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.