In Lima Peru, the latest APEC gathering attended by leaders of countries bordering the Pacific Ocean has just concluded. Of course it was attended by our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and so our media fully covered the event.

I don’t know how the custom began or when, but these conferences now traditionally conclude with attending heads of state being presented with a wearable souvenir, typical of the host nation, which they don while participating in photo opportunities on the last day. There have been some memorable Malay and Indonesian batik shirts, and the Philipines presented them with those lovely peñasilk dress shirts worn everyday by men there. Of course, as every traveller knows, something typical of one culture can look a bit comic back home, and nothing shrieks louder of a returned tourist than sporting a piece of culture-to-wear, like a Union Jack waistcoat, an Akubra hat with shark tooth adorned headband, or a t-shirt adorned with native american symbols worn with turquoise and silver jewellery.

For the host nation, the trick is to choose something identifiably national and that can be worn by both male and female leaders. The following is a link to the photo gallery in today’s issue of The Australian, of the leaders jollying around in their gift ponchos from the people of Peru, hand woven, natural coloured and doubtless very fine quality alpaca fibre:

http://media.theaustralian.com.au/media/2008/11/24-apec/index.html
Although some in the photos clearly don’t have much idea how to put them on or how to stand up straight when wearing such a thing, I am pleased at how our Kev did wear his well and with respect. On the other hand, George W looks as he possibly felt – a total dork, with very little good grace. Being a textiles collector, I have my hand up in case Kev decides to quietly dispense with his, but reckon his wife will snag it and wear it with appropriate style some time over a great shirt or top and pants with boots. Perfect for our national capital in winter.

The prevoious APEC gathering was in Sydney, Australia. The government of the day would have sifted through various national clothing ideas – stubbies, thongs and t-shirt perhaps? (stubbies are very short shorts) but maybe not for the sheilas -stubbies are often revealing enough on the blokes. They might have considered white t-shirts with shark bites out of them and splashes of what looks like fresh blood? bad taste, and pun intended … shady hats with bobbing corks around the rim? They eventually came up with the ubiquitous Akubra(brand) wide brimmed felt hat, worn year round by blokes and sheilas, in town and country – perfect. Then our people went way over the top with excessive largesse, teaming these hats with indivdually sized and coloured suede trimmed Drizabone rain coats. These are robust waterproof coats of oiled fabric, styled with a split back to enable the wearer to be mounted on a horse OK while droving or working out in wet windy cold weather. They’re legendary, and totally wonderful, but not your everyday wear for most Aussies, and in addition they aren’t cheap – think several hundred dollars. It felt to me like we were wanting to totally out-do our Pacific neighbours, rather like the suburban mum planning a kiddies’ birthday party wanting the take-home party favour lolly bag to be bigger and better than anyone else’s. So nouveau riche.

So I thought this article on the poncho gifts and photo opps windup was particularly snotty and rather embarrassing to read in our national newspaper. It will find its way back to Peru, and there will be taken as an ignorant put-down. Peru’s APEC ponchos resemble ‘potato sacks’ The Australian Shame on you, Matthew.

“Pick Me! Pick Me! ” they seem to cry as I look
down from my sewing table for the next few choice little bits to add to the growing composition below. Some of them are indeed very small, catching my eye as little gems against the background of the less startling; but properly placed adjacent to something else, potentially every piece will become important in the overall outcome.

As I comment below, I literally do up-end the scrap bags onto the floor, and there’s another heap behind the camera, too, but the light coming in onto it made that too hard to photograph without moving everything around. At times I feel as a dumpster diver must feel, searching through people’s discarded stuff looking for useful or valuable things, or, let’s be honest, maybe looking for food, depending on where the dumpster is.

Hauling out recyclables from the city maintained dumpsters on every block in Montevideo is still a reasonable business, generally run by one or two people with a horse and cart. With the dumpsters being emptied 3 times per week and pressure hosed once, they have to be organised to be ahead of the rubbish workers’ schedule. Licences are gradually dwindling though as they come due, and this way of life is allegedly disappearing. I always do my best to put recyclables in the orange plastic bags you get, theoretically one or two with every supermarket order, and they are meant to only contain recycleable glass, plastic, paper, styrofoam and such. The list is printed on the outside. Previously, each house had a basket up on a pole outside the front gate, into which bags of rubbish went; and every monday a guy would come down our street looking for cardboard and plastic packaging, etc, and I used to put anything like that out that morning. I’m not sure how he’d be doing, never see him around now.

Served in lost of places, fish seems to appear far more on the menu in Peru than here in Uruguay. The Incas fished the seas, rivers and highland lakes, and were traders of dried fish over long distances. We were presented with lots of vegetables, too. Over 1500 varieties of potato, and over 450 of corn are produced there. We found there always seems to be potato and/or corn in there somewhere at most meals.
You might not be able to tell, but the LR pic is fish in a shallow lake of potato blended with pumkin and cilantro and, well not sure what else, but very yummy – we’ll be doing a version of this at home. It also came with an upturned 1/2 hard boiled egg and a black olive which are no longer evident. Above, in UR, is another piece of fish served on a bed of potato with tomato and  I’m not sure what else blended in with it, but it was fantastic.

The two pics UL and LL are two versions of ceviche, the fresh fish pickled in lemon or lime juice with cilantro and a little chilli basically, and served everywhere it seems. The upper one is covered with masses of fresh onion with slivers of moderately hot chilli peppers; and the lower one came flanked with white beans, lima probably since we were in Lima, plus oven baked corn, and the ceviche in the centre was topped by a mild chilli pepper. A meal in iteslf, although it was listed under ‘entradas’.

The details are wonderful relflections of what is on sale in the daily markets – notice the brooms and basketry objects, small miracles of minature construction; and the hats, jewellery and musical instruments down the left edge of the upper pic.

Lots of people are either shopping, or offering, as one Egyptian market vendor expressed it last year, to “Let me help you spend your money madam!” I have to say, though, the marketing was less directly aggressive. In Egypt I found that vendors would even gently take hold of my arm or wrist to direct my attention or try to make me head in a particular direction. In Peru there was constant verbal pressure sotto voce, and goodness, I would love to have bought up something from every stall, but everyone knows that can’t be.

Over on the right of the lower pic are some of the fruits and vegetables, as heaped up in every general market amongst the household items.

These are major works of the miniaturist’s art, quite up there with other examples like dolls houses or ships in bottles, IMHO. I have never been bitten by the bug, but do appreciate the work of people who love doing this.