by the way, some new pics are up:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayamumma/sets/72157601044243609/
8/02/2007
hitch
when there´s no collectivo in sight:
by the way, some new pics are up:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayamumma/sets/72157601044243609/
by the way, some new pics are up:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayamumma/sets/72157601044243609/
Cachiccata
Miguel asked Maya and I about a week ago if we wanted to take some horses up to Inti Punko, the Inka gate that frames Mt Veronica, to take some pictures and film for the museum - so we made plans for Sunday morning. Saturday night, Miguel met us at the museum to make plans, and we walked through the narrow alleys going from house to house trying to find someone who could rent us some horses.
The last place, the successful one, was a big courtyard with 4 houses, and we into one of the homes to meet a caballero. His house was incredible - really high ceilings, black sooty stones, a loft built on the far side for the beds, and a large altar on the other with Inka weapons and artifacts, three skulls, some carcasses of various animals birds and fish, and several other obscure bizarre things. There were at least fifty guinea pigs scurrying around, making strange popping noises and squeaks. They had two kids, a boy and a girl, eating cena at a table under the loft, looking really small.
It was also a tourist shop - they had the familiar racks of purses and hats and scarves, all ´hand-made´ and ´typical´, and they make their living from tourist purchases and tips for getting to see this authentic Inka house. Aside from the commodity aspect, it was definitely authentic - it, along with the other homes in the narrow alleys, has been continuously occupied since the 14th century. He hooked us up with 4 caballos for S/30 each.
Sat night was like daylight, the night before the full moon, so Albizu Maya and I got some music and canyaso and hit the sneak-around path to the ruins, over a bridge outside of town, through some farm land and up to the base. It was our first trip to the ruins that we looked at everyday, and that every tourist who comes through treks over with their boleta turista, the tourist ticket that gets you into all the major ruins, about 18 in all, scattered around the valley. About 500 a day, most all of whom leave on huge buses or the 8 oclock train.
It was straight up mystical - a lot more than the terraces we could see from below. Hundreds of little rooms and narrow passageways, tiny quarters with slots, little square ledges, in the walls everywhere for their cards and knives and candles and things, lots and lots of farmland, and at the top, a big temple of the sun, with 4 huge stone monoliths attached to each other with some indecipherable inscriptions. Wandering around there alone at night was special. We hung out on one of the terraces with some music and a random nursing dog that followed us and fell asleep for awhile, then staggered down to bed.
The next morning, we met at the sooty house at 7 and mounted up - but we took lots of footage of the inside first, and had the weapons and carcasses and artifacts properly explained. When we asked how long it had been occupied, he just said siempre, always.
We were guided by Juan Carlos, a teenager that runs the youth group at the museum and had taken me up to Pumamarka last week, another impressive random huge ruin outside of town.
We clopped out of town over the awkward cobblestones, and crossed the Inka bridge to the trail. It was a long day for us and the horses - the path was steep, and the saddles were small. We passed the stone quarries the Inkas had used to build all the structures and terraces of OTT, along with lots of stones on the path they had left bc they were lazy. There were some tombs, some mummies, some old ruins of homes, and terraces the whole way. We had lunch on a little plateau surrounded by toros and their waste at various stages of decomposition.
We had been in touch with Klever and had arranged to meet him at the campsite in Cachiccata around 4. But we crossed paths with him on the mountain - his group, about 18 high schoolers and 10 chefs and porters, had camped up there the night before. There are no trees anywhere, which is odd - it used to be covered with them. Impossible to get lost, but pretty brown and barren.
We passed on and up, to the Inka Gate that we could see from below, but soon lost sight of. We would head a little ways, hear a whistle from Klever´s group, a yell of Izquierda! or Derecha!, left and right, guiding us up to it. We finally reached it, after four hours, and it was surely impressive - a big staircase leading to the frame, ruins of a temple, and the whole valley below us on all sides - we were up high. Facing OTT, you could see that the farmland, the canchas, were all shaped like pyramids, three of them interlocking. We took our footage and headed back down to meet Klever.
