Alfamayo, La Convención, Cusco. The Monteagudo brothers

In the hamlet of Alfamayo, in the Huayopata District of La Convencion Province, Cusco, lives
Porfirio Monteagudo, who never retired and continues to do housework and tend to his tea
farm.

Hunchbacked, he moves nimbly through the farm; his bromeliads and orchids sprouting from
the trunks and branches of the pacae-mono, those trees that shade the tea crops, the everlasting
plant.

During the Cusco Convention, which took place from 1962 and 1965, a significant land
occupation sparked peasant confederations and leftist uprisings that were ruthlessly suppressed,
eventually eroding the old order — but without affecting the coffee and tea monoculture model,
which still exists today.

Porfirio is the most lucid of the three surviving Monteagudo brothers, all of whom are elderly.
He was left crippled after falling from a tree in his forties.

In their home in La Convencion, Francisco husks maize while Mauro stares into space from a
corner. Both live in a haze of aguardiente (low grade alcohol). Mauro is the most concerning: for
breakfast, he eats nothing but sugarcane and chews coca leaves.

According to Dr. Maritza Pintado, the effects of this plant on the mental health of older adults
are still unknown and require further study.