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Lessons from Peru on Third World Living, by Tantalum Tom
I hope this can be useful to people who want a perspective into the Third
World way of life. I recently had the chance to interview two people from Peru.
One is a man who grew up in the Andes with no electricity, dirt floors, etc.
who worked his
way to becoming a geography and history teacher. The other is a former Peruvian
Special Forces soldier of 15 years. My mother in law's input is also dispersed
throughout this article. Although I have little respect for modern reporters,
I found out how difficult it can be to interview someone.
When I first started probing into the Peruvian way of life, I was shown a series
of photos, They were of the Geography teacher's family making cheese, so I
will start with that.
In the true Latino way, after I had asked him many times to get a copy of the
photos so I could post them, and many affirmative responses, he never sent
them. He said yes to my face so he wouldn't offend me by saying “no.” I'm
not offended, I can see why he wouldn't want 178,000 people looking at them,
and I know its the Latino way. This is definitely a cultural difference. I've
seen
this occurrence hundreds of times. The first picture was his brother
squatting (no stool) next to a cow milking it. The cow's hind legs were tied
together so it wouldn't kick. No stall. This
was in the open. He was wearing Yanqii rubber “tire tread” cut
mining belt sandals.
Cheese is made every single day. There is no refrigeration for the milk available.
This is how he explained to me the cheese making process. I am not a cheese
maker, so I don't know the accepted modern way to do this. In fact, neither
does this mans family. They just know their way that they've used for the last
five centuries or more, and it works. It makes what they call “queso
fresco” or
fresh cheese. I know of no American supermarket version except in heavily Latino
areas.
The daily labor of cheese making, not including the milking, is about a half
an hour.
The first thing that is done, is the coagulant needs to be prepared. This is
not included in the half-hour, as it is something that is already set up and
renewed easily each day.
These mountain people take a pigs stomach, wash it, sew up one end, then stuff
with green banana peel, cut up limes, and some kind of leaf he doesn't know
the name of, until it is big and round. The empty spaces between the solid
ingredients are filled with the whey from the last cheese they made, or water
to start a new batch. The other end of the stomach is sewn up, and they smoke
it above their crude indoor fire pit for 7 months. When it is really reeallllyyyy
sour, it is ready. Every time they remove some, they replace it with whey.
Rennet
is what is being extracted from the pig stomach. Slowly these people are switching
to rennet pills, so this
way is being lost. The imported German pills come from a pharmacy where you
can buy anything you can afford, antibiotics, hypodermic drugs & needles,
etc. with little restriction.
They take some of this mixture ( I believe about 1/2 to 1 cup) and mix it with
their milk in a plastic bucket. It looked like a two gallon bucket. I noticed
that one of the buckets formerly contained latex paint. Buckets are extremely
useful with innumerable uses. They pay about three dollars for a used bucket.
(that's a lot for subsistence
farmers) About 15 minutes later,
the milk has solidified. It is broken up with their hands into small chunks,
then patted down to the bottom gently. The whey stays on top. It can be saved
to drink, but usually discarded after refilling the pig stomach. After the
whey is discarded, the remains are placed in a deep tray and broken up again
by hand until it is soft small balls, salt is added during this step. Next
it is stuffed into a mold for a few days, then smoked over their cooking fire
to dry and cure for a few more days. Cheese made like this, according to one
who lived it, is good for at least six months with no refrigeration.
In the village, the people are extraordinarily tight knit. They are as unified
as unified can be. Everyone knows everyone. I estimate it was a community of
about 200. Everyone helps who needs it. If you need a house built, just stake
out an area, and make some food! It will be up in a few days. Building codes?
Huh? The roofs are covered with a fiber-cement corrugated sheeting. He was
very proud to have it. It must be better than tiles. (Tiles are so old fashioned)
Nobody will hurt you anywhere in town. His anecdote was “If you'd just
had a drink, and wanted to take a nap, you could just lay down anywhere and
nobody would bother you.” People there are honest and trustworthy. The
very unfortunate part is that the youth are loosing their values and morals.
I personally attribute this to the television that infected his community 13
years ago.
In his tiny town there was no electricity until 13 years ago. It is hydroelectric.
He claims it is extremely clean. He said gas driven generators are nearly non-existent
(maybe at some mines or other large industrial complex) Photovoltaic is extremely
rare. How can we expect the poorest to use the most expensive (per watt hour)
electricity generating technology? Even the western world has trouble affording
it! The electricity powers street lights--I counted seven--indoor lights,
and televisions.
I was told that quite often people have their guinea pig farms indoors, in their
living/cooking/eating quarters with its accompanying filth. They have public
outhouses. They dig their pits about 4m deep. This place is blessed with a source
of clean water. They have water from a fresh spring across a small valley and
up a hill. No pump is needed to get the water to the public spring head, all
gravity. If it wasn't for their spring, they'd be boiling everything. According
to this man, and a couple other people, a populace can become accustomed to fetid
horrible water, and not get sick. They say a daily occurrence is to see simultaneous
deification, dead animals (probably including human), clothes washing, bathing
and drinking all in the same river! Yuck! I don't know their definition of “sick” though.
Strange though as this is, I find it more odd that they only drink bottled water
here in New Jersey, because the “pipes aren't safe” to them.
They grow all their own produce. Anything left is donkey driven to the nearest
town up to three days travel away. Natural is normal there. You either get your
food
from
your own garden, or at an open air farmers market in your town. Most farming
is manual.
