Covid in Cusco: Week 17

Sunday, 5 July, 2020

Today I woke up in a tent, in the middle of the Huchuy Qosqo Inca archeological site. Last night was a full moon and it really was a magical experience to see such an important Inca site lit up by moonlight as if it were daytime.

For breakfast today, the same kid from a nearby farm brought over boiled potatoes, hard boiled eggs and a thermos of hot water. The Inca didn’t have chicken eggs, or anything like the cheese that we had brought with us, but they certainly ate boiled potatoes here. The family had sent a mix of several varieties, each potato about the size of a golf ball. Some were yellow, some a deep purple, some white with a pink center and several other varieties and color variations. 

Dinner had been exactly the same: eggs, potatoes and cheese. Partly, it was easier to buy food from nearby farms than to carry our own. Partly, we wanted to support local families in any way that we could. Times are very hard here and even though we don’t have enough donations to have a Covid Relief Project event every weekend, I do want to find a way to help out whenever possible.

After exploring the ruins some more, we headed down to Lamay. The trail from Patabamba the day before had been mostly downhill, with some gentle uphill parts. Today, the trail was a solid downhill and some parts were pretty steep.

Huchuy Qosqo was much easier to get to, and much closer to Cusco, than I had expected. I’ll write a separate blog about the hike with more information about how to find the trail and get to and from Cusco. It’ll be with my other Peru blogs on heatherjasper.com

Monday, 6 July, 2020

This is the first Monday in a long time that I haven’t gotten up for work. I’m considering July vacation, since I got laid off last week and there really aren’t many job options for me now. I’ll start looking for work to start in August, but for now, I can focus on the Covid Relief Project and enjoy not having to work online four hours every day.

I slept in, then finished unpacking my backpack and put all my dusty clothes in the laundry. The dry season is perfect for clear nights of full moon and sunny days, but it also makes every trail very dusty. There are so many treks here that I would love to do before I find another job, but I have to be sure that any communities in the area will let us through before I head out.

The Huchuy Qosqo didn’t take me through any communities that have walled themselves off, but many isolated communities have. Like our visit to Perolniyoc on June 27th, many places have roadblocks and checkpoints created by the families that live there, to protect themselves from outsiders. 

A week ago, where we met the families of T’astayoc, I saw the glacial stream that every family in the community uses for drinking and washing. None of them have a well, much less tap water in their home. If Covid started to spread in their community, it would be a disaster. They don’t have any access to a hospital, clinic or even a pharmacy. I am sure that some of the places I want to go would be off limits to me, as a person coming from Cusco.

In Cusco, a lot has changed in the past week, since quarantine officially ended. From March 16th to June 30th, we were only allowed to leave our homes to buy food or get medical help. Up to the beginning of June, we had a 6pm curfew, which later changed to 9pm. Also, nobody was allowed to leave their homes on Sunday, except for medical emergencies. The curfew was strictly enforced by both police and military, although the first offense was just a few hours or a day in jail, depending on how badly curfew was broken. My former housemate Andrea was threatened with arrest by several police on patrol when she took the trash out at 11pm. She quickly ran inside and locked the door behind her and thankfully, they didn’t insist. They got what they wanted after all: she never broke curfew again, not even to take the trash to the curb.

For months I always had my Peruvian permanent resident ID card with me and was always ready with a story of where I was going to buy food, where I lived and why I was out of the house. It was nerve wracking but I do appreciate the results. Nobody in Cusco died in April or May. The only Covid-19 deaths in March were tourists who arrived too sick to go home before they passed away. The handful of deaths in June were people who had come to Cusco from Lima.

Technically, there was no transportation during the quarantine, although obviously there must have been some because supply chains stayed open. Despite the strange obsession with toilet paper in the US, I have never seen a store in Cusco run out of toilet paper. It’s been hard to get good coffee and the specialty chocolates that are usually sold to tourists, but we haven’t really had shortages in Cusco. There was a week when nobody had butter or flour, which led me to assume that I wasn’t the only one stress-baking.

