My first visit to an SOS children's village

One of the first days in Peru the friend I was traveling with was going to visit her 'daughter' at an SOS Children's Village  My friend and her family supports several kids through different organizations here in Peru. I asked if I might join her to visit with the family her 'daughter' lives with.

My interest in going along for this family visit stems from the fact that since I was myself in my late teens I have always supported a kid somewhere in the world - India, Rwanda, Tanzania and at the moment a child in Bolivia.

For the first child I was active and wrote letters and noted birthdays etc. When this girl graduated and got a scholarship to go to university we no longer kept in touch. I was given a chance to support another child and I did, and so once one little person moved out of the system I welcomed the next. I am not very active any longer on the correspondence side other than in always making sure the monthly payments are done.

However the visit at the SOS village in Peru has given me some food for thought.

The village is in the middle of a very urban area - and there is a 'cluster' of houses all belonging to different families of the SOS organization.

The family I had the good fortune to visit consisted of 9 children from around 10 to 21 - the 21 year old has chosen to stay on with the family whilst she finishes her university studies.

In this particular house two of the kids were blood siblings  .....  often though  'family' does not mean there are blood relations,  it means that the children and young people live together as a family would, sharing house, cleaning, shopping, cooking, fun and tears, they become each others sisters and brothers. They create their own family. There is a designated paid housemother - as I understood it in this case the housemother has been with the kids for many many years - watched them all grow up and is guiding and helping them along within a system which can be pretty rough on children if there are no family members to look after them or if their original family is so poverty stricken that they have given up hope looking after the child.

My friend goes to visit this family every time she travels in the area - they all know her well - and she knows them well. There is a lovely connection between them all. The connection that helps a child remember that someone outside or far away cares about..... his/her well-being, the efforts to do the best he/she can in school, in life in general - through a foster parent plan a child or young person does feel their worth and they are given hope that they will themselves be able to move on and up and become the best person they can hope to be!

I had not thought that deeply about why and how and what the real impact would be - really, it is often hard to know and understand things and events fully until one has seen with ones own eyes or felt it on ones own body the true colour of the situation. There are always sponsorship drives going on from many different aid groups. The children I have sponsored over the years have been through Christian Children's Fund - the reason for this being that at the time I sponsored my first kid this to my knowledge was the only sponsor organization available in Denmark.

I have continued on with this Fund. Must say though that I do question the need to mix religion into bringing up children of other cultures - should I choose today I would choose a non-denominational organization like for instance SOS Children's villages - or another organization Foster Parents Plan. I am sure there are many others out there. The fact is that an amount of $50 or less a month is enough to get a kid to school, to provide food and clothes. In many cases there is money for the rest of his/her family as well for improved living conditions, more animals for better nutrition etc. It takes so little and I highly recommend it. In some cases one can even go visit with the kid(s) like we had the chance to do. It is a learning experience.

I have not put up any photos of the village and the children for privacy reasons - only the sheep which were part of a small flock which this family of children and young adults had to look after -  for food and wool - there was a vegetable garden, and hens for eggs and roosters for soup (I am sure) shared fruit trees of different kinds. For the kids who  enjoy sports there was a nice paved sports field and there was a community house close by for bigger mixed family gatherings. Truly an impressive spot. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to go and visit and talk and laugh and discover the happy family feel that was very evident within this group of children and their caretaker.

Volunteering at a school near Calca, Peru

 
It is winter here in Canada now, cold, windy, snowy. I have a husband on a tractor cleaning up the two driveways in the dark from the snowstorm that we had on Monday this week.
And for me it is time to do a little more blogging about my adventures in Peru.


I had prepared the photos in this blog a while back, just didn't seem able to find the words to adequately describe the joy and the learning and the pleasure that surrounded and overflowed in me when we visited the school and had some fun learning hours with the kids a few times a week during the last part of my stay in Calca. 

Emerita taught classes on colour theory with the kids using some of Johannes Itten's methods of seeing complementary and contrasting colours. They were all eyes and 'some' ears.