Big farms as well as small. Horses and cows will plow, but there aren't any/many
horse drawn machines. Lots of different sized shovels and hoes are used. Mechanization
with tractors is only near cities. Nearly everything is produced locally and
consumed locally. According to this one source, he believes that more is produced
by hand and locally than mechanized and transported. I tend to agree, given everything
I've heard also. Flies are natural too, right? They crawl all over, and people
don't have screens on their windows or doors. Ignorance is quite prevalent. Not
stupidity though, that's different.
This man clearly stated that if there ever were some collapse, his city of
birth
would be absolutely fine, and wouldn't even notice the difference.
I showed him how to get a copy of the book “Where There is No Doctor” he
was excited and will send one to his village health worker. I also steered him
to
the Third World
Reference Library web site, but alas, we found it is mostly in
a
foreign language to him. He did note that some of the Spanish language literature
was
published by his alma mater. He had one eye that
opened farther than the other... He has been through a lot.
Horrible inflation lasted 2-3 years before
the currency changed twice. People starved to death. More and more money available,
prices climbing daily. People
hoarded commodities for days to weeks speculating to get a higher price. Logic
aside, that is what happened. People who paid for round trip passage somewhere
were denied the return trip, it had become too expensive. Oops, stuck.
If you think water-boarding is torture, listen up. Peru had internal terrorists,
they have been extinct for many years. The Terrorists would cut down power
poles, block roads, kill and create, well, terror. The terrorists
wanted a socialistic government. Both the geography teacher and the special
forces soldier understand that socialism has been tried many times and in many
countries,
and it doesn't work. The Peruvian Army and Fuerza
de Operaciones Especiales (FOES) special forces would fight them. They would also retrieve information
from the enemy in creative ways,
for example, they would have a person stretched out tied to a pole, laying
horizontal,
suspended some distance above the ground, slowly rotating over a fire until
they decided they would part with sensitive information, etc. They would also
kill
anyone and everyone associated with, including family, friends and acquaintances
of known terrorists. It worked. They had been dormant for a long time. They
may be on the rise again though. (not sure) Peru is also still dealing with
this
extremely high collateral damage, and I'm not sure if it continues today.
I can find next to nothing about the FOES online, even on Peruvian Google,
except the Youtube videos he showed me. Look up in YouTube “Comandos
Peruanos” and “FOES
Peruano” if interested in more. To be in the FOES, one had to show their
valor. They showed it by ripping open live dogs and eating their hearts and
livers raw/living. Hand-grenade hot-potato is a popular party game. Having
someone shoot
a machine gun between you and your comrade too. They are trained in martial
arts, knife fighting, etc. I know my cousin, a SEAL,
told me that they only use their
knifes to open MREs.
This Peruvian guy used them for much, much more. (My cousin also told me that
push ups cannot be made into an aerobic activity,
I figured
he'd done enough to know, so I had asked him. “We're still human,” he
said.)
Yeah, that ain't Politically Correct, as my friend Karl would say.
This person also worked for private security firm. He laid out to me how their
system worked. Sorry, but all the titles are in Spanish so when I translate
them, they will sound weird.
The first guy is called “gerente de recursos huamnos” or
Human Resources director.
He's in charge of the whole company.
Next they have one “Jefe de Seguridad” Security Leader.
He's in charge of everything security.
Below him are “Inspectores de Seguridad” Security inspectors.
These people have a zone they are responsible for, and they dispatch and are
in charge of their “vigilantes de seguridad” Security guards.
The security guards have a “full ration of weapons and ammunition”.
They are not allowed full power arms. Short barrel semi-auto hand guns and
shot guns. I'm not sure If they also water down the powder charge or not, but
they
can not have full powered military style weapons. Again, this is private security,
so people pay for these services. There is lots of shooting going on by these
guys. Rich people have electronic security systems linked to these “vigilantes.” Electric
fences and walls topped with electrified wires are good deterrents. The voltage
and amperage varies on your preference in cooked flesh: Zapped, Shocked, Lethal
or Char. Broken glass topped compound walls seem to be a worldwide safety
measure. Bars across doors are normal.
The official police are part of the delinquent gangs congregating on the corners.
The police beat people and abuse them other ways.
Taxes in Peru.
This is confirmed with at least three sources of small businesses.
If you earn $1,000 in your business, you pay $20 taxes. (2%!) Wages are not
taxed.
Low low property taxes.
Everything in Peru is repaired many times before it is replaced. A guy with
two lathes and a mill can make it quite well re-boring motorcycle cylinders.
A new
car there costs a lot more than repairing everything and painting
and upholstering. Like $1,000 to refurbish a car, versus $15,000 new! If the
part
isn't
available at a store,
you go and get it made. This applies to industrial machinery, commercial, everything.
He gets it that its the system here [in the US] that prohibits the refurbishing
of anything.
If you own land, but do not develop it, the extra poor will come and squat
on it. They will build their shanty towns out of woven palm-like leaves into
walls,
and fill up your space. If someday you get tired of it, and want to get rid
of them, just call the police and they'll burn it down and drive the people
away. They'll come back, and you'll burn it down again, until one side gives
up.
The military also corrupt. This guy was ordered to remove thousands of
bullets from their casings and to sell the brass for some commander. In fact,
when the
military was in charge of the whole country, it was openly corrupt, and unstable.
This is the cause of Peru's continued Third World status. Government corruption
and instability. They have plenty of natural resources, oil and minerals, gold,
et cetera. This man told me “we take it out of the ground, and form it
into rough ingots, then send it somewhere where they know what to do with it.” So
they could have a fully functioning economy, but they don't.
I wish I knew what to do to keep that from happening here. Nobody has any (legal)
answers as for what to do, besides get ready and get far far away.
