Visit Miraflores Alto!
The life and the landscape of one village in Tambogrande on Andean Range's foot.
All photographs by Freddy Juárez.
TAMBOGRANDE, Peru 20200 - It is one of these villages that is just where the coastal flats ends and the Andean Range raises without hiding, already, and where the dry forest that reached to save some hills and taking a bath in little creeks, now climbs uphill strongly by covering up the clayed soil of the mount.
Miraflores Alto Village is quite more than an hour by car or motorcycle from Tambogrande City, its district's capital, and about 20 minutes by using the same type of vehicle from Tejedores Bajo, the closer town which is 9 kilometers or 6 miles away and which it depends administratively. It is also part of Malingas Alto Cooperative, where the predominant ecosystem is the Equatorial Dry Forest that only allows dry agriculture and cattle as much underwater and grass exists either.
The inhabitants tell that the town formed in 1960s due to migration from the Andes, the beside Huabal Community (Sapillica, Ayabaca)probably. The local tradition says the name came from a flower (flor, in Spanish) known as chabela or Madagascar's periwinkle(Catharanthus roseus) that extended along the banks of Miraflores Creek before the foundation of the town.
Taking advantage of that water starting at Chachacomal Community (Sapillica), they settled down here for working in agriculture although initially nobody talked about a Miraflores Alto (High Miraflores) or a Miraflores Bajo (Low Miraflores). The division came in 1974 because of purely organizative criteria due to the big amount of people (for an only village), setting the waterflow as a border.
The creek carries water along the year, although it shorts between September and December, matching to Austral Spring. With El Chilco Creek, it makes possible the agricultural production on a clay-loam soil, but the liquid quality was threatened some years ago due to the illegal mining that tried to establish at the towns around and at the top of the mountain, in Sapillica already.
Eventually the population and the authorities got to hold the miners off the line but the threat is latent.
The Problem Of The Schooling
With the already founded Miraflores Alto Village, the local 15220 Elementary School was created too, where one only teacher serves the six grades of this level. It is affiliated to the Malingas-based Fe y Alegría 48 Rural Educational Programme (PERFYA 48, as in Spanish). According to its own records, it only serves 11 boys and girls. In May 2017, a non-scholarized kindergarten programme was created depending on the Sub-Municipality of Tejedores, and serving 7 boys and girls between 3 and 5 years old.
According to the diagnosis of the local elementary school, only 1 of 10 Miraflores Alto inhabitants reads, writes, and solves basic arithmetic operations. The most of adult population only has elementary education, it affirms.
The same paper sustains the women are majority compared to the men (in Piura Region, 51% are women and 49% are men according to 2017 Census). Many of them get engaged and have kids when they are still teenagers, what forces them to break up the school. Single mothers are also evident, so the elementary school, PERFYA 48, and other entities are focusing on educating about gender equity and family planning.
Despite that, the habit of get a family without the parental approval persists when the lovers agree to escape to the boy parents' house in order to "negotiate" the marriage with the girl later.
Geodevelopment
The people of Miraflores Alto assures its air is clean and grants it to the dry forest they still conserve. There are no measures confirming the levels but the explanation is empirically consistent.
The climate is mostly warm between January and March (during the Austral Summer), cool with fog and some tiny showers between June and August (during the Austral Winter), and temperate between September and December (during the Austral Spring). The conditions could be marked by the fact of locating on foot of the Andean Range, 206 meters or 675 feet altitude.
Although there is no specialized biological inventory, the community recognizes itself as biodiverse, but a deepest study is necessary. its flora is formed by some bushes as: pink morning glory, pearlberry, white and green broom, hoja santa or sacred leaf, lemon grass, thistle, palo overo, and soapberry; also trees as: carob, Lignum vitae, sapodilla, pau mulato, and paypay.
The identified fauna also reveals an interesting diversity. Among reptiles are: boa constrictor, guayasas, rattle vipers, iguanas, and coral vipers. Among the mammals are highlighted the so-called "león", although it is not clear if people refer to the puma or the wildcat; also are the deer, the fox, and the skunk. Among the birds are accounted: wild ducks, parakeets, Pacific horneros or chilalos, Peruvian thick-knees, long-tailed mockingbirds, and pigeons. The fishes just if have the tilapia as a representative species, and they could disappear as the lagoons where they use to live tend to disappear time after time.
