Candalaria on Taquile

February 2, 2015, Candlemas, Imbolc, Groundhog Day, the cross quarter day between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox

It is a huge celebration in Puno two weeks of dancing in the streets and blessings the Virgin de Candalaria. They say it is second in South America only to Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. We have participated in Puno in past years and wanted to avoid the craziness this year. Turns out that Taquile has its own celebration, for one day in the main plaza. The dance is Negritos, originally a cerebration of freeing of the black slaves.

This was our first time to dress up in our indigenous clothing and celebrate properly. Takes some getting used to.

I´m too far from the band to get good sound.

Teaching English on Taquile

A group of Danish people are running a summer vacation English Class for Taquile youth. Twenty soles per month, or about $7. Quite a few of our family members are enrolled: Clever (age 10 on January 29), Ivan (age 14), Natalia (age 17), plus from Felipe´s family his wife Ines, Illliane and Anali. We visited the class and were invited to help with pronounciation. Then we offered to teach extra classes while they go to Puno to teach. Great fun. Teach how to say the English "th" sounds. I think not nearly as difficult as all these four different "g" and "k" and even "p" sounds in Quechua. An then there is the short "i"  and that every vowel "uh" sound that we use. I act things out with big gestures. "Uh" is a sock in the gut. Now nearly every kid on the island knows us and greets us with "Good morning," or at least a big smile.

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The first day, Sam and I made up a dialog of meeting tourists at the boat and inviting them to say overnight, "We have a room where you can stay." I also notice that Quechua has a word for "evening" which I haven´t found. My meager Quechua has been very helpful.

The Danish teachers drew pictures of their families. 

Contrasts

On Friday (30 Jan.) a storyteller joined us. He is a history teacher in Lima and an actor, originally from Cusco and well versed in Fables, Legends and Tales in Quechua. He has us put all the chairs in a big circle. He was most dramatic and dressed in typical clothing from Cusco area. Unfortunately, his Quechua is very different from the language here. Afterward Ivan told me that he missed about half the words. I knew that our Quechua here around Lake Titicaca differs from the Cusco Quechua, but I did not realize that it was that different. We borrow from Spanish and Aymara, but now I learn that two very old languages, perhaps from the Teohuanaco Culture also influence our Quechua. Pukinas and also Pukaras are the names of the old languages.

Mario Warangamaki Castillo, narrador oral indigena

He finished his stories with only about 30 minutes left in class, so I presented some coyote tales. One where coyote gets in trouble for laughing at Spider Woman´s rope coming out of her butt, and another of how coyote tried to stay up all night to be in line early to get a more powerful name. The snoring always gets a good laugh.

Arrival on Taquile 22+ January 2015

Reunited with our Taquile Family. Love abounds!

We gave gifts and celebrated our arrival.
One set of gifts continues a "pen-pal" relationship from friends of Nancy S. introducing Alicia´s daughter Jasmin Lisbeth, 3 years old, to their own little daughter of the same age with the gift of a very well made stuffed Moose. Lisbeth loves it, put a leash on it and drug it around, used it for a ball, tossing it in the air. Definitely a hit.

Lisbet with her Moose

golf ball sized hail last September broke through the skylights

We also gave away the LED lights that travelled all around Peru last year, never to arrive on Taquile, but promised to family members, and packaged and labeled. Everyone is happy to receive them. One gift is the Solar Hot Pot donated by S.H.E., Solar Household Energy thanks to Louise Meyer. We are to keep a record of use. It has, so far, boiled water, cooked beets, roasted potatoes, boiled soaked dry corn. It is rainy season, so uses are limited.

efficient Super Bright LED light strips

We also placed equipment into the store of Eufrasia and Delfin to sell. The LED light strips from Super Bright LEDs give 690 lumens for 7.5watts and can light a big room or allow fine weaving detail work under good light. The 100 watt inverters sold out in less than an hour. The charge controllers sold out within a few days. We still have a few battery indicators. They can serve as human charge controllers, warning people to disconnect their batteries if full on a sunny day. I am shocked by the number of people who run their systems without charge controllers, since an over charged battery can blow up. Wish we had brought more.

boat of Elias in progress

view from the top of Mulcina, Taquile Island

Volley Ball in the yard

Mayor Zenon and Florentino, officers of Taquile

Showing LED lights in Taquile City Hall

Snowcapped peaks across Lake Titicaca

New sports field on Taquile

detailed Taquile weaving

Taquile view to an arch

Oh dear, direct tv on Taquile

Hot water is nice

The hike to the top of Mulcina, Taquile

Visiting Chilean jugglers

Fredy is guide, interpreting Taquile clothing

Solar water pumping on Taquile Island

The beach on Taquile

Ivan makes sand bowls with water on the beach

High tech/low tech: solar panel on thatched roof with rubber wash basin

ancient wooden door lock

Clever climbs a rock

Blessing the Boat in Progress

21 January, 2015 Wednesday, Puno, Peru

Lino is a master carpenter and boat builder. He and his son, William, have been working on a new boat, a 12 1/2 meter -- about 38-foot -- tour boat for the last two years. They started with funds from selling the boat they had finished and which we helped put into the water in 2013. A couple of times they had to stop and work on other boats to make money for this one. All of the family has pitched in and, although they call it Fredy´s boat, it is really of the whole extended family.

It floats upright in a backwater of Lake Titicaca, just past the fancy Liberador Hotel, in the community of Chulluni. Chulluni is where most of the families from Uros live while they are not entertaining tourists on their reed floating islands. The outer hull is all made with a strong, water-resistant wood, handmade tongue and groove boards, well finished. The top is fiberglass over plywood and the front over the cabin is painted metal. I´ve never seen a boat with such beautiful pictue windows all along the sides. Tourists will love the clear views. It has a bathroom WITH a sink for handwashing, still to be installed.

