Shereef’s Kiva Blog

Posts Tagged ‘shereef zaki’

With only three weeks remaining in my Kiva Fellowship, I have begun to pay an exceptional amount of attention to the unnoticed loose threads of life in Chiclayo. I believe that the potential people have for adaptation has the unfortunate consequence of casting the exceptional into the molds of the acceptable. Establishing normalcy sometimes means overlooking noteworthy idiosyncrasies, especially in urban landscapes with an endless source of … quirks.

I have photographed a series of them below and written descriptions for each – just click on the photo.

I decided to name this post ‘the apothecary’ because their presence has been the most ubiquitous and consistently disregarded as ‘normal.’ But honestly this must be totally unique: having carts with mortars & pestles, elixirs, herbs and steaming vats that can be used and combined into any kind of panacea on request, located at every street corner after sundown.

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10.17.09 – the apothecary

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One of my first posts was titled ‘recession proof’’ in which I described the resilience of micro-businesses and the integrity of micro-lending. This time around, I want to detail a theme I had only painted with large brushstrokes.

Although EDPYME Alternativa’s borrowers are scattered throughout the region, I live in Chiclayo and it has become the backdrop and the context of my life. To me, one of the most fascinating parts of this small city is the dearth of big box stores. In their absence exists a constant buzz of small-scale commerce.

Let me describe this vibrant economic landscape. In the center of the city, around the main plaza, there is a mixture of restaurants and shops devoted to clothing and electronics (especially cell phones). As one ventures further from the center, the streets become organized by economic themes.

Although that string of stores on Cuglievan is far less efficient than Home Depot, it encourages competition, diversity of selection and keeps more people employed. One of the strangest paradoxes of a modern economy is the contradiction of scale: with efficiency at a large scale less people can do more. Progress becomes self-defeating if people do not have the jobs and incomes to keep on buying from the big box stores!

The hectic flow of social and economic interactions in Chiclayo keeps people interacting with one another, asking for advice and building a community. And on a personal level, it is way more fun to walk through high energy markets and themed streets asking where to find that one little thing than to navigate down the well-marked aisle 3.

*King Kong is the most rich dessert imaginable: a layer of thick caramel, a layer of candied fruit preserves (generally pineapple) and a layer of cake – cut into rectangles, circles or squares

After nearly six weeks in the flat and material city of Chiclayo I could not wait to get to the mountains of Arequipa. My pre-Foromic excitement spilled over into hasty decision making as I gazed longingly at the 19,000+ ft active volcano, Mistí, that towers above ‘the White City.” It was almost too easy: my hostal had a private guide, a young fun Swiss couple wanted to hike the next day, and I thought to myself ‘why not?’

If only I had thought to actually answer that question. I had been at sea level just the previous evening and 36 laid-back hours later I set off with my companions and a full pack of gear (tent, pad and all). Hiking in the Andes does not compare to the Rockies. There are no switchbacks, no markers and no explicit (or even marked) trail.

Instead one finds the directional efficiency of steep uphill gradients quickly elevating a path of suggestions known exclusively to the guide (Hugo) and assumed by the rest. We weaved through golden fields of tall grass, this being the arid dry season, and wild brush with explosively bright orange and yellow flowers all around us. At every rest the scent of chamomile and a hundred other unidentifiable herbs overwhelmed me.

The fields yielded to the gnarled volcanic rock that always seemed to be on the edge of the vertical horizon. But upon arrival, another crag rose right up to the next vertical horizon. And eventually the rock succumbed to the vast gray sand dunes of ash that one literally must trudge up to set up camp.

We pitched our tents a thousand meters below the cone with a tremendous view of the landscape below — valleys, gorges and more mountain chains in every direction. Every once in a while we heard explosions, but Mistí has been asleep for about 400 years. It turns out that the sound of bundled dynamite exploding in the mines some 100 kilometers away has an unobstructed acoustic path straight up the slopes of the volcano.

And then came the altitude sickness. I could not stand without shaking or walk without stumbling. I vomited. I even lost the strength to eat soup. Along the climb up I used coca lozenges (oh so tasty) to mitigate the effects and Hugo gave me some coca leaf to chew – all of which resulted in my heart thundering to the point that I could not sleep.

So I stayed on my back, but somehow remained happy and alert all the while. Hugo and I shared a tent and had the most interesting conversation about the evolution of culture, adaptation versus advancement regarding the integration or annihilation of knowledge, and the nature of a shrinking world that made the concept of ‘private’ knowledge a form of philosophical arrogance. Somehow, altitude sickness dulled my body while sharpening my mind.

At 2 am, Hugo and my Swiss friends left for the summit. I decided to keep trying to sleep, especially as my motor skills continued to evade me. I woke up around 7:30 and felt fantastic, but when they returned at 8:30 there was not enough time for me to ‘conquer’ the peak. I took it as a lesson that the journey’s importance supersedes that of the destination - and destination’s finality is nothing more than a stubbornly persistent illusion. Joyfully, I embraced the walk, hike, hop, slide down to our 4×4.

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10.10.09 - destination’s finality

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