The Gallery
All text and photographs copyright of Our Forgotten Children
Peru
So many countries in one place. In Lima, the beachfront that apes the shores of Malibu. In the highlands, the peaks that speak of the Himalayas.
Culhuay is an old farming town, halfway between the two. On the banks of the Chillon River, a heavy mist hangs down for much of the time, hiding all but a handful of the homes from view.
Two year-old Jordan Pinares appears in one of the doorways, along with his five year-old brother Anthony. These boys will doubtless grow up to be farmers, like their dad, or work in the mines up in Matucana. But for now, this rain-soaked stree is their whole wide world.
Later, after a tortuous journey across ice-filled gulleys and rock-strewn passes, it's a relief to be descending to the warm air of the plains. It's time to encounter Santa Rosa. Not the nun herself, who was accorded sainthood in the 18 th century, but the dusty village that bears her name.
At first it appears there are more dogs here than people. Then, like a mirage, the kids appear - along with the inevitable football. In the dazzling rays of the setting sun, Eric and Luiz take on Kimiko, Junior and Niyeli - two boys v. three girls, no substitutions.
The grown-ups are out working in the fields, and the kids have the village to themselves. The over-crowded slums of nearby Lima might as well be on the other side of the world.