Maya and I split ways with Albizu and Juan Carlos just above the campsite - Albizu headed back to Cusco that night for classes on Monday. We again passed Klever with 6 of the kids and followed him down to the campsite that he had built with volunteers and locals on old ancient terraces. It had two showers and two bathrooms, structures made of stone and straw, and two large buildings below, an impressive dining room and a big kitchen. He gave us a tent and sleeping bags and we camped there for the night. We got lots of footage of the kitchen, Klever with the porters and some local families there for the night talking about the community project. He was kind of hard with them, berating them for not working hard enough on the projects, saying if they didn´t get their acts together he would lose his faith in them. We had no idea what was being said as we filmed, it was all in Quechua - we just focused on faces and actions and lots of frames of Klever. We filmed some of the dining hall - the group was from Wilderness Excursions, or something, from Jackson Hole, WY, with kids from all over the states. They had a very distinct culture, lots of loving hugging circles with postive comments about each other. We filmed some of the bonfire and then crashed.
The next morning, we met Klever at Hearts Cafe back in OTT at 9, hitching rides with supply trucks and rickshaws to make it. I helped him post his projects on Idealist.org to try to get more volunteers, and we got a taxi, with lots of waiting and bargaining, to Cachicatta, which no one wanted to drive to bc the roads are basically hiking paths. We saw the botanical park that Klever is building with funds from the World Bank, a good overlook of the campsite, the local school that had closed recently bc the teacher randomly showed and the parents took their kids to OTT; the greenhouse with lots of trees donated by volunteers, waiting for advice by a specialist about where to plant; and the Restaurant by the river where almost all the rafting groups, about 5 a day, stopped in to eat and drink. The campsite, the park, the restaurant, all the projects built there are collectively maintained and owned by the whole town, and no other group is allowed to build there without permission from, basically, Klever. He has been asked by the State to be a kind of consultant for other villages to construct facilities for tourists with a similar, collectively-owned model - he is currently working with 6 other villages to do this. It´s really admirable what he´s accomplished there.
We headed back to town and the comforts of home, and this week, we´ve been working with Lucho on a video about his ceramics and the traditions he is trying to maintain. I met with Sonia at Hearts Cafe today for an update - she fractured her shoulder last week, and was back for the first time today. They have received approval for funding for the NGO, but were forbidden by the men of the hacienda to build the HQ there like they had planned - they want to save the land for possible tourist facilities. We got a great interview with Joaquin at the museum on Tuesday, and we´re meeting with him again today to get more political commentary on OTT and tourism and culture erosion. We´re also meeting a lady named Luisa from Scotland who´s been here working in OTT for about 4 years, mostly with porters and guides on improving their pay and working conditions. Albizu has been translating all the Quechua footage from Huilloc and Klever´s camp into Spanish. We´re starting to feel the time pressure, and we´re also anxious to travel and be tourists ourselves. Sprite tastes so much better here.
The last place, the successful one, was a big courtyard with 4 houses, and we into one of the homes to meet a caballero. His house was incredible - really high ceilings, black sooty stones, a loft built on the far side for the beds, and a large altar on the other with Inka weapons and artifacts, three skulls, some carcasses of various animals birds and fish, and several other obscure bizarre things. There were at least fifty guinea pigs scurrying around, making strange popping noises and squeaks. They had two kids, a boy and a girl, eating cena at a table under the loft, looking really small.
It was also a tourist shop - they had the familiar racks of purses and hats and scarves, all ´hand-made´ and ´typical´, and they make their living from tourist purchases and tips for getting to see this authentic Inka house. Aside from the commodity aspect, it was definitely authentic - it, along with the other homes in the narrow alleys, has been continuously occupied since the 14th century. He hooked us up with 4 caballos for S/30 each.
