Bringing Surfing to the Barrios of Peru

In the early hours Wednesday morning, a fight broke out at a party during the annual San Pablo and San Pedro festivities in the hilly Lima barrio of Alto Peru, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Exactly what happened next nobody is sure of, but by the time the scene cleared Jhonny Guerrero, one of Peru's most promising competitive surfers, had been shot twice. One of his cousins and another victim had also been shot. Guerrero, who was hit in the arm and the shoulder, was taken to hospital for medical treatment before being released.

The incident took place not long after I had met Guerrero and another young surfer, Andrés de la Cruz—two talented athletes who had thrived in spite of the odds stacked against them.

While the two 16-year-olds would sometimes wake up to seaside views, their lives are nothing like most other Peruvian surfers, who typically grow up in upper middle-class homes, free from want and shielded from crime and violence.

Alto Peru, where the shooting took place, is also where the two boys' mothers lived. Diego Villarán, the director of the Alto Peru surf program, told VICE Sports that it had a reputation as a dangerous neighborhood.

"It was a red zone, an area where they would put colors, as they say in police terms," Villarán said. "Growing up there is difficult, there are few opportunities. Many kids end up stealing and getting into crime."

De la Cruz would stay there occasionally, when he wasn't visiting his dad in another poor Lima neighborhood, Villa El Salvador, or staying at the orphanage he called home in San Bartolo, an hour's drive from Lima.

Guerrero drifted in and out of the neighborhood, as well. The shooting took place next door to his family home, Villarán said. Now he is convalescing at Villarán's house.

"He is happy and has a calmer space here," Villarán said. "He has moved his trophies and other belongings. He has his own room."

Villarán said he wanted to make sure that Guerrero would stay away from certain members of his family, who were "a bad influence, and may pull him in the wrong direction."

Guerrero and De la Cruz both fell in love with surfing as children.

"I would walk down from the barrio to the beach and loved the sea," Guerrero said. "I found half of a board and started bodysurfing. One day a guy asked me why I didn't surf and I explained to him that I didn't have the means.

"I then started to attend free classes in Alto Peru and one day a friend offered me a board, which I paid for with my savings that my mother gave me. It wasn't very good, but I started doing moves and I enjoyed it so much."

But the board eventually got old and worn. "I didn't know what to do," he said. "I was almost in tears before a man saw me and said that he could give me his son's board."

De la Cruz said he first encountered the sport at age eight.

"I went down to the beach and saw other kids riding waves and I wanted to learn," he said. "I was selling candies in the street and a cool dad gave me a small plastic board. I got into the water and I fell in love."

Last year, Guerrero ranked third nationally in the under-16 group and got to the quarterfinals in the international Pro Junior World Surfing League (WSL) competition in San Bartolo. De la Cruz, meanwhile, came second in a national competition at the end of 2015 and continues to do well this year.

In a country where 23 percent of the population still lives on less than $1.25 a day, surfing is generally considered an elite sport, limited to rich Limeño kids.

But it has become more popular among all economic classes since Sofia Mulanovich, whose seaside hometown of Punta Hermosa is not far from San Bartolo, won a world championship in 2004. Peru now has an estimated 200,000 surfers.

"Sofia managed to change the stereotype related to surfing in Latin America," Karin Sierralta, the Peruvian vice-president of the International Surfing Association, explained. "Before, it was very much linked to marijuana, hippies, and kids who don't work. Sofia was an honor student at school, she was friendly and showed that surfing could be an important competitive sport and not just a pastime."

Two years ago, Mulanovich decided that she wanted to share her experience with gifted children, including those who may not have the same means as she had to perfect her skills.

In 2015, she launched Proyecto Sofia to give gifted young surfers, like Guerrero and De la Cruz, a chance at becoming masters at the sport. With the support of Swiss watchmaker Swatch, the program covers the costs of nearly everything, including wetsuits, surfboards, and top Peruvian coaches, and it also helps the athletes find sponsors, which include Hurley, Nike, and Huntington, a Peruvian apparel company.

