Trade Aid Education Tour, Part 2

Posted by Marinda Matthew (Trade Aid Education) with the Trade Aid Education Tour Group 2013.


Tonight is Sunday night and after internet problems at our hostel, all systems are go for another update tonight.


We arrived into Puno from Cuzco and yet a further increase in altitude. We were now in the centre of the Peruvian Altiplano in mid winter and it was freezing. We were at 3800m and after a night in a very toasty hotel, we were off to Taquille Island to visit with a Quechua community. A stop at the famous Uros reed islands and three hours later arriving at the island, we felt as though we has stepped back in time to a beautiful Mediterranean island, surrounded by Lake Titicaca on every side. The cloudless blue skies made the lake seem even more azure blue. There are no vehicles on the island, nor donkeys or llamas to carry anything so we were grateful to have packed very lightly as we climbed up to the little village we were staying in, nested high on the hill at just under 4100m. We were breathing as though we had just run a marathon - now well higher than the top of Mt Cook. We had an exquisite experience on the island where we were taught about the traditions of the islanders and how they have managed to preserve their way of life. The community have been working with the Trade Aid Peruvian partner, Minka, to develop a sustainable and a unique form of tourism that was a privilege to be part of. These people are true artisans and their crafts would rate as some of the most intricate and beautiful we have seen.

We dined like kings on lake trout and quinoa soup and sipped coca tea by the litre as the altitude took its toll. We were all hosted by various families for the night which was such an experience - I slept in a little adobe hut with a thatched roof and mud floors and even on an adobe bed with a mattress on top! We were so graciously welcomed and many in the group found this visit so special, they thought it rivalled our Macchu Picchu visit. That´s really telling!

It was also wonderful to see the results of capacity building funds which Trade Aid (via MFAT) has given to this community in the form of money to build stone steps up a very steep hillside from the jetty. A water reticulation system, sourced from the main natural spring on the island has also been funded and it was wonderful to see that the community have now raised money to buy solar panels to run the water pumps without using generators and so the community we visited as well as the other island communities are all benefitting from having running water -something we take for granted every day.

On the way back to Puno, our boat broke down with a broken fan belt. Of course there was no spare one on board so between all the blokes on board and a few McGiver tools, a piece of rope was spliced to make a new fan belt of sorts and we were very thankful to make it back to Puno before a very cold night.

The following morning we headed about an hour and a half away to visit a group of rural communities who were all spinners and knitter of alpaca, llama and sheep wool into garments and toys. It was a fabulous visit and the warmth of the hospitality and laughter and the women´s enjoyment of our visit made up for the fact that it was about 5 degrees inside the building we were in! The village had no electricity and the concrete hall we were in didn´t even have a fire. After being taught how to spin the various fibres by the women, and much laughter shared on all sides, a few of us also had a go at knitting. Their needles were very rounded so it was a lot harder than doing so on Kiwi needles. We are sure the women undid all our attempts when we were looking the other way! Their knitting and spinning ì skills are amazing and they continue both as they walk down the road or sit around chatting to each other or chatting to us. They are so fast and dont even look at what they are doing, they know the patterns so well they create from memory and garments appear in no time. They focus on the natural colours of the fibres so most of their products are made in the greys, black, and browns as well as creams of the alpaca fibre.

As the group of women who were hosting us were preparing our dinner of black potato soup, we went to see some alpacas and also were fortunate to see a large flock of pink flamingoes on the nearby lake. Why any self-respecting flamingo would want to hang out in the middle of the Altiplano rather than Florida, defies logic! The soup was still cooking (over an open fire in a little shed ) no oven or microwaves here and so our only option to keep warm was to add layers of clothes on top of the layers of clothes we already had on and have an impromptu concert of singing and dancing for 2 hours around our ipods and iphones! After the soup (not one we ever want to eat again!) we all headed for bed marae style and I dont think anyone dared remove any clothes! It was bitterly cold and snowed on the nearby hills over night. And then we found out that the women who were hosting us were sleeping in the hall next door with no mattresses and barely a blanket each. It seemed every spare mattress and blanket from the community had been made available to us! How humbling that was - yet we went to sleep to the sound of the women giggling and laughing and awoke to the same - most likely recalling our pitiful efforts on the spindles and the needles!

It was then back to Lima, a city of 10 million and it was like arriving back onto another planet. It was hard to believe in this cosmopolitan city that we had just spent the last few nights with isolated indigenous communities where time seemed to have almost stood still.

We then visited the head office of Minka and were treated to a party of food and singing and dancing as well as one or two Pisco sours! We had a fab time and were also giving more Pisco to enjoy at our hostel which of course we felt obliged to do!

Yesterday we visited another group which Minka works with -some musical instrument makers. It was fascinating to see pan flutes and various other instruments being made and yet again to hear first hand from these artisans about the difference the fair trade relationship with Minka has made in their lives.

We finished off our trip with a tour of the beautiful historic buildings in central Lima and then a wonderful evening of even more Pisco sours, some well deserved awards and the recalling of many wonderful memories of a very special last few weeks.

The team have all headed in different directions today - most back home and one off the Amazon and another meeting her hubby to show him some Peru and Bolivia highlights. As for me, I am spending the day with the Minka staff tomorrow and will then be heading off to Quito on Tuesday and then off to the Galapagos. It´s hard to believe the work part of this trip is nearly finished - it has been a fabulous trip and things have gone so very well.

