Easter 2025

Singing in the Churches 

A few weeks before Easter, groups of singers gather to make up new songs and practice for the nights and a day of singing in the churches. Taquile is organized into six suyos, or sectors or neighborhoods. Each has its own chorus and musicians. They each created at least a dozen new songs.

Giant pots of soup feed the singers before practices and performances. 

Most of the women sit on mats snd blankets on the floor.

The authorities keep everyone awake with coca leaves. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, they sing until 1:00am

Easter Day

After Easter mass in the big church in the plaza, the authorities leave the singers and lead a procession to two ceremonial sites. We joined the one to the mountaintop, Mulcina. 

 

Life and Death

 On Taquile Island, the custom when someone dies is to refrain from productive work until the body is buried. So that means no weaving knitting; no work in the fields. It’s OK to play volleyball and of course to cook food since we all have to eat.  

A complete life 

The Matriarch of our family Mercedes Cruz Huatta died in the wee hours of Friday, April 11. Her age is estimated at 109 years. She is survived by one daughter, 5 sons, and numerous grand- and great-grandchildren. Two daughters died before her. She didn’t have a birth certificate, so her age is estimated based on that of a girlfriend who did have a birth certificate. She was able to participate in household activities until about a month before her death, when she spent much of her time in bed. 

Picture from 2019

Years ago, we participated in a burial and the body was sewn up in fabric. However, Mercedes was honored with a wooden casket.  Silvano had gone to the house in the predawn hours, and we came later. I sat with the widower, Sebastian, who shared how “triste” he was feeling. I showed him pictures of his wife on my camera from 2019. They had been married for 30 years. After eating soup, the top of the casket was opened to view her face. Coca k’intus were made and shared. 

Then the procession

The casket was carried to the burial site in a procession of about 40 people who witnessed and men dug the grave. The soil was clay and sand with, luckily and surprisingly, no rocks.  We all shared coca and beer or sodas over the two and a half hours of digging. 

They carefully measured the casket and at the moment of lowering it into the grave, a chorus of women broke out in harmonic songs.  

We cover the casket in flowers before mounding up the dirt and sod. It was a rich and moving ceremony, followed by a procession in the dark, by a different route, to the house and a cleansing smoky smudge. Close family stayed late and Sam and I returned home. 

The next day we/they wash everything. 

Clothes worn to the burial, blankets from the sick room, more. We did our own here at the house, whereas others (close family) worked nearer the grieving household at the lakeshore. I’m told they will take a different route from the lake back home.

My understanding is that the spirits of the dead need to be acknowledged, redirected and maybe even confused. Hence, not walking back through the same path, so any lingering spirit can’t latch back on. And all the washing, the cleansing. 

Church service and family day

The following Wednesday was to be the church funeral service and mass for our beloved Mercedes. We cooked and served sheep meat, both as soup and as barbecue for the participants. Sebastián offered two of his remaining 3 sheep to be served up in a family feast. 

Tuesday I helped butcher two sheep by holding the legs, or fetching basins, while Silvano and Alipio did the hard work. We gave the sheep our gratitude, and they were killed and bled quickly.

On Wednesday, we got up at dawn to walk to Huyllano for the service. Saturn, Venus , and Mercury were still visible in the eastern sky (though you might barely see a pinpoint of light in this photo).

It was a mass in the Catholic Church.

 Then back to the house for a breakfast soup, lots of coca, offerings, and stories. 

One of my favorite stories about Mercedes was when we traded a very small solar electric system with her, her first light besides candles. She was about 80 years old. It was when white LED’s had just been invented. The system was a 10w panel, a little solid-state battery and three small LED lights. When we visited her a week later, she clapped her hands together and said, ”I feel so young now that I have lights!“ That panel and the lights are still functioning; the battery has been replaced.

See the little panel on the thatched roof?

Patcha Manca

The cooking event was a Patcha Manca, earth oven, wherein flat rocks are built into an arched structure, heated for several hours by burning eucalyptus branches, and small logs. 

