Heart Walk Foundation

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

HEART WALK TO THE VILLAGE
JaNoy Nield
“Nothing could have been more perfect….”

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

Hiking through the valleys, and up and down the steep mountains, I remember feeling the freedom and wildness of this place — the wind, the sound of the water, the vivid blue sky, and the crisp, clean air. Tall, snowy capped mountain peaks, rocky slopes, and green hills. Nothing could have been more perfect. As we hiked closer and closer to the village, my excitement grew with every step. Finally, we came to some rock dwellings, round rock corrals and fences. A little ways later, we saw some more men and a few horses coming down the trail. As we stepped off the trail to let them pass, the men warmly greeted us, shaking our hands and giving us a kiss on the check. It definitely helped lift my already happy spirits.

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

We came to the first little lake -- very beautiful. Kike made offerings to the lake and the Apus, and he played his flute. The mellow notes soothed my soul.

When we got to the barren rocky top of the pass, I felt a very strong spiritual energy —one with which I was very familiar. I felt a pouring out of gratitude to the Apus and any other Gods that might be listening and had helped us get this far. I was amazed at my body — how strong I felt and how well I had done getting to the pass. I was in awe of the beauty of the land. In a strange way, the pass was void of color — only the grays of the rocks, white of the snow, blues of the sky.

I could taste the freshness of the air. I knelt down and gave a prayer of thanksgiving at one of the altars. And then I asked for permission to enter in the Hapu land. Kike played his flute and we passed around coca leaves in a ceremony of thanks. I was a little saddened that the hardest part was over.

Down the other side of the pass, the others were waiting at a little meadow, where we shared energy bars, cheese, bread and nuts with the Q’eros men who accompanied us. They shared with us their cold potatoes and some sort of dried corn. The food gave me even more energy, and again I was ready to move on.

Our path was mainly down hill with a few level and short up-grades. I felt like a little kid again. The air breezed by my face and that familiar sense of freedom or aliveness came back to my heart. This truly was a “heart walk” for me.

When a hut, corrals, and llamas and sheep came into view, I saw children herding the animals and waved at them. A layer of fog was starting to roll in around us. On we went. The fog became dense and gave everything and everyone a mystical, beautiful aura. We stopped a little hut, where our group joined a woman in a semi-circle on the ground. She had brought a cloth full of hot potatoes. She must have been waiting for us, but I don’t know how she knew we had arrived. Sitting and sharing the potatoes was a very humbling experience for me. With a continual prayer of thanksgiving I skinned the potatoes and chewed, and chewed, and chewed.

The Humble Abode

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

Upon entering the hut where we would stay, it was very dark inside. The one-room hut was probably 6’ x 20”. Two candles gave slight illumination. The stone walls were about 5 feet high. Most of the gaps between the stones were filled in with mud. The dirt floor was covered with dried grasses. The roof had some thin wooden beams and was thatched with straw. There was a window made out of some kind of plastic pane. Every morning, I watched through this portal as the sun started to peep in over the mountain ridge.

Pachamama Song

During one of the ceremonies, Kike sang a song about Pachamama in Quechua. It is many many, many years old and is a very scared song to the people of Hapu. I have never heard such a beautiful song that not only touched my heart but every single fiber of my being. We found ourselves singing along to the words. It seemed so familiar, and time stopped, or we became one with all time. It was truly a spiritual experience. Kike told us a little bit about what it meant. Everything about this song manifested truth — the words, the sounds, the feelings. It brought such joy to me, but also a sense of sadness and longing. These feelings were for Mother Earth and also for myself. It filled and opened that space within me that is always seeking, longing, trying to find my way back-- to something that cannot be named.

“Overall, the women seem to have it much harder than the men….”

The Women

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

Don Sebastian’s wife was very cordial, sharing her hot potatoes with us upon our arrival. Don Sebastian must have been at least in his 60’s, but he moved with the strength and agility of a much younger man. Q’ero women from Hapu do not leave the village nor go down to the cities. They were quiet and shy, but sometimes they smiled and laughed.

Overall, the women seem to have it much harder than the men. They sat apart from the men in community meetings and were not asked to join in the discussion. The men were fed first and eat the best of the food. My hope is to help the women gain a stronger voice.

Clothes, Smells, and Urine

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

The women dressed the same: black skirts with a band of bright pink around the bottom, pink or lime green sweaters for tops, black shawls held together with safety pins.

During the day, the women tend the animals on the mountainsides while they graze. During this time they tend to their babies and weave. I did not see them walk very often. They ran. Up and down, up and down those hillsides all day long. I marveled at their strength, just like I did with their horses.

The babies are carried on their mother’s back in a woven blanket or shawl that is tied around her neck. When it is time to nurse, she just pulls the blanket to the front, opens it up, and pulls up her sweater.