Sat night was like daylight, the night before the full moon, so Albizu Maya and I got some music and canyaso and hit the sneak-around path to the ruins, over a bridge outside of town, through some farm land and up to the base. It was our first trip to the ruins that we looked at everyday, and that every tourist who comes through treks over with their boleta turista, the tourist ticket that gets you into all the major ruins, about 18 in all, scattered around the valley. About 500 a day, most all of whom leave on huge buses or the 8 oclock train.
It was straight up mystical - a lot more than the terraces we could see from below. Hundreds of little rooms and narrow passageways, tiny quarters with slots, little square ledges, in the walls everywhere for their cards and knives and candles and things, lots and lots of farmland, and at the top, a big temple of the sun, with 4 huge stone monoliths attached to each other with some indecipherable inscriptions. Wandering around there alone at night was special. We hung out on one of the terraces with some music and a random nursing dog that followed us and fell asleep for awhile, then staggered down to bed.
The next morning, we met at the sooty house at 7 and mounted up - but we took lots of footage of the inside first, and had the weapons and carcasses and artifacts properly explained. When we asked how long it had been occupied, he just said siempre, always.
We were guided by Juan Carlos, a teenager that runs the youth group at the museum and had taken me up to Pumamarka last week, another impressive random huge ruin outside of town.
We clopped out of town over the awkward cobblestones, and crossed the Inka bridge to the trail. It was a long day for us and the horses - the path was steep, and the saddles were small. We passed the stone quarries the Inkas had used to build all the structures and terraces of OTT, along with lots of stones on the path they had left bc they were lazy. There were some tombs, some mummies, some old ruins of homes, and terraces the whole way. We had lunch on a little plateau surrounded by toros and their waste at various stages of decomposition.
We had been in touch with Klever and had arranged to meet him at the campsite in Cachiccata around 4. But we crossed paths with him on the mountain - his group, about 18 high schoolers and 10 chefs and porters, had camped up there the night before. There are no trees anywhere, which is odd - it used to be covered with them. Impossible to get lost, but pretty brown and barren.
We passed on and up, to the Inka Gate that we could see from below, but soon lost sight of. We would head a little ways, hear a whistle from Klever´s group, a yell of Izquierda! or Derecha!, left and right, guiding us up to it. We finally reached it, after four hours, and it was surely impressive - a big staircase leading to the frame, ruins of a temple, and the whole valley below us on all sides - we were up high. Facing OTT, you could see that the farmland, the canchas, were all shaped like pyramids, three of them interlocking. We took our footage and headed back down to meet Klever.
Maya and I split ways with Albizu and Juan Carlos just above the campsite - Albizu headed back to Cusco that night for classes on Monday. We again passed Klever with 6 of the kids and followed him down to the campsite that he had built with volunteers and locals on old ancient terraces. It had two showers and two bathrooms, structures made of stone and straw, and two large buildings below, an impressive dining room and a big kitchen. He gave us a tent and sleeping bags and we camped there for the night. We got lots of footage of the kitchen, Klever with the porters and some local families there for the night talking about the community project. He was kind of hard with them, berating them for not working hard enough on the projects, saying if they didn´t get their acts together he would lose his faith in them. We had no idea what was being said as we filmed, it was all in Quechua - we just focused on faces and actions and lots of frames of Klever. We filmed some of the dining hall - the group was from Wilderness Excursions, or something, from Jackson Hole, WY, with kids from all over the states. They had a very distinct culture, lots of loving hugging circles with postive comments about each other. We filmed some of the bonfire and then crashed.
The next morning, we met Klever at Hearts Cafe back in OTT at 9, hitching rides with supply trucks and rickshaws to make it. I helped him post his projects on Idealist.org to try to get more volunteers, and we got a taxi, with lots of waiting and bargaining, to Cachicatta, which no one wanted to drive to bc the roads are basically hiking paths. We saw the botanical park that Klever is building with funds from the World Bank, a good overlook of the campsite, the local school that had closed recently bc the teacher randomly showed and the parents took their kids to OTT; the greenhouse with lots of trees donated by volunteers, waiting for advice by a specialist about where to plant; and the Restaurant by the river where almost all the rafting groups, about 5 a day, stopped in to eat and drink. The campsite, the park, the restaurant, all the projects built there are collectively maintained and owned by the whole town, and no other group is allowed to build there without permission from, basically, Klever. He has been asked by the State to be a kind of consultant for other villages to construct facilities for tourists with a similar, collectively-owned model - he is currently working with 6 other villages to do this. It´s really admirable what he´s accomplished there.
