March 5, 2009

It rained all night in Huancavelica.

The district of Huancavelica in the central Andes is known for its artisan work especially in knitting and weaving. Most residents are small sharecroppers and speak native Quechua.

We could not continue along our intended route to visit the artisans. The roads were impassable due to mud and falling rocks.

Instead, we set out walking. When the stairs from town ended, we asked a young girl herding sheep where Tacsana was. She pointed to the left, and up. After a bit, we asked some young men walking to a field of potatoes. They pointed to the left, and up.

I had expected a 30-45 minute walk, as others who had visited this group before had described. It was never a point of conversation that we would walk nearly four hours over the other side of the mountain to reach Tacsana.

We asked people we passed the way to Ezekiel's house. They all directed us to the left, and up.

I was tired. We had been hiking at 3,800 meters for hours, and I was unsure that simply asking random campesinos for “Ezekiel” was going to actually help us find him.

Ezekiel de la Cruz is a farmer who also leads the Bridge of Hope artisan group Tupac Yupanqui, which knits alpaca outerwear and does traditional weaving called manta.

But after multiple potato fields, a few streams, a wild turkey, and many sheep, Ezekiel himself directed us into the workshop to sit on handmade chairs and benches covered in sheepskin.

We chatted about the rain, the hike, their work. They showed us hats, scarves, mittens, leg warmers, skirts, embroidery, mantas, and more. Most of their products are created from circular knitting of wool with intricate designs throughout—animals and Inca symbols.

I took pictures of the products to send to our U.S.- and Canada-based clients. Orders are few, and our hope is to promote their work to more clients so that sales go up and they can invest in a sewing machine, which will make their work go faster, thus taking fewer hours of labor, lowering the price, and making the product more easier to sell. 

The financial situation in the United States has drastically lowered orders for all our 200 artisans. This has put into jeopardy their ability to invest in new product designs, technology, and materials, and also to buy enough food for their families and get their kids outfitted for the new school year, set to start this month.

It is the job of the Bridge of Hope staff, and specifically me, to be in touch with the English-speaking clients about new products, new designs, and possible orders. We facilitate the communication since, as in this case, phone calls are unreliable and expensive and Internet access is at least an hour’s walk each way.

In the workshop, we were served herbal tea, sweet and warm. Then, freshly harvested, freshly cooked potatoes appeared. Then, another dish of potatoes cut up and cooked in oil with egg. They apologized for not having any cheese.

"Sometimes the cow just wanders off and we can't get to it in time for milking," they explained.

With the food served, the women returned to the workshop, and Jorge, the Bridge of Hope program director, asked about their new product: a hand-knit scarf, hat and glove set.

"What is your price?" he asked.

They discussed this amongst each other in Quechua and came up with a number.

Jorge challenged them on this. How did you get that price? What if someone wanted to buy just the scarf, or just the hat, or another combination? How much is each one? Why?

Alexandra tries on a hat: Quechuan women in the Andes, endearingly called cholas, wear brimmed black hats, brightly woven mantas (blankets) wrapped on their shoulders for warmth, layers of embroidered skirts, and alpaca legwarmers.

I pulled out the Fair Trade price worksheet the artisans have learned to use, but often resist for fear of setting an unmarketable price. Jorge reminded them of the formula: calculating the cost of materials for each piece, then the hours of labor, multiplied by a factor of cost of electricity and tools and other sundry expenses. This way, he explained, the cost of the product will cover the expenses of making it, and you will be compensated for the time you have worked.

It seems very straightforward to anyone who has grown up in a capitalist culture. Of course you want to make a profit! But here, everything is approximate, negotiable. Here, time is not money.

And here I enter into the greatest difficulty of the work I do. Why bring my own capitalist culture into this tranquil homestead? Why push profit incentive and cutting overhead and consumerism?

What keeps me committed is that I know beyond prices and sales, Fair Trade is part of a larger campaign for economic justice. It is a relational process of capacity-building for those who have been marginalized by globalization. The artisans I have met love sharing their talents and heritage through their artisan work, and they want more orders so that they can better provide for their families—the same thing everyone wants, universally.

The women saw me admiring one of their exquisitely woven mantas, the kind all the indigenous women wear, so they put it around my shoulders, and put one of their hats on me, decorated with huge yellow flowers. They invited us back in May to their harvest festival, where they eat paxamancha, a dish of potatoes and meat cooked underground. I said I would love to come, as long as the road was open.

Sincerely,

Alexandra Buck

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