Threads of Peru Blog

Every year in December Threads organizes a Chocolatada in Chaullacocha, the remoter of the two communities we work with, along with Apus Peru, a responsible trekking company which helps to fund our project.

A Chocolatada, as you might be able to guess from the name involves preparing a large amount of hot chocolate, which is shared out amongst everyone along with fresh bread buns. This is a form of spreading a little Christmas cheer to everyone in the community!

When we set out in the morning (3.30am!) for the long drive up through the Sacred Valley we don’t know what kind of conditions to expect, although I heard so much about the rainy season in Cuzco before arriving, this year has been extremely dry so we are hoping that we will be able to drive all the way to Chaullacocha.

However the combination of 11 people in one two-wheel drive van carrying enough hot chocolate and bread for 60 people along with the mud roads means that we have to stop around a two hour walk from Chaullacocha. Although we all get out and push, the edges of the road are literally falling off and rolling down the hill side so we decide walking is probably the smarter option.

We set off on the hike and although the weather is wet and windy the scenery more than makes up for it, it’s quite eerie walking through the deserted and silent landscape but then you turn a corner to find yourself face to face with a llama! The llamas themselves are utterly unmoved by these encounters.

Llamas on the trail to Chaullacocha

When we reach Chaullacocha bedraggled and hungry we set to work straight away cooking up the Chocolate in HUGE pots over little portable stoves, I can’t see how it’s going to work but pretty soon there are chocolatey fumes in the air and all the children are running around in excitement, their cups clean and ready in one hand. To try and distract their attention, Willy, one of the guides from Apus Peru organizes games for them, even though I can’t understand the Quechua instructions I can recognize the games from my own experience, cat and mouse and then later oranges and apples.

The children playing cat & mouse in the schoolyardPlaying oranges and apples!

All games stop when two enormous steaming pots are brought out filled with the creamy hot chocolate. A line quickly forms, all the children jostling each other to try and see the pots, even the grown men and women look excited although they hide it a little better than the children! It’s a hectic next thirty minutes ensuring that everyone gets a cup and a bread bun to eat, luckily we have brought plenty so we can satisfy even the children coming back for thirds, and there’s still enough to spare when curious people from the neighbouring villages drop in.

Fely cooks the hot chocolate

Handing out the hot chocolate to the kids

Everyone gets a big bread roll to eat too!

You can see the boys here enjoying their hot chocolate and bread roll

Thanks to the generous donations we receive, we were able to buy a Christmas present for every boy & girl in the village this year, trucks for the boys and dolls for the girls. The children have all seen the large sacks being carried in and are waiting excitedly to see what’s inside them.

The children line up to receive their presents

A guide from Apus Peru Willy hands out the trucks to the boys

From the point of view of an outsider it’s quite difficult not to compare my normal Christmas at home to the one we try to provide here. At home my nieces and nephews normally get around 10 presents each year, they unwrap one, say ‘cool!’ and then put it down so they can concentrate on opening the next present, compared to their blasé attitude its really heartwarming to watch the reaction of each child in this community. They approach with a concerned look, then a shy smile as the present is brought to them, then when they hold the present and know it’s truly theirs the massive smile breaks out and they run off shouting to their friends and holding their present close to them. The other volunteers get involved with handing out the presents and the shouts and yells are deafening!

Erika hands out the dolls to the girls

The kids sing a Quechuan song to say thank you

As a special gift this year, thanks to Tianna Meriage-Reiter and her husband Yuri we were able to give clothes to everyone in the community, for the young mothers especially this was a wonderful gift and I liked that we were able to give something to everyone in the community, even if it was a hat for their baby or just a hot drink on a cold day.

Every crams in to collect their new clothes!

As we set off on the long hike back to the car we were all exhausted, cold and dirty, however for the first time this year I felt that elusive Christmas spirit and excitement which as an adult is so hard to recapture, I think we all felt it as we had done something, something which Christmas is really all about – sharing what you have with others, and making other people happy.

A picture of me with the women as they line up to collect their clothes

Happy Holidays everyone!

Apus Peru & Threads of Peru would like to thank all the participants in this years Chocolatada, special thanks to Jerzy family for their contribution, again to Tianna Meriage-Reiter and her husband Yuri for donating the much needed clothes, to the Apus Peru clients who generously donated their time on the day and from year-round donations to Threads of Peru.

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1)      What has been your most culture shocking moment whilst in the communities?

I am used to the communities now, I don’t feel culture shocked too often. I feel instead that I am returning somewhere familiar.  However, I remember one of my first visits sitting in one of the stone houses, and the smoke filling up the room.  It was freezing cold and I was hungry, tired and alone.  The smoke was choking me so badly that I had to run outside and took deep breaths until the cold forced me back into the smoke.  The other shocking moment that comes to mind was doing a nits (head lice) check and pulling off the chullo (beanie) of a small girl and her head literally seething with lice.

2) What inspires you to work for Threads of Peru? I started this project when I was about to finish my Masters of Arts degree in Development studies, with a specalisation in Third World nations.  At first, I was inspired by putting my studies into practice, and the women and their remote circumstances.  The women, their environment and their weavings are very inspiring.

Now, I have not progressed any further with the Masters and don’t seem likely to in the next few years…because there is just simply too much to do with Threads of Peru! So now I am inspired by what we have achieved so far, and the things that we might be able to achieve in the future!

3) Favourite Peruvian food?

