Field Producer’s report from the field….
“The Power of the Poor” production team has just returned from our last trip to Peru to shoot with Hernando de Soto. We shot all over Lima with him and had a very successful week. We then went to Cusco, the colonial city near Machu Picchu, to follow a cattle farmer to market and tell his story. We will use this to contrast with our footage of the CME trader who buys and sells thousands of head of cattle each day but never sees his product. Since we were fairly close to the village of the Peruvian farmer featured in our “Ultimate Resource” segment, “Eusebio’s Dream”, Jim and I decided to track him down and show him how the program had turned out. What an experience it turned out to be!
We had an extra day after the shoot so we hired a van to take us two hours towards Machu Picchu to Eusebio's tiny town of Palomar. We drove through the “sacred valley” of the Incas, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, green valleys and fields and fields of corn, ready to harvest. We passed through two towns that seemed to have developed and thrived since our last visit, two years ago. We stopped in a town called Ollantaytambo to pick up some cold drinks and snacks in one of the tiny shops around the old town square. This is a town where the train between Cusco and Macchu Picchu stops and it has clearly become popular as a stopping off point for travelers. We were half an hour from Palomar and we didn’t know whether we would find Eusebio in his village or his house. He has no telephone and no mailing address. We pressed on with our friends from the ILD (Hernando’s organization, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy) who had agreed to accompany us as translators. They were also interested in meeting Eusebio and seeing his home.
We arrived in Palomar at 1 p.m. The whole village consists of a one-story public building, overlooking a soccer field (where the land titling sequence was filmed) and one dirt road, winding up a hill, with adobe huts set away from the road on both sides. As we wound our way up, past the field, on the tiny, dusty road there he was, wheeling a wheelbarrow along, on his way to harvest corn. Jim recognized him right away. We stopped the van, jumped out and greeted him. You should have seen the look on his face! He was hugging us and smiling and so excited to see us. We explained (mostly through our interpreters) that we had brought the program to show him and that we would like to go to his house with our computer. He ran to get his wife and son from the cornfield and we went to his house. His house consists of a primitive adobe building with one 6X10, windowless kitchen room, one small room where tools are kept and a sleeping space above it, accessible by small, wooden steps. Soon we were set up in the adobe kitchen, among the pots and pans and rabbit and guinea pigs. Guinea pigs are food for special occasions and we’ve seen them living in many primitive Peruvian kitchens, running around the dirt floors. We sat around a small, rickety wooden table, with Eusebio, his wife and son, our Mac open and all eyes on the screen. It really looked like a commercial for Apple, with these traditional Peruvian farmers in their dark, mud-walled room, with the glowing computer. I hesitated to take too many photos at this moment since it felt so private and they were nervous and expectant.
We started to show them first the opening of the show and then the segment on Peru. They were so moved and so were we. When the scene came up where he explains how tough life was and how he would be punished if he lost a sheep, he teared up and so did his wife and his son and then we all did. It was so fascinating to watch their faces as I sat on this little, milking stool against the wall. By the end of it, we were all smiling and hugging and cuing it up to watch again.
They watched the “Eusebio’s Dream” segment three more times and then Jim showed them Ghana and Bangladesh too, plus a hint of China and Estonia. We wanted them to see that their life is not so different from so many people around the world. They have no TV and no access to a DVD player in their village so they hardly ever get to see any television and when they do, it’s probably a fuzzy local program or soccer game, the sort of show that tends to be on in the little, family-owned restaurants in the nearest town. They were amazed at the ability to see this crisp, color program in their own home. And we loved being able to show it to them. Jim asked Eusebio if we had been true and accurate and if he felt that he was represented correctly. He said that we had gotten it right. We left them a couple of copies to take to their son's school, half an hour away, and share with their daughter, who lives in Lima. Eusebio told Jim how he's thought of him as a brother since they've first met and that he couldn't express what it meant to him and his family that we had come back to visit. Jimmy gave him his "Leatherman", the multi-purpose tool he carries with the video equipment and he was just delighted.
We felt so lucky to have found Eusebio and his family at home, two years after we shot the segment and we just can't tell you how thrilling it was to sit down and show him the DVD. A great day. I wish that Kathy Anderson, the program’s Writer/Producer could have been there. I wish that you could have been there. It was a fantastic day and so meaningful for us and the work that we do.
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