The 10×10 film team is in production in La Rinconada, Peru, considered by some to be the highest city in the world. It’s also one of the harshest, most lawless, desolate places on earth.
Senior Producer Martha Adams walks us down the muddy roads of La Rinconada in this audio slideshow, a tough place to film if there ever was one.
From a sweltering trash dump to a placid riverside, our film crew recently wrapped production on the Cambodia segment of the 10×10 film.
View these behind-the-scenes photos from our Cambodia production:
Cambodia Trip 3 Slideshow – Images by 10×10.
There are thousands of people struggling for survival in Cambodia’s trash dumps. You can provide shelter, food, and an education to Cambodia’s garbage dump scavenger children through our partner, A New Day Cambodia.
10x10 Producer Beth Osisek interviews a girl in Sierra Leone. Photo by Gina Nemirofsky, 10x10.
As a seasoned world traveler, I’m embarrassed to admit that when I was told I was going to Sierra Leone, I had to look it up on the map. So let me start by orienting you: Sierra Leone is roughly the size of South Carolina and hugs the west coast of Africa. It is almost directly due south (nearly seven hours by plane) of London.
What most people conjure when they hear “Sierra Leone” are the horrifying pictures of amputees from the drug-fueled rampage of the country during a long running civil war that officially ended 10 years ago. I was no exception. Those are hard images to replace, but that’s exactly what the people of Sierra Leone are trying to do these days. Slowly, the country revealed a different side to us during our 10 days on the ground that ended last Friday.
We started our trip in Freetown, the capital. Freetown was founded as a home for freed slaves but quickly became a large trading port for slaves shipped to America in the 1800s. We woke our first day eager to start our search for that one girl who will become the subject of our film’s chapter on Sierra Leone. Driving through the streets, we were struck by the image of boys and girls walking, even running to school in their pristine uniforms (no small feat in a land of ubiquitous dust and mud). It’s all incredibly cinematic—brightly colored clothes against a backdrop of browns and the greens of the distant bush. The movie is unfolding in our minds.
We spent 10 days traveling around the country and interviewed about 50 girls ages 8 to 18, whom we met through six different NGOs including our partner Plan International. We talked to girls living on the streets as well as girls attending the most prestigious girls’ school in West Africa. Along the way, we interviewed some remarkable kids with transcendent stories that would captivate even the most cynical of audiences.
Now comes the hard part. We will put together video of the few girls whose stories stood out. We’ll then present them to our author, Booker Prize-nominated Aminatta Forna. She is then charged with the unenviable task of picking the one girl who will be the focus of the Sierra Leone portion of the film. I can’t wait to see who she chooses. Stay tuned…
Check out the faces and places of Sierra Leone in our first batch of photos from the trip:
Question: What do Glenn Beck, MC Hammer, and Ed McMahon have to do with indigenous Peruvian laborers in the Andes? The three celebs have all served as pitchmen for the modern day gold rush, whether hawking gold coins or encouraging Super Bowl viewers to turn their jewelry into cash.
With so much economic uncertainty in the world, investors are turning to gold to hedge against other shaky investments. The result: the price of gold has surged some 500% in the last decade. While Hammer and McMahon turn their gold medallions and golf clubs into cash, the rush is on to mine more of the precious metal from the earth. And that’s what brought 10×10 to La Rinconada, Peru.
Siting near a gold mine 17,400 feet above sea level on an Andean peak in Southeast Peru, La Riconada is home to 50,000 Peruvians struck with la fiebre de oro—or gold fever. As gold prices have risen, the population of “the highest city on earth” has doubled in the past five years.
Life in La Rinconada is the harshest our producers have seen among all their travels for the 10×10 film. The mining operations here are grossly unregulated, leaving the frozen, rocky land with sooty trails of contaminated sewage and mercury. Poisonous gases and other noxious byproducts from the goldmines, coupled with low public health standards, make life in La Rinconada physically perilous. Beyond the health challenges, violence is pervasive in this lawless community, with reports of half a dozen homicides per month.
As you can imagine, La Rinconada is especially unsuitable for kids. We witnessed children of miners, who are often laborers themselves, trekking across freezing pools of sewage every day to go to school. With a glint of hope of someday getting off the mountain, their education will be the ticket to a different life.
Since we’ve only made one trip to Peru so far, we don’t yet have a formal way for you to take action and help educate girls so they escape La Rinconada. But we’re heading back there next week. Join our mailing list and we will be sure to let know how you can help in La Rinconada.
Photos by Martha Adams, 10×10
10×10 has covered a few miles this year. Some 400,000 in fact.
Over the course of our extensive travels in search of those 10 unique girls whose stories we will tell in the 10×10 film, our producers have snapped about 40,000 photos. Here are some of the best from 2011, all shot from iPhones with the Hipstamatic app.
December 9, 2011, La Rinconada, Peru.
Listen in to the voicemail 10×10 Producer Martha Adams left for Holly Gordon sharing her experience visiting La Rinconada, Peru. In search of extraordinary girls for the 10×10 film, Martha traveled to the top of a mountain in the Peruvian Andes where children living in this mining community are exposed to freezing temperatures, harmful contaminants, and widespread violence. 10×10 partner, CARE, is the only NGO that has been given access to this community and has helped provide the only public school that supports the 50k people who live there.
10×10 is devoted to linking you to opportunities to make an impact on the lives of girls. Take action on behalf of girls by supporting CARE’s programs in Peru. Please share our journey with your friends!