Anticuchos! I was non-flesh eating vegetarian for 8 years and lived happily for a year in Cusco before the mouth watering aromas of anticuchos on street corners at night finally got the better of me!  (I had sincerely not ever wanted to eat meat for such a long time, until the smell of anticuchos lured me!)   My second favourite is ceviche… also a strange choice for an ex vego.  Oh, and Chicharon!  (Deep fried pork)

The women take care of Molly in Rumira Sondormayo

It’s still one of my favourite things about Cusco, huddling with others around an anticucho seller and her hot coals, on a crisp winter night!

4) Least favourite Peruvian food (and why?)

Chuño.   I think it must be an acquired taste. 

5) Best spot in Cuzco for visiting? San Pedro market.  While the main market is OK, you need to get off into the back streets to feel the true market vibe.  San Pedro used to be crazy, with stall holders illegally squatted on the sidewalks, rubbish, litter and pick pockets.  I cried when the Municipality rounded them up and pushed all those vendors without permits onto cattle trucks.

6) Happiest/most touching moment in the communities?

Watching the women’s delight in playing with my baby.   I had never realized that while we, as foreigners are curious and interested in them, they are also fascinated by us.  As soon as we arrive in the communities the women take Molly from me, and play with her, inspect her, look at her skin and hands, discuss her clothe s and do all the things that I think that they would like to do with us!  (as adults).

7) Strangest/funniest moment from living in Peru?

I guess the longer I stay in Cusco the more it feels part of me…   it’s certainly a second home.  So as I go about my day to day business, I forget that to the Cusqueños I am just another gringa face, one of the thousands that fly in and fly out of Cusco every day.

I was recently in the market with my 8 year old god-daughter, who I have known since she was a babe in arms and shared much of her childhood.   We were shopping, asking prices, and trying to get an idea of some things that we wanted to buy.  We got a few extremely high “gringo” prices in a row and she turned to me solemnly and said, “Aunty, I think it’s time that I started to ask for the prices.”  Perhaps it was a little girl growing up, but it was also her recognizing the gringa in me.

Ariana visiting the communities & feeding Molly while she was a tiny baby.

8) Most embarrassing faux-pas when communicating in Spanish?

I used to teach English in exchange for Spanish lessons, at a local English institute.  I asked my class if they were excited about the class we were going to have.  They all looked at me blankly, so I asked them at the top of my voice: “Estan excitados?”  (Excitement in Spanish has a very strong sexual connotation...) I was literally asking them if they were turned on!

There are also lots of easy to make mistakes in Quechua, my most common being asking the taxi drivers to take me to Koo-che- punku (door of the pig) instead of the correct pronunciation, Koo-i-che- punku (door of the rainbow). That often makes them laugh.

9) Biggest achievement so far?

Everything we have done in Threads of Peru is a big achievement.  Taking indigenous women and getting them to weave items to specification has been very challenging… but then the marketing and sales aspects of the project have been big too. It’s an achievement not only because of how much has been done, but also because we’ve done it with a skeleton budget.   Every step of the way has been a massive learning curve.

Ariana and Molly in Palqaq[/caption]

10) Main thing you wish to achieve in the next five years?

I’d like to see the project fully sustainable.

The first phase of the sustainability would be to have the project not rely on volunteer hours. The founders currently put in excess of 2000 volunteer hours a year, combined.  That’s a crazy amount of work!

The second phase would be to have the women taking control of the orders, quality control and delivery so that we can focus on the sales.   (and indeed have some of the women involved in sales and marketing as well.)

To watch a short interview with Ariana created by the LATA foundation please click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbcXLVlEgpE

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It is a sunny summer day in Rumira Sondormayo, an Andean village in the highlands of Ollantaytambo, Cusco, surrounded by high mountain peaks and glaciers. Rumira is a typical high-Andean agricultural village with long weaving traditions. In the last years it has taken advantage of the increasing tourism in the region and has diversified its economic activities. Now, most of the men and grown boys in the village work as porters or cooks on the Inca Trail. This has significantly changed the local life style.

During the 6 months of the high tourism season, while most men are away from home for days, the women and older children have to take responsibility for all the house and field works – taking the animals for pasture, working on the chakras (agricultural fields), taking care of the house and the smaller children. In addition, the women help improve the financial stability of the household by weaving traditional cloths and selling them directly to the tourists visiting the village occasionally or on the international market through the support of a NGO.

But let´s take a closer look into the daily life of a woman in Rumira Sondormayo.

Justina is married and has three children, two girls aged  5 and 2 and a one-year old boy. The older girl attends school.  Justina herself is 25 years old and never went to school. She wakes up with the rising of the sun, at about 4:30-5:00 am. The first thing she does in the morning is to pray to God. Then, she starts cooking the meal for the day, which usually consists of potatoes or lisa (Andean legume), sometimes she will make a chuño soup (soup of ice dried potatoes).

After breakfast she sends her daughter to school and goes to the fields with the animals and her two other children. If her husband isn’t working on the Inca Trail, he would be helping out in the potatoes fields, Justina would bring him the lunch and they would eat together. She is always spinning or preparing the yarn for weaving while taking out the animals for pasture, working on the field or at home. Sometimes, Justina even brings her weaving to the fields to finish it.

After lunch, Justina´s daughter comes back from school and goes to help her mother with the animals or do her homework. Justina goes back home at dusk, brings the animals to their corral and starts to prepare the evening meal. After the family has their dinner together, Justina cleans up the kitchen and goes to bed at around 8 pm.

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