Rural Chavín

"Rural" Chavín:

The title implies that there is an _urban_ Chavín, which probably isn't
true in the North American sense, but there _is_ a difference between
life in town and on the road, where there are more basic services and
there is less poverty, and life in the campo--the countryside--where
poverty is much greater and there often isn't any government presence at
all.

As with many places in Peru, the "government" presence here is more
often than not local government--there are a number of projects funded
by the district, there are informal institutions for self-governance in
the rural villages, and there is very little in the way of central
government presence.

Yesterday, a couple of the local forestry technicians generously took me
out to see some of their work. Leaving at about 6AM, we walked for
several hours into the mountains, visiting several rural villages,
seeing a great deal of reforestation, and visiting a couple of temporary
tree nurseries that had been set up in some of the rural communities for
the municipality's reforestation project. We also ate a couple of meals
out in the campo and saw a bit of rural village life.

Projects in Chavín:

First, the municipality really is doing a very good job in implementing
projects which improve the standard of living of the rural poor. These
range from nutritional services for school children to health to
infrastructure, including the construction of healthy rural homes with
plumbing, road-building, and school construction in some of these rural
communities. Seeing the success of these projects is a welcome change
from the apparent inactivity in Carhuaz.

A "Dutch Disease":

Second, the money for the large number of projects taking place here
comes from a fund of money coming out of a local mining firm. The
result of (a) the mining project, and (b) the large number of
municipally-funded projects is a _very_ large government, relative to
the size of the local economy, and a high rate of inflation in labor
prices. Because the inflation is caused by local factors, the results
have not been negative in the short-term, but there has been something
of a "Dutch Disease", in which it is difficult to promote industries
other than mining, because production of everything else is at a
disadvantage. The cost of labor is so high--sometimes two or three
times what it is even two hours away in Huaraz (itself a relatively
prosperous place)--other industries tend to go our of business. This
has especially been the case in agriculture.

Over the short term, the increase in the cost of labor has been a good
thing, but over the long term, a number of the municipal and
agricultural workers expressed concern that, when the price of
commodities (like the gold that comes from the Antamina mining firm)
drops, the result will be a rapid decline in the standard of living,
both because of the decline in income from labor, and because of a
neglect of agricultural infrastructure (and perhaps a loss of local
knowledge about how to farm).

In any event, the results of a drop in prices will likely be felt soon,
as the effects of the US economic crisis come to this tiny place, three
thousand miles away.