Tag: Peru

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Misc.

FIFA Bans High-Altitude Matches

Disappointing news for Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia: FIFA says no more international soccer games above 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) in altitude. So much for the legendary home field advantage courtesy of the rarefied Andean air.

BBC News:

Football’s governing body, Fifa, has banned international matches from being played at more than 2,500m (8,200ft) above sea level.

Fifa said the decision was made because of concerns over players’ health and possible distortion of competition.

The ruling was greeted with dismay in Latin America, notably in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where games in La Paz are played at 3,600m (11,811ft).

Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales, vowed to lead a campaign against the ban.

Speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting, Mr Morales said the ruling amounted to discrimination.

“This is not only a ban on Bolivia, it’s a ban on the universality of sports,” he told reporters.

Mr Morales also said he would send a high-level delegation to Fifa’s headquarters in Zurich and called on other countries to join his campaign.

And for Spanish readers out there, here’s a story in Hoy Online, a daily paper in Quito, Ecuador, with the reaction from the mitad del mundo.

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Misc.

Carpe Manana

The BBC News’s Kathryn Westcott:

At noon on the dot, punctuality will make its debut in Peru. Lateness will be a thing of the past, or so its government hopes.

Sirens will blare and church bells will ring to remind 27 million Peruvians to synchronise their clocks with time set by the Peruvian Navy.

Fed up with the nation’s reputation for poor time-keeping, the government is promoting the benefits of being on time in a campaign called “la hora sin demora”, or “time without delay”.

Businesses, government institutions and schools will be urged to stop tolerating “hora peruana” – which usually means about an hour late.

President Alan Garcia is renowned for his good timekeeping, and he believes that the laissez-faire attitude of his countrymen harms national productivity and deters foreign investors.

The concept of “manana,” literally “tomorrow” in Spanish but usually meaning some indefinite time in the future, is common to Latin America.

Its nations often score badly in global surveys on punctuality. Time is seen in a much less rigid way than in for example North America and more industrialised countries.

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Misc.

Eating Guinea Pigs in the Andes — and America

Chancho en la Chimenea

Guinea pigs: they’re not from Guinea and they’re not pigs.

Discuss.

But seriously:

The CSM’s Chip Mitchell:

Guinea pig: It’s what’s for dinner in Peru – and the US: Farmers in Peru boost their income by exporting guinea pigs to immigrants in the US.

I tried this special dish on a couple of occasions when I lived in Ecuador — the Spanish word is cuy (pronounced coo-ee). Doesn’t taste like chicken. Tough. A bit oily. But maybe my own particular issue was that as I munched on those tiny drumsticks I couldn’t help but picture Betty, my late, great, beloved pet, whose lustrous coat I used to groom lovingly with an old toothbrush when I was but six years old….

Previously: Ecuadorian Soup in The New Yorker.

For what it’s worth, in the photo above, that’s not, in fact, cuy I was cooking with my Ecuador friends Mike F. and Angelica last year…

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Misc.

Google Quechua

Thanks to Google Quechua, Indigenous people in the Andes can now search the Web in their native tongue.

Economist:

Estimates of the prevalence of Quechua vary widely. In Peru, there are thought to be 3m to 4.5m speakers, with others in Bolivia and Ecuador. The language has long been in slow decline, chiefly because the children of migrants to the cities rarely speak it. But it is now getting a lot more attention.

In recent months, Google has launched a version of its search engine in Quechua while Microsoft unveiled Quechua translations of Windows and Office. Demetrio Túpac Yupanqui, who last year translated “Don Quijote” into Quechua, recalls that a nationalist military government in the 1960s ordered that the language be taught in all public schools. It didn’t happen, because of lack of money to train teachers. By law its official use—and bilingual education—is now limited to highland areas where it is predominant.

After spending a year in Ecuador, I can tell you this: I know precisely two words of Quechua, both of which have made their way into everyday Ecuadorian parlance (at least in the sierra): 1) “chuchaqi” (which means hungover), and 2) “cha-chai” (which means cold).

Related oldie-but-goodie: Ecuadorian slang.

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Misc.

Bolivia, Evo Morales, and Market-Dominant Minorities

According to the NYT’s Juan Forero, coca-legalization proponent and indigenous coalition leader Evo Morales just might become the next president of Bolivia.

The election of Morales in Bolivia would represent the triumph of indigenous groups over the minority white elite ruling class — as well as the rejection of what’s viewed as American imperialism and the encroachment of globalization on poor people’s lives throughout the southern Andes.

This monumental shift, should it reach fruition, would mirror the central thesis of Amy Chua’s prescient tome “World On Fire”: that the world’s so-called “market-dominant minorities” — the wealthy whites, in the case of Bolivia — become enriched by globalization while the poor majority indigenous population becomes increasingly destitute and disenfranchised. Class tensions, in this scenario, are exacerbated; violence erupts.

The ascent of Morales in Bolivia, if it happens, may signal a sea change in Andean politics. Only time will tell; could Peru and Ecuador, which also have sizeable Indian populations, be next?