with a despairing smile Ismary opens the door to her home in Cajamarca. "Percy is not at home," she says the same, in an apologetic tone. In the living room, the youngest of three children crawling on the floor babbling, happy to himself, fills the room with life. Nevertheless, a seriousness lies in the Air, a sadness that lies like an invisible veil over everything.
I flap my laptop and show Ismary the three portraits of the ARTE documentary we shot in January with her husband Percy and two other protagonists in Cajamarca. She looks at the three portraits of quiet. "Good work," she said then ... "Very good .... "What will come of it?" Yes ... a good question ...! What will come of it? If people all over the world stand up and cry out indignantly that such injustice should not go unpunished? If activists write letters? Complaining? A boycott call? Will occur somewhere people for that the same thing not repeated thousands of times at different places in the big wide world?
... I'm sorry to admit Ismary that will happen as a direct response to the report at all. The two million viewers who saw the program last Saturday in Germany and France, it is probably long since forgotten. I try to explain that this TV report but part of a larger campaign, a larger movement that advocates for human rights and workers rights. My observations seem helpless. Ismary nods. Slowly. Ismary understand. Understand that all this is necessary, important and good. Understood but also that their specific situation will not change this. Their struggle for justice, their struggle for survival must Ismary and Percy fight by myself.
Her husband Percy is just the lawyer for the union to further its criminal complaint against the mining company Yanacocha on. He presents his medical file, the case is worked out when the process begins is not yet clear. Whether Percy has a realistic chance to sue the powerful companies for compensation for his ruined health is questionable. Whether he will ever receive compensation for the high mercury levels in his blood ...? On shakes my question if Percy is still receiving medical treatment, whether he takes medication, Ismary the head and the tears well up in her eyes. "The doctors here are all corrupted by the company. We would have to travel to Lima to Piura, or to really get a credible diagnosis. We have not the money. Percy's medicine is now exhausted - for new drugs is no money. But he has more symptoms. White spots on the skin, a kind of skin disorder. Whether that comes from mercury? Or from mental stress? Without question, the doctor will be difficult to answer.
A week ago, the new school year began, there have school uniforms be purchased for the two older children, books, books, school bags. "That education should be free in Peru, is a joke! I have spent this week alone more than 500 soles (USD 150) for school papers! "
" Recently, Percy irritated constantly told "Ismary. He walks in the afternoon from the house and only comes home at night. "I do not know where he goes, what he does. He looks for work, he says. He goes to the children who are impatient stressed out, irritated. The month-long burden of his illness, unemployment, the increasingly urgent question, "what are we living in a couple of weeks?" All creates an ever more crushing atmosphere in the house. "I try to understand him. Try to ignore his irritation. But he withdrew more and more into himself, and I do not get ran over to him. Now we not only have the illness, unemployment, financial problems - now we also have marital problems. It's like a bad dream in which joins mischief's next. But when you wake up in the morning, the nightmare continues. , I hope that God will soon remind us. We have never done anything bad ... "
