leaving my job in the US my friend and I had a conversation about bureaucracy in Peru and my friend insisted if I needed anything, to call on his father, his father had a good network and knew how to navigate the bureaucracy. Then my friend thought about this and said if I ever really needed any help, if I had any problems with the bureaucracy, that an even better solution would be if I called on his grandmother because she knew exactly how to “play the system” and waive a dollar bill at the right place and the right time. My friend said the idea wasn’t to waive a lot of money, just a dollar bill at the right time. In fact, he was convinced his grandmother would be able to get more done than his father.

This struck a chord with me because my friend’s father was a high ranking, well-respected officer in the FAP. He answered directly to the Minister of Defense. How could it be that a person waiving a dollar bill in the face of a bureaucrat can get more accomplished than an officer 2 levels down from the President of the Republic?

Sadly, my friend might have been right.

Make the bed you lie in

Posted on by under Life in Peru

I’m late to this but there was a poll a while back that showed 41% of Limeños would vote for a candidate they know robs public funds, as long as their candidate does “obras” (public works).

roba, pero hace obras

(Datum via Frequencia Latina)

This is in the context of the upcoming municipal and regional elections in Peru. I don’t follow Lima politics much but I believe the current mayor in Lima @SusanaVillaran has focused on organizational reforms (most visibly public transportation reform which is badly needed) and public opinion is that she doesn’t do enough brick-and-mortar public works.

It’s somewhat understandable that a person living in the poor “Pueblos Jovenes” cares about nothing more than getting running water and sewer but I’m sure the 41% also includes smartphone toting professionals and university students who should know better.

Corruption with impunity is endemic at all levels of leadership in Peru. Mamacita linda has been auditing local municipalities on behalf of the national “Controlaria” (a governmental audit agency) and their findings are horrible. At one small municipality, there was a payment of S/.15,000 (~US$4,500) for “expenses” to a close aide to the mayor. There are no receipts, no indication what the “expenses” were or how they were related to official business. Nothing. To put that in perspective, teachers probably make less than S/.2,000 per month in this town.

When the auditors finish their report, the national Controlaria will review the report and send it to the Fiscalia (Justice Department) where it will die. 6 months down the line a small blurb will be published in a legal register somewhere that the auditors’ report is invalid because the lead auditor only signed 126 instead of the full 128 pages as required by law nr 23456.45(b)(ii)(j) para 65.34.9 and there it ends.

* * *

Yesterday Ollanta Humala swore in a new Finance/Economy Minister here in Peru. You can view the details of the transition at IKN. Mamacita linda said something this morning about “not sure what will happen next” with the Peruvian economy and I opined that it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

On her way to work Mamacita linda yelled out the door “I don’t know, some economists are kinda crazy sometimes!”

Progreso para todos – I’m part of it today!

Posted on by under Life in Peru

If you know me, I can be a bit direct. I’m not proud of this but if you catch me at the wrong time you may get the non-sugercoated version of what’s on my mind. So it was the other night when I was taking the garbage out and a group of neighbors stopped me with “Sir we need to talk to you”. The “president” of our neighborhood was with them and I had just fussed at her a couple of days before because she lets her pitbull run loose, which is not OK. However turns out this wasn’t a dog issue.

The “president” of the neighborhood said they were making a list of the days where each neighbor would be supplying water and electricity to the construction crew of the “region” Cusco who are refurbishing parking areas and sidewalks in our neighborhood. The crews have been working for about a year, typical inefficient and slow Peruvian public works. I had mostly ignored the ongoing work because trying to improve anything would literally be like fighting city hall.

My not-sugercoated answer to the group of neighbors was something about the taxes I pay in this country and that if they wanted me to do the project they’d better pay me and get out of the way because I sure as cielos wasn’t going to support the cl********k that was the project in front of my house. Then the most startling thing happened: the neighbors explained to me that this is what they had agreed on with the leadership of the “region” Cusco, that if we wanted our 40-year old falling apart sidewalks to be fixed, that the people in the neighborhood would supply water and electricity to the workers. It had to be done like that because there are no other options, they said.

I always thought the utter incompetence of the Peruvian public works was “just the way it is” but it startled me to find out that educated people actually make high level decisions to make it be that way. It’s not the result of a bunch of guys being sent to a job without instructions or plans, it’s the result of a bunch of guys being sent to do a job with specific instructions how to screw it up. Educated, career bureaucrats who couldn’t milk a cow if you gave them a bucket, deciding how to do things they have no clue about whatsoever.

