The study of textiles and their producers cannot be separated from the context of daily life in the indigenous community of Chaullacocha, Peru. Rather, to fully understand textile production, one must integrate with the agricultural cycles, community festivals, and mundane daily activities in the community. This is how I’m approaching the task of conducting research in Chaullacocha. 

On my most recent trip I brought a digital voice recorder, a handy device which captures Quechua conversations that can later be replayed with a translator. As we hiked through alpaca pastures and potato fields, I captured conversations with campesinos traveling from village to village. We approached each person with a friendly “Allillanchu?” Which means, “how are you” or “how is life treating you” in Quechua. These first words are followed by an exchange of coca leaves, a friendly action which is greatly appreciated by the campesino. Conversation then ensues, and the campesino may say where he or she is headed and for what purpose. If we are crossing through his alpaca field, we may inquire about the animals, or ask how the potato planting is going. I feel fairly mute in these conversations as I don’t understand much Quechua, but I usually end the conversation with something I do know how to say: “tupananchis kama,” or “hoq p’unchay kama,” which means “until we meet again,” or “see you another day.” We then part ways and continue up the trail to the village of Chaullacocha.

The house of Augustin and Demesia

Chaullacocha is a barren community scattered with houses, alpacas, sheep, and potato fields. I stayed in the house of Augustin and Demesia, the only couple who speaks Spanish in Chaullacocha, to get a closer glimpse into community life. Their one-room house is simple, yet somewhat deluxe by community standards. Unlike other families, they have items such as a headlamp, food such as sugar and pasta, and a gas stove that was carried by horse to the village from a larger town in the valley. We squatted on small stools and were graciously offered llama skins for warmth. We huddled around the dung fed fire for protection against the icy wind which blew through the open door. As we peeled potato skins, the guinea pigs that live on the floor in the house scurried out to sweep up the scraps. In the morning I awoke to announcements blaring on the Quechua radio. As the only sound against the backdrop of the bitter wind, it is a comforting, yet false, link to the outside world. 

the chakitajlla, or Andean foot plow, used in potato planting

I found most comfort in the conversations we could have in Spanish. As we cooked dinner, we talked about the potato planting which has been occurring throughout the month. This year, the rains have been late to come, and the community is worried about the potato planting process which is closely correlated with the dry and rainy seasons. Right now, the community is in yapuy (the turning of the soil that occurs during potato planting). Through the system of ayni (reciprocal labor exchange), community members take turns helping each other turn the soil in their potato fields. They don’t receive money, but they might receive a large meal, coca leaves, or chicha (corn-beer) for their day of help. In turn, these helpers can call on community members for help in their own potato field. Here is Augustin, ready to head out for a day’s work in his neighbor’s potato field. The foot plow that is used to turn the soil, the chakitajlla, is a large piece of wood fastened with a metal piece that is secured with rope. 

While the main responsibilities of the men are agricultural, women’s responsibilities pertain more to the household. Women are in charge of taking care of children, tending sheep and alpaca herds, cooking, and simultaneously weaving either inside their houses or in the sun as they watch their animals. For these women, the small prospects of the sale of their textiles for cash does not stop them from weaving. At most houses we visited, women were weaving bright llikllas (shawls) for themselves and their family members. In many conversations, however, a frustration prevailed among the women over the lack of market to sell their textiles. In one conversation, weavers describe the reality of their textile economy: 

 Me: Have you started to shear the alpacas yet?  

Community Women: Not yet…we usually shear the alpacas in December and January every year… 

Me: What’s the process of alpaca shearing like? Do you shear the alpacas all in one day?   

Community women: The alpaca shearing depends on when the merchant comes to the community. We don’t have an exact date…he can appear in whatever moment. Right now, we haven’t started shearing because no buyer has come to the community.  

Me: Where do the merchants come from?   

Community Women: They come from Sicuani (a town with lots of factories for the production and exportation of alpaca wool)  

Me: What’s the price that the merchants pay for alpaca wool?  

Community Members: 4 soles (1.3 US dollars) per kilo. A few years ago they would pay between 10-15 soles (3-5 US dollars), but the global financial crisis has lowered the price the merchants are willing to pay.  