We headed back to town and the comforts of home, and this week, we´ve been working with Lucho on a video about his ceramics and the traditions he is trying to maintain. I met with Sonia at Hearts Cafe today for an update - she fractured her shoulder last week, and was back for the first time today. They have received approval for funding for the NGO, but were forbidden by the men of the hacienda to build the HQ there like they had planned - they want to save the land for possible tourist facilities. We got a great interview with Joaquin at the museum on Tuesday, and we´re meeting with him again today to get more political commentary on OTT and tourism and culture erosion. We´re also meeting a lady named Luisa from Scotland who´s been here working in OTT for about 4 years, mostly with porters and guides on improving their pay and working conditions. Albizu has been translating all the Quechua footage from Huilloc and Klever´s camp into Spanish. We´re starting to feel the time pressure, and we´re also anxious to travel and be tourists ourselves. Sprite tastes so much better here.
7/31/2007
7/28/2007
Courtyard Interviews and Trucha Farms
We left for Huilloc Thursday morning, in a little rain storm, the first rain we´ve seen since we´ve been here. Kennedy said rain in July here is like snow in July in the U.S., very bizarre. We drove up in the back of Miguel´s yellow Nissan, about a 45 minute ride, with two Austrian tourists; the new volunteers at the museum, Bill and Michelle, a couple from Boston; and Kennedy. We met our host, Gabriel, and walked through his store to the courtyard behind his house, and stashed our things in a room there with three beds. The rest of the group went down to the school where we filmed on the first day for a weaving demonstration, of which we´ve seen and filmed plenty by now, and we went up to a construction site to interview the workers.
We got there as they were eating lunch, and Albizu led a good conversation with them about tourism, their work as porters, the changes in the town, their lives, why they drank Sprite now instead of chicha during lunch breaks, all this - about seven guys, laying around in a circle, with mud covering their feet from the work. They said they every single person in the town works in tourism, and the first tourists only came about fifteen years ago. We watched them building a house for a new couple with mud and stone bricks that they got from a huge pile outside of town, fashioned for this purpose. A really good scene.
We had some lunch, then walked around with a list that Kennedy and Miguel had given us of people to talk to - we found a few, usually in a courtyard weaving, and Albizu asked them about the collective and the management of tourism in the town. We got really lucky and came across the mayor of OTT district, in town to visit the construction of a new textile market for tourists. He put on a poncho being sold by a lady, grabbed a couple kids and talked about the benefits of tourism for the town, and how these people were living in poverty but the travel agencies hogged all the money from tourism, at their expense - very good interview.
We spent the afternoon watching and translating footage to find out what we had, and where to go from there. We had dinner with our family, cooked over a fire stove, but with combustion gas available - eggs and rice and french fries - we´ve had french fries with almost every meal here. No shortage of potatoes. We watched a video of an unattractive Peruvian lady singing at lots of ruins on their tv, and then the kids watched Son of the Mask.
We got a good interview after dinner with Gabriel about the history of the town, his role as a shaman, which Miguel said was an exagerration, and how tourism has been great for the development of the town. He talked about past NGOs working here in the 80´s and the impact they had - the chimneys in the kitchens, the eucalyptus trees for construction, which we found out were actually very bad for the soil, soaked up all the water. He said farming was great when he was growing up, and now it´s a lot worse. We then tried to sleep under lots of wool blankets in the freezing cold on unforgiving beds, with some wooden slats and a hole cut into it for a toilet out back. Good times.