 Letting them paint with brushes and aniline paints, using old soup tins to hold the water and off they were after some show and tell instructions.

Here they are looking at a boy/men's traditional hat (chullo), knitted in brilliant colours and with patterns/icons that have significance for the family, telling about their fields, their mountains - their life in/with Mother Nature/PachaMama.

Younger kids expressing themselves - the youngest class was grade one, I believe the kids were around 5 or 6 years old. This being their first year in school we got the class room teacher to translate into Quechua some of what Emerita had shared with everyone in Spanish, just to make sure that the kids had a chance to understand better what it was we were up to in their class room. Some of them hadn't started learning Spanish until this year in school.













The focus of a few of the bigger kids. Having first written a poem about their lives on the mountain. They run back up to 4200m on the weekends to spend time with their family and friends - when they have to go and herd animals, sheep, llamas, alpacas up into the remote spots to find good grazing for their family herd










The last class that I was part of - the kids had brought in weaving from their families - and the topic was 'Icons in your mothers weaving, what does it tell us' - there was chatter and focus and stories and afterwards eager kids with pencils, paintbrushes, paint and beautiful poems illustrated by the authors.

The sink where the kids washed their hands and their plates and spoons after any of the meals they had at school and where they just splashed each other for the fun of it because ..... what else is there to do with running water on a reasonably warm day at school!

Boys playing soccer in the back ground and the girls having a serious conversation amongst themselves and with Emerita about their lives in the mountains, about herding, living, playing, and going to school.

If you go to the Apulaya website, there is a short movie with more in-depth information on the work that Emerita and Valerio do at the school, sometimes by themselves sometimes with fortunate volunteers like myself.  

It was a privilege to participate!

Market photos

Market in Calca, Sunday Market - extra vendors, lots of people and dogs

Below: The quail egg lady in action - she boils eggs right there and

peels them so you can enjoy a quick snack.

We took home 6 eggs in the usual plastic bag - raw eggs - so we could have sunny side up fried eggs for supper. The yolks were the size of my thumbnail

And then there were the cheese tables. 

These here are unpasteurized local cheeses- artfully pressed and decorated.

Yolanda, the wonderful cheese lady who always had time for a chat and a smile in her eyes. I got my pasteurized (in the yellow wrap) local cheese from her, and some other treats for different occasions. We have an agreement that when I come down next time I will bring my husband (he agrees too)

A fruit and vegetable booth and ..... this is where I got some of the small cocoa bars which I brought home for Christmas gifts. For the price of five little bars a sixth was always slipped into the bag - I didn't think about this until I got back to my room and looked over my loot =-)

Picking up food, vegetables, fruits or treats at this market was always fun and lovely, and .... as ever when one goes to a market, be prepared for the urge to do impulse shopping, that is .... the nature of market going - one never knows when leaving home what might be available on this particular day.

Weaving with Apolonia

To start off the year 2013 what follows here is a lineup of photos from Peru of how we (Apolonia from Apulaya and I) proceeded when we started up my last weaving project about 10 days prior to my return to Canada.

 It was a relaxing and yet very exciting time. I had spent the weekend putting extra twist into some of my naturally dyed yarns from Chinchero and I had played with my colour pencils, as well as thought about which of the patterns I had previously woven on narrow bands would be the ones to put together to attempt a wider piece of weaving.

Anais came to join us, she even gave me a hand for a few minutes rolling the balls of yarn back and forth. It is in her hands and mind, she has watched her grandmother prepare warps and weave so many times. She has not yet woven a band, but .... she will, sooooon!

The cross, so beautiful between the two sticks in the ground - the only back draw to making a warp like this is ... if you are not limber enough in your hips and legs you might get a bit sore and fidget a bit while you are working on getting it all together.

The sheep skins are lovely they keep the dampness and potential coolness off your butt and adds a bit of softness between your knees and Pachamama (Mother Earth) as you focus on the task at hand.

Fingers picking up/making string heddles - I was excited to be doing this particular piece because it was a wider warp and that meant incorporating a heddle stick = something which I hadn't worked with before  and thus.... a new challenge.