Me: So, where do you sell your textiles? Do merchants come directly to the community to buy?  

Community Women: Merchants rarely come to the communities. We have to walk to Huilloc (a town 3 hours away) to meet the merchants. We sell our textiles for very low prices. Sometimes the merchants don’t pay us in money…they exchange synthetic wool for alpaca wool, ponchos, and llikllas…and when they do buy, it’s for a low price.  

Me: Are the merchants weavers? Are they familiar with textiles?  

Community Women: They’re just businessmen, but they know a bit about distinguishing high quality textiles. They buy all types of textiles and pay a price according to quality. They prefer the older textiles. They use them in personal collections or to sell to tourists. We don’t really know where they sell them.   This is just one conversation among many more that I hope to have with the weavers of Chaullacocha as I continue my project. Learning how to integrate into this community has been a circuitous journey. I’m learning how to ask questions that will receive the most complete and accurate responses. For example, instead of asking yes-or-no questions or general questions, I try to ask questions that are specific to each person. Instead of asking “how do people get married,” I may ask “how did you and your wife get married.” I’ve also learned to be aware of internal community politics that I may not understand. For example, the president of the weaving association in the community of Rumira won’t let two talented weavers join the association because one of the weavers told her cousin not to marry this president. Most importantly, I’ve learned that I must participate in certain activities, like helping Demesia peel potatoes, helping Augustin turn the soil in his potato field, or to gulp down an unappetizing plate of food with appreciation, to gain their trust and to become one of them. Trying to understand and obtain information on an indigenous community in a culture completely foreign has been a long walk- but it’s a road, nonetheless.

Since my last visit to the communities in September, the weavers have been hard at work in finishing the textile ‘pedidos’ (requests) that we had given during our September visit. Weavers worked with the alpaca wool we gave them, producing products ranging from small belts to impressive pasadisos (placemats). When we visited last weekend, the results were packed with surprises. 

the 'tag system'

We did not expect Rumira, the least isolated village that neighbors with the community of Patacancha and its advanced weavers, to produce the least desirable textiles. Many edges were left unfinished, and many textiles had a small amount of pallay (the difficult, intricate band of pattern) and a large amount of solid color, suggesting that the textile was woven in a small amount of time. What surprised us most was when one weaver tried to sell us a textile that was not woven by her, but in a different village. A different weaving co-op has solved this problem by using the “tag system,” where each textile is labeled with the name of the weaver while it is still being woven. This cooperative had problems in the past with weavers trying to sell textiles made by non-members or family members.

Demesia, recently married, wove two birds of marriage (4th from left), as well as a condor, llama, rabbit, and the puma footprint design

 Weavers in Chaullacocha and Chupani seemed to invest more effort into their textiles, producing time-intensive animal figures and difficult pallay. Popular designs included the puma mak’i (puma footprint), condors, frogs, deer, rabbit, lakes, rivers, flowers, stars, and jars to hold chicha (the Andean corn-beer). However, the weavers did mention that it was hard to finish their textiles in one month because the community is occupied with the yapuy the entire month. The yapuy is a labor exchange that rotates among families in each community. For one day, a family elicits extra community hands to work in their chakra, or farming field. Workers do not receive monetary pay, but rather a meal provided by the family they are helping. Juana Rios Churata, a weaver in Chaullacocha, had to leave the meeting early to prepare a meal for the workers who were returning from her field. She said she planned to cook ch’uno, fried potatoes, to compensate community workers for their day of help. The finished products of the villages gave us a clearer glimpse into the individual abilities of the weavers, given the style, quality, and unique designs of the textile they chose to produce. 

descending into Chupani for the community meeting. In the background is the school and soccer field where the meeting was held

Along with the handful of men that bring cash back to the communities through their work as porters on the Inca Trail, the textile purchases of Threads of Peru are a source of cash income in the communities. The Cusco and ebay market in which the textiles are now being sold connects weavers to the global market, providing them a promising market to sell their textiles where possibilities to sell in a local market remain bleak. On the one hand, cash that circulates in the communities will inevitably be linked to the purchase of radios, bikes, alcohol, and sweets. The effects of these material goods will bring great social change to the communities. However, support of the small textile economy in the villages is an important opportunity to revitalize culturally significant textile traditions that are declining rapidly, in not just these three villages but throughout the Andes.

