There was a dazzling woman. In real life, I didn’t know who she was, although I now realise I had seen her starring in a film on Edith Piaf. She was Marion Cotillard who was given the International Actor of the Year Award. Ralph Fiennes gave the encomium: he loved her for her spirit, the loving and generous life force which flowed through her. On her way to being photographed, she stopped and bent over our table, telling me she could not sacrifice the opportunity of telling me she adored and admired me for my commitments. I was thrilled by her beauty: in a strapless dress, black taffeta all gathered up in the front and all around, she quite overwhelmed me with her pale arms and her face of sincere animation. I quite understood what Ralph Fiennes had said and I would love to meet her again.
NOVEMBER 2012
FRI 2 NOV LEONARD PELTIER FILM
Special. Lorna Tucker came to see me. She spent six months and managed to get permission to see Leonard Peltier for three consecutive days. She is making a film on Leonard and she wanted to film me talking about him. Leonard still hopes to get out and not die in jail. Lorna brought me up to date with his chances. It was heartbreaking to listen to her telling all the things he’d like to do – the enthusiasm and the frustration of a man so powerfully caring about living a good life. I felt so upset when she told me that when Clinton promised to let him out with his presidential prerogative on leaving office, Leonard didn’t believe it at first but at last he did and bought a new suit. Clinton changed his mind. Lorna is hoping to be able to film Leonard.
Leonard Peltier at Leavenworth prison, 1992.
Dear Leonard, I will say this on your film: the reason Leonard Peltier is still in jail is because he will not admit to a crime he didn’t do. If they keep you in jail you are guilty. ‘America is never wrong’. If they let you out then you are innocent and the FBI is guilty.
SAT 3 NOV ISLAMIC ART AT THE V&A
We are going to India tomorrow for Naomi Campbell’s party for her boyfriend, Vlad, and I wanted to look at Indian art before I go. I have not visited India before because I have not yet been impressed by their art. The printed fabrics which they exported to Europe during the eighteenth century are very fine, very attractive. Apart from that, I know photos of the erotic sculptures and bas-reliefs from their temples, and I would love to see the temple dancing, but generally in a museum I pass through collections of Indian art without attraction. The Hindu gods and the Buddhas just haven’t lit a spark. They might.
I met my son, Ben, and his girlfriend at the V&A. However, I did not see Indian art because I stopped at Islamic art and it was fascinating. So meticulous: brocades, tiles, ceramics, carpets, metal inlays – mind-bogglingly, beautifully crammed with the finest detail (it must have taken years to make a bowl), pierced metals and a wooden minbar made with little stars and crosses of wood fitted together; geometric but also lots of figurative work. The Arabs were great fans of Chinese ceramics and were inspired by them (the vases as well). What makes Chinese art so great is its spontaneity: the artist studies and absorbs and practices and then does it in one go. The greatest expressions of the spirit ever achieved. I must come back for the Indian art.
SUN 4 – THURS 8 NOV NAOMI’S PARTY IN JODHPUR
To India. We are not in the main hotel (enormous) but in a smaller one where Andreas chose our rooms – a little house at tree level, one of several with Indian-themed individual decor. Andreas especially loves getting up (before me), opening the door, letting in the sun and sitting on the balcony, making notes, drinking tea and listening to the chirping of the sparrows as they hop from branch to branch in the bougainvillea vines.
A visit to the market, thronging with people – women in bright saris or full Rajasthani skirts. This dress lends women such grace. I love the way the end of the wrapped cloth veils their head and shoulders from the sun as they move; hold this with their expressive hands and then look up with their eyes so animated. They are buying Indian bling and cheap mass-produced rubbish, everything brightly coloured – it was a special festival day. Then up to the Mehrangarh fort which stands on a great outcrop of rock towering over Jodhpur.
On the way up we branched off onto another hill to look at a mausoleum of the famous fifteenth-century fighter who had built the fort. Walking up to it, you see a lake ringed by hills with a wall all along the ridge. I have never been in a more quiet and peaceful situation. I stood a long time overlooking the lake with its dragonflies and swallows and waterfowl. The air was so still.
