Threads of Peru Blog

I paid the taxi driver 4 Peruvian soles when he dropped me off at my final destination in Cusco: the Threads of Peru office. I carefully unloaded my MacBook Air and journal onto the desk that would be mine for the next three months. I came from Berkeley, California to Cusco, Peru to be Threads' Social Media intern, meaning I manage Threads' Social Media platforms and build the online community. I connected to wifi, checked my email, and was ready to go.

About two hours into my internship, my project director, Dana, announced one of the artisans, Roberta, was coming in from the community of Uppis to discuss different color yarn options. So there I was, first day on the job sandwiched between my lap top and an indigenous artisan who graciously gifted me with an intricately woven bracelet before she left on a four hour bus ride back to her community. 

3 boys from the community of Chaullacocha. Photo by Stephanie Pardi

Little did I know that moments like these would become a regular occurrence during my time interning with TOP. Though I have been here for two months now, I am perpetually astounded by the contrast between my work of updating Threads' Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in an office setting and interviewing the artisans at a field 4,800 meters high. During the weekdays, I step over tangled extension cords, and on the weekends I step over brightly colored threads being warped for weaving. The kids in the communities sheepishly giggle as we take "selfies" on my iPhone, and I coyly laugh as the women try to teach me the art of spinning alpaca wool into thread that they have long mastered. 

Taking an iPhone "selfie" with 2 kids in the schoolhouse of Chaullacocha. Photo by Olivia Campus.

At times, I can't help but feel that my internship exists in two distinct worlds, the artisan's world, and the world of technology. I will feel this way sitting in an artisan's backyard with snowcapped mountains as the backdrop of this setting, and then a weaver will get a phone call, answer her cell, and start laughing and chatting away. At this point, I feel my own phone tucked away in my pocket, and realize that perhaps our worlds are not so far apart after all.

Post by Stephanie Pardi, Social Media Intern.

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Threads of Peru celebrates ancient weaving traditions in a contemporary context by including them in modern, fashionable items. While this may be innovative in a global sense, the combination of the ancient and the modern is common in Peru. For example, every July the streets of Paucartambo come alive for a few days in a colorful celebration for the Virgen del Carmen. 

Photo by Isaiah Brookshire

She is the patron saint of Paucartambo, a sleepy Andean village where white colonial buildings line the cobblestone streets and church bells ring. This vibrant celebration reflects how Christianity was adopted and molded with pre-Columbian Andean beliefs. The Virgin, known affectionately in Quechua as “Mamacha Carmen,” is not just a Christian figure, but also the Pachamama, or Mother Earth. During the procession of Mamacha Carmen, where a brass band plays soulful tunes and people shower her statue with flower petals, dancers in known as Saq’ras precariously lean from balconies as they represent the devil trying to waylay the virgin. Twelve comparsas, or dance troops, make their way through the streets showing off colorful Incan and colonial costumes. Finally, the event culminates with spectacular fireworks and the dances of the guerreros, or warriors, where good triumphs over the evil demons yet again. La Virgen del Carmen has been declared the patron saint of mestizo peoples and folk dances, and Pope John Paul II blessed the statue in 1985. 

Photo by Isaiah Brookshire

There are several different stories about the origins of the festival, including one about a young woman who found a beautiful talking head, which she brought to the village. As people gathered around her, rays of light shone from the head and it was honored with prayers and a wooden body. Another story claims that a Peruvian count discovered a miraculous rock with the likeness of the Virgin on it. He sent a painter to recreate the image on canvas, and it was then brought to Paucartambo and honored on the feast day. 

Photo by Isaiah Brookshire

Much like the way this celebration reflects the meshing of old cultural practices with modern perspectives, Threads of Peru hopes to keep ancient weaving traditions alive on a global, contemporary scale!

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They say you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse. If this is true, I wonder what the women of Chaullacocha and Rumira Sondormayo thought about me at this weekend´s entrega as I pulled out a Nalgene water bottle, compass, peanut butter power bar, and journal out of my bright purple backpack. 

Volunteers Alexa Jones and Stephanie Pardi are accompanied by Adrian, our Quechua translator during an interview.Photo by Sarah So

This weekend, the TOP team went on an entrega to these communities to pick up the goods the artisans had woven over the course of one month. The artisans brought a mountain of colorful textiles to deliver to us and we brought our empty bags to fill with their handcrafted creations. 

The weavers met up with the Threads of Peru team to turn in their completed products. Photo by Alexa Jones

As the TOP team trekked with our backpacks, the women trekked to the pre-established meeting place with their colorful rucksacks in the shape of a square known as llicllas (pronounced yik-yah) skillfully tied around their shoulders. The carrying capacity of llicllas never ceases to amaze me. As the artisans unfolded their llicllas, they removed potatoes, fried fish, measuring tapes, weaving tools, and bags of safely protected woven goods. Once they removed their woven goods, each woman turned in their work ranging from intricately woven straps to exquisite table runners. 

Alexa purchased a pasadizo directly from Luisa, a weaver from Rumira Sondormayo.

Sunscreen versus potatoes, cameras versus pure alpaca wool, each one of us have things we carry suited for our individual lifestyle. Though the tangible things we carry to the communities differ culturally, we both carry a sense of intangible hopefulness. The textiles the artisans create and carry bring the hope for a more sustainable income and comfortable lifestyle while we carry back the hope that through selling their textiles, we are helping to make their load a little bit lighter.

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