Besides transportation of food, they were very, very strict about anybody traveling between towns. When Henry and I took food to Yaurisque on May 16th, the military didn’t want to let us back in Cusco, even though the mayor of Yaurisque himself was driving us and explained that we were doing humanitarian aid. The same happened on June 6th, when Auqui and I took food to the communities of Sut’uc-Pacchaq, even though the Urubamba police were driving us in an official police vehicle and we had permits from the national police to travel from Cusco to Urubamba and back for that day. Transportation was starting to come back when we took food to T’astayoc and Perolniyoc and the mayor of Ollataytambo said that we didn’t need permits from the police to travel to and from Ollantaytambo. We still hid in the back of the truck at the police checkpoints, relieved that the police never checked the cargo.

As stressful as it may have been for me to be so restricted in only being able to go buy food and get medical help, it would have been much more stressful to have lived through a real outbreak. Being nervous in the streets because there is such a heavy police and military presence is definitely not the same as being nervous in the streets because a high percentage of the population has Covid. Cusco has still been relatively unscathed, compared to many cities in the world and even many cities here in Peru.

I still feel safe in Cusco and I am still glad that I stayed here. The US Embassy facilitated lots of repatriation flights between March 20th and April 20th. Since then there are still some flights that US citizens can get on to go back to the US, although they are very restricted and the US Embassy will only grant transit passes to the air base in emergencies. All of the commercial airports closed on March 15th and have not reopened. All humanitarian or repatriation flights in and out of Peru go from the Group 8 Air Force Base in Callo, next to Lima.

Like most people around the world, when we went into quarantine and total lockdown on March 16th, I never expected that it could possibly last this long. The longest I could imagine it perhaps lasting was into May. 

Back in March, besides epidemiologists, did anybody in the world think that this would go on so long?

Tuesday, 7 July, 2020

When I was working, I used to check the news, between emails. I have a fairly low tolerance for bad news, so I kept it to a minimum, and only when I had to be on the computer for work anyway. Now that I’m unemployed, I realize that I haven’t checked the news since I was laid off.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find any good news today. Instead, it looks like my country is still falling apart at the seams. I don’t see any reason for the Black Lives Matter movement to slow down on the protests and activism until we see police forces defunded and until we are able to have elections and vote out more racists and vote in more Black and POC leaders. I also don’t see the disaster in DC changing until after the November election and hopefully a different president being sworn in next January.

In the meantime, the current administration in DC is still wrecking havoc both nationally and internationally. “Wrecking havoc” is putting it lightly, but I’m trying to keep this blog at least somewhat G Rated.

What I saw today that scared me the most was that the US is withdrawing from the WHO. How in any alternate universe, could this possibly be a good idea in any way? I don’t care what the criticisms of the WHO are in normal times, or how many different structural changes are needed in the organization. We are in the middle of a global pandemic! 

It may be wishful thinking to say that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. It is entirely possible that we are still at the beginning of a global pandemic. I’m trying to imagine communities like T’astayoc managing to not have any virus exposure until a vaccine is not only created, but globally available. If the virus does get to their community before everybody in Peru is vaccinated, how bad will it be? Will the death rate be as low as in many other high altitude communities? Can they keep themselves isolated until Peru has enough doses of vaccine to actually protect them? What will they eat between now and then? How long can they survive on the food that I took to them a week and a half ago and whatever they can grow? Will they have to eat all of their alpacas? 

Tourists will come back, eventually. We do have Machu Picchu. The questions is, how long will it take and how will people survive between now and then? Can all of these isolated, indigenous communities high in the Andes go back to subsistence farming and survive with their potatoes, quinoa and alpaca? If they have to eat all of their alpaca, how will they have wool to make alpaca scarves and sweaters to sell to tourists? Will they need all of that wool for themselves, since it will be so dangerous to go down to town to buy clothes?

The problem of everything being so unknown and unknowable is global. The unemployment crisis is global. The travel restrictions and isolation are global. I try not to let all of that overwhelm me. It’s just too much. I try to focus on how I will get myself through and how I can help people here.

I also try to focus on the positives. I really do think that Cusco is the safest place for me now. I do see people banding together and helping their neighbors more than before. I do see some silver linings to the situation that we’re in, here in Cusco. I also see things that I can do to make things at least a little easier for other people here. If I can stay focused on all of that, I’ll be okay.

Wednesday, 8 July, 2020

My cousin Isaac and his girlfriend Jordyn wrote to me last week that they were donating blood. I’ve been asking Isaac for advice as I try to make some videos about the Covid Relief Project. I suppose one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that it has given me the time to teach myself how to build a website and I’m still finding other things I can learn to keep my mind busy. Making videos is the most recent one, with the goal of using them to find more donations for the project.