One would have thought that looping a string around every other warp thread would be 'easy' - and well, it is easy, but ... never the less it is also easy to accidentally pick up the 'wrong' warp end or get them twisted or.... there is ample ground for learning experiences which need a little bit of correction and thus an insightful repetition of the action just performed.

And the birds were singing and the dog(s) came around to help out and lend a paw!

Then the actual weaving began, one pick at a time, slowly meticulously and with absolute concentration.

The first little bit has been done - a zigzag river pattern on each side of the star - and progress was slow - the trick is to memorize the pattern and so it flows effortlessly from your fingertips (a real Andean weaver does this) I am as ever thankful that I had pen and paper, not to mention the colour pencils, for those were/are tools of need for me still - perhaps one day I will be able to have it all in my 'internal confuser' on top of my shoulders.

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone lots of exciting and successful projects of all kinds for 2013.

Day of the Dead, November 2

photo by Emerita

The morning of Day of the Dead started with another ceremony - not a long one, but a few minutes of conversation with and remembrance of the persons we wished could have enjoyed this meal with us. Instead we ate the now 'tasteless' food. Since all our ancestors feasted all night on the essence of what we offered up last night there was little left but the 'shells' of the goodies - I do think though that the ancestors were kind and left quite a bit of taste for us to enjoy.

The first plate of many which I filled and emptied this morning. And the company was.... absolutely excellent from first to last bite.

All at the table - photo by Emerita

And here we are at the Cemetery where ..life is fun and full where the conversations with the ancestors, the newly dead or the ones who have been absent from our reality for a long time flourish and flutter - young and old alike are busy communicating and respectfully remembering. The men atop this rolling staircase are celebrating and having a drink with their relatives - whose remains are placed too high up to talk to them directly when standing on the path below, but with this aid of a rolling staircase it works fine, one could even say it is close to comfortable!

Sound systems are not easy to operate nor come by and so... to make sure that everyone can hear the words of importance a megaphone is used. The choir sang loud and beautifully enough to be heard without amplification although ......

I did feel my heart hop and skip a few times when the repairs going on at this grave site 50 meters further along the pathway got a bit too loud - power-drills are not soundless, with or without amplifying.

A photo of a grave site we walked by on our meanderings at the cemetery that day - there are rose-petals in the pattern of a cross on top of the grave and my eyes caught the beauty of the purple candle sitting there on its rock. What I didn't see until I came back and uploaded my photos to the Ipad was ..... the two cigarettes neatly placed on the rock next to the candle rock - as an offering to the dearly departed - one of his/her favorites perhaps. In all the wall cubicles one could observe miniature favorites of the dead family member, be it a soccer-ball, a car, little battery run dancing flowers, you name it, it was there. I have never seen a cemetery this lively ever in my life - paintbrushes were in use to smarten up cement tombs, beer bottles were carried in, dogs were about, I observed two kids around ten years old sitting at a grave-site making patterns with rose-petals - living and dead mingling above and below in their heads and hearts. It was lovely to see and an honour to be part of, even if I was on this day 'just an observer'.

Day of the Living, November 1

Preparing lunch for November 1 - we did not celebrate Halloween on Oct. 31 - we completely ignored it - instead on this Nov. 1 we are preparing a wonderful lunch in the orno outside - chicken, plantain, sweet potatoes, what else could any one wish for. It is a day for celebrating family and friends and I am fortunate to belong to the friends part of this and get to spend the whole day with Emerita and Valerio's family at Apulaya.
Apolonia and Modesto getting the orno going so there will be enough warmth and embers to turn the chicken pieces and veggetables into delectable morsels in just over an hour's baking. Anais is busy with her good friend Chava - the little dog that will do whatever Anais tells her to do. Buddies!

Delicious tomato and peanut sauce for dipping the above mentioned orno baked vegetables in when they have been served on our plates in just a little while.

 Looking at this photo I am thinking that I need to remember how Emerita did this - or I have to make my own version of this - the fact is, this made a scrumptious 'salsa'.