The next morning we went to the escuela to watch a group of tourists get the weaving spiel. Kennedy and Miguel came with them, and another Peruvian lady as their guide - they wore panchos and Macchu Piccu floppy hats and owned the part, very good. We got a good scene of Gabriel´s daughter preparing to go in the courtyard and in the store, gathering her weavings and dolls and purses into a large manta, or textile, to carry on her back, and meet some girls to walk down to the school. We also finally interviewed Miguel about the town, tourism, the collective, management, all this - he´s a star also. A great set up, with tourists browsing the huge display of mantas in the background, at the school that he helped to build.
We followed them all back to Huilloc to a real kid´s school and watched the Independence Day march with a bunch of kids in the courtyard, goosestepping to some drums in ponchos and little red and white Peruvian flags and chanting Viva Peru!
They left after that, and we wandered around doing more courtyard interviews with people. We found out that most of the town are Evangelistas or Mormons because of missionaries in the area, and that this is good bc they don´t drink and follow strict rules, which is better for tourism. We also heard about an organization that covers most of the surrounding towns called Rondas Campesinos, basically a community court that punishes people for crimes, then hands them over to the police. If you steal a bull, you have to return three bulls and get a healthy beating. There was a big problem with thefts, and now, there´s almost none.
Last night we sat with Gabriel as he made chicha for his son´s 18th birthday over a fire and talked about how changing from a barter system to money affected the town, and made everyone recover their old Inka identities for tourism. We even discovered that a lot of people had resisted modernizing their homes, at least on the outside, bc the tourists like traditional stone and straw homes better.
This morning we went with Gabriel to his trucha, or trout, farm, just off the main road. He has about ten little ponds, each with about fifty trout swimming around. We had a few of them for dinner the night before, served whole. He also has an impressive greenhouse with lots of fruit trees and plants. All of this is his, he says - we found out he is by far the richest man there, bc he married a rich woman from another village. We kind of wished we´d stayed with some of the Mormons. He was good to us, but the town and the surrounding areas have about 2,000 people, and most of them are living hand to mouth - he has more than plenty.
Miguel picked us up this morning and we drove up to Patacancha, another village that the museum works with, recovering the tradition of natural dyes and weaving. It was another thirty minute drive up the mountain, even colder - but it is the center of all the other towns in the area, including Huilloc. All the major meetings are held there, and they have the best school with the best teachers. There are several other villages higher up. The women in the weaving school gathered when they saw Miguel´s yellow truck, and they set up in a courtyard by the river for the show. We interviewed a couple of them, while an alpaca, like a llama but with more expensive wool, roamed around headbutting things. We talked with them for about an hour and got back in the truck to OTT, picking up people along the way, including a group of about 10 or 12 schoolgirls that Miguel kept pulling away from, making them run to catch up. Tonight we´re going to rest, and tomorrow we´re going on horseback to Antipunco, the ´hitching post of the sun´.
We got there as they were eating lunch, and Albizu led a good conversation with them about tourism, their work as porters, the changes in the town, their lives, why they drank Sprite now instead of chicha during lunch breaks, all this - about seven guys, laying around in a circle, with mud covering their feet from the work. They said they every single person in the town works in tourism, and the first tourists only came about fifteen years ago. We watched them building a house for a new couple with mud and stone bricks that they got from a huge pile outside of town, fashioned for this purpose. A really good scene.
We had some lunch, then walked around with a list that Kennedy and Miguel had given us of people to talk to - we found a few, usually in a courtyard weaving, and Albizu asked them about the collective and the management of tourism in the town. We got really lucky and came across the mayor of OTT district, in town to visit the construction of a new textile market for tourists. He put on a poncho being sold by a lady, grabbed a couple kids and talked about the benefits of tourism for the town, and how these people were living in poverty but the travel agencies hogged all the money from tourism, at their expense - very good interview.
We spent the afternoon watching and translating footage to find out what we had, and where to go from there. We had dinner with our family, cooked over a fire stove, but with combustion gas available - eggs and rice and french fries - we´ve had french fries with almost every meal here. No shortage of potatoes. We watched a video of an unattractive Peruvian lady singing at lots of ruins on their tv, and then the kids watched Son of the Mask.
