In my third South American mystery novel, The Surreal Killer, one of the
detectives, Suzanne, goes shopping for baby clothes at the Mercado de Las Incas
in Lima with several women she meets at a scientific meeting. Two of
these women worked as scientists from government agencies in Lima and are based
(their physical descriptions and their willingness to adopt Suzanne and show
her the techniques for shopping at The Inca Market) upon the actual Peruvian
government scientist who hosted our group from the University in Montevideo and
me in 2010. We spent that week in Peru teaching a course to about
50 Peruvian scientists and engineers about analysis and toxicology of the
Microcystins, toxins produced by Blue-Green algae that can contaminate drinking
water supplies. A highlight of the
week was Friday morning’s session, when we presented a condensed version of the
1-week course over the World health Organization’s (WHO) broadband network,
which reaches to 19 different Latin American countries simultaneously in real
time. The WHO regional network,
called the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), hosted almost 500
participants in 19 different countries for our morning course. It’s a strange feeling knowing that you
are talking to almost 500 people as you deliver your lecture or discussion to a
camera mounted on a computer.
Blue-green algae grow in lakes, reservoirs, and
wherever else you might find slow-moving or stagnant water that contains the
nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients they need to make little algae from. Some of these algae make powerful
toxins that can kill people and animals.
The recipe for disaster is a body of water, sunlight, and nutrients from
agricultural fertilizers or urban sewers.
This is a worldwide problem, including the countries in South America
that my novels are set in, and just about everywhere else. It's also an area in which my
scientific colleagues in Uruguay are making a major contribution to developing
new and better methods to test drinking water supplies for the presence of
these toxins.
The traditional Peruvian delicacy that tourists flock
to in Lima is ceviche, fresh raw fish or seafood marinated in lime juice and
seasoned with herbs like cilantro.
This South American spin on sushi is really, really good, especially
when it is accompanied by a cold beer as a snack or appetizer before
dinner. There is an interesting
juxtaposition between sampling the ceviche and worrying about whether the
ubiquitous blue-green algae we were discussing in the course shared the water
with the fish we were eating so cheerfully. This may be one of the places that the new assays being
developed in Uruguay for the algal toxins will have some direct relevance for
tourists in Lima in the future.
