Soon the rain will come / Pronto vendrá la lluvia / Ch'aya muykanna tamya

The accelerated advance of globalization and extractivist policies that favor mega-mining are affecting ancestral traditions in small rural communities of Cajamarca, Perú

The wisdom around the use of medicinal plants, their original names, as well as the practice and mystic around them, has been disappearing from territories where only a few years ago were still commonly used to treat physical and emotional illnesses. This knowledge, transmitted from orality and daily use, instead of being incorporated into contemporary medicine, has been left aside for being, for many, a symbol of ignorance and poverty.

José Isabel lives a few kilometers from Minera Yanacocha (one of the largest gold extractors on the continent), in the Chilimpampa community. He knows well that the culture of his ancestors is doomed to disappear from his community.

Isabel learned this knowledge from María Santos, his mother and former "Yachaq" (wise woman), who died ten years before Minera Yanacocha's attempt to exploit the Quilish, Apu or sacred mountain, in addition to being an important source of water that houses the ishpingo and chusqu tushpa, among other plants that José Isabel collects to treat those who still trust in the power of nature, however, despite the fact that an internal fire continues to mobilize a septuagenarian José Isabel, he knows that he must find a way to save the memory bequeathed by their ancestors, before this knowledge is lost forever in the chaos of development.

This project will become a photobook thanks to Ver Voir Festival and is being edited thanks as part of the "1 to 1´s mentoring program" by VII Academy