We got a good interview after dinner with Gabriel about the history of the town, his role as a shaman, which Miguel said was an exagerration, and how tourism has been great for the development of the town. He talked about past NGOs working here in the 80´s and the impact they had - the chimneys in the kitchens, the eucalyptus trees for construction, which we found out were actually very bad for the soil, soaked up all the water. He said farming was great when he was growing up, and now it´s a lot worse. We then tried to sleep under lots of wool blankets in the freezing cold on unforgiving beds, with some wooden slats and a hole cut into it for a toilet out back. Good times.
The next morning we went to the escuela to watch a group of tourists get the weaving spiel. Kennedy and Miguel came with them, and another Peruvian lady as their guide - they wore panchos and Macchu Piccu floppy hats and owned the part, very good. We got a good scene of Gabriel´s daughter preparing to go in the courtyard and in the store, gathering her weavings and dolls and purses into a large manta, or textile, to carry on her back, and meet some girls to walk down to the school. We also finally interviewed Miguel about the town, tourism, the collective, management, all this - he´s a star also. A great set up, with tourists browsing the huge display of mantas in the background, at the school that he helped to build.
We followed them all back to Huilloc to a real kid´s school and watched the Independence Day march with a bunch of kids in the courtyard, goosestepping to some drums in ponchos and little red and white Peruvian flags and chanting Viva Peru!
They left after that, and we wandered around doing more courtyard interviews with people. We found out that most of the town are Evangelistas or Mormons because of missionaries in the area, and that this is good bc they don´t drink and follow strict rules, which is better for tourism. We also heard about an organization that covers most of the surrounding towns called Rondas Campesinos, basically a community court that punishes people for crimes, then hands them over to the police. If you steal a bull, you have to return three bulls and get a healthy beating. There was a big problem with thefts, and now, there´s almost none.
Last night we sat with Gabriel as he made chicha for his son´s 18th birthday over a fire and talked about how changing from a barter system to money affected the town, and made everyone recover their old Inka identities for tourism. We even discovered that a lot of people had resisted modernizing their homes, at least on the outside, bc the tourists like traditional stone and straw homes better.
This morning we went with Gabriel to his trucha, or trout, farm, just off the main road. He has about ten little ponds, each with about fifty trout swimming around. We had a few of them for dinner the night before, served whole. He also has an impressive greenhouse with lots of fruit trees and plants. All of this is his, he says - we found out he is by far the richest man there, bc he married a rich woman from another village. We kind of wished we´d stayed with some of the Mormons. He was good to us, but the town and the surrounding areas have about 2,000 people, and most of them are living hand to mouth - he has more than plenty.
Miguel picked us up this morning and we drove up to Patacancha, another village that the museum works with, recovering the tradition of natural dyes and weaving. It was another thirty minute drive up the mountain, even colder - but it is the center of all the other towns in the area, including Huilloc. All the major meetings are held there, and they have the best school with the best teachers. There are several other villages higher up. The women in the weaving school gathered when they saw Miguel´s yellow truck, and they set up in a courtyard by the river for the show. We interviewed a couple of them, while an alpaca, like a llama but with more expensive wool, roamed around headbutting things. We talked with them for about an hour and got back in the truck to OTT, picking up people along the way, including a group of about 10 or 12 schoolgirls that Miguel kept pulling away from, making them run to catch up. Tonight we´re going to rest, and tomorrow we´re going on horseback to Antipunco, the ´hitching post of the sun´.
7/27/2007
fotos
i´ve finally gotten some photos up. there are too many for the internet in OTT to handle right now, so i´ve just put up some favorites.
to see them go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayamumma/sets/72157601044243609/
to see them go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayamumma/sets/72157601044243609/
7/25/2007
Albizu
We spent Monday doing our museum duties, working in the store and at the front desk. Some high schoolers from a group called Where there be dragons were at the museum doing a ceramics workshop with Lucho, and one of their leaders was a girl I went on the Tibetan Studies program with in 2001, Park - bizarre to see her there.
