An outing

Realizing that we don't have much time left together, the ladies of Ñaña decided last week that it was high time for an outing. After much deliberation, it was decided that we would go to Chilina, a lovely part of the city next to the river Chili, where we would make guatia (WAH-tya). Guatia is a traditional method of cooking that comes from the mountains of Peru. It is very similar to pachamanca, and they explained it to me as potatoes and cheese cooked in a stove of hot stones and earth. That was a simplified version...

Friday was a beautiful day after a strangely rainy evening the night before that left all of the volcanoes that surround the city snow-capped and lovely. We met near the workshop at 9:30 (9:00 Peruvian time), some of the women bringing their daughters who are on winter vacation, and began the trek down into the nearby gorge of the river Chili. After a while walking in the sun, we left the road to begin the steep climb down the sandy shoulder to the farmland below. Misti is the volcano in the background, "wearing its poncho" as they say.


As we made our way down the steep slopes, some of the ladies stopped off to hack away at dead pieces of cactus that would serve as the fuel for the fire. Some of the other knitters had already arrived and were busy finding rocks to begin building the stove. The construction of the stove was pretty impressive and involved the use of very selectively chosen stones, larger ones on the bottom and smaller ones filling out the top. To obtain the right sizes of rock, some of them climbed up higher on the slope and begin shoving larger rocks down, while Inés chipped away at stones with a pickax to get the smaller sizes.

Beginning with the larger rocks on the bottom, they began constructing the base of the oven with a small opening in the front.

Once the base was in place, they added progressively smaller rocks to fill out the dome.

As the dome took form, more and more hands were involved holding the sides in place until the final holes were filled and it was stable.

Once the stove was finished, Andrea began building the fire with the dried cactus pieces and brush they had gathered earlier. Then the brush was lit, and we waited for the stones to heat up enough to cook the potatoes.













As she worked, she shared stories from when she was younger and lived in the mountains of Puno. She remembered making guatia every day during potato harvest season, the women building the stoves while the men fished for trout that were later cooked over the fire. Each day a new stove was created and destroyed in the painstaking manner I was witnessing.

Once the stones were hot enough Andrea removed the sticks and brush and Rufina and Maruja began tossing potatoes in.

Up until now, everything was going pretty much as I had imagined it. Once the potatoes were inside, though, I was surprised to see Andrea take the pickax to the stove they had so lovingly constructed and leave it a sad-looking pile of rocks on top of the poor little potatoes.

Augustina then began shoveling sandy earth on top, covering the hot rocks and leaving a smoking mound of dirt.

Aware that they had years and years of preparing food in this way, I was still a little unsure of what to make of the whole process. A little worried about what we'd be eating for lunch now, I followed the ladies to a nearby patch of grass to play volleyball and soccer while we waited to see the outcome. After everyone grew tired of playing, some of us went down to the river where the kids played and looked for lizards on the other side. Here I am with Maruja and Augustina's daughters.

By the time we came back up, the potatoes had been retrieved from the collapsed oven and were laid out by Inés on a tablecloth on the sidewalk, our makeshift table.

Fresh farmer cheese and the warm potatoes were passed around with Inca Cola and alfajores, a traditional cookie I'd made the night before with Roxana. The potatoes had a very distinct flavor as the ladies had promised and tasted delicious with the cheese. I will never doubt again. Here, Yeni and Hilaria peel potatoes for their daughters.
















Little Andrea, my soon to be goddaughter, enjoys her potatoes and cheese.












Waiting for the combi to come pick us up at the end of our lovely day, we wandered back down to the river to cool down. As Maria was taking this photo, Yeni started splashing and we all ended up wet by the time we climbed into the combi, very tired, but full and happy. It was a wonderful day.

Goings on of Ñaña

I knew the two months would pass quickly here, but I had no idea how quickly. Time has flown since I left home, and now I only have two and a half weeks left to spend with the knitters of Ñaña, my host family and friends. As much as I miss all things Iowa, leaving here is always hard.

