Two weeks ago, I landed in Cusco, Peru, which is 11,000 feet above sea level. From the airplane, I could see tiny communities nestled in the most unlikely places at the peaks of mountains, sometimes connected only by small dirt roads. Kind of like a rez way up in the sky.
Cusco was so calm it was hard to believe it had been the stage of violent state repression just months before I got there. It was so quiet that all I could hear were the dogs barking in the neighbourhood.
The uprisings in the Andes of Peru last year were largely driven by social and economic grievances, including opposition to government policies perceived as harmful to Indigenous communities and the environment, such as mining and resource extraction projects. There were also concerns about land rights, cultural preservation, and lack of consultation with Indigenous peoples on development projects.
These issues have long been sources of tension in the region. In fact, social gains in Peru usually come from the mountains densely populated by Indigenous folks, as they’re always the first to take the streets to protest.
However, the tension was still palpable in the bigger cities of the Andes. Police in tactical gear conducting surveillance on locals was a common sight in parks and plazas. There weren’t many Indigenous Andean flag hanging outside houses and stores, which is weird for a city where Natives are so visible and colourful in their attire.
The millennium-long presence of the Quechua and Aymara in the mountains is visually striking. The archeological sites with ruins are abundant and every mountain peak bears marks of thousands of years of terrace agriculture.
What made me most emotional was to see contemporary Indigenous people literally living on the structures of their Inca ancestors and using them for their original purposes. Coming from a land too acidic and low in altitude to preserve most man-made things, I was almost envious of their proximity to their heritage.
I can imagine that the mountains feel like a warm hug from their land and that the structures they built their houses on feel like an indelible love letter from their ancestors. Since time immemorial, everywhere in the Americas, Indigenous cultures always made things being mindful of future generations. What are we leaving for generations to come?
I felt right at home. The Andes is probably one of the safest places I’ve visited in my entire life. The Andean craftsmanship was sometimes very similar to our own and their kindness was the same that our communities are known for.
We also struggle with colonial challenges, so my trip was also a reminder of my responsibility to stand in solidarity with my Indigenous kin in other parts of the world. Andeans still fight and risk their lives regularly for their right to sumak kawsay, the “good life”, just like we strive to achieve miyupimâtisîun in Cree country. I will always feel very connected to the people I met there, and I am so proud to exist as an Indigenous person alongside them.