The Project

As you know (or might not) I´m working with a womens´collective about ten minurtes outside of Urubamba in an even smaller town called Yanawhara. The groups´ name is Durazno Ti´kay which means, in a mixture of Spanish and Quecha, Peach Flower. The group is made up of about 30 women, although we can expect around 20 to be at any one meeting, who make up the lower economic group of Yanawhara.

About a month ago the group formed with the very lofty goals of creating woven products to export, especially to the US, and there-by increase their economic situation. The beauty of the group is that they can 1) band together to get their name out and provide each other support and 2) work from home so that they do not neglect tehir children and families. The group came to ProPeru, the NGO I´m working with, and asked for support. So here I am...

Every day at 3:00 I take a convi (a van filled to the brim with people) over to Yanawhara. The meeting place, a large bare room with stools and benches, is in the house of one of the women who belongs to Durazno Ti´kay. People, women, kids and dogs, start to filter in at around 3:30 and fill teh room with chatting and with knitting (tejando). When we´ve reached our maximum for the day we start an hour-long lesson of some sort. The women really want to learn business English, so they´re working right now on colors, numbers and the names of the items they make. The problem with the English is that, although the women span in age, the majority are more toward the thirth/forty group, ages when learning new languages is fairly difficult. Still, some seem to pick up the English right away and begin to ask me and each other ´how old are you?´and ´what is your name?´

There were two volunteers before me and my partner, Michelle, who began teaching English and a variety of other things. They discovered that the women absolutely love a varieation on Yoga whcih basically involves streching. They also tried to teach some basic business skills like accounting and the importance of keeping inventory. We´ll keep up these lessons as well as start some new ones on basic math, womens´rights and, really, anything else that strikes us. Because the project is so new, we´ve got a great indepoendence in what we teach (whcih is at the same time thrilling ans terrifying).

And now to the women themselves. They´re wonderful. There are a few women in their twneties, more in their thirties and some in their forties. None of them has ever been a part of a group like thsi before and, from what I can tell, none of them has ever worked outside of their home (although, technically, they´re not now either). The vast majority are bilingual in Spanish (whcih is called Castellano) and Quecha, the most widely spoken native language in Peru. Some, however, only speak Quecha. Most are literate and some have absolutely beautiful penmanship. There are two mothers with young children who consistantly come to meetings. Their children are adorable and a source of entertainment (one began to dance wildly on Friday) for us and the group.

The organization has a board of directors consisting of four women. They are, by far, the most dedicated women. They are very willing to share their thoughts and oppinions, always come to class and work hardest at their English skills. They are truely amazing and are inspirational to the rest of the group, myself included.

After our lesson the women have an hour or so to work on their projects. However, the vast majority of work they´ll do at home. This is a time for us to interact with the women, to learn about them, their lives and their goals. This is also a time for us to learn from the women. On Friday I began my first Quecha lesson, which consisted of much giggiling as women point to parts of their bodies and named them in Quecha for me. There are a lot of sounds in Quecha that I´m not familiar with, as well as some glotteral stops, whcih we don´t really have in English (the apostrophy in Ti´kay is an example) so I´m going slowly. Hopefully I´ll learn enough for a sentance or two by the next blog.

Until then...