That said, there is little time to be sad as we have a pretty packed schedule for the next few weeks. One of the victories of the past month was convincing the parish priest to create a separate bank account for Ñaña (rather than using the account shared by the rest of the projects in Alto Cayma) that would be in the names of Maria, the social worker, and Margarita, the knitter who was elected by the other members of Ñaña as the group's treasurer, rather than in the names of the priest in Alto Cayma and Maria as it had been before. There's actually a lot of back story on this, which I will try to explain in a separate entry because it's a pretty strong illustration of the struggles that come with a democratic system, but the outcome is a very positive one in which the knitters have increasing control over their finances.

The big push for the separate bank account actually came from the decision to set up a PayPal account, which is the checkout system we will use on the website for online payments. It's a well-known and trusted system with a lot of really helpful tools for shipping, invoices, webpage design, etc. and the huge benefit of simplifying payments and eliminating the necessity of international bank transfers...or so I thought. After all the work on the separate bank account, I found that I could only enter US banks in our PayPal account information because, long story short, the world is not yet flat, and merchant services are not yet available in Peru. I think it will still work out, but it makes things quite a bit more complicated.

In addition to struggling with PayPal, we're busy in the workshop filling the orders that continue to straggle in. Plus we're finalizing the reference catalog that will put all of the knowledge of measurements, materials, and designs on paper instead of stored in Andrea's head so that it's available to all of the knitters at all times. This project has taken more time than I ever imagined due to the incredible number of details required and irregularities in previous models. It will be well worth the effort because it will free up a lot of time for Andrea and leave the rest of the knitters better informed, making their work easier.

One of the other projects we've been working on is coming up with sample scarves, glittens, and chullos in the school colors of various Des Moines-area high schools and Iowa universities. The hope is to involve teachers, students and alumni in student-led sales within schools to help support the women of Ñaña while outfitting them in their school colors. I've been helped out on the ground by a number of people. Lindsey has already dropped off a purple and yellow scarf with the adviser for student council at Nevada High School; Ann Mincks and Rachel Mullen recently took teaching jobs at East and Johnston High Schools and will recruit student interest there; Tushar got in touch with Mr. Mooney, one of his former teachers who leads the Students Helping Eliminate Poverty and Hunger group at Ames High; Rachel Geilenfeld is helping me brainstorm on styles we can market to ISU and Iowa (through all the proper legal channels, of course:); and a number of the women Mom works with at Meredith have ordered apparel in the colors of their kids' high schools, providing me with invaluable help in color selection. If you are interested in getting involved with this or have contacts you'd like to pass along, please do so! The more the merrier.

I guess my only other news is that I somehow managed to get that infection so dreaded by kindergarten parents: pink eye. Of all the health concerns I have down here, I failed to see this one coming. Luckily, Roxana has plenty of experience with two kids and tons of nieces and nephews, so she sent me off to the pharmacy with the medicine written down on a piece of paper, then provided the directions for proper use that don't actually come with the medicines sold by pharmacies here. Four days later, the goop is gone, and I am seeing clearly again.

A Cultural Snapshot

Apologies for the long silence. Things were busy with Lindsey and Brian's visit followed by Teresa Krug and Jeff Rothblum's brief tour. I swore I wouldn't do this, but it's not looking like I'm going to have time to sit down and write much about travels with Lindsey and Brian so I think I am just going to direct anyone who is interested to their blog. They've made a lovely start on sharing the highlights of our trip, and I know Lindsey won't rest until they make it through Cusco. www.brianlindseyjungman.blogspot.com. I promise to provide an update of the goings-on of Ñaña as well in the next couple days, but tonight I am going to write a little about Peruvian culture from a more personal perspective in honor of Independence Day celebrations this weekend.

After work Friday evening, I visited one of the knitters, Sebastiana, in her home to have tea. She leaves for Cusco next week ("her land," as she calls it) to visit her parents, and when I declined her invitation to join her on the two-week trip, she invited me over to chat before she left. I was surprised when she told me she had invited me because she wanted to tell me her story and share the customs she grew up with in Cusco. She spread out a pile of photos on the table: pictures of her with her three sisters and brother harvesting potatoes; another of an open expanse of land against a blue sky; others of her dressed in beautifully colored dresses for carnaval. Using the pictures, she began to tell the story of her life, which is the story of many in Peru (I'm afraid I don't have the pictures with me now, but I am hoping to scan them when she returns so I can share them with you. For now, please use your imagination).