By that time I’d mellowed out a bit and I told the neighbors I really don’t care about the water or electricity that the workers may need, just knock my door and you can have anything you need. What startled me was the utter incompetence. Our sidewalks and parking lots need to be refurbished but the relevance of that project pales in comparison to what Peru really needs, there are people here who don’t have basic services. Forget about schools, health care in rural areas, traffic safety, etc. Those very necessary projects will never happen unless there is a wholesale change in how public works are accomplished.

Some neighbors argued this was the right way to do things. How else could the workers do their job, without electricity or water? That is the type of thing that bugs me about Peru. I don’t know if it is the long working hours for the middle class or the silly emphasis on education but there are many people who are quite clueless about life in general making decisions about things they are entirely not qualified for. My neighbors were amazed when I explained to them the correct way to do the project would have been to get in touch with the utility companies and set up temporary connections for water, power, 220V, 480V, whatever the needs of the project are. Give the workers real tools (they are doing this with hammers, chisels and 1 electric jackhammer), machinery, training, safety gear, etc.

Today the workers are back at it, they’ve duck-taped a water hose to a faucet in the back of our house (there aren’t any in the front patio) and “routed” their water hose through our living room out to the parking lot. I’m not kidding: there is a water hose duct-taped to a faucet as I’m writing this. And the project is managed/implemented by “region” Cusco, not even our local municipality or city of Cusco. These are supposed to be the “big guys”.

Rant over. Sorry for the venting.

parking lot work

Parking lot work in front of our house


water hose

Water hose to the works in front of the house

Washington Post on Peru’s crackdown against illegal mining

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Not a bad article and pictures at the Washington Post. Here’s the article and a quick excerpt:

“After years of ignoring the frantic gold rush fouling the Amazon forests of southeastern Peru’s Madre de Dios region, the government has launched a no-mercy campaign to crush it.”

Otto has lamented the environmental damage done by illegal mining in Peru for years. It remains to be seen if Peru’s weak institutions and government will persevere in this crackdown.

One small thing you can do is not buy any gold or silver when you visit Peru. The jewelry stores here won’t be able to show procedence of gold, they’ll just lie or make something up. View my Twitter conversation with Otto about my dilemma in having to buy rings for a friend’s upcoming wedding.

Isabella

Posted on by under History and culture, Life in Peru
Isabella

Isabella when she was maybe 8 or 9

I was rocking our baby to sleep the other night, listening to some music, when a song reminded me of a girl I used to know. Isabella isn’t her real name but when she was about 8 years old she’d say she wanted to change her name to Isabella. So I’ll call her Isabella here.

My baby had just fallen asleep on my shoulder and my thoughts drifted away to Isabella. I knew Isabella when she was a kid, she’s a young lady and a mom now. The song I was listening to reminded me of Isabella because of her grandfather, Joe – whom Isabella never knew. I never had the pleasure to meet Isabella’s grandfather either, he passed away young, but I knew Isabella’s mom well. This is how I know Joe.

Isabella’s mom is Sicilian, grew up in Buffalo NY. She always said Joe was in the Buffalo mafia, she wasn’t boasting or proud, in fact Isabella’s mom was embarrassed about that but it was just the way of life if you were born into the family like Joe was. Joe wasn’t a bad guy, he was just part of the family. Joe was a musician, Isabella’s mom always said her father had the greatest voice, a voice like Frank Sinatra. I think Joe played piano and drums, he would play in the Italian restaurants in Buffalo, in the restaurants of the family. Italian restaurants were always a favorite means for the mob to launder their money.

I think it’s safe to say Isabella’s mom had a complicated relationship with her father. I think she admired Joe as an artist, in fact Isabella’s mom was a drummer in her high school band before she got unceremoniously kicked out of high school at the age of 16. Isabella’s mom would go out to party but Joe would find her wherever she was out partying and would drag her out of the bars, drag her home. Joe died of a heart attack when Isabella’s mom was 18.

In a way I feel like I know Joe well, even though we never met. Not only through Isabella’s mom but also through the environment. I grew up in an industrial town in Europe and I know the old industrial towns in the US – like Buffalo – quite well, from the time I used to fly air cargo. We’d fly auto parts for manufacturers to places like Buffalo NY, Flint MI and of course down to the border with Mexico for all the outsourcing there. Peruvians who visit the US probably know no Italian restaurants other than a suburban Olive Garden or Carraba’s but I’ve been to a lot of old, authentic Italian restaurants. Heck, I’ve been to Italy. My best friend friend Bert and I used to hang out at an old-style piano bar when I lived in Florida, the type of place where you could imagine Joe play. As a side note, Bert knew the Italian mob well. He used to work with the US government and he’d always say when the FBI moved offices in New York, the mafia’s moving companies did the move. During Cold War detente when Bert did business with Amtorg, it was via a freight forwarding company owned by the New York mob. He knew the mob well.