A lot still needs to be done to finish it, not too much woodwork: floors and some of the walls. The biggest expense will be the 6 cylinder diesel motor. With the strong dollar going up against the Peruvian Sol, this will be tough to get together, perhaps $9,000 for the motor alone. Close to $10,000 to finish the whole thing. Sam got the truly bright idea of initiating a Kickstarter campaign to buy the motor. Big donors would be able to use the boat if they came to Puno. It´s an idea.

So we made a blessing ceremony. First Valeria brought her manta with an uncuña (food-carrying cloth) full of potatoes and chuño (freeze-dried potatoes) and fish, with a fresh salsa to spark it up. Then we opened the estallia, the ceremonial coca cloth and everyone came forward to choose coca leaves and imbue them with their prayers for the success of the boat. Lino took the role of Shaman and sculled the little dory out among the reeds to offer our prayer-laden offering to the Mother Lake.

Afterward, beer and soda and lots of coca sharing before we disbanded and came back to Puno to buy the groceries for the next couple of weeks on Taquile. We go to Taquile tomorrow morning and I will not be posting again for awhile.

Lima-First leg 2015

We landed in Lima early in the morning of Friday, 16 January. Alejandro met us at the airport. He grew up in Lima (and north in Huacho); is the husband of Noemi, our goddaughter. They have three delightful children so we are the grandparents (¿"grand-godparents"?) of Alexander nickname Chani, age 6, Dayana, age 3, and little Bianca, 10 months (born March 12). Sunday was a good day for a family outing to Lima Central, the Plaza Mayor and Parque M            with ruins from the XVII century  plus a section with kids rides.

Sam is fabulous with wrestling and tickling and paper airplanes and lifting high in the air. He was making this little zzoop sound as he lifted Dayana up and so she would reach her arms up and say zzoop to ask to be lifted. So sweet.

Daddy Alejandro with baby Bianca

On Saturday we went into the central part of Lima to buy our airline tickets to Lake Titicaca and to get some efficient LED lights for the house of Noemi and Alejandro. We knew that Delfin and a dance troupe from Taquile were in Lima and had talked about meeting downtown somewhere, but could not connect by cell phone; did not know how we would meet. ¡There they all were in the Solar Gear Stores! Where else would you expect to find a group of people from a village with the most intense use of solar energy anywhere?

More details later. I write this from Puno, now, hanging out at 13,000 feet, first day aclimatization to the altitude, so taking it slo-o-o-o-w.

Textiles from Taquile on sale

How did we get these textiles?
Since our first visit to Taquile in 1986, we have acquired a strong collection of the fine quality weavings and knitted goods from Taquile Island. Most of these items were traded for solar panels and  related accessories. Now that panels can be purchased within the country of Peru, we bring highly efficient LED lights, which save on battery wear and tear as well as simply giving a lot more light for the same power. These, and other energy accessories, we also trade for textiles.

We are now preparing for a 2015 trip between the middle of January and the March Equinox. Follow this blog for stories from Peru whenever I come to the city and get on a computer.

Did I tell you that the Taquile Island community has been deemed a 

UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site? 

Read down this blog to learn more about our relationship with the people and place of Taquile. 

How can you get textiles for myself or gifts?
You could travel to Peru. We are always happy to advise you about how to avoid expensive tours and stay with a family in our community on Taquile Island, where you will be housed and welcomed as a guest at reasonable rates (see our blog entry about How to Visit Taquile Island).
Much easier is to come to the fairs where we have them on display. For the 2014 holiday season, we will show them on November 1, between 8am and 3pm at the Holy Family School at 786 26 1/2 Rd, just north of interstate 70 in Grand Junction, Colorado. Our booth will be located between the two buildings, outside. Weather promises to be good if a little windy-- just the right weather to try on the exquisite knitted wool hats! We will bring a small sampling of our pottery to this show.

We have two more shows for the Holidays: The Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, November 28 and 29, we will be showing all pottery near Denver at the beautiful Arvada Center on Wadsworth.

Then we return to the Western Slope for our final show: We will have textiles again, as well as a large selection of our pottery at the Paonia Holiday Art Fair at the Blue Sage in Paonia on December 5-6, 2014, from 3pm to 8pm on Friday and 9am to 5pm on Saturday.

We added one more, 
The Annual Snowflake Bazaar     in Delta, Colorado    
December 13th, 9am-4pm
Located at the Center for Spiritual Living      
658 Howard St. (next to the old Cleland Park)  in Delta, Colorado

See you at the Fair!

Going Away Party

Our last day on Taquile was Friday 26 April, 2013.

(Note: I wrote this blog entry after returning to Colorado, 

so the sequence is out of order with our visit in Lima) 

This entry completes the 2013 stories.

We had time to hike to the top of the island to the ceremonial site called Mulcina.

As is our custom, we had a party for our last night. We baked a banana cake in the Ulog Solar Cooker:

We danced:

Sam with Eufrasia.

 It's hard to keep the women's head cloth, the chuco, on her head as she twirls and swishes the skirts. Eufrasia is holding her head down because it is about to fall off.

Silvano with Ruperta

Even little Clever joined the dancing

The moon rose that night exactly behind Ilimani, a 6,438 m (21,122 ft) Mountain across the lake in the Cordillera Real in Bolivia. As the moon backlit the mountain it appeared to be on fire. By the time we grabbed a camera the light had struck a pathway on the lake: