Travel Talk: Bruce Peru

While still in Washington, I had heard from a local friend about the work of Bruce Peru, a remarkably effective shoestring operation. When I found that even my Lonely Planet Peru guide had a section describing the organization, I determined to go north to Trujillo to see this humble operation that has improved lives throughout Latin America. It was my last stop before returning home a few days ago.

Bruce Thornton, an American, came to Peru in 2001 after years of working on poverty programs in Europe and Latin America. He and his wife, Ana Teresa, who is from a noted Peruvian family and is known to all as Ana Tere, run Bruce Peru. They describe their mission very simply: to prepare street children to enter public schools, and by getting an education, eradicate poverty. A simple goal, but not an easy one in countries where as many as 25% of the children can’t attend school. Even the governments’ free schools cost the parents about $200 per year for uniforms, books and sundries, an impossibility for many families, and some children are even out working.

“It’s important to get them early,” Bruce said, “before they are lost to the streets. Then we have to convince the mothers that in the long run, their children’s education will help the whole family far more than the little they may be earning now as child laborers. Some of those mothers become so convinced, they themselves study, and work as our teachers.”

Bruce Peru attracts foreign volunteers. But the work can sometimes be difficult. “It means going into the barrios, the worst slums, to find the children, often with police along for safety. Volunteers who think it will be a fun-in-the-sun job soon learn otherwise. It has to do with dirt and grime and head lice.”

“And I’m not a fun, Mr. Nice Guy,” Bruce added. “I can’t be. There is too much to do. I’m in my office at 4:30 in the morning, planning, corresponding with the authorities, and attending to business.”

He and Ana Tere have a no-frills life; they live in her mother’s home. To keep expenses down, many of the “schools” are mere shanties, like the kids’ homes. When the students have enough basics to enter public school, Bruce Peru’s work is finished, and it launches a new school in another area. The longest it has kept a school open is four years, the shortest three months.

“Last year we got official recognition that our teaching brings students up to the level of government classes, as equals. Then we provide the necessary uniforms, books and aid, and they are on their way to a better life.”

Here is a video of a Bruce school in Huanchaco, Peru, and another in Quito, Ecuador.

Money is a constant problem. Contributions can be made through the Web site, bruceperu.org. If you are visiting the schools, bring extra garments with you, especially shoes and warm clothing, to leave behind.

Spotlight On: John Arundel

John Arundel, of the local family known for its publishing empire and support of all equine sports, says he definitely has printer’s ink in his veins: “My grandfather and grandmother were both journalists, and my father’s company has 15 newspapers.”

His own first publication was John’s Times, which he delivered, aged 9, along with the Washington Post, on his paper route. “I scooped the press corps on cat-in-the-tree news,” he says.

He edited both his high school and college newspapers, worked in Florida for the Miami Herald, and went into Kuwait with the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division, reporting for the Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, NBC Radio and NPR. Except for a nine-year stint in finance with Citigroup, he has been in publishing ever since, reviving the Alexandria Times, which in its earlier incarnation was George Washington’s favorite newspaper.

Arundel also served as a press attaché to the late United States Ambassador to France, social doyenne Pamela Harriman.

Now he is the managing editor of a new-media outlet, LocalKicks.com, a thorough, online chronicle of everything you need to know about Alexandria’s happenings. A good editor and graceful writer, he gets to use his talent on essays, writing under the banner “Local Leaders.” In one recent essay, he reflected on his neighbor John Warner, who is retiring from the Senate after more than 30 years in government service.

In another, he spoke of Alexandria native Willard Scott. The veteran weatherman, who lives in Paris, Virginia, served as the grand marshal for Alexandria’s 38th Annual Scottish Christmas Walk Parade earlier this month.

Shopping Guide: Prince and Union, Alexandria

Caught short on your Christmas shopping? Just drive across the bridge to Alexandria’s Old Town, and your problems are soon solved in one short block.

First stop is the left-hand corner of Prince and Union streets, for the year-round Christmas Attic, which has delighted Alexandrians for 37 years. Former awestruck kids are now bringing their awestruck kids.

Have a welcoming drink of hot cider, as the shop’s little train buzzes overhead. The display of trimmings and toys is dazzling, but there is also a panoply of imaginative, non-seasonal gifts. Prices range between $2 and over $1,500 throughout the store, from stocking stuffers to Major Gifts.