Chaullacocha community meeting

Threads of Peru completed its first 3-village visit last Thursday and Friday, 9/24 and 9/25. At each village, we held a meeting with the members of the community weaving association. We explained the mission of our project: to assist weavers in textile development, to improve their well-being through health and nutrition workshops, to inspire them in maintaining creativity and innovation in weaving, and to help them find a market to sell their textiles. Our perspective on development is to work with existing community structures, such as the ayni (system of reciprocal exchange). For example, we will only work with the community if they are willing. We try to avoid food handouts and the pursuit of any project without community cooperation. Instead, we hope to bring in nutrition specialists that can show community members how to maintain a healthy diet using whatever food can be found in the region, and the construction of a weaving center in a community would resemble a ‘community work day,’ where community members help us haul materials and contribute their time and labor into the construction process. At the end of each meeting, we distributed alpaca yarn that was purchased in Cusco with the help of Senora Augustina, our textile project expert. Augustina has spent years working in these villages, so she knows who weaves well and who doesn’t. Augustina selected the top 4-5 weavers in each village and worked with them on choosing an appropriate textile to make (scarf, placemat, belt, or bag). We brought some high-quality textiles from other villages which served as examples as to the quality, style, and designs of textiles that we think will be most successful when sold to international consumers. We decided on a buy-back price with each weaver. In one month, we’ll return to the villages and purchase the finished textiles, which will be put on sale for international consumers. 

Due to their severe isolation, Rumira, Chaullacocha, and Chupani have a poor market for their textiles. Rumira has the easiest access to the market due to its location along the highway. However, considering its distance from the larger town, Ollantatambo, often lowers its price for tourists and ‘middlemen’ from down the road. Past Rumira, in the villages of Chaullacocha and Chupani, opportunity to sell textiles is even poorer. The villages are still not accessible by road, so one must walk 2 hours to Chaullacocha, and an additional hour to Chupani. No tour routes pass through Chupani, so weavers can’t sell to tourists. 

The Chaullacocha-Chupani valley

The Chaullacocha- Chupani valley is barren and desolate. The wind-swept pass that must be crossed sits in the clouds among a scattering of silent lagoons. Llamas and alpacas roam the slopes, and chakra (potato fields) line the path. We passed peasants along the trail, as their only way to get from village to village is by foot. At night, the piercing wind sweeps up from the valley floor. We cooked dinner in the home of Martina and Antonio. Martina is a member of the Chaullacocha weavers association, and her husband Antonio is a porter for the trekking agency, Apus Peru, on the Inca Trail. He would like to work more, as portering on the Inca Trail is the only way the family has access to cash (they have a wall lined with potatoes that must last them a year, and is used to barter for necessary items in nearby towns). However, the isolated location of the village makes it hard for Antonio to communicate with Apus Peru about opportunities to porter on the Inca Trail. Martina and Antonio’s house is one room, with a loft where they sleep with their four young children. The kids attend primary school in Chaullacocha. Martina carries a small baby on her back, the fourth child of the family. After the sun went down at 6 pm, the only light inside their dark house came from the smoky fireplace that we used to cook dinner. With the door shut to keep out the cold, the smoke inside the house became almost unbearable. The only ventilation was a missing brick from the wall. We squatted on alpaca skins around the dung-fueled fire. The family’s four guinea pigs (cuy) scurried out to eat the potato skins we had discarded on the floor, and a hungry-looking cat kept dipping its tail in the food. We slept in the primary school, as one of the teachers had given us the key to her room because she left town early that weekend.   

Placida

After a chilly night in Chaullacocha, we walked to Chupani. Along the way, some young girls approached us and explained that the Chupani weaving association president, Plascida, wanted us to come to her house to have some tea and food. Plascida seemed to want to impress us- the meal was no plate of potatoes. She had cooked rice, eggs, fried potatoes, and a sweet mate (tea). By the time we reached Chupani, it was raining. We met with the weavers in a tarp-shelter, which was supposed to be a greenhouse but nothing was growing. The leaky tarp and stuffy shelter showed how necessary it is to build a weaving center in this village. During the rainy season, weavers can’t weave outside. Inside their smoky, dimly-lit houses surely leads to eye problems. We’re exploring different types of awanawasi (weaving huts) that can serve as a meeting place for weavers and can shelter them from the rain when they need to weave. 

