Scritti Politti

I guess this makes two posts in a row where I'm writing about walls in Peru. Very different kinds of walls. But walls nonetheless.

I have so many great memories of my week in Peru. Some of those are perspective-altering, monumental experiences I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Seeing Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, for the first time, and then exploring it the next day. Hiking almost eight hours on a path laid down by the Incas more than a half a millennium ago. Exploring a farm that's been extracting salt from the same stream for hundreds of years. Flying over the Andes and then driving and walking on them the next day. Eating foods that I've never heard of and some that I certainly can't get on a menu at home. Alpaca, anyone?

And then there are some others that are, shall we say, a little more pedestrian, but which nevertheless form an essential part of my memory and an enduring image of Peru. Dogs roaming the streets in packs of two to five animals; apparently pets let out for the day but the best behaved dogs I've seen maybe in my life. Pairs of tiny clay bulls or "toritos" on the ridgeline of every house you drive by; ages-old idols to protect against lightning hurled down from the gods above. And walls just about everywhere painted with political party slogans and logos and names of candidates. I thought they were cool works of art although I may just have a signs fetish. So here's blog post number two in a row about walls in Peru.

The rainbow flag has been adopted as a symbol of the Andean people and can be seen everywhere. 

Politics seems to be a pretty popular topic of conversations with Peruvians. We got an earful from every taxi driver and tour guide we seemed to run into or walk with or ride a bus with. And with good reason. They have to have one of the most dysfunctional governments that is still a legitimate democracy.

I know that if you are American you have to be laughing right now. I mean how could any society really have a system more broken than the one we have in Washington right now? I mean literally, nothing is getting done right now. One half of Congress is passing bill after bill and the other half is just refusing to take any action at all. It's insane that we are paying these people to work for us.

Anyway...think we got problems? Talk to a Peruvian taxi driver.

Tired of a two-party system? Try more than 30. Fed up with politicians taking money from special interests instead of representing the people that elected them? How about having all your living ex-presidents in jail for money-laundering, bribery and corruption? Does that sound bad? It is. And it's not like there's just one ex-president still alive. There are three! And one of them has his wife in jail with him.

The yellow house with the pink roof is one of my favorites, often with Elvis right next to it. Assuming not Presley.

It actually gets worse. There would have been a fourth living ex-president in custody right now if he hadn't killed himself earlier this year to avoid arrest. All told, there have been six presidents since 1986 in Peru (not counting the current president) and five of the six were indicted or arrested or convicted or jailed or something. The only one that wasn't was an interim president whose only job in office was to find the next president. Where's all this bribery come from, you might ask? Apparently...Brazil. It's a real problem.

Emotions run deep here. And not in the ways you might think. Some people actually feel that some ex-presidents despite obvious wrongdoing should be walking free. Especially when it comes to Alberto Fujimori who served as head of the country for 10 years from 1990 to 2000. In his time in office, Fujimori legitimately did some good for the country, especially in stabilizing the economy and defeating insurgent groups within Peru, most notably the Shining Path, a Maoist revolutionary army of sorts. 

But apparently Fujimori was a little too zealous in his pursuit of wiping out the rebels because he got some non-rebels killed in the process. Which led to human rights violations accusations, a self-imposed exile in Japan, an impeachment, an arrest during a trip to neighboring Chile (I mean, why go to Chile when you are wanted in Peru?), a conviction, jail, a pardon by a successor president and an overturn of that pardon by the legislature which kept him in jail which is where he is today. And despite all that, there are a significant number of Peruvians today with a positive opinion of Mr. Fujimori, including the driver that took us from the airport to our Lima hotel and think he's done enough good to offset the whole corruption thing. Politics is complicated in Peru.

But that's not what this post is about. Not really.

Avengers Party? Not really, although at least two of our guides made reference to the A meaning that in jest.

So about those 30 plus political parties, which seemed chaotic at first but which I might welcome right now based on how stagnant our government here at home is. One of the benefits of having that many parties in Peru for someone infatuated with painted signs is that there are a whole lot of different colored signs by the sides of the road to look at and take pictures of. And they are not just here and there. Once we left the historic city center of Cusco they seemed to be everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. 

As graphic statements a lot of these signs are simple and powerful. Most feature the name of one or more political candidates along with a symbol of the party they represent. The names are always written (or painted really I guess) in the exact same colors and font. The symbols next to the names vary: a football (meaning soccer ball) or a shovel or a flower or a rainbow flag or an Andean head or a heart or any other sort of symbol that might become enough of a brand that could become associated with a name.

Football behind the lamppost.

I love how simple and straightforward the designs are and how different parties use different colors so that every color in the spectrum is collectively represented (although I guess all you need there is the rainbow flag sign to really do just that). They have to be simple so that they can be replicated over and over by many different people painting their own houses. And yes, that's what happens. Apparently people willingly decide to go to the hardware store (or wherever one buys paint in Peru) and buy their own paint so they can make the wall of their house or garden into a political advertisement. We were told that most people hope for favors after their candidate wins. Not sure how that works out.

There's also a story about the symbols. As attractive and graphically powerful as they are, they sort of seem unnecessary, unless you consider that significant parts of the population of the country are illiterate. Can't read your candidate's name? Just vote for the shovel! Or the rainbow flag or whatever else it is. How this process works on election day I'm not quite sure. Does the ballot have names and symbols next to the names? Didn't ask that question I guess.

I know, I know, all this sounds very complicated, right? Why wouldn't someone just not bother voting and take their chance with whatever party gets elected? I mean the odds that one of the more than 30 parties will get a majority is astronomical, right? There has to be a coalition or consensus of some kind to get things done, right? Surely someone sitting out a vote every now and then because they can't read couldn't hurt, right?

Wrong! Voting is mandatory in Peru. If you don't vote, you get fined. How awesome is that? Some politicians go to great lengths in my country to make it extremely difficult for some people to vote. Peru made it a requirement. Love it! Thus the flower and the football and everything else.

Vote for the flower!!!! Whatever that means in terms of the candidate (Hector, I guess?) that would be elected. 

I didn't actually take the time to track down what each sign meant or how things worked on election day with the whole pictures thing. I figured that would spoil the whole magic of this entire experience for me. Once I start getting entangled with politics, I'm not sure anything could save me. Better that I just appreciate these signs for their graphic quality. That's what drew me to them in the first place after all.

It is rare that I encounter something unexpected that intrigues me like this. Far too often on trips, I think of writing about these things too late (still regret missing the boat on the Yule Lads in Iceland...) so I'm glad I didn't let this opportunity slip by this time. 

Some of the pictures in this post are less perfect than I would want. If you'd noticed that (or more likely you hadn't) it's because I took every one of them from inside of a moving vehicle with a pane of glass between me and my subject. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out even if I missed a few (regrets on missing the shovel especially...). But realistically, how many pictures of these signs could I have really posted? In case you think six is too few, here are two more to close this post.

I'm not exactly sure the llama logos (hidden behind the tuk-tuks in the last photo) are part of a political campaign. I didn't see these anywhere other than in the town of Chinchero. But they were one of my favorites so I couldn't pass up sharing them. May your next trip be full of surprises that bring you joy the way these did for me. 

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How We Did It
Take a ride in any sort of vehicle outside of the historic center of Cusco and you are bound to find one or two of these signs. Keep going and you'll find more. Keep going further and you'll find more still. The best part of this part of our trip? It didn't cost us anything extra. If you want better photos than I got, ask you driver to stop and let you out. Just ask them to wait for you though. Happy hunting!

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