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

They don’t have diapers in Hapu. It seems like the babies just wet and defecate in the weavings they are wrapped in. I held one baby who was very wet, but she didn’t stink of urine or feces. None of the people had body odors that I could tell. I smelled what seemed to be animal fat or oil. Most of the their cracked and dry feet were crusted with calluses and black grime. What seemed to be years of dirt was caked on and under their toe and fingernails, although their hands were soft, perhaps from the natural oils of constantly handling the wool.

ENTERIING THE DREAM
Penelope Eicher

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

Arriving in the hamlet of the Hapu Q’eros people was like entering a dream of centuries past. Thick mists drift up into the steep valleys from the Amazon cloud forest below, covering the simple stone huts with a damp blanket of cold.

Thatched roofs, rock walls, and straw-covered dirt floors offer little relief from the penetrating cold. The dwellers inside seek refuge on sheepskins and wrap themselves in their hand-woven blankets of alpaca and wool. A tiny window admits the pale afternoon light through a pane of plastic, evidence of the current century. The soft light reveals few other artifacts of modern times: matches, metal cooking pot, a few metal and plastic bowls, a simple knife.

A visitor stepping into the dark room might first notice the smell of potatoes roasted on a small fire of animal dung, set out to eat on a woven cloth on the ground. The family peels the potatoes with their fingers and eat them plain.

If this family were lucky, they would be drinking a broth of quinoa grain with sugar purchased from the sale of the woman’s weaving. But her weary husband has just come home from a five-day journey to the city of Cuzco without success; the foreign tourists aren’t paying even $35 for her two months of labor on a 30” x 30” weaving. They cannot recognize her skills or the sacred symbols woven into the fabric that reveal the ancient Inca cosmology. As dusk deepens, a candle is lit and the visitor realizes that there are no beds, no chairs, no adornments. Each item in the hut is essential to survival, including a few materials for prayer and ceremony that keep these gentle people in harmony with Pachamama and all the spirit energies of the earth and the universe.

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

These shy and gentle Hapu Q’eros people gave us sweet welcome, sharing all that they had. Don Sebastian, a shaman of the village, was our principal host, along with his relatives and others who strongly follow ancient Q’eros traditions. Their gentle kindness and open hearts invited us into this place where so little has changed for hundreds of years

FEELING PROTECTED
Mickey Houston

“I get the feeling they are watching out for us, protecting us…”

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

Children run about on the steep slopes and leave me breathless in admiration of all of them. The men and women all carry heavy loads wrapped in blankets and tied to their backs. One man sits in camp carving a flute out of bamboo with a pocketknife. When there is difficulty getting a fire started, he uses the flute to blow on the struggling flames. There are always several people about; some seem to spend the night in the ceremony hut.

I get the feeling they are watching out for us, protecting us. I feel cared for by them. They are all so eager to help, share, and just be by us. The women carry around a wad of alpaca fur and continually pull it into thread and wind it onto a wooden spool. The women and girls wear multi layers of skirts and squat down to warm and cover their bare legs with the skirts. They wear small little shawls that barely cover their shoulders, and they always look cold. The men wear nice heavy wind resistant (woven) ponchos and woven hats down over their ears. The men definitely get the better benefit from the fashion requirements here.

Whatever I do seems to draw a crowd of children. They seem especially fascinated by my teeth brushing. After I clean my face with baby wipes, I offer a wipe to each of them and help them wipe their faces, and then apply sunscreen to each of them and to myself. Afterwards I let them look in my mirror. All seem to get quite a kick out of it, and more arrive wanting in on the action. I don’t know where they all come from, as there is not another house close by.

TRIP TO Q'ERO 2004

The villagers hike to the rainforest to bring back wood for their fires. A man can carry about a day’s worth of wood on his back. I feel bad to have to use up such a precious commodity, but the villagers share gladly. It almost seems as if certain individuals have been “assigned” to make sure we are never wanting for anything.

I love the communal meals, the villagers supplying the ever-ready potatoes and us supplying our freeze-dried food. There are over 240 varieties of potatoes here, and I think we are working our way through them all. The men especially like our food and actually dance in pleasure as they eat. The women and children look as if they would like to spit it out and are too polite to do so. We tell them, ‘no quiere, no comer,’ which I hope roughly translates into ‘don’t eat it if you don’t like it.’ With relief the women hand back their bowls to us, and the men swoop them up and lick them clean.

One particular day when we found ourselves alone in camp, we couldn’t find any matches to start a fire. Then 2 women with 2 children materialize, seemingly out of nowhere, and one child runs off and returns with a metal plate full of hot ashes and we get a fire going and start cooking a meal for all of us. One woman leaves and returns with several small trout, about 4 inches long that she boils, and they are delicious. The people are so generous and always wanting to share what little they have.