On a recent Saturday morning before the Alto Peru shooting, Gabriel Aramburú, a competitive surfer, talked to the kids at Proyecto Sofia in Punta Hermosa about the keys to success in surfing, but he could have been a soccer or basketball coach. His message was universal.

"Training, discipline, respecting timetables, never being lazy. You have to take advantage to the max of the opportunities being given to you," he said. "Your goal in a championship should not only be to win against others but to confront your limits, to get better. If you do this all the time, you will move up."

The teenagers listened quietly and intently, with qualifications for September's ISA championship in the Azores, Portugal, very much in mind. Guerrero had arrived a bit late, but he quickly slipped into the same mesmerized state as the others. He later explained that he had missed Proyecto Sofia's shuttle bus "but found a way to get here by all means."

In the informal classroom, the young athletes reviewed their last week's performance on video recordings and talked about the best strategies when competing.

"It's good to analyze what you did. I realize my mistakes," Guerrero explained later. "Sometimes I get a bit nervous, and tell myself that I need to do this and this, and it all spins around in my head. But other times I stay cool and calm, waiting for the wave, cold headed, with a blank mind, and when the wave comes, it's just mine."

For Guerrero and De la Cruz, clearing their minds can be challenging. They have a lot more than waves to be worried about.

"Sometimes it's difficult to do things alone," Guerrero said. "My mother supports me, but she works at a factory and she has to care for my little brother. We live in a small room in my grandparents' house. Sometimes it's a bit tight with my surfboards, but there we are, my mom and I, trying to move ahead little by little."

Villarán, who started the Alto Peru surfing program in 2008, is friends with the two boys, who drop by his home when they are in the neighborhood.

"It's so, so, so difficult for the boys. The difference (with the kids with money) is so big," Villarán said. "There's no one to support them. They can get home at 4 AM and no one would say anything. If they don't get up to train neither would anyone say anything. And they can't rely on adequate nutrition for being the elite athletes that they are."

Guerrero and De la Cruz can't travel to other beaches in Peru and abroad like their competitors, either. Even sponsorships can be more difficult to obtain for poorer athletes. Earlier this month, a leading Peruvian women's champion, Analí Gomez, who is of African-Peruvian descent, highlighted the issue of discrimination from sponsors in Peru.

"Sponsors prefer when kids already have money," she said. "It involves a greater responsibility for the sponsor when the kid has to travel alone, for instance."

Meanwhile Villarán said that due to limited financial resources, young athletes like Guerrero and De la Cruz have to soon find jobs to support themselves.

Mulanovich believes that their experience should help them to find work in the surf industry, but, realizing the limitations offered by their circumstances, she also reminds young athletes that education is more important than surfing. She encourages her trainees to study hard, and has offered educational grants for some her less fortunate athletes.

"The kids are super talented, and really connected to the ocean," she said. "I see how much they want it. But you need to make choices at the right time for your life."

She said she expected both Guerrero and De la Cruz to compete in the ISA competitions in Portugal. But that was before the shooting.

It was supposed to be Guerrero's third trip abroad. After his first ISA competition in Salinas, Ecuador, in 2014, he was able to travel to Australia to attend the Hurley Surfing Australia High Performance Centre.

The young surfer smiled when he spoke about the trip. "I was really happy, being able to train with the world's best coaches, including (pro surfer) Mick Fanning's trainer," he said. "I returned to Lima really strong, ready for everything. Now I am preparing my mind for everything that I want … and to move my family forward, which is my ultimate goal."

First, he has to get back in the water.

"Our Guerrero (which also means fighter in Spanish) has an angel," Mulanovich commented after the attack. "He is a very lucky boy."

For now, Guerrero told me by phone that the doctor said he was recovering well and would be able to surf again. "The injury is doing well," he said. "The doctor said I need to relax, and then it's GO!"

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