There isn’t a point to all of this, in case you were wondering, just me reminiscing about a kid who’s now all grown up. It all seems so long ago now. Not that my experiences in life are any more interesting than anyone else’s but I’ve lived a more unconventional life than most, I’ve been very fortunate to meet some extraordinary people. In a country like Peru, where the median age is 27 and half of the population barely has living memory of the 20th century, some of my experiences seem downright surreal.

I haven’t seen Isabella in many moons. I hope to see her someday, perhaps we can meet in an Italian restaurant.

We won’t fire you because you quit!

Posted on by under Life in Peru

Mamacita linda went out with her girlfriends last night. To this day, some of her closest friends are friends from her first “real” job, many moons ago, when she worked with one of the leading banks in Peru. Not many of her friends still work at the same bank but most have moved around in various banking/finance jobs here in Cusco.

The get together last night involved pizza, a few (I’m told) adult beverages and catching up on where old friends are now working. One hot topic of conversation was how some big banks are trying to get their long-time employees to quit so they don’t have to fire them. Ever. You see, there’s apparently a rule here in Peru that employees with 12 or more years service to the same company are entitled to a significant severance pay should they ever be fired (but not if they resign on their own accord). Somewhere in the blink of an eye, middle age is sneaking up on us which means that some of Mamacita linda’s friends are coming up on 12 years with the same company.

What apparently is going on at one or more leading banks, is that the managers are looking for excuses to force long-time employees to voluntarily “resign” but continue working. Say you showed up late for work this morning, earning you an hour of docked pay or letter of reprimand. Now your manager politely suggests that if you write a “letter of resignation”, we’ll put that letter in your files and waive the docked pay or letter of reprimand. Then you continue working as normal. Until one day when the bank doesn’t need you anymore. When that day comes, we won’t have to fire you, we’ll just dig up that “letter of resignation” you wrote so the bank saves the big severance pay.

You see, we won’t fire you because you quit!

The saddest part about this is that these are supposed to be leading institutions in Peru. Care to imagine how 2nd or 3rd tier companies treat their employees?

mother's day in Peru

This too is Peru

Could I still do a 5-year old’s homework without Google?

Posted on by under Life in Peru

How times change.  A while back I wrote about flying to Mexico without GPS.  Not that long ago, GPS didn’t exist.  Now, I found other pilots along the way who could barely comprehend that I would even attempt flying that far without a GPS.

GPS and Google have a lot in common: we now rely on them without fail for simple tasks that not too long ago we used to do perfectly well on our own.

Like a 5 year old’s homework.

Mamacita linda came into my office yesterday: “Type this in Google!” It was Brianna’s homework. I started to type the text in Google but no answers came up. That made me happy on 2 fronts: I like that her teacher uses homework that isn’t swiped from Google and I like to believe that there are still answers in this world that aren’t found on Google. I have to admit, at first I couldn’t figure out the homework but after sleeping on it I now think I have the answer.

Here it is, can you figure out the answer?


ADJUJNANZA

Adivina adivinador
al inicio de ula ula
al final de Malú
en medio de día
a los costados en asa
y dos veces en estrella
a que no adivinas quienes somos

(adorna creativamente)

A 5 year old’s homework from Cusco. Let me know if you figure it out. I have an idea but until Monday I won’t know for sure 🙂

Capulí ñawi Cusqueñita

Posted on by under History and culture, Life in Peru

Capulí ñawi Cusqueñita
capulí ñawi Cusqueñita
tus ojos tienen la culpa
para padecer tanto,
tus ojos tienen la culpa
para padecer tanto
Cuando me miran tus ojitos,
cuando me miran tus ojitos
parece que me alumbrarán
las estrellas del cielo
parece que me alumbrarán
las estrellas del cielo
sutiquitari cuncaymanchu
sutiquitari cuncaymanchu
ese nombre tan bonito
con que me engañaste

* * *

You’re welcome 🙂

Brianna’s weekend homework is to practice a different song with her papis each week. I am devoid of talent so Youtube is my best friend on weekends.