Mine or no mine

Last night, a rather large multi-national mining company named Newmont came to Lari to give a presentation on what they wanted to do in Lari. Many might already know Newmont as the company which has the largest gold mine in the world which is located in Cajamarca, Peru. Because of this, I believe many of the community members already knew them as well to some extent. The informative meeting was supposed to alleviate any doubts or concerns the community members had about what the company would be doing. So, what exactly does the mining company want to do?

Well, apparently there are seven stages to mining. The first of which is sampling which Newmont has already completed in the targeted area. The second stage is exploration. According to the Newmont brochure I received, exploration is “the development of geological studies, geophysics and topography to determine the possible sites of mineral concentration.” This is the stage which Newmont would be performing over the next 6 months. The company does not need permission from the community to carry out this phase. However, I believe they tried to be respectable in case they needed to perform some more drastic tests in the future so they had this meeting.

Well the meeting was a complete and utter disaster for Newmont. Basically, they made a presentation on mostly the benefits of having them in town and kept on reinforcing that they would be socially responsible (to the tune of 25 soles a day for 8 hours of work of a community member, hmmmmm). Also, they explained the fact that this phase of work would not require permission, because it really did little harm to the land. Now, before the meeting I was informed that no one in the community wanted the mining company to do anything except the community president. After the meeting, I can confidently say that the information I received was 100% correct. Almost every community member expressed, rather fervently, his or her concerns to the mining company. It became more of a debate than anything. The thing I was confused about was why the mining company stayed for so long. It was rather clear the community wanted nothing to do with any sort of mining activity whether it was harmful or not.

It was rather difficult for me, because I knew I could not take part in this meeting. I could only be a spectator. Getting involved in such a meeting would probably leave me much too involved in the politics of the town. However, I am definitely against any sort of activities done by the company. First, supporting the company in their endeavors to do exploration would almost be like endorsing them for the stages to come. Second, the company can express their desires to fulfill their social responsibility. However, what is the one thing we all learn in business class? We learned that a company’s top priority is satisfying their stockholders, which means making profits. Unfortunately, that is what will always come first. So, yes they might provide some benefits to the community but probably the minimum. Third, if there is a mine here, the development will not be sustainable. The mine won’t be here forever and once it is gone, the community will be so used to the economic benefits the mine has produced, it won’t be able to produce any benefits for itself. Fourth, although a mine can do everything in its power to prevent pollution or accidents, there is still a great risk of something of the sort happening, and pollution is a major risk for an agricultural community.

So, clearly I have many problems with the whole idea of a mine here, haha. Last night was rather interesting to see though. I was surprised that no one in the community came around to the idea because of the economic benefits. Apart from that big news, my tourism association president is going to resign which will provide another large bump in the road, but thus is life here in peace corps. There are a heck of a lot of bumps, but we continue on nonetheless.

Puno/Cusco Post

So, this past week I went with my parents to puno and cusco, two definite must sees in Peru. Puno is located on the coasts of lake titikaka, the highest navigable lake in the world. In Puno, we ended up visiting the floating islands of the Uros. The uros people speak a language called aymara which is native to Peru. The floating islands were pretty cool but it seems to me that presently most of the people who live there are there for the tourism more than anything. There were just so many tourists visiting the islands, which kind of took the charm of the islands away. After visiting the floating islands, we traveled to an island called Amantani. Here there are about 11 communities, which have a total combined population of about 5,000. The communities on this island speak mostly quechua. The tour agency we booked through is using money they make from tours to build libraries in these communities, which I thought was pretty cool. So, we ended up being dropped off on the island and we ate lunch with our host family then went up to the library. We read a story or two to the kids there and then played games with them. After that we ended up climbing to the top of the mountain to see the sunset. Then, we ate dinner with our host families and spent the night there.

The thing that really surprised me about the families in the community was how much quechua they spoke. In my community most people will speak Spanish first instead of quechua. In these communities, the people spoke quechua first even the younger community members. Also, when we ate our meals, no one sat at the table with us even though they knew I could speak Spanish and some quechua. The families were incredibly conservative and timid in this respect. However, as usual, the people were very nice and hospitable.

From Puno we traveled to Cusco. Cusco reminded me of a Spanish town because it has very tiny streets in places. It’s a really beautiful town. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to spend in the city of Cusco. We ended up taking a tour of the Sacred Valley one day which was really beautiful, but as many will tell you, it’s overflooded with tourists. I’d say that’s the only draw back of Cusco. It’s kind of like the Peru show instead of the real Peru. When you travel you want to see the sites and at the same time get a feel for the culture of the country. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can really do this if you just visit Cusco even though its necessary to visit Cusco. The next day we woke up at about 445AM to wait for the bus up to Machu Picchu. The reason we woke up so early was because we wanted tickets to climb wayna picchu. The INC only allows 400 people a day to climb wayna picchu. When we arrived to Machu Picchu by bus, it was very cloudy. Therefore we opted for the 10AM tickets to climb wayna picchu instead of the 7am tickets. It was good that we did. Until about 9am it was raining and cloudy. After 9am, the sun started breaking through and cleared the sky up. The climb up wayna picchu was rather difficult because the steps were stones which were wet due to the rain earlier in the day. Also, some parts were so steep they had cables you could hold onto. However, everyone made it up to the top including my mom which surprised me haha. The view up top made the climb totally worth it. I think the most dangerous part of waynu picchu is the decent especially for people with huge feet like me haha. The stairs were about half the size of my feet haha. Machu Picchu was pretty amazing though. It’s just so big that pictures really don’t do it justice.

Puno/Cusco Pictures

machu picchu....wayna picchu...the one we climbed...is on the right...the bigger one
cool pic

steps to get up
at the top its just boulders and u have to slid down one haha

got the whole world in my hands


bus track up


machu picchu

llamass



it was really cloudy in the morning






where we ate lunch on tequile
titikaka at night



the town we stayed in
floating islands