So, when a friend here in Cusco said that they are looking for O+ or O- blood donors, I quickly volunteered. The transfusions are for a girl named Killary who needs a bone marrow transplant but can’t get to Lima for it. 

The hospital that Killary is at is Antonio Lorena, about a half hour walk from my house. This is also the newly set up contingency hospital, devoted entirely to Covid. The blood bank is next to the Covid hospital, so thankfully I don’t have to actually go in an area with Covid cases. It’s crazy how nervous it makes me, to even be next to the Covid hospital. What would it be like to work there? To have to go there every day? What would it be like to have Covid in Cusco and be a patient at what looks to me like a tent hospital. From the outside, it reminds me of the tent hospital on the old TV show M*A*S*H.

At the gate, I say that I’m there to donate blood. The guard gives me a look that either says “You shouldn’t be here” or “I don’t want to let you in here.” After I assure him several times that I do know where the blood bank is and that I am really there to donate blood, he lets me in. I don’t actually know where the blood bank is, but there are enough people around to ask that it’s not hard to find.

All doors along the hallway are closed and all open windows are covered with plastic. I knock on the wall next to the window labeled Banco de Sangre and after a few questions, they open the door and let me in. I’ve given blood before in the US and in France, but the questionnaire here is even more thorough and invasive. Some of it seems antiquated but maybe that’s just my perspective on a Catholic country’s morals.

I got a finger prick so they could verify my claim to be O+ and then they asked me to wash both arms up past the elbows. There was only one other person at the blood bank to donate and she was leaving as I arrived. I asked if they had fewer donors since the pandemic started and they said that it had become a big problem. People are afraid to go to the hospital because it’s next to the new Covid hospital and it’s getting harder and harder to find donors.

The actual process of donating blood was exactly the same as it had been in the US and France. I didn’t expect them to have anything for me to eat or drink afterwards, but I brought a liter of orange juice with me and my housemate Kerry gave me a chocolate bar to take with me. They asked me to sit and rest for ten minutes after the donation process was finished. I enjoyed my chocolate and drank some orange juice and tried to chat a bit with them. 

There were three women working at the blood bank and they were all busy with stacks of paperwork and big binders. There was a TV in the room, but no computers. There were only three chairs for donors to sit in and the place felt somewhat forgotten. I asked how soon I could come back to donate again and was told four months. This seems excessive to me, since in the US it’s eight weeks. I wonder how good their paperwork system is and what would happen if I came back to donate again in eight weeks.

I took a cab home, instead of walking. Cabs here are supposed to have a plastic wall separating the driver from those in the backseat. Some have a little flap in the wall so you can pay from the back. Some have a solid plastic wall and you have to pay through the window. The only cab that was waiting outside the hospital had neither. It really did not look like a cab at all and I wouldn’t have bothered to ask if the driver hadn’t waved at me and asked where to.

People are doing what they can to make ends meet and if this guy is using his caras a taxi, I’m not going to complain. There are a lot of ways to help people get through this pandemic. Donating blood and taking food to isolated communities are great, but there are an endless number of small things that we can do to help in other ways.

Thursday, 9 July, 2020

Today I tried to work more on the videos of our visits to T’astayoc and Perolniyoc and also the interviews that I had videoed with community leaders of both communities. I managed to produce a video about the day with the families of Sut’uc-Pacchaq but it was clearly an amateur effort. I have a lot to learn about making videos.

That’s another of the silver linings of this pandemic. I have had the time to learn a lot of things that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to tackle. I taught myself how to make a website with Square Space and am now trying to teach myself iMovie.

I’ve heard from a lot of people who have found time during the pandemic to work on more creative pursuits. My cousin Betsy has been designing knitting patterns and selling them online. My cousin Isaac has written a screenplay. My friend Amanda reorganized her whole apartment. It’s been interesting hearing about all of the things that my friends and family have time for, now that we can’t go to restaurants or concerts or sporting events. I’m sure this is a global phenomenon - for the upper and middle class. 

One of the reasons that the pandemic outbreak is so bad in places like Lima is that there are so many people who used to live with what they made each day. How can you stay inside or social distance when you have to sell fruit or shine shoes on the street every day? How can you avoid crowds when you work at a market? Essential workers and people too poor to stay home really don’t have a choice. That’s a global phenomenon too. Social distancing is for the rich in so many places around the world.