As I've written before, nearly all of the knitters came to Arequipa from neighboring rural departments (more or less the equivalent of a state). Many came when they were young, leaving their families behind to look for jobs as empleadas (housekeepers or childcare providers). Others came with their families in search of better medical care or education. All of them brought strong and varied traditions from their respective regions—music, dances, clothing, food—but also left much behind.

Sebastiana, one of the younger members of Ñaña, first came on her own from Cusco when she was just eight years old. She found work in Arequipa taking care of the children of various families to help support her own family. Whenever possible, she returned to Cusco and the land where her family tended sheep and alpaca and grew potatoes in the mountains. The home in her photos was made of adobe, the roof thatched with icchu, which is the same grass eaten by alpaca to give them their special insular wool.

Photos of the open expanse of land reminded me of Iowa, but she explained that the lush green only appeared during the rainy season. In the dry season, life was hard, and in years when it extended longer into the next season the alpaca and sheep often died and money was not sufficient to support five children. This is why she first began working in Arequipa.

The alpaca, the gentle relative of the llama, whose warm, soft wool is used by the knitters of Ñaña (the Colca Canyon posting in Brian and Lindsey's blog has photos), is central to the culture of the Andes. Sebastiana pointed to perhaps a fortunately blurry photo of herself bent over an alpaca, holding a knife and smiling for the camera. She shrugged and made a cutting motion across her neck. As important as the wool is in knitting their clothing, the meat and skin of the alpaca are of equal importance, and their death a fact of life. Whatever was left after her own family's use was sold to others in their town.

Mixed in with the other photos were several of carnaval, a celebration brought by the Spanish which takes place in February, about 40 days before Easter. In many of the photos she is dressed in a beautiful dress and hat with multi-colored braids spilling over her shoulders. She explained that the braids are special to the Cusco celebration. During the celebration everyone from the nearby town gets together to dance the tupay, a traditional dance which she has passed on to her own daughters. They make an offering of a single potato to Pachamama, Mother Earth, a ritual called "paying the earth." As this celebration shows, religion in Peru is highly syncretic, which means that indigenous religious traditions have blended with the Catholicism practiced by 90% of the Peruvian population to form a very distinctive mix. Thus, what began as a Spanish celebration related to Lent is now also an occasion to make offerings to the Pachamama.

Then she pointed to two photos, one of herself in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, the other a younger version in a brightly colored sweater and skirt with thick woolen leggings. "This is what I wore when I first got here," she explained, pointing to the skirt and leggings. "I didn't have the more modern clothes that they wear in the city, but bit by bit I changed and eventually left the other clothes at home in Cusco." I asked her if she still wears the clothes she grew up with when she returns home, and she laughed saying that she puts them on first thing after she arrives each time.

Language is another aspect of life that is often left behind. There are many indigenous languages still spoken in Peru, but the most prevalent is Quechua, the official language used by the Incas to rule various tribal groups. This was the language Sebastiana spoke exclusively until she was 8 years old and came to Arequipa. At that time she was forced to learn Spanish without ever learning to read and write in Quechua. In the city, she would sometimes speak in Quechua, but stopped because people seemed to look at her suspiciously. She still speaks it with her parents when she returns home, as they never learned Spanish, but her daughters know only enough to understand what is said, not to respond. As she told me this, she wondered aloud what would happen to her culture if Quechua died out. For example, the words they use in their offerings to Pachamama are Quechua and would lose their meaning translated to Spanish.

She told me at the end of our visit how happy she was to have finally shared her story with someone. Surprised, I asked if she had ever told the other knitters what she had just finished telling me. She responded that they all have pretty much the same story, so they don't really see much point in sharing with each other their lives before they began working in the workshop.

“I have suffered a lot in my life, but there have also been a lot of wonderful times.”

Ñaña update

As I wrote in my previous posting, I had no idea what I would find when I went up to the Ñaña workshop last week after having been away for almost a year. I had been communicating with the knitters through email and the occasional phone call (their missed calls always registered as unavailable, but I could tell it was them from the whispering and muffled "Emli?" left on my answering machine each time before an abrupt hangup). However, I didn't have a very clear picture of what was going on.

