- Horacio Ochoa, the photographer who captured Cusco like few others and whose legacy (for so long ignored) is reborn again
- Sarah Bernhardt, the diva who charged a fortune in silver soles to appear in Peru and paralyzed the capital after the war with Chile
Living in uncertainty. Not knowing if we will make it to the end of the day, to the end of the week, to the end of the month, if we will have to leave everything, if some hitman is going to shoot us or shoot my dad or my brother or sister. Not knowing if what we are going to sell at our kiosk or our stand is going to be enough for something at the end of the day. Not knowing if we are going to get sick or have an accident, far from any medical post where we will have to wait in line from five in the morning. Not knowing if it will take us less than three hours to get to work after taking a motorcycle taxi, a small bus and a bus or a train, going down from where we live. Knowing that even though there have been elections and there is a new government, in the best of cases the conditions will remain the same, at least for a long time. Not knowing if we will be able to vaccinate our children, if contributions to soup kitchens and parish associations will be enough.
LOOK: I read you like a book, by Irene Vallejo
Not knowing if we can find a job where there is a decent salary, minimum conditions, a productive relationship, if we can survive corruption, favoritism, the preferences of cliques or leaders. Not knowing if water will reach our neighborhood that depends on a tanker truck or not, from time to time, or if we will ever get used to living without water, without electricity, without drainage, without the minimum decent living conditions, like many Peruvians. Not knowing if the elections can ensure something new, or if life is a plane of meaningless facts, without reason, the design of a deranged god of history who plays dice, as in Vallejo’s poem. Playing not to lose hope, faith, knowing that a person or a family can live in the worst conditions but not without the minimum conviction that one day things can change. Having gone out to vote for someone and thinking that that person or that party or those ideas could be a farce, like when we place our faith in someone who betrays us, in a story defined by the traitors.
Uncertainty owes its empire in Peru to a history made of contradictions, fragmentation and division. Nothing is certain, everything is possible, a foreign friend once told me. That same motto, however, extends to the world today. The uncertainty of how the war in Ukraine and the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran will end, with the constant bombings in Lebanon, show no signs of ending. Peace agreements and talks are of little use. On the other hand, with global warming, signs of hot summers and warm winters, thanks to the burning of fossil fuels and the cutting down of trees, we do not know what will become of this planet.
And in Latin America, with new elections, the uncertainty of the poorest and most needy is the most urgent. Seeing the radical positions shown by politicians, one tends to think that the “future is no longer what it was.” I often remember the Andalusian saying that our beloved Alfredo Bryce repeated: “I went to the sea for oranges, something that the sea does not have. I put my hand in the water, my hope maintains it.”