Then up to the fort which was being decorated for Vlad’s party: flowers everywhere, on strings and garlands and hanging like tassels, and amongst the columns of flowers mounds of chillies; in a large courtyard were cushions and couches and carpets, where later that night all we guests would sit feasting and drinking. We continued our journey through the rooms with the other tourists and I can’t remember one room or artefact because I saw nothing to like amongst all the ancient paraphernalia. So far in India I’ve seen only bling. The architecture of the fort relied on patterned permutations of pierced brickwork. It was a mess.
Mehrangarh fort, Jodhpur, lit up for a party.
For the party nights, we were all dressed in Indian costumes. Michael Howard, the creative director for Dior, must have worked for weeks. The lighting and décor of the fort and the events were amazing: up along the internal ramps leading to the courtyard were dozens of drummers, horses, camels caparisoned in mirrors and tassels, dancers, acrobats, fire-eaters, ladies throwing rose petals; great posters painted by people from the Indian film industry. Vlad was Bond and Naomi was his Bond girl, the title ‘Bond is Back’. Part of the attraction of their romance must be the idea of the glamorous couple. And, because of the thronging festivities, we felt like we were in a film set. Diana Ross took a fancy to Andreas and he politely got on stage with her for a minute or two.
Naomi mentioned that she’s going to do some charity work in India about waste recycling. I talked to David X Prutting, who was the official photographer. He told me that when he first visited India, he went to photograph and meet the lowest class, who clean up the shit. He loved them; they were the only people who never asked him for money. Like everyone, he found it hard to cope with the poverty. David said, ‘The way to deal with it is to accept it for yourself, to take it into yourself, to say yes, this is a life, to respect.’ Thank you, Naomi, for the invitation.
FRI 9 – TUES 13 NOV DRAWING SNAKES
Caught up with our designs, had jet-lag for twenty-four hours (Saturday), tidied up the Climate Revolution charter and drew the snakes which eat each other’s tails.
WEDS 14 – THURS 15 NOV ROME CONFERENCE
To Rome for a conference on luxury goods hosted by the International Herald Tribune fashion editor, Suzy Menkes. Suzy is so inspired by our project designing bags which are made in Africa that she really wanted us at this conference, which was focused on Africa. We met some of our dear friends from the project there. Andreas and I were supposed to talk at 4.30 p.m. on Thursday. I went first. I talked about climate change, which I hope punctured the complacency of some of the speakers who seemed to focus their hopes for the future on the emerging middle-class consumer in Africa. My speech turned out to be popular and Suzy responded to the applause by dramatically finishing it there and moving onto the next speaker. I was sorry not to hear Andreas. He had wanted to talk about the people we met in Africa.
SAT 17 NOV TO PERU WITH COOL EARTH
To Peru. We are visiting the Ashaninka communities in the rainforest with Cool Earth. Andreas and I left the house at 6 a.m., having had 3½ hours’ sleep. We met at the airport with Cynthia. The Times journalist Deborah Ross, and Mark Ellingham, a Cool Earth Trustee, who founded the Rough Guide travel books.
The Cool Earth team were waiting for us in Lima: Matthew Owen, the director, and Dilwyn Jenkins, an anthropologist who has known and helped the Ashaninka for thirty years. Dilwyn writes the Rough Guide to Peru and, after Mark introduced him to Cool Earth, he had set up the project with the Ashaninka council. Of the other
members of our party, Carlos and Raphaelle are based in Lima and work with Dilwyn on their NGO, Eco-Tribal, which supports the work of Cool Earth. Jemma and Kitty work with Matthew at Cool Earth in Cornwall but travel to Peru two or three times a year. A good thing about our trip was that we were all great company; everybody so kind, so sweet – clever, intelligent, funny; we became good friends.
Lima is a big city, perhaps bigger than London – population eight million. We stayed in a vast and decrepit hotel in the old centre. Andreas and I were tired; we hadn’t slept on the plane. I slept now but Andreas, hardly at all. We had the choice of gurgling water and an air-conditioning plant in the rooms at the back or traffic noise at the front. We chose the traffic.
