andean culture | Touching the Glory

So, I’ve had hiccups happen before on filming trips. The last major one left me stranded in Madrid for a week. I actually love the excitement and adventure of my filming life. But it would be a whole lot more enjoyable if I still was able to accomplish my filming objectives.

This time, after many phone calls to Victoriano’s son Yuri about when he might be coming to the village so I could film him, we finally decided I would just have to take the bus to Arequipa where he lives. It’s a 10-12 hr bus ride, over some beautiful countryside and very inexpensive, so I didn’t mind. I even have some old family friends in Arequipa to stay with.

I’m not sure how to explain what happen without making Yuri sound like a complete jerk. So I will just try to make it short. We met, we went to the place where he lives, the owners refused to let us inside to film the interview, we filmed it at the top of an overlook (beautiful, but noisy), he promised that he’d ask a friend if we could use his room to film the interview the next day for better sound quality, he assured me that he had all day tomorrow and I could accompany him everywhere he went to film his daily life, he had to go back inside and I couldn’t follow him, so we said goodbye. I emphasized how important it was that I film him the next day and I begged him to call me the instant he decided to go anywhere. No calls that night.

The next morning, I called him. And called him. And called him. Finally I went to his house. They had no idea where he was. I sat outside his house all day, calling repeatedly. The next morning I called him at 5 am, which is when I was told he leaves work. He answers. Apparently, he decided to take a bus to Cusco that first night, the same day I arrived in Arequipa from Cusco. He is on his way to the village, to go home for a little vacation.

I’ve been picking this apart for days and the best I can do is this:

In Andean culture, there is a particular kind of interaction with the outside world. There is a way to talk to the outsider. And I am sure it is based on a very complicated history of outsiders and their interactions with Andean people. But it essentially means that there is a mentality of saying whatever the person asking wants to hear. I’ve run into this with every member of Victoriano’s family. I have to ask the same question multiple times and in different contexts to get a good understanding of what the actual answer is. Because the first time, it’s just about what they think I want to hear.

I’ve been stood up and given wrong information many times throughout this filming process. I’ve taken to asking different people about events or times just to have some kind of pool I can draw from when one thing turns out to be not true.

Part of it as well is the idea of living moment-to-moment. Future plans are so malleable and indefinite. If something happens in this very moment to change what you are going to do, you just go with it.

But I felt like this time it was really extreme. Yuri decides to jump a bus to Cusco, great! Just give me one. short. phone call. That’s all I ask! I would have been on the bus with him, filming him returning to his family home.

So, I find out where he is at 5 am Friday morning. I take a taxi immediately to the bus terminal and that’s where things get really dicey. Here, I’ll let you catch up via my Facebook statuses.

There you have it. I left Cusco last Tuesday. I’ve been trying to get back there for the past three days. It’s a beautiful place to be stranded, but I sure wish I could have accomplished the filming I was meant to do.