First you need to build a ‘House’. It doesn’t need to be a palace!

If you travel around Peru, especially by bus, you will see many little huts in the deserts. It is easy to see that no-one really lives in them, so what are they for? Well the answer is simple – you are looking at a land invasion.

In Peru much of the land between the big cities is empty and belongs to the state.  When you look at it you wouldn’t think that anyone would want to live there because most of it is just desert.

In Peru, the laws allow someone to start living on empty land, to try and farm it for example. When they have been on that land for 10 years they can demand the government begins to supply them with services, like electricity and water.

But Peruvians can build a wall around some land and build a small house just to claim the land, knowing that if they wait they can eventually get water and electricity and start to build a new village and irrigate the land. Once this process starts the land starts to become valuable.

Land invasions - how to get your own piece of Peru!

Some of these land invasions are very well organised, with the houses laid out in a grid patter, with streets and some even have signs telling you the name of the new town!

So now you know when you see them, that these little boxes in the dessert will one day be farms and villages.

Papea Peru - Potatoes for Patriots!

In Peru the Ministery of Agriculture has launched a campaign to encourage people to eat more potatoes. This is both a nutritious choice and a patriotic act! With the massive increase in the cost of imported wheat and other cereals in the last year people in Peru found that the price of bread went up about 40%. In poorer parts of Peru this is a real problem because there is the risk of children not getting enough nutrition if the food is too expensive. The Peruvian response was creative as usual and the shops were soon selling ‘Papapan’, literally Potato Bread.

When I was last in Peru I tried some of this bread and it was nice, it is quite soft and tastes good, it is not pure potato but is a mix of wheat flour and about 30% mashed potato and tastes like French bread but has more iron. It would be nice to buy here in the UK.

Scientists believe that potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes about 8,000 years ago and there are now over 4,000 varieties (a few more than you will find in a british supermarket!) which allow potatoes of one kind or another to be grown in the very varied environments, high up in the mountains, in the valleys in dry or wet environments.

As well as proving a valuable source of nutrition for Peruvians and other Andean this incredible variety of potatoes could help feed people all around the world in very different climates where other crops would have problems.

The ‘Papea Peru’ campaign not only encourages people to eat potatoes but reminds them that it is good for their pockets and their country, as more demand for potatoes means more money for communities that produce them. ‘Papea’ is a slang word meaning ‘eat’ like English people say ‘scoff’ that actually comes from the word Papa, meaning potato. So it has a double meaning, both ‘Eat Peruvian’ and ‘Peruvian Potatoes’ – it doesn’t translate so easily. In the television commercials people from different walks of life say ‘Este Pechito Come Papa’, this is also slang, literally translating as ‘This chest eats potato’ which is what you would say while patting your chest to show you mean yourself, like if you were saying ‘I was the one who thought of that!’ so it means they are proudly saying  ’I eat potato’!

In this video you will see people who eat potato – including in our modern society a ‘Gringo’ immigrant with his wife and baby!

You can see they have Pastel de Papa (a savoury potato cake), mashed potato, and a Peruvian favourite called Papa Rellena (a ball of potato stuffed with meat).

There is a lot of word play going on here, but the translation is something like. “Potatoes are nutritious and eating well  is good. Put potatoes on your Plate – Papea Peru!”

The Peruvian Economy is benefitting from strong exports with trade agreements with the USA, Canada and China. Peru exports a lof of minerals, and agricultural produce such as the asparagus in many UK supermarkets and now with a better political situation foreign companies are investing as well. Other products include coffee, cotton, rice, potatoes, plantains and fish. Exports grew by 25% in 2007.

The Peruvian economy has been very bad in the past. During the 1970s many foreign companies were seized, there was protectionism, price controls and many succesful companies were nationalised and became inefficient. Then the terrorism of the Shinig path caused terrible disruption and destroyed communities and made people flee towards the cities leaving those behind in poverty. In the 1990s this began to change.

With this increase in business activity unemployment is falling and  there are many talented Peruvians available for building businesses, these people cannot always find suitable work so you can find taxi drivers with a degree but for investors this means they will have a capable work force that is keen to work.  The Peruvian government is also encouraging Peruvians who are living abroad to go back to Peru and start businesses with tax incentives and grants.

Peru also benefits from its investments in hydroelectricity, because of its many mountains dams have been built to generate power and provide Peru with neary 75% of it’s electricity which also helps Peru to be more self sufficient. The rest comes maninly from fossil fuels as Peru has oil and also imports fossil fuels, but there is no nuclear power. With its long coastline wind and wave power may be possible in the future.

So even though there is still some bad poverty in some of Peru’s remote communities and around the cities, the future looks good and the ‘crisis’ is not something that you will hear much about in conversations. Peru has got a positive attitude despite it’s problems and a ‘we can do it’ spirit. Maybe that attitude would help here in the UK as well.

Peruvian Style hats on sale in the street in Southampton

I have noticed many people this year wearing traditional style Peruvian hats. In Peru we call the hats  ‘Chullos’, pronounced like ‘Chul-Yoes’.

In Peru they are often very colourful, as traditionally people living in the Andes liked to have bright and cheerful colours in their clothes. People in the UK prefer more subtle colours and these hats are in darker and plainer colours but are still very like the Peruvian hat you would see in the mountains.

Of course in Peru we have woollen hats mainly made from alpaca wool, which is still produced in the traditional way with heard of alpaca in the mountains. The wool is then dyed and knitted with patterns like llamas, flowers and traitional patterns. You can buy these in the markets for a good price (even the ‘tourist price’ is good value). Hand made hats and gloves are common but they also make them with machines too. You can tell by how fine the knitting is. If you go to Peru alpaca hats, gloves, scarves or even a poncho make great affordable gifts - they are very warm! I bought some gloves for people here in the UK last time I went to Peru and they were pleased to have them for the winter. Also you will be supporting the local people and economy, which does not always benefit from the big hotel and tour companies.