Living in Peru : your everyday companion

In Peru's highlands, weavers organize to reach outside markets

By Lucy Newton de Valdivieso

Peru, Huancavelica, Province of Acobamba, District of Paucará. We went to visit the weavers who live there, in one of the poorest regions of Peru.

Celestino Hilario, a former farmer and cattle breeder, lives there. He is originally from Santa Bárbara, a rural community located between 12,467 feet (3800m.) and 15, 748 feet (4800m) above the sea level. This was the site of the infamous mercury “mine of death,” named this way due to thousands of deaths of miners who worked there in the most miserable conditions. Santa Bárbara was also an area affected by terrorist violence in the 1980s in Peru, where more than 100 people were killed, including many of Celestino’s relatives.

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VIDEO: More than just a doll workshop in Cusco

LivinginPeru.com

The Q’ewar Project is a social and economic initiative that is transforming the lives of women in the village of Andahuaylillas, Peru. See part one of a documentary by Gabrielle Gorder below.

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JOKE OF THE WEEK: 101 ways to annoy

Or, 101 things to avoid doing during the holiday season.

LivinginPeru.com sends a weekly joke in the Peru this Week e-magazine. Enjoy!

1. Sing the Batman theme incessantly.          2. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sensual massage."          3. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go."          4. Learn Morse code, and have conversations with friends in public consisting entirely of "Beeeep Bip Bip Beeep Bip..."          5. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.          6. Amuse yourself for endless hours by hooking a camcorder to your TV and then pointing it at the screen.          7. Speak only in a "robot" voice.          8. Push all the flat Lego pieces together tightly.          9. Start each meal by conspicuously licking all your food, and announce that this is so no one will "swipe your grub".         10. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 98 copies.

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Top 11 reasons to volunteer in Peru

By Andreas Vailakis

Thinking about extended travel? Consider volunteering in Peru. Here are 11 reasons why.  

1. Variety and Diversity of Volunteer Projects Photos provided by Angeles D-1, Un Techo Para Mi Pais and ANIA. Peru is home to hundreds of amazing and inspirational non-profit organizations in countless fields and locations throughout the country. These organizations are as varied and unique as the people and culture of this country. Organizations include those that use surf camps to reach children and community development, child-led reforestation, community recycling projects, eco-lodge and biodiversity projects, hospitals in the most remote of areas, and much more. This wide selection of social projects offers a wealth of opportunities for volunteers, as well as future employment and internship opportunities. Be inspired and inspire others.

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Volunteer spotlight in Peru: Jasmin and Yachay Wasi

By Andreas Valaikis

Jasmin Tijerina recently volunteered at Yachay Wasi in Arequipa, Peru in May 2010 for several weeks. Jasmin now shares with us her experience in Peru and with Yachay Wasi.

Yachay Wasi is an educational institute dedicated to the pedagogical investigation and improvement of the quality of education in Peru and Latin America. The organization was founded in 1991 and is based in Arequipa, Peru. They work closely with teachers, students, and schools mainly surrounding Arequipa and in 12 regions throughout Peru. Their influence reaches Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and the US (California and Boston).

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VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Beauty of Peru

LivinginPeru.com

Enjoy glimpses of Peru's immense diversity in this week's video. 

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Peru military finds photos of child soldiers in Shining Path

By Américo Zambrano
Adapted from Spanish by Diana Schwalb

A radio interception allowed Peru's Joint Command of the Armed Forces to determine the exact location of a Shining Path group in the town of San Isidro, in the Andean jungle of Huancavelica.

Tayacaja is a valley about 3,000 meters above sea level, in the impenetrable jungles of the Ene and Apurimac River Valleys, known as the VRAE.

On Wednesday Oct. 6, a group of soldiers left the Cochabamba Grande counterinsurgency base and headed to San Isidro. It was a day of quietly trekking up the mountain. At one in the afternoon the following day, Oct. 7, the patrol reached the place and waited for the opportune moment to strike.

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How will Peru stop plane crashes and informality at the Nasca Lines?

Published in Somos Magazine
Adapted from Spanish by Diana Schwalb

On October 12, 2010, two Peruvian and four English passengers in an Air Nazca aircraft died while flying above the Nasca lines due to motor failures. Eight months before that, three Peruvian and three Chilean tourists died along with the pilot of the aircraft they were on, which belonged to the Nazca Airlines company and allegedly failed due to a human error: the pilot was unable to escape a whirlwind. On April, 2008, five French tourists died and the pilot was injured after the plane they were on got tangled in high tension cables while overflying the famous Nasca lines.

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Peru in the pages of USA Today

LivinginPeru.com

On Sept. 25, a 16-page supplement in USA Today featured top Peruvian companies, politicians and current events in Peru. The report, produced by media company United World, extolls Peru's economic growth of the past two decades. "By opening up to the world, introducing investment-friendly and fiscally-sound reforms, promoting its quality exports, and investing in infrastructure development, Peru has achieved the economic growth it had previously only dreamed of," it reads.

Download the full report here (Pdf, 4 MB).

Companies features include: Miranda & Amado Abogados, Grupo Gloria, Ajegroup, Inka Designs, Xstrata Copper, Pranor Group, Clínica Ricardo Palma.

People interviewed include: Foreign Minister José Antonio García Belaunde, Mariano Paz Soldan of AFP Futuro, Pedro Olaechea of the National Society of Industries, Environment Minister Antonio Brack Egg, Daniel Saba of PeruPetro, Nationalist presidential candidate Ollanta Humala.

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Andres Oppenheimer on Peru

In a recent column, syndicated columnist Andres Oppenheimer says that the Nobel Prize is just the beginning of what Peru has to celebrate.

By Andres Oppenheimer
Published in

Alot has been written in recent days about the well-deserved Nobel prize for Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. I don't just see it as a long overdue recognition for Vargas Llosa, but as new evidence that -- economically, socially and culturally -- Peru is becoming one of Latin America's most promising countries.

By almost any measure, Peru is doing very well.

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