In Miraflores Alto, 7 of each 10 inhabitants work in agriculture and the remaining 3 ones in cattle. The most live in one same house where it is possible to find the grandparents, the parents, and the kids, and even the kids of the kids.
The lime is the most remarkable crop and it is gotten through the year. The mango is also growed between November to March. Additionally there is rice but submitted to the water availability. In low scale are cropped: plums, banana, yucca, papaya, pacay fruit, soursop, lime orange, orange, taperiba; also including: pea, bean, corn, sweet potato, chili, vassil, tomato, onion and mint.
Who work in cattle grow goats, pigs, and fowls. It is also possible to see cows. All these animals are mostly addressed for self-consumption while their excedents are sold, what does not represent big profits, until what FACTORTIERRA could learn, due not to develop the needed abilities. The good news is all families in town grow their animals.
Miraflores Alto produces goat's cheese, but not for sale in high or medium scale. The truth is the commercial activity is reduced- Some locals sell directly to markets in Cruceta, as long as about 16 km or 10 miles, and Tambogrande, far about 25 km or 16 miles. Instead, merchants from both cities attend to Miraflores Alto for buying to the own grower. When it is not possible to sell or buy, an old transaction is brought back - barter or interchange of food among neighbors or the villages around.
G
eocultureIf the people get sick, there is no medical center in town to serve them; they have to save the 9-km that separates from Tejedores Bajo, where there is one actually dependant from the Ministry of Health, anyway.
Meanwhile, Miraflores Alto's midwife Rosa Villegas continues bringing to birth the new citizens, while the medicinal plants prescribed by the oral tradition continue to solve the rest of health conditions, prepared as infusions: the overo against inflamation; hoja santa, the whiteberry, and vasil against the evil eye (known as chooccaqe in this part); stomachaches and earaches are relieved with wormsheet, China's oregano, and mint; with lemon grasss, aloe vera, some lime drops, and eucalyptus is treated the flu; and the plantain desinflamates the wounds.
The houses are still built of adobes or non-baked bricks made of mud mixed with dry herb, all local manufactured. The total of houses already have electricity service and running water and baths since 2018, although the liquid supply is restricted, reason why the people still have to carry it on from the creek over a beast of burden or pure human traction. However, the people enjoys with direct-to-home (DTH) system paid-TV, while the mobile service is complicated due to the local geography.
93 of each 100 inhabitants are Catholic and their main holiday is celebrated on October 4th, dedicated to the Holy Saint Virgin. The cults congregate this portion of people in their own chapel and the acts are made by a brotherhood of parishioners. The rest of the population is Evangelic Christian.
Still even, there are ritual-magical remembrances lost in time like using the pray with scissors or a knife as accessories to heal the evil eye, and medicinal plants too. If the thick-knee squawks, the people enter in alert mode because is augury of somebody going to pass away.
The local diet, as said before, depends on what the soil produces and is complemented with home fowls. The spaghettis and the canned tuna are the few manufactured food coming from the city. The potato is also highly appreciated here.
The local gastronomy is attractive: zango (fried milled wheat) with pork meat, mote (boiled peeled corn) with pork meat, tortillas and cheese, cabrito (tender goat meat) stew with tamales, and the ancient jora chicha to drink.
Luckily, there is still possible to see long-haired boys, hair-dressed in braids, what are cut in a party called landas: if you want to cut one of them you must leave money to the family. The same happens with the first nail cutting to the house's babies. It is also conserved the water thrown, a kind of domestic baptism to all new as newborns or just built constructions.
"We have to preserve this heritage," the elementary school's principal and only teacher Freddy Juárez García exhorts. One of his concerns is to conserve the dry forest that covers up Licamancha Mount, which base is Miraflores Alto, due to the existence of some puma or gray deer individuals.
At least, it is suspected the existence of pumas because sometimes died goats with evident predation signs appear. Some people want to revenge of the cats but the revenge could extinguish out of the zone. The question is if every species can find its own space not affecting one each other. A matter to following to investigate.
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