Friday, 10 July, 2020

This morning, after I posted another last minute plea for donations for the Covid Relief Project, Kerry and I went to an in person, real yoga class up at the Temple of the Moon. It was a small group, but the instructor, Sonia, has been teaching online yoga classes for months now and just wanted so badly to see real people. The six of us who came to the class wanted just as badly to have a real yoga class with real people.

We met at the San Blas market and walked up towards the Temple of the Moon, stopping under some of the eucalyptus trees that I walk by on my hikes up there. It’s also the spot where I almost always see kestrels hunting for mice in the grass under the trees. While we were going through the yoga postures, I heard hummingbirds whir by and kestrels screeching up in the trees.

We all had our mats six to ten feet away from each other and I think that everybody took off their masks. It was still such a relief to be able to be outside with people and not worry about arrest or even the virus anymore.

The police are still patrolling just as much as during the quarantine, but the military have vanished from the streets in my part of town. I see them at checkpoints leaving or entering the city when I leave Cusco for the Covid Relief Project, but they are gone from my neighborhood. I am starting to lose that automatic rehearsal of why I have left my house when I see them. 

Also, with the research showing that most people catch the virus from close contact with an infected person, not from surfaces, I’m a lot less worried about what I touch. I’m still glad when shop keepers spray my change with alcohol before they give it to me and I’m still glad that masks are required in all of Peru. But I am so much less worried about actually catching the virus that I was in March in April.

Being able to go outside without the fear of arrest or Covid has made a world of difference in my quality of life. I just hope it stays this way, as I see news of other countries going back into quarantine when a second save of infections hits. Fingers crossed!

Saturday, 11 July, 2020

Today was the first time that Kerry joined me and the other volunteers taking people food for the Covid Relief Project. It was a much bigger group than the previous three times, which was really fun. The more the merrier!

Kerry, Henry, Auqui & I met at Wagner’s in the morning, helped load everything into the van that was sent by the mayor of Pisac and hit the road. We drove to the main square of Taray, where we picked up Edy, then drove to a road bordering the fields, where the families were waiting for us. It was a hot and dusty spot, but the people were so grateful that it was more than worth it. Edy is from Taray and put together the list of families who really need help now. 

For each family, we had enough donations to buy 5 kilos of rice, 1 carton of UHT milk, 1 liter of vegetable oil for cooking and nine small bags of oatmeal. We tried to get larger bags, so we could give each family one bag of 2 or 3 kilos, but the supply chain just isn’t what it used to be.

After we had distributed the food to all of the families on the list, plus a few extra, one of the community members brought us corn, called paraqay. It was the giant white kernels that are taken from the cob then boiled to make mote. Edy then invited us to his home where his mother served us an early lunch of boiled potatoes and cooked carrots before we left for the second village.

Picol is almost an hour drive from Pisac, up another very dusty road. At the entrance to the village there was a chain across the road, padlocked to a post. We waited for somebody to come let us in and used the handwashing station that they had placed next to the checkpoint. This is another one of those isolated communities that has no cases of Covid in the area and who are doing a good job of staying isolated enough to keep it that way.

We met with the gathered villagers and they brought us boiled potatoes and a spicy green chile sauce to share before we began the distribution. Despite all of the corn and potatoes that I had already eaten that morning, it wasn’t hard to eat a few more. They really are that good.

In Picol most of the assembled villagers were elderly. I was a little worried about them, since the pandemic has been so much more deadly for the elderly. In Taray, most of the people who came to receive their family’s food were in their 20s or 30s. Here, it appeared that all of the younger people were working in the fields. 

Before we left, the people still came to give us more hugs than I expected - or than were probably safe. Despite being positive that none of us were sick, it was still a little unnerving to see elderly people from an isolated community come to hug a person from Cusco. Like T’astayoc and Perolniyoc two weeks ago, Picol does not have any access to a hospital, clinic or pharmacy. The community has a primary school, but no other services. If the virus did start to spread through their village, it would be devastating.

Still, I believe that we are doing more good than harm and that we have all been very careful to follow all Covid hygiene protocols. I know that tourists won’t be coming back anytime soon and we will likely be needed throughout 2020, if not partly into 2021. I want to keep taking food to people and hope that we can continue to do it in a way that keeps these isolated mountain villages free from the virus.