After the meeting in Chupani, we hurried uphill to Chaullacocha for their afternoon meeting. On the way, the president of the Chaullacocha weaving association insisted that we enter her home to eat lunch. She gave my project director (Ariana) an entire cuy, showing how much Ariana is respected in these communities. Myself- a newcomer to the villages- only got the legs.   

digging the van out

After the Chaullacocha meeting, we hiked back over the pass to our van. We had been a little ambitious in terms of how far we had driven the van up the sketchy “highway,” which was really just a muddy path lined with cliffs on one side. We spent a few hours digging out the van, with the help of many campesinos that were passing by (two teenage boys seemed to think this was the funniest thing they had ever seen), and with 4 visiting nurses who probably wanted a ride downhill, but gave up after a while and started walking. The light grew dim and something resembling snow flurried in the sky. We got the van stuck 2 more times before reaching the real road. A 4 x 4 might have been a better choice…

Before I started working with Threads of Peru, a group of Canadians were hard at work on the webpage of Threads of Peru. Much research was done on Andean culture, how textiles are made, and the significance of textile iconography. Information on the individual weavers of the village weaving associations was gathered for the weaver profile section. An link to the ebay store was created, and links to other textile organizations and NGOs in the Cusco region have been added.

It has taken a little longer than we anticipated, but the Threads of Peru website was just oficially launched. Its an information packed and image rich website designed to inform and inspire the reader about Andean textile traditions. In this respect, we hope that someone who encounters this site will learn more about the value of the Andean textiles and the people that make them, which should benefit many organisations, rather than just one.

I hope you take a few minutes to explore this site. There are still a few things to be ironed out. Please send me any suggestions, in terms of graphics, information, etc, that you may have.

www.threadsofperu.com

I’m now working with a textile organization called Threads of Peru (the project is funded by a trekking agency called Apus Peru. See http://www.apus-peru.com/). Threads of Peru is so new that we still haven’t released the new website, and there are still a few steps we have to complete to become an official NGO. Threads of Peru works with 3 communities near Ollantatambo, Peru: Chaullacocha, Chupani, and Rumira. Rumira is accessible by road, but Chaullacocha is a 1 hour walk from the highway and Chupani, at over 14,000 feet, is an additional 2 hour hike. This week I will visit the communities for the first time with the Australian director and our Quechua translator. We’ll be handing out wool to the weavers so they can start weaving textiles that will be exported and sold in Canada. I’m really excited about the project, content with the projects I’ve been working on, and excited that this organization has given me so much responsibility in the direction of the project.

With Threads of Peru I’ll be updating the weavers’ profiles that appear on the new website. Right now, the weaver profiles talk about the age of the weaver, their family, what types of textiles and designs they prefer to weave. I’ll be interviewing the weavers when we visit the pueblos, hopefully engaging them in conversation about their lives in the villages, the significance of weaving to them, etc. I’ll then compile the information from the interviews and add interesting quotes and information to the existing weavers’ profiles. We also have some video footage that we’ll add to the website, and we’re hoping to make a documentary flm.

One of the most pressing issues that we’re grappling with at Threads of Peru is trying to understand the indigenous perspective of our work in their villages. Do the weavers really understand why we’re trying to implement these development programs? Do they understand why we mark up the prices of the textiles and why we set strict guidelines on quality? Do weavers understand how international organizations like Threads of Peru market online to international consumers, and do they understand concepts like global, internet, etc? Part of my research will be to study the indigenous perspective of our work in their village.

 Some of the villages that TOP works with, such as Chupani (a 3 hour hike from the highway), have had minimal contact with international groups. This village has been isolated from the monetary economy, but organizations that purchase textiles with cash are changing these village economies. In the past, Threads of Peru has noticed that the injection of cash into the villages has resulted in weavers buying junk food like cookies, coca cola, and alcohol. We wonder, are we really helping the weavers improve their lives in the long run if the cash we give them for their textiles goes directly to junk food and alcohol? Consequently, we’ve been exploring strategies to implement nutrition programs that hope to improve the health, nutrition, and well-being of the community members in the long term. We don’t want to simply hand them food or money- we want to help them explore ways to utilize existing food in the region- like potatoes, corn, and root vegetables- and to understand the importance of nutrition. In order to develop textile production, we feel that it’s important to focus on the overarching issues in the community- alcoholism, health and nutrition, womens’ rights, and to address community history. These issues must be reconciled in order for the textile program to be most successful.