The only real glitch has been that the Laundromat who promised to return the teams washing last night - didn´t - and they have been closed today - so I have the task of bringing the washing back to NZ and tomorrow morning, yelling very loudly at the laundry staff in my best Spanish - thank goodness Fabio and Alberto, the hosts here at the hostel have offered to come with me!

And I just need to find a way to explain to customs why I have 25 pairs of knickers with me!

Marinda Matthew + the Education Tour Group

Trade Aid Education Tour 2013 - Peru

Posted by Marinda Matthew (Trade Aid Education) with the Trade Aid Education Tour Group 2013.


Today is June 3rd and of course Queens Birthday. We as a team marked the occasion by folding the NZ flag into the Union Jack and singing Happy Birthday to Lizzie. The locals really must wonder about us!

We have named ourselves the " Delagacion International de Commercio Gusto de cafe y artisanas" and try our best to say this when queried about what we are here in Peru for. Of course we usually burst into fits of laughter about half way through our discourse and resort once again to English.

We have had an amazing week and everything has gone totally to plan. We have had the expected tummy troubles but all are well and the team is one big happy family. There is much laughter and lifelong friend ships are being formed. The current state of each of our dietary and digestive statuses pepper our daily conversation as we all manage the joys of travel where it´s only a day between really well and really ill.

My last update saw us in the coffee region in the North East of Peru. We had a second visit to another region at higher altitude and spent a wonderful day there with a large extended family and their community.

There had been so much rain that the village was not accessible by car and we walked the last section through thick squelching red mud. We saw the coffee process from picking the ripe coffee cherries right through to roasting the beans - in a totally manual process. Coffee farming is highly

labour intensive and very demanding. We spent the afternoon picking coffee and then processing it and now all know very much first hand, that it´s hours of work to get to a cup of coffee. We also saw the production of honey in this village and all tasted this delicious nectar as it dripped off our spoons as we and the local children were treated to a tasting fresh from the hives. The bees dont sting ' they are tiny and about the size of a mosquito. Trade Aid is helping fund the development of this new enterprise which will help the farmers supplement their coffee incomes.

The village had no electricity and so we ate by candle light and then headed for bed on beds not disimilar to concrete. We would not survive long as coffee farmers! In the morning we met with many farmers from the region and talked with them about Trade Aid and shared lunch of fried pork and boiled maize before some music and then farewells to a delightful community. The following day we met again with the staff from the head office of Cenfrocafe and saw the final stages of coffee roasting and testing.

We then journeyed back to Lima with a very long drive and then a flight and a successful rendezvous with the final member of our trip who was only able to come for the second two weeks. We started Phase two of the trip with our trading partner Minka, who focus on artisan craft cooperatives.

After a very warm welcome by all staff of Minka and an inpsirational meeting with the founder of Minka, we flew through to Cusco at an altitude of 3300m. As we had flown in directly to Cusco we needed to take a day to acclimatise. Cusco is stunning mixture of the Inca and Spanish civilisations and around every corner is a new discovery of architecture and the featured red clay tiled rooves that mark the city. Our timing, although coincidental, saw us in Cusco for the annual festival of Corpus Christi. This Cusco only festival is when all the vastly ornate statues of many catholic saints are paraded through the streets, carried aloft by teams of young and old men, straining under the weight of these hugeeffigies as bands play and preicts from various prashes lead the parade of their favoured saint. It was an utter spectacle.

After Cuzco we headed into the Pisac region where we visited two of Trade Aid´s producer groups who make ceramic products, including ocarinas (little decorative musical instruments) and ceramic beaded jewellery. We were led through the process and anything that looks simple, certainly wasn´t ! The ocarinas we made would have been best used as paper weights.


They certainly wouldn´t produce anything musical! We talked with both of these groups about the challenges of trying these traditional crafts alive and currently it is a real struggle for them. Falling orders and changes in customer demand is forcing these artists to move away from these crafts and into other lines of work. It was really heart breaking to hear them talk of losing these crafts which have been passed down through the generations and yet the reality is that if they can´t make a living from this, they simply must seek other options for the survival of their families.

We stayed that night in a village reminiscent of a Lord of the Rings film set -a deep valley ringed with steep mountains and adobe and thatched houses clinging to the hillside. We stayed in little adobe huts with thatched rooves and even though it was sub zero outside, we were warm (thanks to layers of NZ merino! ) The food has been very traditional and yes - it finally happened - guinea pig was on the menu for lunch ;( Once you got over the squeem factor that you were eating your family pet, it tasted like gamey rabbit. Thankfully the head had been removed otherwise it might have been a good day to be a vegetarian. We danced around the fire at night (great way to warm up) and loved the hospitality of these gentle and gracious people. We all hope we can do our bit for keeping the crafts of these people alive.

From here we visited some wonderful Inca ruins at Pisac and then on to our big day at Macchu Pichhu. I was here 20 years ago and since then the Peruvian tourism has turned the entire experience into something first class. It was every bit as wonderful as everyone imagined and was certainly a bucket list moment for the team. I had booked the team a ticket to be able to climb Wayna Picchu which I thought was the little mountain to the left of the big mountain (check out the classic postcard pics and you´ll see what I mean) But no, it was the BIG mountain! So like mountain goats and loaded with antiinflammatories, the ageing knees of many of the team made the summit with a huge celebration! We then were guided around the rest of the site and then dinner with a Peruvian band playing topped off a sublime day.

We have since visited Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca and today are visiting two communities who are alpaca farmers and knitters.

Someone else needs the computer so I will write again tomorrow from Lima.