Trapped with a way out
By Mariana Bazo
It would be impossible to think of rescuing miners and not to associate such thoughts to the rescue of the Chilean miners in San Jose, Copiapo, 2010. That really was a glorious rescue after a lengthy sixty-nine day underground wait.
This time in Peru, nine miners were trapped in an illegal copper and gold mine in the desert of Ica, south of Lima.
The story began to gain momentum when it was discovered the Peruvian miners were still alive. Then with the hope came the story, curiosity, national interest and comparison.
The hunt for treasure
By Mariana Bazo
On my numerous trips around the outskirts of Lima I’ve long been struck by the sight of elderly women combing garbage dumps and lugging huge bags filled with recyclable items. I’ve photographed several of them and while talking to them I always get the same story – they pick up bottles, paper and cans they can sell later, and that little money allows them to survive. Some of the women are abandoned and have no relatives, but others prefer to live on their own means rather than depending on handouts. It’s common to hear them say that this is the only job they can get at their age. I often notice a certain glimpse of happiness when they talk about their hard-earned independence.
Peru’s national statistics bureau has published figures that older adults who don’t have retirement plans are forced to develop strategies for survival, to avoid being economically dependent and socially vulnerable, and these garbage pickers fit exactly that description. Many poor elderly women are excluded from social services and have never been in the formal workplace. Many are Andean migrants without the same education opportunities as men, to the extent where many are illiterate.
This describes my most recent subject, Victoria Ochante, 65. Victoria left her home in the highland town of Ayacucho 30 years ago to escape the violence of the Shining Path guerrilla movement. Illiterate herself, she’s been living in Lima slums since then, and with six children has managed to maintain her family in the humble shanty she built of recycled material.
Victoria’s neighborhood, Ticlio Chico, is part of the poverty belt that surrounds Lima. Here, in one of the world’s driest regions, it rains enough in winter to flood many of the precarious homes. She lives with her two grown, unemployed daughters and a husband who doesn’t earn enough to help their economy.
Guardians of biodiversity
By Diego Cortijo
The jungle is a place too inhospitable to allow large human settlements, or that’s what we have always believed until now. New archaeological discoveries tell of highly developed cultures that have lived in the heart of the jungle. The myths of ancient cultures and places lost deep in the jungle may no longer be myths in light of these new discoveries.
With this proposal I began my second expedition to the Amazon rainforest as a member of the Spanish Geographic Society, to try to learn about and document unknown places in the jungle. Members of native communities I visited in the past had spoken to me about ancient settlements, and now I wanted to locate them.
This was a grueling expedition that began in Brazil and ended up in the Peruvian Amazon. We came across undiscovered archaeological sites that were mystical to the native communities who were their unofficial caretakers, and isolated tribes that received me as a total stranger, but always with a smile. I tried to document their traditions and legends so that they wouldn’t be lost forever with the passing of time.
But through all this, I never imagined that a simple pause in the jungle to visit our good friend Nicolas Flores would initiate a global media frenzy. The good-natured Nicolas, who is a native Matsiguenka Indian we all call by his nickname Shaco, invited us to his humble straw-roofed cabin where he lived alone. He took us downriver the second day to a neighboring community from where we could roam the area. Always in good spirits, he described how his life was so far from everything, far even from his own people.
On the second day in the community, Shaco heard a noise, as if he had been summoned. We left the hut and walked to the river’s edge, and there on the opposite bank of the great Alto Madre de Dios River was a group of natives that Nicolas immediately recognized as from the “Mashco-Piro” tribe. I had heard of their existence as an ‘uncontacted’ tribe that live totally isolated. They had been spotted only a few times by other natives of nearby communities. In fact, Shaco had experienced contact with them previously when tending to his crops on their other side of the river. The Mashco-Piro are in a delicate situation. The activities of lumber and oil companies that encroach illegally on these territories has displaced them. Shaco knew that this wasn’t the first time they had appeared on the river bank. The besiegement that they were suffering made their attitude towards strangers unpredictable.
Such a unique creation of our nature these tribals deserves our respect and reverence. In india they are showcased , exploited and subjugated by a handful few of so called social workers!!!……….
And the westerners instead of understanding the essence of these tribals unwittingly aid these social workers who inturn decimate tribal culture. This article is a wonderful piece of narration and we need a solid protocol while dealing with tribals.
From the Quake to the Cup
By Mariana Bazo
Nearly 300 Haitians are stuck in Inapari, a tiny Peruvian village on the border with Brazil. They are victims of the 2010 earthquake in their country and traveled weeks chasing their dream of simply getting a job. They believe that in Brazil the upcoming World Cup is creating great opportunities.
Some 3,000 kilometers after leaving home, they reached the Brazilian border only to find it shut to them, closed to stop the wave of their compatriots that began to arrive after the disaster.
They wait in the middle of the jungle and understand little. They’ve bet everything on this chance, selling or just abandoning all their belongings back home to make it this far. They now have nothing in Haiti and can’t reach their destination, nor can they return. They even asked me why they’re not allowed to cross the border, assuring that they are good workers and are willing to work hard to live better.
Inapari is a lowland village of immigrants from the Andean highlands. A few years back it was opened up to the world with the construction of the Interoceanic Highway uniting the Pacific with the Atlantic across Peru and Brazil. With that road came many things good and bad. First came illegal logging. Then came illegal mining and smuggling. But at the same time Brazil and Peru are now united, commerce is more fluid and Machu Picchu is now only 12 hours away by road.