I’m hoping to get started working with Awamaki http://www.awamaki.org/) on a textile iconography book that will be used in the high school curriculum in the village of Patacancha. I’ll be making weekly trips to Patacancha, visiting the homes of weavers’ and their families, and documenting via photography and interviews the iconographic traditions of the village.

Yesterday I went to Pitumarka, a village on the highway to Mt. Ausangate, to help with a textile dyeing workshop through the CTTC (Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco). I scrubbed the alpaca wool until it turned an arduous white, I brewed wool in large cauldrons with various colorful plants, and washed the colored wool in the river until it ran red from the cochineal dye. I shared another intestine stew with the weavers from the cooperative, and enjoyed some delicious guinea pig that one weaver had generously donated for the occasion. I watched a huge storm encroach on the village over the nearby mountain pass while it dumped a high-altitude rain, and after the sun came out again I hiked on some pre-Hispanic ruins with some girls from the village who spun the wool on their phuska, not losing a second in the time-consuming process that is weaving. When we returned from the ruins, an array of rainbow-colored fibers were drying in the sun.

breaking twigs into small pieces to use as a natural dye 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lifting the alpaca wool out of the cochineal cauldron 

drying the wool at the textile center 

at the ruins 

Last week I attended the annual festival in Chinchero. I stood in for a friend who is the”madrina” of two children in Chinchero and is currently in the states. This week was the wedding anniversary of the parents of the children. I delivered a gift (some money to help with the childrens’ schooling), celebrated the parents’ anniversary, and got to meet their 2-month old baby. Here are some pictures of the parade in the plaza and the cargo-party that followed.

our cargo group parades through the plaza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

after each cargo parades through the plaza, they return to a house and enjoy an elaborate meal (I counted 7 full pigs being carried into the kitchen. We also had intestine stew, potatoes, and more potatoes). Our meal was followed by a live band, dancing, and cerveza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sunset on the pampa

Over the course of my first month in Cusco, I’ve began to realize the huge number and variety of textile projects that abound the Cusco region. As part of my Fulbright project, I take every opportunity to visit new cooperatives. So far I’ve observed a variety of organizations at different stages of development. The villages the cooperatives work with are diverse in many ways. Some have no roads leading to the village and one must hike uphill 3-4 hours to reach the village, while others are located along paved roads frequented by tourist buses. Some villages weave with solid blocks of red/pink (obtained from cochineal) while others incorporate birds, animals, and plants into a technical iconographic style. Some have been interacting with international organizations and tourists for years, while others have remained more isolated and are just now beginning to experiment with textile production for sale outside the community.

My visit to Patacancha provided many examples of the issues that weaving cooperatives deal with when working with indigenous villages in the Peruvian highalnds. Some things I found interesting that probably arise in many weaving cooperatives:

• Competition- There is competition among weavers within the cooperative to sell their textiles. While we were meeting with the weavers in Patacancha, a tour group that had been trekking for 3 days casually wandered into the village. The group was large and would have purchased lots of textiles directly from the weavers of the village, but no one had been told that the group was going to be passing through the village– except the cooperative “president.” Somehow he had ‘forgotten’ to warn the cooperative of the tour group’s visit, so the only textiles sold belonged to him and his family. This underscores the importance of  coordination and transparency in regard to tour group visits.
• Quality control- It’s difficult for Awamaki to monitor the quality of textiles produced in Patacancha because of the distance and isolation of the village from the center in Ollantatambo where textiles are sold. Some textiles had been made using bright synthetic fiber. Other weavers had been known to bring textiles into the cooperative to sell, even though they were made outside the cooperative by their family members.
• How can cooperatives reconcile consumer preferences with weavers’ creativity and choice in the production process? Do weavers value their own designs, colors, an creative choices over ‘what sells’ to toursts and international importers? Do they really understand why the cooperative marks up its prices and seeks high-quality textiles that conform to a certain aesthetic standard? What happens when weavers do not follow the requests of the cooperative and consumers in Europe or the US receive a textile of a different quality or style than they had requested? How do indigenous weavers perceive the work of cooperatives in their village? As international workers who face cultural and language barriers, how can we ever fully understand this point of view?