SUN 18 – WEDS 21 NOV WITH THE ASHANINKA
We set off for the forest early in the morning: taxi, a small plane, jeep and finally a four-hour boat ride. Moving down the river, Andreas became happy and forgot his troubles and worrying about leaving our work on the collections. He had a nap. We arrived at Cutivireni in the Rio Ené Valley where people of this Ashaninka community were waiting for us on the river bank. The Ashaninka are the second-largest indigenous group in Peru (25–45,000 people).
César Bustamante is just about the most important person in the community. It was he who got in touch with Dilwyn (in Wales!) when they needed help. They were under threat from loggers wanting to move in and from drug traffickers wanting to use their little airstrip. Fortunately, Dilwyn was able to link up with Cool Earth, who have helped the Ashaninka in protecting and controlling their own forest. They were the third community Cool Earth worked with.
From 1980 to 1994 there was war in Peru and in this part of the rainforest. A movement called Shining Path, led by a messianic leader, Abimael Guzmán, who saw himself as the political heir of Mao and Stalin, tried to take over. César and the Ashaninka fought them – 10,000 Ashaninka were displaced, 6,000 killed and 30–40 villages disappeared. Although most of the Shining Path fighters gave up in 1994 after the arrest and imprisonment of Guzmán, pockets still exist which are now mixed up with drug trafficking.
The Ashaninka we visited in Cutivireni and neighbouring Tinkareni have gardens around the villages and beyond that the immediate forest is a mix of low and high forest canopy. Matthew says that this depends on the type of ground, rocks and soil. It is a paradise. The staple diet is manioc and maize. They have fish and wild game and lots of fruit. Because three of us were vegetarian, our party ate vegetables, which we brought with us, and we ate fruit: papaya, mango, banana (many delicious different kinds), grapefruit, oranges, coconut. The Ashaninka are now entering the market economy (exporting coffee, chocolate, some of their jewellery made from seeds and bows and arrows which Dilwyn will sell on eBay). The coffee and cacao grow wild among the forest trees.
Crossing the river to Cutivireni.
An Ashaninka woman called Chabuca took me to see the plant whose seeds they grind for their red make-up. She speaks Spanish as well as Ashaninka and stopped often on the way to sweep her arm over the landscape, saying ‘Bonito (beautiful), Señora Vivienne’. The Ashaninka are the most casual people. Some of the men and women wear make-up, some not. They rub the red paste on their faces or make little marks and patterns which express their dreams and visions from the native drug, ayahuasca, or simply their present state of mind. There is no marriage ceremony – the kids build a new house and the couple move in together. When people die, they used to lay them on a rock in the river so that the bones were picked and then, I guess, they just disposed of the bones in the forest. Since the 1960s they bury people in unmarked graves in the forest – but they know where the bodies are.
The Ashaninka have one house to sleep in, with a bed which is a wooden table, two or three changes of clothes; they have another house, open-sided, which is the kitchen and ‘women’s house’, with some pots and pans and a bag for collecting. They wash in the river, walk barefoot, and put their head through a giant banana leaf to protect them when it rains. The women’s hair is the chic-est on earth – a ragged thinned-out cut. I noticed on a film Dilwyn made in 1970, and showed on his laptop, that their hair was then more of a fringed bouffant bob and the men’s hair was long, whereas now it’s short. They keep up with the times.
Dilwyn is great friends with one of the villagers, Jaime Pene, whom he has known since Jaime was a child. Jaime has visited Dilwyn’s home in Wales but said he was glad to get back to the forest again. He’s been mapping the community and its trees on Google maps – which helps them protect their forest.
We fell in love with Cladys, so elegant, a little queen of five or six years old, who is the adopted daughter of Ana, César’s wife. The girls wear the same envelope of cloth as a dress as their mothers do – it always drops off one shoulder. Cladys looked at and listened to everything we did and said; she seemed the last to go to bed. One day, I was sitting in the river when she came and splashed me to have a game. Often she was shy but her curiosity got the better of her; the expressions on her face from serious to laughing went full circle through the whole range of human beauty.
