"We were walking along a dusty road when we heard a sound
like a distant truck coming down a hill. Earthquake!"
This
was the momentous final event of a field trip to Peru that associate
professor Michael Malpass and four of his anthropology students
took last June. Says Malpass, "We were literally right at its
epicenter, and experienced it immediately. It was terrifying.
But the real story is the students' efforts to assist the local
people in Camana. At our hotel that evening, we discussed the
destruction we had witnessed as we came back into town from the
field. Over 70 people were killed or missing, and half the agricultural
fields were rendered unusable by two tsunamis 45 and 70 feet high.
Suddenly archaeology seemed less important." The students immediately
shifted their focus. Erica Bergman '03 and Meaghan Sheehan '03
met with Madre Benigna Espinoza, a Fransican nun who had set up
a group to assist those most severely affected. The students'
donations were the first support the group received. The students
then opened a local bank account so that additional donations
could immediately and directly aid the survivors. And two of the
students helped a local television crew make a documentary, interviewing
some survivors themselves.
The trip had begun three weeks earlier when everyone met in the
town of Talara, in far northern Peru. Bergman and Sheehan had
been visiting friends in Ecuador. Malpass, Denitsa Savakova '02,
and Marissa Doster '03 had traveled together from New York. Initially,
they worked with a colleague of Malpass's at the Siches site,
a 6,500-year-old fishing camp, to get experience in unearthing
a site. They excavated using trowels, dental picks, and brushes
and learned to differentiate between stains in the soil that were
the remains of ancient posts and those that were natural. Malpass
was pleased with their accomplishments: "They learned to find
otoliths --- fish ear bones --- and gourd fragments as well as
artifacts in the screened material from the units. Marissa helped
excavate one of the earliest burials in South America!" From Siches,
the crew took a study trip down the coast, stopping to see Moche
pyramids, Chimu palaces, and 4,000-year-old temples and monuments.
They arrived in the southern town of Camana after 24 hours of
bus rides. The next day the quake hit.
Since
their return Malpass and his students have raised over $6,300
for the survivors. The group gave a presentation at the College
last October. Bergman spoke ardently: "This experience has opened
my eyes greatly to the power of nature, to the extent of human
suffering and of human compassion. I feel as though we were meant
to be there during the earthquake, and nearly every day I think
about the progress and recovery in Camana. It has changed me forever.
The earthquake really showed me the importance for archaeologists
to make connections between the ancient peoples they study and
those currently living in the same area." Speaking with equal
passion, Sheehan noted how their support was returned: "I am amazed
by the generosity that people in the U.S. have shown in support
of the people in Camana. After the tragedies of September 11 and
the aftermath, our friends in Camana shared their sympathies with
us in our time of pain. The need for peace in our world is even
more clear to me after the events of 2001. There is too much suffering
on this earth as a result of natural disasters; human violence
is an inexcusable obstacle in the path of respect for all beings."
Photos --- Top: Earthquake damage; photo by Marissa
Doster
Bottom: Left to right, Savakova, Bergman, and Doster infront of
a cathedral whose tower remained standing, even though damaged,
following the 8.1 earthquake in Camana; photo by Meaghan Sheehan
This
was the momentous final event of a field trip to Peru that associate
professor Michael Malpass and four of his anthropology students
took last June. Says Malpass, "We were literally right at its
epicenter, and experienced it immediately. It was terrifying.
But the real story is the students' efforts to assist the local
people in Camana. At our hotel that evening, we discussed the
destruction we had witnessed as we came back into town from the
field. Over 70 people were killed or missing, and half the agricultural
fields were rendered unusable by two tsunamis 45 and 70 feet high.
Suddenly archaeology seemed less important." The students immediately
shifted their focus. Erica Bergman '03 and Meaghan Sheehan '03
met with Madre Benigna Espinoza, a Fransican nun who had set up
a group to assist those most severely affected. The students'
donations were the first support the group received. The students
then opened a local bank account so that additional donations
could immediately and directly aid the survivors. And two of the
students helped a local television crew make a documentary, interviewing
some survivors themselves. 
Since
their return Malpass and his students have raised over $6,300
for the survivors. The group gave a presentation at the College
last October. Bergman spoke ardently: "This experience has opened
my eyes greatly to the power of nature, to the extent of human
suffering and of human compassion. I feel as though we were meant
to be there during the earthquake, and nearly every day I think
about the progress and recovery in Camana. It has changed me forever.
The earthquake really showed me the importance for archaeologists
to make connections between the ancient peoples they study and
those currently living in the same area." Speaking with equal
passion, Sheehan noted how their support was returned: "I am amazed
by the generosity that people in the U.S. have shown in support
of the people in Camana. After the tragedies of September 11 and
the aftermath, our friends in Camana shared their sympathies with
us in our time of pain. The need for peace in our world is even
more clear to me after the events of 2001. There is too much suffering
on this earth as a result of natural disasters; human violence
is an inexcusable obstacle in the path of respect for all beings."