Working the fields

The hotel I went to after I left Inca Wasi is owned by a aunt of Roger´s. I paid five dollars a night for a pretty nice en-suite room with television right in the city centre on Apurimac street near the main market. It was comfortable and clean, but the street outside was dangerous at night.



At Huacariz we started off by hiring labourers to dig up all the weeds which covered the fields where we wanted to sow our Alfalfa. We only paid them ten soles (about three U.S dollars) a day to do this. Although ten soles is a typical wage in Peru I still feel bad about doing that because it´s clearly exploitative. Even in such a poor area three dollars doesn´t buy much, it´s not a proper wage. But many businesses cannot afford to pay any more than that and still make a profit. Ironically Inca Wasi only paid it´s staff ten soles a day also. Charity doesn´t extend to the local adult staff, only to the children.

We began to encounter out first problems quite early in the process. The ploughing of the fields was delayed as we tried to find someone able to do it. The local University has a large agricultural department and we were able to hire a tractor, plough and someone to drive it for us. But the guy wasn´t available to work until the following week but he was working on another job. Then unexpected bad weather forced us to wait another few days and we found ourselves behind schedule. But this was typical of the type of frustating problems and delays which we encountered during the project. The rickety old tractor (which must have been about fifty years old I would say) eventually came along and finished the job of ploughing the fields (much to our relief).

Next we bought a large amount of industrial chemical fertilizer. Roger, myself, Mallaneo and a farmhand spread the fertilizer on the fields with our bear hands, stupidly without wearing any gloves. It was hard work on a very hot day though. I got badly sunburnt on my face and neck after I left my sombrero at home.

I think that my oversized sombrero made me one of Cajamarca´s most eccentric residents at that time. The only other people who wore sombreros were Quechua speaking peasants (campesinos) who travelled into town to sell their produce at the markets. The women in particular look wonderful in their distictive brightly coloured clothing (luminous pink, yellow or turqoise skirts with white blouses and green or brown skirts and a sombrero on top). But people who lived in the city all wore western style clothing most people wore jeans, lawyers and businessmen wore suits etc. They thought that sombreros were only for poor uneducated peasants who worked in the fields all day. I was the only person to combine the campesino style and the western style. In truth I probably looked ridiculous. But the sombrero did a good job of protecting me from the harsh sun, and got me a lot of attention which I enjoyed a lot. èrhaps my look also caused people to let their guard down around me and to dismiss me as a harmless eccentric instead of questioning me more deeply on what I was doing in Cajamarca and why I spent so much time out in Huacariz with Roger. My appearance allowed me to ´get away with it´on occasions.