We finally heard from Albizu, the assistant that Rafael recommended to us. He called us at the museum Monday night, and came Tuesday morning at 10. He is a student at the university in Cusco studying anthropology and tourism, and he´s worked on some films with Rafael and his friend Angel. His English is not great, but he can manage, and we have a book, and most importantly, he knows Spanish and Quechua. We sat down with him and brought him up to speed with what we are doing, and what we have shot so far. He´s into it, which is big, we want him to be a partner in the project and to be interested in the interviews and places we go. We showed him the footage of the women in Huiloc, their interviews in Quechua, which we translated into English with Miguel and Kennedy on Saturday morning. He´s really sharp, is very comfortable with meeting people, puts them at ease and manages to sound intelligent. The last day with him in production has been great - language is a huge barrier, and so trust is too - so our interviews and interactions are much better, much more in depth with him there.
We had planned to go to Cachiqata Tuesday to meet with Klever, the leader, or alcalde, of the town, but he emailed us Monday night asking us to meet him at his office in Cusco at 4:30... so Albizu had to make the trip twice in one day. After we did some translations and had lunch, we took the collectivo to Cusco, a two hour trip. It was great to be back there, we saw it much differently this time. It was much more crowded, people everywhere - when we were there before the strike kept people away. It´s also Independence Day on Saturday, with festivities all week, so lots of people from other towns are in Cusco now. We went straight to Klever´s office, with the mindset that this was an introductory meeting, we probably wouldn´t film - we were hoping to set up a meeting with him in Cachiqata to get a tour of the town and hear about his plans to build a community reserve.
Klever is a superstar. He´s a ridiculously pretty man, like an action figure or some such thing. I guess he´s in his early 30´s, and he´s been the leader of the town for only two months, replacing his father. He has a trekking company with three other people, very successful, leading tours around the Sacred Valley. We sat with him and he described with some gravitas his ideas for the community reserve in Cachiqata, and when we arrived, he had been meeting with a man from another town, one of six that are setting up similar reserves with his guidance. His idea is to have one hotel, one tourist company, one campsite, one of everything so that all traffic and money and activities in the town are regulated, and the rules are set by the people there. He got money from the World Bank to build a botanical park there, which will start construction in two months. We could do probably do the whole film on him and his projects. We also learned that another documentary crew from the U.S. had just spent two months filming every day of his dad´s life in Cachiqata. We have to find out who they are - Klever will forward us an email from them. So we´re meeting with him on Monday in Cachiqata, in the middle of a trek he his leading through there with 18 tourists. We´re also spending Wednesday with him there. Hopefully that will be enough.
After the meeting, we filmed some night scenes of Cusco and did an interview with the head of a trekking company, a friend of Albizu´s. We ran into Angel, Rafo´s partner, in the square, and went to Rafo´s house with them and caught up - a great night with them. We watched some of their videos on youtube, really impressive. We stayed at some random place Albizu knew and came back to OTT this morning. Al and I spent the afternoon with my family, learning about their business, the loans they got to set it up, which were all materials, pretty lousy ones actall, and no money. I found out they´re very upset with how they were treated by the municipality, lots of broken promises about promotion. It was also good to finally speak to them casually with a translator, they´re great people, esp Matiaza.
As Maya mentioned, tomorrow we go to Huiloc for three days. It´s gonna be rough there I think, nothing at all modern about it, but we´re hoping Gabriella, the lady we interviewed before, will be a major character. There´s a big group of tourists coming on Friday to the market, and we´ll see their prep for that with Miguel. We have a list of people to speak to from Kennedy and Miguel, and we´re just hoping to film the whole time, get to know Gabriella well. Sunday we go to Antipulco on horses with Miguel, and Monday we meet Klever. We put Al up at the Tambo, a hostel where most museum people stay if they´re not with a family, and put him on a pension at the restaurant next door for three meals a day while he´s here - he´ll be with us from now on.
