A House with a View: Poverty in the Andes
ANDAHUAYLILLAS, PERU- The view from the front door is spectacular. Dilmer’s home is nested in the ascending mountainous terrain on the outskirts of the Andean village of Andahuaylillas. From this vantage point you can see the adobe roofs in the valley below, the church steeple in the town plaza and the small plots of farmland bordering the town center. In the distance you can see the Urubamba River, which eventually runs into the Amazon. Off in the distance a snowcapped mountain is visible. Certainly there are people who would shell out big bucks for such a scenic view.
However, Dilmer’s house is not a mansion, nor a quixotic storybook cottage. It looks more like archaic pre-Inca ruins. The walls, constructed of stones and mud, look ready to cave in. The wooden door is warped with age and the cold sierra nights. Cactuses grow along the low stonewall surrounding the house. Clothing hangs on a laundry line in the front yard.
The stark contrast between natural geographical wealth and impoverished living conditions is striking.
Poverty was listed as one of the three most pressing issues President Alan García should address in his final year in office, according to a survey published by El Comercio. President García’s approval rating is just 30 percent nationwide. It is even lower here in southern Peru at just 19 percent, and that is actually a 4 percent improvement from earlier in the year. Poverty, unemployment, poor management of the economy and corruption are the leading reasons Peruvians in Andean towns like Andahuyalillas say they disapprove of the García administration.
The complexity of poverty reduction is apparent when you visit Dilmer’s house.
Dilmer is five years old. He attends the local Waldorf school Wawa Munakuy for children from disadvantaged households. He is shy and has yet to say a word to the other children in the kindergarten. His nose is always running and he always has a cough. His cheeks are dry and raw and his hands are rough and cracked.
Dilmer is one of six children born to campesino (rural farmer) parents. His mother and father are both in their early thirties. They grow potatoes and corn in their chacra (small farm). The work is seasonal, because of course there are months were there are no crops to sow or harvest or years when heavy rains and freezing temperatures harm the crops. The mother and father are both native Quechua-speakers, but both have learned sufficient castellaño to carry on a conversation.
There is a large age gap between the children. The oldest daughter has her own child now and lives with the father of her baby. The youngest is just eight-months-old. Only four of the siblings currently live in the small home overlooking the town (one lives with relatives). It’s a good thing that no more live in the house, because the one-room-house is hardly fit for six people, let alone eight.
I recently visited the house to deliver winter blankets purchased with the money donated by an NGO based in Vermont. The Wawa Munakuy kindergarten bought four think blankets with the donation, one for each child, to help combat the frigid winter nights in the Andes Mountains.
My heavy breathing and footsteps were the only audible sounds as I walked uphill on the dirt road that leading to Dilmer’s house. Dilmer’s mother walked alongside me carrying her baby in a qepi, a large colorful blanket used by the Andean women to carry small loads. Dilmer’s mother dresses in the traditional campesino woolen skirt and sweater with her long black hair in neat braids and topped with a bowler hat.
When I arrived at the house, Dilmer’s father was waiting outside for us with a flashlight. We walked in the front door and what I saw caused a lump to form in my throat and initiated a spike of adrenaline that made my mind spin. The house does not have electricity. The house was dark with the exception of a little moonlight that came in through the open door and the beam of light omitted by the flashlight. Despite limited vision, I saw enough to comprehend the living situation.
The house has a dirt floor. There is little furniture, only the bare essentials. There is only one bed for all to share covered by thin blankets. The windows are square holes cut into the wall with fabric draped over them to block the night air. The house was uncomfortably cold.
Dilmer’s family is not the poorest in the village. There are families living in harsher conditions. The more you ascend the mountain and farther away you walk from the village center, the more dilapidated the homes and the more arduous the lifestyles of the campesinos become.
After I visited Dilmer’s home I spoke with women in the village about the paucity of living essentials in the Andes and how the government could begin alleviating poverty in the region. The women explained to me that the first step is to educate women like Dilmer’s mother about sex and birth control. She pointed out that Dilmer’s mother is only 33 and already has six children and could easily continue to have children for ten more years. With their limited income, it is impossible for the parents to provide for their children. The children are malnourished and do poorly in school because they cannot concentrate. The children end up dropping out of school to work just so that they can eat properly. Most wind up working in chacras or similar menial labor jobs. They have children young or with multiple partners and the situation continues and exasperates.
Dilmer’s case exemplifies the complexity of poverty reduction in the Andes. In his final year in office, President García can improve existing social programs or perhaps create a few simple educational campaigns, but it will be impossible to create a multidimensional plan of attack to reduce poverty. Charity, educational campaigns, accessible and affordable health facilities, social programs, microfinance organizations, social initiatives, internal price regulation, and international trade agreements all influence the poverty rate in the Peruvian Andes. Poverty reduction will be the greatest challenge for the subsequent president. Voters, in the mountains, along the coasts, in Cusco, in the Amazon and in Lima, should keep this in mind in October when they head to the polls. Equitable development is key to sustainable development. Peru is currently teetering on the fine tightrope between being a first world nation and a third world country. Reducing the socio-economic gap will be crucial in determining on which side of the line Peru falls.