wow, do you ever feel like you’re losing your English skills? Excuse any errors…

This woman is one of two bilingual spanish-quechua speakers in the Patacancha cooperative. I will hire a translator if I spend more time in Patacancha, but much communication will still be lost.

weavers of Patacancha hold a meeting to discuss how 'surprise visits' from trekking groups could be handled differently in the future

Students have been striking at my school, the UNSAAC, since Tuesday morning. That’s right- they stormed the school and have been voicing their demands for improvements to the school cafeteria all week. The picture shows some of the requests they posted on the school gate: higher quality food, three meals a day, and to not build a new cafeteria in the engeneering department’s building. Today the students were supposed to reach some agreement with school authorities. It seems to me like a pretty insignificant issue, but the school is closed off until next week. Exams were postposned, and I still haven’t been able to meet with my advisor.

It’s an interesting way to get things done. If UPS students “took over” the school for a week, would they postpone finals?

weavers at the Chahuaytire cooperative

Besides promoting the revival of traditional textiles, the Center for Traditional Textiles supports health and education programs its nine communities. It partners with other organizations to sponsor health campaigns in each community which bring medicine, doctors, and health educational programs to the village. Today we went to Chahuaytire (Cha-why-ti-ray) to meet with the weavers at the cooperative about their upcoming health campaign. We were accompanied by two public health workers from Pro-Peru, an NGO that does a variety of projects in Cusco and Urubamba. 

It is expected to always bring something to the community, especially when visiting for the first time. We stopped along the way to buy dozens of pieces of bread to give to the weavers in Chahuaytire. It was still early in the morning, and the bread had just been taken out of the large stone oven. Most likely it would be sold in the Pisac market that day.

 The designs, colors, and products of each community that works with the CTTC are unique. Chahuaytire uses subdued greens, purples, and red naturally-dyed fibers. Most textiles seem to have a block pattern alternated with intricate plant, flower, and animal figures.

 Before the meeting, I walked around the outdoor cooperative, observing the different techniques and patterns of each weaver. One woman was spinning some wool into a fine thread around a spindle and I tried to spin too. Unfortunately, each time I twisted and unwound the spindle, it would fall clumsily on the ground and was followed by a roar of laughter and jokes in Quechua that I couldn’t understand. Spinning is a complicated technique and those who can spin well earn a great deal of respect in the community.

cuy (guinea pig), a traditional Peruvian dish

Lunch is always a surprise in the villages. During the meeting I was distracted by a woman cleaning two guinea pigs (cuy) in the water fountain. (Cuy is a common traditional food in the highlands. Families raise cuy in their kitchens to eat or sell. It tastes great but there is hardly any meat on the animal).

here we are at the health campaign meeting

 The meeting was given in Quechua. After four Quechua classes in Cusco, I could pick out a few words, but realized how much more I have to learn to be able to converse in Quechua. Quechua is spoken predominately in this village, but the weavers seemed to understand Spanish too. Certain words in the meeting were in Spanish, such as “Cusco,” “health campaign,” “the Center,” and “doctor.”

After two weeks in Cusco, I’ve settled into a routine. I go to the Universidad San Antonio Abad del Cusco (UNSAAC) almost every day for the two classes I am auditing: Ethnography and Modern Theories of Anthropology. The university is supposed to be one of the best in southern Peru, with great faculty and facilities. To me it is a reflection of the sad state of the education system in Peru.

 My days at the UNSAAC are pretty humorous and unpredictable. On my first day of class (Monday morning at 9 AM), students kept entering the classroom up to a half hour after the class was supposed to start. The door kept swinging open noisily, and without ever quite closing completely, it would squeak loudly across the floor and drown out the voice of the professor after each student entered. The students seemed to think it was pretty funny and the professor just shrugged his shoulders. I leaned over to one student and asked if this happened every day. “Yes,” she replied with a sigh. The UNSAAC is ranked among the top 40 universities nationally, but many people think that its quality of education should be higher.

