When peace went away
Every storm is preceded by calm. Ayacucho was no exception. For 50 years, Baldomero Alejos was a visual witness of a city in apparent peace but in which the scene of future violence was silently brewing.
Ayacucho was a region forgotten by successive governments, which slowed its economic development and deepened its poverty. A place where discrimination and racism were most intensely evident, in which forms of servitude that no longer existed in other regions survived.
In 1953, the San Cristóbal de Huamanga University was reopened, and ideas of the need for change began to spread slowly, with the arrival of mostly foreign teachers. Unfortunately, a sector became radicalized, betting on the path of armed struggle. When Baldomero Alejos died in October 1976, the political-social upheaval that shook the Andes and Peru in 1980 had not yet broken out. Baldomero’s photographs are a source of memory, strengthening of identity and reconciliation to overcome backwardness and misery. Bet on a better Ayacucho, believing that the sun will always shine after the storm.