It’s so sad and heartbreaking to see a human being in this condition… I understand that the level of employment in Brazil is growing, good news! Let’s have these mens get in, what could we do to accelerate the process of legalization?
Lori Berenson – The 15-year assignment
By Mariana Bazo
On Monday, after several attempts, Lori Berenson finally managed to leave Peru for her native New York. And although it was a full year since she had been freed on parole, a total of fifteen years had gone by since the first photo I took of her. Peru has changed enormously since then. I still remember clearly the face-to-face encounter I had with her at the interview with Reuters the day after she was paroled.
I left my car badly parked and ran to the appointment in an old building in downtown Lima. I got lost, entered a slow elevator, and in too much of a hurry to realize exactly where I was headed and with whom I was to meet, the door opened and I was suddenly face to face with her. It was 15 years since I first met her, but it was the first time that we shook hands. The attorney asked, “Do you know each other?” I answered, “Well yes,” and I blurted out my name.
Fifteen years earlier I was awoken in the middle of the night to be told that something strange was going on in the Molina neighborhood. The word was that soldiers had surrounded a street. During times of the armed civil conflict that was enough information to race to Molina. I jumped in the only vehicle I could find on short notice, my own brand new car. Although new, I quickly left it badly parked in the area where there were army tanks and soldiers, and we could hear shots. Something big was happening. They had surrounded one house in particular. Photographers ran to the place in a group for protection. I saw a blue light flash between my legs; it was a bullet. We didn’t fully understand what was happening, but as the dawn sky brightened we learned that they had arrested a group of the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), and that among them was an American girl. It was Lori. The shots ceased and I returned to my car only to find it bashed by a tank. Nobody paid me for the damage.
In the days to come the arrest became a big story. We knew they would present the American to us at any moment. In January, 1996, we were summoned to the DINCOTE (Anti-terrorist police). Lori appeared for the first time to us, shuffling between two guards. She was highly agitated when I took my first picture of her.
The indiscretions of youth can sometimes have disastrous and long term effects. Many have been called but few chosen to actually take up the mantel and follow in the footsteps of Che Guevara. Welcome back Lori and be thankful some paramilitary zealot did not cancel your ticket.
The girl who mocked me
By Mariana Bazo
I arrived, greeted her, and was practically ignored by her. I took a few pictures, but it wasn’t a situation just to jump into and shoot away. I approached her and chatted. She was indifferent to the camera. Her movements were quick as she spun around. I didn’t want to invade her space, so I mostly observed and conversed. She hardly spoke to me, or to anyone.
At one point she was exercising with a ball and her trainer, and as I was taking pictures I tripped and fell on my back. She started to laugh a lot, at me.
I asked her, “Hey, are you mocking me?”
“YES!” she answered moving her head. We laughed together, looking at each other as I took more photos. We were suddenly more relaxed.
A penguin’s trip home
I went to the police rescue unit to take pictures of a Humboldt penguin, which is on the endangered list, that had been rescued a few days earlier from a beach full of bathers, very far from its natural habitat. The police chief told me, “We’re going to free it. Come with us.” Lima, Peru, is a city on the edge of the Pacific, with buildings and beaches full of summer tourists, traffic, noise and heat…and amidst all that, Tomas appeared.
Tomas was quiet and relaxed while awaiting his transfer to an island where there are entire colonies of his kind. The police rescuers took turns taking pictures with him and chatting about what penguins are all about. They named him Tomas after their cook at headquarters, because they both walked with the same gait.
Tomas provoked a child’s reaction in everyone, making them (and me) stop work to just watch a cute bird, take care of him, talk about him, and wonder how he had ended up on the beach. Tomas was restless and waddled all around the police station, giving me ample opportunity to take pictures.
We waited for the police to finish the paperwork for Tomas’ transportation and they put him into a patrol car. We went to a nearby beach to take a boat to San Lorenzo Island. By instinct Tomas only wanted to walk to the sea, mindless of the people and dogs all around.
The slow boat took three hours to the islands offshore Lima, famous for their colonies of birds, seals and fish. We searched for more penguins to leave Tomas with and found a group of his species where the rescuers decided that the mission had ended. Three of the police lifeguards who had taken a liking to Tomas escorted him in the water, watching him submerge and easily beat them to shore. We left him there, in the perfect natural habitat.
Surfing alpaca makes waves
Peruvian surfer Domingo Pianezzi hit the headlines in 2001 when he was photographed surfing with a dog on his board and again in 2008 after teaching a cat to surf. Now, photographer Pilar Olivares spends the day with him and his newest surfing companion, his alpaca Pisco.
Peruvian surfer Domingo Pianezzi carries his alpaca Pisco before entering the water at San Bartolo beach in Lima January 1, 2010. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
Pianezzi puts cotton in the ears of his alpaca Pisco before entering the water at San Bartolo beach. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
Pianezzi and his alpaca Pisco enter the water at San Bartolo beach. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
Pianezzi rides a wave with his alpaca Pisco at San Bartolo beach. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
Pianezzi and his alpaca Pisco fall while riding a wave at San Bartolo beach. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
Pianezzi and his alpaca Pisco run at San Bartolo beach. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
I can’t help but wonder: when people want so bad to be in the news, is it news?
Lucas
http://www.pictobank.com
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