Saturday, May 15
Refugio Altiplano - Amazon healing the native way
Scott Petersen is the Founder and Director of the Refugio Altiplano since 1996. He has traveled around the world investigating shamanism and herbal medicine. He currently lives in Refugio.
By the way, the Refugio is not really "high plateau," but very low in the Amazon River Basin. I had never heard of this place before, but it strikes a cord.
Saturday, May 8
Internet's early days in Peru required bulldog approach
"Soriano came up with a different approach -- he built public Internet booths (much like cybercafes), making Net access cheap.
"The first ISP in Latin America, it provided computer training to 50,000 people. In the last seven years, a thousand of these booths, called cabinas públicas, were built all over Peru" Wired News This story dates from 2001, but I'm sure that it still rings true. José Soriano is a real character who has achieved a lot in Peru. He was pushing the Internet when most companies sniffed at it as a hobby, like ham radio operators. My former employer, the Intenational Potato Center, was one of those founding institutions in those early days, even though they had other options for telecommuncations because they say it as crucial for fomenting research and low-cost communications.
Check out more about the impact of the Internet in Peru. I am adding some new links to that page.
Thursday, May 6
The motherload of Andean links
See his doctoral thesis: Rational Choice and Collective Action in an Andean Community in a 225-household Quechua village in the Urubamba range of Peru from 1989-1991. Interesting times to be in rural Cusco -- definitely a society under stress. He also has two working papers on line. Again, because the site is in frames, I can't link directly to them.
Saturday, May 1
Cusco's 12 angled stone gives a geometry lesson
I've been hanging onto this link for some time, not knowing when and where to insert it into the site. I decided there was no good place, so now is the time.