B-52s and Village People

Oh yeah, they are alive and well and coming to Lima. Boo yaa!

I find myself at the end of another month here in Peru, the last weeks of which I have spent in the grand city of Lima. But not only in Lima, the neighborhood of Los Olivos, which is an up-and-coming neighborhood (at least parts of it) on the outskirts of the city where lots of folks from Huaraz and other highland provinces land. Still though a far cry from the lush, gentrified oceanfront communities of Miraflores and Barranco where I usually stay while in Lima. And I must admit I was purdy darn scared a few nights ago when I arrived well past curfew, without my cell (second one lost in as many weeks) and no way to get into where I was staying without waking up the whole apartment building! Finally the guard, after calming his dogs which were on the point of attack (there was not a rock in sight) and admonishing me for wandering around after hours, talked some sense into me saying, just ring the bell and ask their forgiveness because you cannot stay out here! I have since embraced living in Los Olivos as it gives me a broader view of the city (via the two hour bus rides) and has a nice neighborhood feeling...at least until dark.

I was in Lima for two weeks full of conferences on water, climate change and indigenous communities and have been bouncing between various different conferences on any given combination of the three themes, with none of them saying much of anything interesting. I did enjoy watching the environment minister speak (Peru has just created an environment ministry this year), but otherwise like any other conference, it was mostly useful in terms of networking. I met another environmental anthropologist who has worked in Ancash as well as Peruvian doctoral students (a rare find) working in hydrology and climate. As one can imagine, apart from economics the social sciences were not represented, but hopefully I can change in the coming months.

In other news, I will be extending my stay in Peru through February or March of next year at least. A large comparative NSF project is picking up Copa as one of their three sites which gives me a few months of funding outside of my Fulbright-Hays to continue research that will benefit both my dissertation and my CV. I will be coming back for two short trips in the fall however, one to celebrate the wedding of D. and A. in September, and then again to present at the first Millennium Conference of the Ecological Society of America and as part of a double panel at the American Anthropological Association meeting in Philadelphia (get ready L.!!) in November, just in time to catch my favorite season.