When the rocks are hot enough, the arch is disassembled and reassembled with food. Foil has become the wrap of choice for the marinated meat, keeping the juices intact and everything clean. Meat first, then potatoes and oca (sometimes fava beans). Once all the layers are built up, a generous pile of muña (a perennial bush in the mint family) covers the rocks, then tarps , then soil, insulating the whole pile for another 1/2 hour. Waiting. Then the disassembly, serve and eat. 

Delicious !

The extended family spent the entire day together.

We told stories, shared coca and food and drink. Samuel and I felt very honored to be so deeply included in this moving and important time in the life of our extended family.  

Taquile Textiles

 Trades and purchases 

The ever-popular rechargeable headlamps call for trading without delay. Taquile is known for exceptionally skilled knitting and weaving, which we bring back to Colorado and sell on our Etsy site.

Moises needed cash for school supplies for his grandchildren. His work is exceptional and we were happy to buy quite a bit. 

We help pay for the school supplies of over a dozen children, with considerable help in the form of donations from neighbors and friends back in Colorado. Moises is a more distant relative, so we bought with cash rather than free donation. Education is important, and now we find ourselves pitching in on advanced education for young graduates. 

Bernardo has perfected a design for fold-over mittens. Open for fine finger tasks, such as texting, close for warmth.We bought all he had; possibly our biggest single purchase ever. He did trade for a headlamp and 12v LED strip lights. 

Flora and her daughter spin and weave at Edwin’s house and B&B. 

Leocadio shows Sam a “mountain” of textile possibilities in trade for a few headlamps. 

It seems that everyone is warping a new project on the loom. 

Celbia is making a fully hand-spun wool blanket. Kusi helps toss the balls of yarn back and forth to warp the loom. 

The courtyard at Alejandrina’s home is full of looms in action. 

Olivia is weaving estalias, the special cloth used in the coca leaf ceremony, especially at Easter. 

Kusi helps Noemí this time, starting a wide belt for her son, who will be in his 3rd year of high school this year. 

Some trade items: 

Charge controller, for those still using rooftop solar and batteries. 

One kind of flashlight this year is “sensor activated,” on certain settings you can wave your hand over the light to turn lights on and off. 

Arrival on Taquile 2025

 Boat trip went smoothly 3/16/2025

Sometimes this huge lake can have big waves and winds, but we were lucky this time with a calm passage. When tourists are on the boat, we stop at the floating islands of Uros, where the totora reeds not only make up the islands themselves, but are used to build houses and sculptures and boats. 

Condor sculpture made of totora reeds

A piece of a new island in the making, towed by motor

School Opening Ceremonies 

All the schools gathered in Taquile’s main plaza to inaugurate the opening of the school year: kindergarten, primary, and secondary. The mayor and principals and school officers gave speeches. Teachers performed dances! Students received gifts of notebooks and pens. 

Reconnecting and trade goods/gifts

Our suitcases were full, with a foldable portable solar panel,  a weatherproof fishing coat, books and toys.

¡Esperar no es Fácil!

Waiting is Not Easy! 

Elen has this book memorized within two weeks!

Twisty little metal puzzles livened up our evenings. 

My “granddaughter” is nearly 5 years old. Smart, curious, and fun. “Quieres jugar pelote?” usually starts our mornings.

Good 

itious Food

Silvano and Clever regularly go fishing with uncle Alipio, setting nets at night and gathering them in the wee hours of the morning. We eat very well. 

Fresh Ispi, a native fish

In addition to the fish soup, salty, crispy Ispi are like fishy potato chips. Quite yummy. 

Extra Ispi are set on rocks in the sun to dry. 

Also, typically steamed with potatoes and chuño

This dish, caldo con pejerrey (kingfisher) was served with a piquante sauce of chili, the herb huatacay and onion all ground together in a mortar

And, of course, trucha a la plancha