Renaissance man of the Andes.

• Author: Buck, Daniel
• Position: Peter McFarren

The first time Peter McFarren arrived in Bolivia it was by accident: He was born there. The second time it was by whim. "In 1980 I decided to come back to Bolivia to visit, to spend two weeks," says McFarren. "I arrived with a hundred dollars in my pocket, a knapsack, and no job." He fell in love with the country and with the woman he would marry, and he stayed. "Here I am," he remarks, his blue eyes twinkling.

Here he is, indeed. Seated in his airy La Paz office, which is cluttered with pottery, textiles, newspapers, feather art, and photographs, not only is McFarren still in Bolivia almost two decades later, but he is also perched on the pinnacle of a cultural-media-publishing-philanthropic conglomerate, perhaps the only one of its kind in the world.

In addition to publishing books, a newspaper, and a magazine, McFarren builds museums and directs a foundation. Somehow, he also finds time to write, edit, collect folk art, take photographs, throw pots, and cook.

Born in La Paz in 1954, McFarren is the son of American Methodist missionaries who had arrived in Bolivia two years earlier. His mother, who had escaped to the United States from Nazi persecution in Austria, died fourteen years ago. His father, originally from Minnesota, is now retired and living near Cochabamba. McFarren, who holds dual Bolivian-U.S. citizenship, spent most of his early years in La Paz, Cochabamba, and Sucre. He attended the German School in Sucre and grew up speaking Spanish, English, and German.

McFarren's parents wanted him to experience life in the Bolivian countryside so they sent him and his older brother Tim to live for three months with a family in a Guarani community, Rosario del Inge, south of Sucre. "It was the rainy season, and it took us three days by horseback to ride in," McFarren recalls. "I was only twelve. We lived with a campesino family. I got up at four in the morning to milk cows, butcher pigs, round up cattle, and help with other chores. We didn't have running water, a bathroom, or electricity." McFarren has stayed in touch with the community and has returned there with his family to visit.

After graduating with honors from Mount Hermon Preparatory School in Northfield, Massachusetts, in 1971, he spent the next ten years studying or working at a variety of universities and institutions in the United States--the University of Minnesota (sociology), Hampshire College (Latin American studies and filmmaking), the Pan-American Pan-African Foundation (research and writing), Syracuse University (design and sculpture), and Hotel Syracuse (cooking). Although he never stood still long enough to obtain a bachelor's degree, he came out of that decade with an impressive array of skills that would later flourish.

Soon after his return to Bolivia in 1980, McFarren met Carmen ("Mela") Rosa Aviles. They have been married for sixteen years and have two daughters, Daniela, ten, and Valery, fourteen. "I went to Sucre to spend New Year's Eve," recalls McFarren, "and since I couldn't afford a hotel, I stayed at a Methodist boarding house run by Mela's parents. We met on New Year's Eve." Their relationship blossomed personally and professionally. Soon after they began dating, Peter and Mela opened a catering service and had a cooking show on local television.

The following year, McFarren got his first major journalistic break. He found himself, a fledgling freelance reporter, teamed up with veteran New York Times Latin America correspondent Edward Schumacher and Schumacher's wife, Maribel, a Times photographer. Their assignment was daunting: locate and interview Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, who was residing in Cochabamba under an assumed name. Barbie had been the Gestapo chief during World War II in Lyons, France, and had earned his chilling nickname, "the Butcher of Lyon," by torturing captured members of the French resistance. Never captured, Barbie had lived in Bolivia for some three decades. In the early 1980s he organized a neo-fascist band of German and Italian mercenaries, known as the...