We finally heard from Albizu, the assistant that Rafael recommended to us. He called us at the museum Monday night, and came Tuesday morning at 10. He is a student at the university in Cusco studying anthropology and tourism, and he´s worked on some films with Rafael and his friend Angel. His English is not great, but he can manage, and we have a book, and most importantly, he knows Spanish and Quechua. We sat down with him and brought him up to speed with what we are doing, and what we have shot so far. He´s into it, which is big, we want him to be a partner in the project and to be interested in the interviews and places we go. We showed him the footage of the women in Huiloc, their interviews in Quechua, which we translated into English with Miguel and Kennedy on Saturday morning. He´s really sharp, is very comfortable with meeting people, puts them at ease and manages to sound intelligent. The last day with him in production has been great - language is a huge barrier, and so trust is too - so our interviews and interactions are much better, much more in depth with him there.
We had planned to go to Cachiqata Tuesday to meet with Klever, the leader, or alcalde, of the town, but he emailed us Monday night asking us to meet him at his office in Cusco at 4:30... so Albizu had to make the trip twice in one day. After we did some translations and had lunch, we took the collectivo to Cusco, a two hour trip. It was great to be back there, we saw it much differently this time. It was much more crowded, people everywhere - when we were there before the strike kept people away. It´s also Independence Day on Saturday, with festivities all week, so lots of people from other towns are in Cusco now. We went straight to Klever´s office, with the mindset that this was an introductory meeting, we probably wouldn´t film - we were hoping to set up a meeting with him in Cachiqata to get a tour of the town and hear about his plans to build a community reserve.
Klever is a superstar. He´s a ridiculously pretty man, like an action figure or some such thing. I guess he´s in his early 30´s, and he´s been the leader of the town for only two months, replacing his father. He has a trekking company with three other people, very successful, leading tours around the Sacred Valley. We sat with him and he described with some gravitas his ideas for the community reserve in Cachiqata, and when we arrived, he had been meeting with a man from another town, one of six that are setting up similar reserves with his guidance. His idea is to have one hotel, one tourist company, one campsite, one of everything so that all traffic and money and activities in the town are regulated, and the rules are set by the people there. He got money from the World Bank to build a botanical park there, which will start construction in two months. We could do probably do the whole film on him and his projects. We also learned that another documentary crew from the U.S. had just spent two months filming every day of his dad´s life in Cachiqata. We have to find out who they are - Klever will forward us an email from them. So we´re meeting with him on Monday in Cachiqata, in the middle of a trek he his leading through there with 18 tourists. We´re also spending Wednesday with him there. Hopefully that will be enough.
After the meeting, we filmed some night scenes of Cusco and did an interview with the head of a trekking company, a friend of Albizu´s. We ran into Angel, Rafo´s partner, in the square, and went to Rafo´s house with them and caught up - a great night with them. We watched some of their videos on youtube, really impressive. We stayed at some random place Albizu knew and came back to OTT this morning. Al and I spent the afternoon with my family, learning about their business, the loans they got to set it up, which were all materials, pretty lousy ones actall, and no money. I found out they´re very upset with how they were treated by the municipality, lots of broken promises about promotion. It was also good to finally speak to them casually with a translator, they´re great people, esp Matiaza.
As Maya mentioned, tomorrow we go to Huiloc for three days. It´s gonna be rough there I think, nothing at all modern about it, but we´re hoping Gabriella, the lady we interviewed before, will be a major character. There´s a big group of tourists coming on Friday to the market, and we´ll see their prep for that with Miguel. We have a list of people to speak to from Kennedy and Miguel, and we´re just hoping to film the whole time, get to know Gabriella well. Sunday we go to Antipulco on horses with Miguel, and Monday we meet Klever. We put Al up at the Tambo, a hostel where most museum people stay if they´re not with a family, and put him on a pension at the restaurant next door for three meals a day while he´s here - he´ll be with us from now on.
huiloc
tomorrow we will be traveling to the nearby town of huiloc where the museum has worked to create a textile cooperative. we will be spending three days there and meeting with:
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(hooray for pictures! more to come!)
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