Ana’s youngest child, Coakiti, is three; his name means ‘Little Hawk’ (they have Ashaninka and Spanish names). There are the most wonderful butterflies, especially down by the river where we were. We admired a black, white and iridescent green beauty. Andreas saw Coakiti catch it and with triumphal glee rip it apart. Andreas had to kill, with a stone, the half that was still left flying. Andreas saw this as an example of children’s natural cruelty. I told Coakiti off. He always holds his hands to his cheek, wringing them when he doesn’t know what to do. This little naked thing. I shook his hand and patted his head and said seriously that he was forgiven, miming the poor butterfly.
I should have got Dilwyn to take me to the school so he could translate, but I didn’t. Next to the school is a boarding house for children who live far away. It can take them as much as six hours to walk to school and they go home at the weekends. I asked a girl of about ten to show me her exercise book; it was history and geography with beautiful writing, maps and drawings. The teachers are supplied by the state – all teaching is in Spanish and they discourage the taking of ayahuasca.
Cladys – one of our Ashaninka companions.
Dilwyn said that in this altered state the Ashaninka experience a universal continuity which they think includes their ancestors. Chabuca’s grandmother is Noemi, who is my age, a village elder who is one of the few remaining female shamans in the area. I might have asked her to give me the chance of this experience but I was feeling a bit rough – my legs were still swollen from travelling and I felt a bit sick, maybe from our malaria pills but probably from a three-hour walk in the sun between two villages (for a special celebration where the villages came together to mark the end of the fighting with the Shining Path and also in our honour). I missed most of it because I was lying down. Cynthia said there was a very dramatic poetry recitation by the schoolteacher, the children did a traditional dance about life in the village, and there were archery competitions (they laughed at Andreas for going too near the target and cheating).
Walking to the village – the Ashaninka use forest leaves as ponchos.
THURS 22 – SUN 25 NOV BACK TO LIMA
At our point of departure from Cutivireni, Ana brought a feather headdress she had made for me. I felt I had to give a present so I picked one of the kids who was always around, wanting to know everything, and I gave him my AR badge. I explained through Dilwyn: AR means Active Resistance to Propaganda, means don’t always believe what you’re told – especially by the government – think for yourself; the man with the beret on the badge is Rembrandt, a great artist and figure of culture. This means that knowledge is power, so take advantage of your education and learn as much as you can. The women were all nodding approval and the kid was grinning all over the place to receive this honour.
Half our party had already left by boat but a few of us were privileged to go in a tiny aeroplane. By the time it touched down on the
short runway all the children from the school were there – they came running down the path through the high gardens to send us off. We flew over the wonder of the rainforest to a small town, Satipo, then joined our friends for the flight back to Lima. The air conditioning on this plane was extremely cold and Andreas caught a chill.
Back in Lima, I went with Matthew, Dilwyn, Andreas and Cynthia to see the Vice Minister of the Strategic Development of Natural Resources for Peru. Señor Acosta sat there listening, understanding English, sometimes replying in Spanish. When I asked him questions designed to discover his commitment to saving the rainforest, he gave warm support. We felt that Cool Earth had established a friendship for continuing a dialogue and Matthew hopes his support will help Cool Earth’s application to the World Bank for finance.
In the Chinese horoscope, Andreas is a horse (I am a snake). Like a horse, a draught enflames him. That night, the chill had transformed into a raging fever. He burned and I applied ice-cold cloths to his forehead (wet facecloths placed in the fridge). He was two days in the hotel bed and on the second day the fever broke into a sweat. On the third day, he was still weak but we went to the wonderful Museo Larco. The things that struck me most were the gold masks and the reflective plates sewn all over a garment. They moved and must have been constantly reflecting the sun. The people must have looked like gods who came from the sun.
We had planned to go to Cusco and Machu Picchu, with Cynthia and Dilwyn, but on Sunday we caught the plane home.
Get a Life Page 13