Giselle + Gary
Two of my dear friends recently got married in Lima. I did a short video of the celebrations for them.
We are not eternal
Ella era la señora fuerte, la de brazos musculosos y ágil paso que venía a visitarnos una vez al año. Mi madre siempre trató de retenerla algunos días más con nosotros en Lima. “Tengo que regresar a mi chacra,” ella respondía. Y regresaba presurosa a su mundo lejos en la selva.
Se llama Natividad. Abuelita Nati le digo a pesar de que no es la típica abuelita. Esa que te llena de abrazos, besos y te prepara dulces. Ella es la mujer que empezó a trabajar desde muy joven y continúa hasta hoy a sus 84 años. Lo hace no tanto porque lo necesite si no porque le gusta.
Ya no es más la señora fuerte. La fui a visitar hace algunas semanas y al abrazarla sentí sus huesos. Sentí tristeza. Pero al verla caminar en su chacra sonreí de nuevo. Entre sus plantas de café ella se transforma. Los mosquitos no le pican, el calor no le molesta, sus delgados brazos no se cansan y sus ojos brillan más que nunca.
Para mi ella es un ejemplo de dedicación y perseverancia. Ella es testimonio de que cuando queremos algo con todo el corazón, no hay nada que nos detenga. Ni la edad – ni el tiempo.
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She was the strong woman, the one with muscular arms and nimble steps that came to visit once a year. My mother always tried to keep her with us a few more days in Lima. “I have to return to the farm,” she would say. And she hurried back to her world far away in the jungle.
Her name is Natividad. Grandma Nati to me, though she is not your typical grandma, the one that hugs and kisses you and prepares you sweets. She is the woman who started working at a young age and continues today at 84 years old. She doesn’t work so much because she needs to but because she likes it. She knows nothing else.
But she is no longer the strong woman I remember. I felt her bones as I hugged her on a visit a few weeks ago. I felt sad. But when I saw her walking on the farm, I smiled again. Among her coffee plants, she transformed into the woman I remembered. The mosquitoes do not bite her. Heat does not bother her. Her thin arms do not tire and her eyes shine brighter than ever.
To me she is an example of dedication and perseverance. She is proof that when we want something with all our hearts, nothing will stop us. Not age – or time.
Video by Oscar Durand and Elie Gardner
Dia de Todos los Santos
On All Saint’s Day Elie Gardner and I visited the cemetery of Nueva Esperanza, Peru’s largest cemetery and one of the largest in the world, on assignment for CNS. Here is the video.
Business videos
I’ve been freelancing for Peruvian business magazine G de Gestión for a few months. Most of the work I’ve done for them is portraiture though the recent launching of an app for the ipad gave me the opportunity to produce a couple of videos.
Pachacutec
Elie Gardner and I recently shot a video for Catholic News Service about Instituto de Cocina Pachacutec, an education initiative in one of the poorest areas of Lima.
Arguedas
It is almost impossible to be Peruvian and not know who Jose Maria Arguedas is. The memory of this writer and anthropologist is very much alive today and his name is up there with the Peruvian greats. That being said, finding tangible elements that give testimony of his life is very exciting. I traveled withJose Vadillo, my colleague from Andina, to visit some of the places where Arguedas lived in Sicuani in Cusco. Here is the video.
Walking 8000 miles
Last month I traveled to the Titicaca Lake area on assignment for Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA). Bob Hentzen, the organization’s president, is on a 8000-mile walk from Guatemala to Chile. During two days, Elie Gardner and I spent time with Hentzen and crew as they crossed the border from Peru into Bolivia. Here is a video from the experience:
THE LEGACY OF ATLANTIC CANADA’S SALMON FARMING
Check out this video I produced with Christoph Schwaiger, Sean Solowiej and Anne Casselman. Personally, working on this story gave me a new perspective on fish farming. From the article:
For Abbott, to call salmon aquaculture “farming” is a misnomer. “Aquaculture isn’t just like any other farming,” he says. “It’s farming carnivores in the water. It’s a totally different equation.”
To grow one pound of farmed salmon requires roughly three pounds of wild caught fish. “It takes wild fish to grow farmed fish. That’s the key rub,” Abbott says. In short, these farms use up much more fish flesh than they produce and therefore cannot replace capture fisheries .
RESTORING THE CHOCOLATE RIVER
I worked with Anne Casselman, Christoph Schwaiger and Sean Solowiej to produce this piece on the comeback of the Petitcodiac river in New Brunswick.