The tiny mouse family shown above, clustered around a miniature Christmas-laden table, is only five inches long, and is almost a museum piece for its intricate handiwork, with a price to match. It costs a tidy $495. But shimmering, clear, lava-type Christmas candles are only $18.95, and for dog lovers, there are finely detailed small statues of over 40 different breeds, for just $10.95.

The store’s luxurious Christmas items include a tree loaded with California designer Mark Roberts’ sumptuously dressed Santas and elves. At its base is a marvelous two-foot-high, bejeweled Santa, clad in velvet and ermine, astride a white-furred polar bear, to thrill some lucky recipient; it has a tag of $400.

Upstairs, among carolers, partridges, pear trees and lords a-leaping, replicas of the Nutcracker face his Mouse King enemy, and you will find an adorable Clara, the heroine of the holiday story, complete with ruffled petticoats, for $5.95.

Half a block to the right, on Union Street, and you’re offered mulled cider at Old Town Coffee, Tea and Spice, (703) 683-0856. In addition to fancy imported cookies and candies, and what seems to be every type of coffee ever roasted, the shop has an array of well-priced gift items anyone would crave.

Amid the scented candles, tea sets, cozies, colorful kettles and tablecloths, a ceramic rolling pin, striped like a peppermint stick, caught my eye—great for rolling out chilled pastry, and guaranteed to give you a chuckle. Frank Poland, who has had the shop for 15 of its 28 years, has chosen his items well.

Upstairs, in the same building, Andrew Macdonald offers his masterful photographs. A framing shop attached to his AHM Gallery can customize them for your giftee.

Macdonald opens his newest show, “The Fresh Potomac,” featuring photographs of the upper reaches of the Potomac River, this Thursday, with a reception from 5-10 p.m.

The show runs through February 12. Twenty percent of all sales will be donated to the environmental organization Potomac Riverkeeper.

Quick Notes 12/8

“Socially Seen: Notes on life in Washington” has just been chosen by the Washington Post for its Local Blog Directory.

A source for community information, the site includes blogs in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, covering news and events in the area.

At the Table: Macchu Pisco

Pretty, chestnut blonde Melanie Asher (at right), who even as a child was intrigued by running a business, had a plan she eventually developed as her coursework project at Harvard Business School. She also had a sister, pretty, brunette Lizzie, just out of Harvard Law School. Together they are a dynamite combo, and Melanie’s plan is working just fine, thank you.

The pair, who have a Peruvian mother and spent their childhood in Peru, moved to the Washington area in the 1980s. Observing U.S. life, Melanie saw one definite lack: “There’s not enough Peruvian pisco here,” she thought, referring to the distilled grape brandy that is Peru’s national drink.

So, following the classic business principle of finding a need and filling it, she put her plan under way. She founded a brand, whimsically named Macchu Pisco, after Machu Picchu, Peru’s main tourist attraction, adding an extra “c” to Machu for luck.

Clear, diamond-bright pisco is classed as a “white liquor,” like vodka, and it shares the happy quality of being hangover-free. For over 500 years, pisco has been made from the juice of grapes grown around the Peruvian towns of Pisco and Ica, where Macchu Pisco is distilled.

“Nothing is added,” says Melanie. “It is unique because it comes directly from the grape to you.”

Macchu Pisco is a remarkably smooth drink, and her company’s superpremium pisco blend, La Diablada, is a silken delight. (Peruvians disdain the pisco made in Chile, which they consider an imitation. Produced differently, the Chilean version has caused some friction between the two countries.)

Pisco punch and pisco sours are classic ways to drink pisco, but the liquor can enhance many other drinks. You can find a Pisco Alejandro--a variation on a Brandy Alexander--at Georgetown’s Four Seasons, and at PX in Alexandria, Todd Thrasher mixes the ultimate pisco sour of fresh-squeezed lime juice and pisco, as well as other pisco quaffs he has invented.

With Melanie handling the business dealings, Lizzie the legal issues, and both of them promoting it, the young business is really taking off.

Lizzie, who now works out of New York, was recently married in Antigua, Guatemala, with a contingent of 150 international friends, industry pals and members of the D.C. party set flying in. The wedding was so spectacular, you can read about it in the current issue of Elle.