Betsi, the knitter who just opened her own store, was previously the instructor of the group and left unexpectedly due to cuts in funding shortly after I left. I was really worried about this, because she had the most experience of all the women in the group, and I didn't know what it would do to morale or their progress learning new techniques. Then I heard from them in early June that they had just finished classes. How long? With whom? No response. Andrea, the knitter who is now heading things up, also mentioned in passing during a brief phone call that she had been to Lima for PeruModa, a national fashion exhibition. I couldn't get many details out of her other than how much she had liked it.

It turns out that both the classes and PeruModa were part of a program put on for the women of Ñaña by FONCODES, a governmental organization dedicated to women and development. The classes covered not only knitting techniques, but costs and prices, group organization, and color and design trends. On top of this, I found out that the priest in Alto Cayma is now encouraging them to move towards being more self-sustaining and independent. I could not be happier.

So now the question is -- what needs to be done in the next 7 weeks to help them continue moving towards this goal? We've decided to pare down our inventory for the online catalog so we can focus on perfecting the items that will appear-- assigning codes, selecting colors, setting measurements, etc. -- so everyone is on the same page and we are not spread so thin trying to keep a million different products straight. I am also working with two new knitters, who are younger and have some experience with computers, familiarizing them with Skype, Excel and Word so they can keep track of orders, designs, inventory, etc. I don't really have any background in this area, so I am now busily trying to read up on finances and accounting so we can figure out a system that works for them. Luckily, my host dad studied business in college, so he has loads of books and experience to contribute to the process.

In addition, we are starting up our weekly meetings again, this time with a twist. Before leaving Iowa, I was invited by Randy Gabrielse of Ames to attend a Beyond Welfare supper and meeting to see a different model of community. The principles and format of the meeting really impressed me, and I offered them to the ladies this last week as an option for our own meetings.

Specifically, we will try to switch leadership each meeting to give women who aren't used to speaking up or leading a group the opportunity to try it and develop their own leadership skills. We'll start each meeting by going around the circle and sharing something good/new in our lives with the community as a way to foster a positive outlook and learn more about what is going on in the lives of fellow community members. There will also be an opportunity for each member to make requests for specific needs and wants, encouraging the women to continue to look to one another for support and giving them the opportunity to help one another. And finally, the meeting is closed with everyone taking the time to thank the people around them--for coming, for helping them out during the past week, etc. The goal is to help them become a more self-reliant community in which they turn to one another for support rather than depending on outsiders and are better able to appreciate one another and themselves.

It's a lot to get started on before the end of August, but I am encouraged that we are already far ahead of where we were when we started working together last spring. As always, it's a step. Poco a poco.

Not a lot to report just yet, but I thought I'd get a good start and post now before I get too overwhelmed.

I arrived in Arequipa early Saturday morning after another long overnight at the Lima airport. Luckily, all of my luggage arrived without any problems (no small feat these days), and Max and Roxana, my host parents the past two visits who have welcomed me again this summer, were waiting at the airport to bring me home.

I'd been pretty anxious in the days leading up to the trip because opportunities for Spanish conversation had been extremely limited and I didn't know what to expect once I found myself immersed once again. It's still very up and down, but for the most part much better than I'd expected.

This morning I was able to go up to Alto Cayma to visit the knitters, and it was wonderful. They are doing really well, although a lot of changes have occurred. We'd been communicating by email while I was gone, but I wasn't at all sure what I would find when I returned as surprises are always popping up. Things seem to be running as smoothly as ever, though, and the women are in good spirits and ready to get started on our next project. One of the most exciting developments was that they recently completed classes sponsored by a local governmental organization dedicated to women and development. As soon as they finished telling me how pale and skinny I am these days, they got down to business showing me all of the new designs and techniques they've taken from their classes, along with newly-purchased mannequins and display cases. Things are moving along well.

And finally, the pitch. We are very much in catalog limbo right now, with several versions floating around and the website still in the works, but if you'd like to place an order you can go to my flickr page for a fairly complete version (http://www.flickr.com/photos/efifield26/). The knitters are chomping at the bit to get going on new orders, so please email me if you'd like to purchase anything (or if you have any questions about the products). If you get your orders in soon, there is a good chance we will be able to send them back with Lindsey and Brian in mid-July after their visit. Otherwise, I will bring them with me at the end of August.

All right. That's all for now, but I am hoping to keep this updated more regularly so that I don't fall so far behind. I hope all is well wherever you are. Take care.