In 2009, following the global financial crash that re-introduced me to unemployment, I had my hair cut by a young girl..She was obviously from Latin America. Her English was not as good as my Spanish and having just returned from Peru, I was happy for the opportunity to practice. To my immense surprise it turned out she was from Peru and not only from Peru, but from Juliaca, Peru. It is rare to find a Peruvian in Canada who has visited Juliaca let alone someone from Juliaca. So we embarked on a fascinating conversation about how “the barbershop girl from Juliaca” found herself working in Canada.. Solar panelMounting a solar panel in anticipation of plugging in the home system, in a rural Peruvian village. Calgary charity Light Up the World has a mission to bring energy to remote locations in the Third World. .Juliaca is located 3,800 meters above sea level near the shores of Lake Titicaca. It will never be mistaken for a tourist trap. My first experience with Juliaca was to climb the rock piles and jump the trenches that had been dug into the main thoroughfare for the new water system. As I contemplated the backhoe digging its way down the street, I noticed an older woman fluff her skirts, settle in place for a moment and then walk off leaving a decidedly moist spot on the ground. Welcome to Juliaca, I thought, as I made my way into the restaurant..It turns out that my barber’s industrious parents started a small home business making Indian arts and crafts (artesania) for sale to tourists who visit places like Puno and Cusco in Peru. Their business expanded and so they decided to leave their “factory” in the hands of a trusted relative while they moved to Lima so that they could take a stall at the popular Indian markets and sell more of their products. Then the business really took off and so, as each were ready in turn, the parents sent their five kids to a different part of the world to become “tentmaker missionaries” so that the family product could be sold worldwide..This 18-year-old girl with no English skills, left her middle-class home in a familiar country to expand the business started by her mostly uneducated parents. It is an astounding story and it made me wonder if there are other brilliant and industrious Peruvian entrepreneurs..Like many countries, Peru has two solitudes. Most of the people live in a handful of urban centers and the remainder live in rural areas that, due to geography, are often difficult to access..As in Canada, the urban population rarely visits rural Peru and certainly doesn’t understand those who make that part of the country their home. The question raised by my encounter with this young woman is: how many other brilliant entrepreneurs are there living tucked away in corners of Peru and other developing nations? How many Einsteins are hoeing the family crop of potatoes unknown to themselves and the world because they don’t have the opportunity for an education that would reveal that genius?.So, will access to cheap and sustainable and energy, along with the opportunity to have a high-speed connection to the internet change the lives of thousands of children in Peru? Will it identify geniuses from all over the world? I think it will..If we want to promote solar energy as a bridge to a new future, the point of greatest leverage is not in Alberta. The leverage is in places like Peru and other developing nations where the unharnessed intellectual energy of millions of children is ready to be untapped..Follow me at mblytle.substack.com.
In 2009, following the global financial crash that re-introduced me to unemployment, I had my hair cut by a young girl..She was obviously from Latin America. Her English was not as good as my Spanish and having just returned from Peru, I was happy for the opportunity to practice. To my immense surprise it turned out she was from Peru and not only from Peru, but from Juliaca, Peru. It is rare to find a Peruvian in Canada who has visited Juliaca let alone someone from Juliaca. So we embarked on a fascinating conversation about how “the barbershop girl from Juliaca” found herself working in Canada.. Solar panelMounting a solar panel in anticipation of plugging in the home system, in a rural Peruvian village. Calgary charity Light Up the World has a mission to bring energy to remote locations in the Third World. .Juliaca is located 3,800 meters above sea level near the shores of Lake Titicaca. It will never be mistaken for a tourist trap. My first experience with Juliaca was to climb the rock piles and jump the trenches that had been dug into the main thoroughfare for the new water system. As I contemplated the backhoe digging its way down the street, I noticed an older woman fluff her skirts, settle in place for a moment and then walk off leaving a decidedly moist spot on the ground. Welcome to Juliaca, I thought, as I made my way into the restaurant..It turns out that my barber’s industrious parents started a small home business making Indian arts and crafts (artesania) for sale to tourists who visit places like Puno and Cusco in Peru. Their business expanded and so they decided to leave their “factory” in the hands of a trusted relative while they moved to Lima so that they could take a stall at the popular Indian markets and sell more of their products. Then the business really took off and so, as each were ready in turn, the parents sent their five kids to a different part of the world to become “tentmaker missionaries” so that the family product could be sold worldwide..This 18-year-old girl with no English skills, left her middle-class home in a familiar country to expand the business started by her mostly uneducated parents. It is an astounding story and it made me wonder if there are other brilliant and industrious Peruvian entrepreneurs..Like many countries, Peru has two solitudes. Most of the people live in a handful of urban centers and the remainder live in rural areas that, due to geography, are often difficult to access..As in Canada, the urban population rarely visits rural Peru and certainly doesn’t understand those who make that part of the country their home. The question raised by my encounter with this young woman is: how many other brilliant entrepreneurs are there living tucked away in corners of Peru and other developing nations? How many Einsteins are hoeing the family crop of potatoes unknown to themselves and the world because they don’t have the opportunity for an education that would reveal that genius?.So, will access to cheap and sustainable and energy, along with the opportunity to have a high-speed connection to the internet change the lives of thousands of children in Peru? Will it identify geniuses from all over the world? I think it will..If we want to promote solar energy as a bridge to a new future, the point of greatest leverage is not in Alberta. The leverage is in places like Peru and other developing nations where the unharnessed intellectual energy of millions of children is ready to be untapped..Follow me at mblytle.substack.com.
