Alejandro (Alex) Toledo is a old soccer buddy of grad school days -- he got masters degrees
from the School of Education and the Department of Ecomonics -- and now president of Peru.
He was the featured speaker at the Stanford 2003 commencement and the School of Education
and the Department of Economics threw a little event to honor him the Saturday before
the commencement.

Thanks to Martin Carnoy, Alex' advisor in the School of Education and an old soccer buddy
as well, some of us locals were invited to share the moment.

The week before the event I was sure Alex would not come. He had a brief state of emergency,
with the army on the streets and some dead in clashes, a teacher strike, a suddenly re-emergent
Shinning Path kidnapping folks, a mini-scandal when Shinning Path released the hostages (he
said that the had been liberated by Peruvian armed forces and had to amend that to released by
the guerrillas), etc. It did not seem to me like coming to address graduating students from
Stanford in the midst of this was a winning political move.

As a final indignity he had to deal with his own senate. It turns out that the Peruvian senate gets
to approve all foreign travel of the president and they voted to let him come but not to let him
use the presidential plane alleging the high cost involved ($400K?). Some of us locals were
following all these events and wondering by turns (i) whether he'd come or not, (ii) whether
we would need to pass the hat to pay for the trip and (iii) whether we should offer him
political asylum and who had the largest guest room. In questionable taste, but sort of fun...

Alex finally came -- which shows why he is president of Peru and some of us are presidents
of three-person companies (I would have crawled under the blankets). What follows are the
pictures I took at the event.

Getting there we were stopped by police to let Alex' motorcade get through. Serious security,
with plenty of dark Suburbans sandwiched between police cars and all traffic stopped at the
intersections. Alex and entourage were let in first into the inner courtyard of the Stanford
Museum -- gorgeously remodelled after the earthquake seriously dammaged the building.
Then we were allowed to follow them in.

Camila and Rob Whalen looked good inside the courtyard.

Camila needed two drinks to face the evening (both mineral water).

While Alex was mobbed by people we talked to his wife Elianne who was also
a grad student at Stanford.

In fact ALex and Elianne met and married while both were at Stanford and Rob and Rene
(the guy next to Elianne in the second picture) played Andean music at the wedding.

I took my copy of the soccer team picture to the event and we discussed it with Lee Ziegler
and his wife.

Lee was the director of the International Center when the picture was taken and knew a lot
of the people in the picture... Amazing feat of memory thirty years after the fact and seeing
hundreds of students every year for many years.

I took pictures of Martin Carnoy and of Alex speaking with guests.

Then it was our turn to mob Alex and of Camila to take pictures.

We showed him the soccer team picture and he took it away to show everybody. Meanwhile
Elianne told us that they had a copy of the picture framed by the door of their house.

While Alex talked to all and sundry, the three members of the soccer team in attendance took
time to pose for posterity. The unintroduced folks are Lawford Goddard and his wife Marilyn.

Lawford now has a son who is a graduate student at Stanford and he still plays soccer
in local leagues.

We managed to get Alex for a minute and he posed with us.

I had brought a soccer ball as a prop to reproduce part of the picture but I had left it in the car.
I am sure Alex would have knelt down and assumed his pose, but now I will never know for
sure. Another thing I will never know for sure is what the security detail (the guys with the
microphones in their ears and the shifting eyes) would have thought of a soccer ball at the
cocktail party...

Aso while Rob, Lawford and I examined the picture (taken after the final game), we noticed that
the only folks with sweaty shirts in the picture were us three. We decided that we were the ones
who did the work for the win and the rest were there just for show.

Note also that my jacket shows moire patterns... another detail that shows who is photographed
often wearing a jacket and who is not. I do not know why we let Rene into the picture
because he did not play soccer with us. I guess he just would not be denied...:-)

Then Alex gave a speech following introductory remarks by the Econ chair (I think).

Alex rambled a bit, so Lawford, Rob and I tried to remember the inspirational speech that
Alex (as captain) gave the team at halftime of the final game. Of course none of us remembered
anything, and the more we spoke the less sure we were that he gave us a specch. If it were not
for the picture, we might not even remember that there was a game in which we played together
and won. We would have had to ask Lee Ziegler...

Just before Alex departed, Rene's son brought his "charango" (andean instrument whose sound
box is often made with the carcass of an armadillo) from the car and Rob pulled his "quena"
(flute made of bamboo that Rob machined himself...:-) and they played "El Condor Pasa" for
the guests of honor of Peru plus all others present.

This was a replay of the wedding of 25+ years ago and Alex and Elianne seemed to like it
very much. Alex turned to Elianne and said something like "maybe we should get married again"
and she responded something like "no way"... She and I shared a good laugh when she noticed
that I had overheard the exchange. The cameras loved the sendoff too. I am sure Rob and Rene
are now stars in Peruvian TV.

People trickled out pretty fast after that. So it was time for a last round of pictures.
The first group is Dov Rosenfeld, his wife Cathy Shadd, Dov's sister and Camila.

The second set is of the usual suspects with one addition: Alberto Martin, another Peruvian
grad student that played for the losing team in the game just before the famous picture was
taken. Obviously he's let bygones be bygones...

Finally, Camila took over for Rene on the charango:

She and Rob played "El Condor is gone"......and we all went home.