Chicken exiting the orno with the aid of Valerio and Modesto, not to forget the oven mits. That orno is very hot indeed.
We enjoyed our lunch at the table from the 6 year old to the almost 105 year old - although we were missing one person, a new Apulaya art student and volunteer , Lucie from ..... Alberta!
She did arrive eventually, plane cancellations etc from Lima to Cusco are hard to control,  the circle complete for our evening ceremony.

Photo by Emerita  Anais, Pia and Lucie, waiting for ceremony to start.

Earlier in the day I had been invited to also place treats on the ceremony table in the hall way.  We went to the market and I had a ball purchasing treats for my family and friends. The treats are made/bought with the intent to make relatives who have passed on happy - this is an offering of some of their favorite foods - on this night after the celebration of Day of the Living - All Souls Night - our relatives come to stay with us, to see how we are doing and to give us a hand if we reach out and ask for their help. In this reciprocal culture when we give an offering we are entitled to ask for help or guidance in return. This was a bit foreign to me but I sent off thoughts to the people in my life who have already passed on, family members and friends - strange how long the list is when one starts to really think about it - and wonderful to know that .... this was in honour of all of these 'souls', spirits, it felt overwhelming and good at the same time.

Modesto, Anais and Apolonia. Photo by Emerita

We are waiting for the ceremony to begin. Modesto (on the left) is a paqo - a mediator between the natural and the supernatural worlds - he will perform the ceremony, a blessing, a mass over the foods and treats - calling on our ancestors, inviting them to come and enjoy this meal we are offering them and asking for their protection and aid or support as one feels one needs it. Anais is excited, to be looking at all the treats (which won't be eaten until the next morning) and to be with her grandparents during this beautiful and peaceful ceremony. It is a time of joy, being able to connect with our departed loved ones.

Spiritual view ...... ah, no, it was Emerita who had gone up the stairs in order to get this view - in a moment or two the ceremony will start, the lights were turned down a bit so it wasn't too bright, it was evening around 7 or 8 pm after all -
the ceremony lasted for a couple of hours, was read and recited in a beautiful mix of languages, Spanish, Quechua and Latin - my heart was filling up with sadness, longing, happiness, pleasure, memories, respect and thankfulness that I was able to honour 'my dead' in this manner - a whole new and wonderful way of connecting with loved ones now existing in a different realm.

Bands and views from Juana's in Huaran

When the sun got too high in the sky arrangements were made for me to sit in a shaded place just so my 'pretty face' wouldn't 'come to harm' again. I was moved just inside the kitchen door - a stick was hammered into the ground just outside the kitchen door with the most magnificently large and impressive axe and then..... I was placed on a low stool with blankets and sheepskins on top for comfortable softness. Then it was time to get 'hooked up', one end of the warp to the stick/peg outside the kitchen door and the other end to the woven belt I had tied around my waist sitting on the comfortable stool just inside the threshold in the kitchen.

This was my view - and as the rain came later we both jumped up, Juana and I, and took the laundry down.This is where Juana cooked us lunch and boiled water for tea - the kittens were just starting to move out of their box and surprisingly so, though perhaps it shouldn't be, they never ended up in the fire, they knew how close to get. They were in constant motion looking for food, playing a bit and looking for food again. Their mom would come in also looking for food and then she settled down in the box for a nursing session. I couldn't resist but had to give the little ones not yet in the box a hand - I 'flew' them in, so they could partake too.

And the bands I wove with Juana, the wide one that was my first choice to the very right. Closest to the side of the photo is the back of this wide band, then the front - then comes the yellow/red band which worked up reasonably fine and fast without too many hickups to weave, the side with the narrow zigzag being the front of the band, the back has long floats and a wider yellow zigzag. Finally the orange and black band - the front is the diamonds and the back is the longer rather hickuppy floats. Looking at all three bands ..... I cannot believe how lucky I feel to actually have sat there in the kitchen at Juana's - working, learning and weaving up these bands. Soon I will have to redo them here at home, that is.... make new warps and sit down focused on these particular patterns trying to do them with no mistakes this time!