Some days I show up and class is cancelled. One day we attended an anthropology conference downtown and another day we listened to a scholar speak instead of having class. I show up each day prepared for anything and I never really know what is going on. The students, however, are some of the friendliest people I’ve met. They don’t mind showing me what street has the photocopies for the class readings, or explaining what certain words mean in Spanish.

 Today I was supposed to meet with my anthropology professor/project advisor to see what he thinks about my Fulbright project ideas. When I got to the university, I saw that the students and professors were striking. A large group had assembled inside the school gates and was chanting over a loudspeaker some words I didn’t understand. They were protesting the poor quality of cafeteria food- an issue so important that all classes were cancelled for the entire day. It went something like this: “Donde esta antropologia? Siiiiii! Donde esta biologia? Siiiiii. SIGUE LA LUCHA! SIGUE LA LUCHA!” I waited outside for a while, but soon realized that none of the professors were working today and I wasn’t going to meet with my advisor after all.  

After classes I take a cumbi (“mini-bus”) to the weaving cooperative. Mini-buses are the norm in Cusco. They cost 20 cents and can weave in and out of traffic more easily than a regular bus. The mini-buses have removed the regular seats and added twice as many smaller benches to pack in as many people as will fit. I never wait more than a minute for one to come by. I’ve boarded the wrong bus a few times, but usually I just get off and walk or flag a taxi. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being in a mini-bus filled with over 20 people.

 At the weaving co-op (the CTTC) I’ve been translating a few documents from English to Spanish, have helped change the museum exhibit, and have organized the textiles that are going to Chile in October for a conference. I’ve met with the co-op director a few times to discuss some long-term projects I could do over the next 10 months. I would like to focus my research on one village that works with the cooperative, studying the lives of the weavers and the costs and benefits that the cooperative offers for them compared to independent work. The cooperative can even assist me in living in one of the villages for a month to get to know the weavers, interview them, and obtain information on the designs and types of textiles that are produced there. Tomorrow I will visit Chahuaytire, a weaving village 2 hours from Cusco. Later this week I will travel to Ollantatambo to visit a textile project separate from the CTTC that is experimenting with the weaving “revitalization” movement that the CTTC does so well, and is looking for new markets for their high-quality textiles produced and sold under fair trade conditions.

 After spending a few hours at the weaving cooperative, I usually go home for lunch and then walk to my Quechua class. I take Quechua with the one other Fulbrighter living in Cusco, a PhD candidate in Archaeology. We both decided it was necessary to learn Quechua for our projects (in many rural villages, Quechua is spoken exclusively, especially among women and the older community members). Learning Quechua reminds me of my first weeks in Costa Rica, where my speech was abound with errors, I couldn’t follow a conversation, and it took me minutes to form a sentence. However, I’m optimistic that I can learn Quechua with time. The verb conjugations are much more regular than Spanish (and English!) and the vocabulary is much smaller. I’m not hoping to become fluent- I just hope to learn enough to be able to understand Quechua-speaking weavers in the villages and, by speaking their language, it will bring me closer to them and on a more equal level.

 By the time Quechua class ends at 5, the fierce Peruvian sun is casting shadows on the brown, jagged mountains that engulf the city. This is my favorite time of day, so I opt for the 45 minute downhill walk to my neighborhood. Anticuchos (sticks of beef hearts and potatos) are steaming on the streets and street vendors have set up carts selling emolientos (multi-flavored herbal teas). Pollerias (chicken eateries) are setting up for the night. Most evenings, I make the 30 minute trek uphill to the plaza and go salsa dancing. From 9 to 11, the salsa club offers free informal lessons, but really we just learn new steps and dance. Asi es la vida en Cusco, Peru.

And for those who love pictures: last weekend I took a camioneta (a large truck where passengers sit in the open-air back end) through the campo (countryside) and walked around. I love the people, the terraced green agricultural fields, and the distant mountains of the campo. I love feeling the fresh air on my face from the breeze of a camioneta.  Here are some photos:

hiking around the campo near Calca, Peru

riding in the camioneta

traffic jam