And guess what! Everyone drank Macchu Pisco.

Travel Talk: On the Route to Machu Picchu

If you arrive in Lima then fly directly up to two-mile-high Cusco, the takeoff point for Machu Picchu (photo by Jorge Sarmiento, www.peru.info), you risk having problems. Peru’s capital is at sea level. The abrupt change intensifies your chances of getting soroche, the high altitude sickness that affects many visitors to the country, despite the endless cups of curative coca tea you’ll be offered. The leaves are from the coca plant, which yields cocaine. Some travelers feel a little better after drinking the tea and may even find that it’s giving them a nice buzz. But for others, nothing helps.

I went up gradually, by land. Travel choices are to go by private car, tour or bus. I took one of the big, comfortable buses that follow each other on the country’s zigzagging roads and are the Peruvians’ main transportation. (Ormeño and Cial are especially good companies; some of the smaller lines are pretty ratty.)

My first stop was Nazca, the site of the mysterious Nazca lines, grooves in the earth with complex animal, bird and human shapes designed by the Nazca, a pre-Inca people. Maria Reiche, a German mathematician who spent her life studying these lines, thought the Nazca created them for an astronomical calendar. Others think they were part of the Nazca’s irrigation system. I saw them from an observation platform. For an even better view, take a ride on one of the small tourist planes.

Next, I traveled to Arequipa, Peru’s second-largest city. In spots the landscape is moon-mountain strange. I realized it was powdered with volcanic ash when I reached Arequipa, sparkling in the sun from the minerals in the city’s buildings. They are made from sillar, a white volcanic rock.

Lake Titicaca was my next goal, by way of Juliaca. The city of Juliaca appears strange, as if all the contractors had just dropped their tools and walked away with the houses half finished. They did: Homeowners don’t have to pay taxes until their houses are completed, so they rarely are. Of course with no tax base, Juliaca’s unpaved streets are a muddy mess, but its people are safe from the tax man!

Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, borders both Peru and Bolivia. On the Peruvian side, near the city of Puno, lie the famed floating islands of the Uros people. I spent the night on one of these manmade islands, staying with a family of three, Martín, Cecilia and their four-year-old, Maria. The islands are woven of totora, the lake’s cattail-like reeds. Martín showed me how the slender reeds are formed into a dense mass, packed together with a peat-like soil. “We use Pachamama [Mother Earth] to bind them,” he said, speaking of their earth goddess.

Strewn with dried totora, the small island was a shaky place to step, but not for the seven families who live on it. The cabin I slept in was also built of reeds, and so was the bed I spent the night on. Note that I didn’t say “slept on.” A recent downpour made it a long, soggy night, but the trout Martín caught was perfectly cooked by Cecilia, and the people on the island were sweet-natured and friendly. One told me that if a neighbor becomes difficult, they just slice off their own chunk of island, and float away.

The next day, I reached the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Colorful Cusco, bright with Inca flags, is the gateway to the valley, and to Machu Picchu. The profusion of trees and flowers in the area is astonishing, and provides a lush setting for the ultimate experience: walking through the great “lost city of the Incas” itself.

The question that always hovers over these “lost” regions is: Lost to whom? The locals always knew they were there. I heard this same point being made when I was at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. An article in today’s New York Times adds light on the ongoing controversy over Machu Picchu. Determining who was the first to “discover” it is interesting to historians, and affects the legal ownership of items that were removed from here long ago, but the eternal, magical mountain rises above all this.

Faced with the triumph of Machu Picchu--that it could be built at all--the crowd of sightseers I was with, who had been raucous and rambunctious en route, fell suddenly silent. All along the way, as we walked through the ruins, we saw evidence of the Incas’ sophisticated civilization and craftsmanship. Master stone cutters, they fit the huge building blocks together without mortar, doing it so perfectly that there’s not even enough space to slip the blade of a knife between them.

The Incas created these structures and terraces for their crops, farming on slopes so steep it seems impossible anyone could stand on them, let alone build them.

Gazing at the majestic work, I at first felt small, diminished by its mass, and then, as I stood there, I suddenly realized we are all made greater by Machu Picchu, this awe-inspiring example of what humans, with skill and determination, can accomplish--no matter the obstacles.