February 27, 2004
Chincheros, Peru
 

chincheros is a quiet little town. the biggest thing going on is "die burger", perhaps german in name... but pure peruano through and through. tv playing in the corner with espn futbol, and a woman cranking out hamburgesas over the propane stove ... fifty cents will get you big double burger with
all the trimmings. i'm in the heart of the peruvian sierra. these people speak quechua as their first language, the same native dialect that the incan people spoke, and that the indigenious peoples all through the andes mountains still primarily use.  as soon as you get out of the towns and into the countryside, people struggle to understand spanish--mostly it is the younger people that can speak both.

these are the people that led the shining path rebellion in the mid 80s and late 90s, and which
still rumbles in parts of peru from time to time. last year, two americans i knew through a friend were
burned alive in their tent while camping in these parts. but save for a slightly heavier representation
of the policia nacional, wandering around with automatic rifles, you would not know there was ever
trouble here.

it is the week of carnaval and the occasional group of revelers wanders through town later in the evening
banging on their drums and blowing their flutes. its nice here.

----

back in lima, things are in turmoil. the truckers are striking and the roads are blocked all up and down
the coast, and i suppose the major thoroughfares in other parts of the country as well. the government
here is proposing raising taxes on gasoline, and the locals are having none of it. it doesn't quite help
things that alejandro toledo, the president, is enjoying the worst ratings of any president in recent
memory-- just 7% approval. one realizes when one is here, how true it is that a president who is embattled
is ineffective at accomplishing anything. but alejandro seems hell-bent on his own destruction.

in perhaps the biggest misfire of his tenure, he is pressuring the japanese government to deport Alberto
Fujimori, the famous japanese ex-president of Peru. In surely one of the most bizarre political tales on
the planet, Fujimori, a man of japanese descent (though whether or not he was born in peru is a subject
of some debate) rose to power in the early 90s and eventually became president of Peru. Yes... it struck me as odd too, that a latin-american nation which one would normally think of as fiercely national... in politics as well as culture, would elect a man of japanese ancestory, and dubious peruvian birth.

but it only begins there. towards the end of his term, ensnarled in his own scandal, Fujimori boarded an
airplane one morning and fled the country... to japan where he lives now. not only that, but he absconded
with an enormous sum of money at the same time. miraculously, once in japan, it turns out that Fujimori
spoke perfect Japanese... whereas when in Peru he only seemed to manage the halting dialect of a kid who picked up a little around the dinner table. and so, you might think, that for Toledo to seek the
extradition of Fujimori from the Japanese (which they seem unwilling to do) would be a welcomed event--
but you would be wrong. In an ironic display of the selectiveness of public political memory,
Fujimori is instead remembered as presiding over one of the best economic periods of recent Peruvian
history. Things were good here when he was in power. And now people are calling for him to seek re-election.

Many of the people i talk to here in Peru think he would win if he were to run.

And so.. Toledo scrambles furiously to have him extradited and tried as a criminal before re-election time.

hmmm yes, a pretty picture... but more a symbol of christianity's incredible pervasiveness, even in the incan-quechuan culture where few people speak spanish as a first language... they are overwhelmingly catholic.