Heart Walk Foundation

HOPES FOR THE 2007 EXPEDITION

Our 2007 journey of peace and deepening relationships with Andean communities exceeded our highest hopes. After 22 days, we returned to the U.S. with our hearts swelling with excitement for the progress and possibilities emerging through our continued partnership with earth-honoring indigenous communities.

Transoceanic highway will intrude
into pristine regions

The construction of the Interoceanic Highway--from the Pacific Coast of Peru through the Andes and the Amazon, to the Atlantic Coast in Brazil--threatens the indigenous Andean and Amazonian peoples, whose lives are becoming increasingly fragile. Transnational corporations are seeking to extract the region’s natural resources, including minerals, water, native animals, and land for corporate profit, in effect stealing the native peoples’ birthright. For this reason, one essential goal of Heart Walk Foundation is to encourage the Hapu and other tribal communities to pursue protection of their ancestral lands. We are pleased to report that various native communities are talking about creating an ecological and cultural reserve to safeguard the land and protect their cultural heritage. To win the legal establishment of a cultural and ecological reserve will require persistence of purpose and sustained effort of the people as well as international support.

Representatives of the Ayllus
(villages) working together
for the good of all

With the help of Heart Walk Foundation, the Hapu Q’ero people and the Ayllus Association have begun this process by purchasing over two acres of agricultural land outside the Andean town of Ocongate. The Ayllus Association-- described later in this summary--urgently needed to find a location where they could organize agricultural trainings, health campaigns, and the many projects that will become self-supporting in time. The restoration of these ancient relationships of anyi* between the indigenous communities strengthens the efforts of each individual community. *Ayni is the sharing and giving for the good of all without expecting the same in return, an essential principle of life in the Andes.

Relationships are Everything

Penelope listening to the women

Heart Walk Foundation’s purpose in Peru is to create healing relationships between cultures through connection and collaboration. We participate in a supportive and guiding manner, our hearts grateful for the kindness and generosity of the Hapu Q’ero people and other native communities. We encourage self-determination, offering suggestions for activities that promote sustainability and cultural respect. We work with villagers to explore ways to address their needs and goals. This requires talking and listening with an open heart and open mind.

Scope of Service Expands

People of the Ayllus
meeting to improve their lives

Perhaps the most significant development in 2007 was the partnership created between Heart Walk Foundation and the Ayllus Association. Approximately thirty communities, including the Hapu Q’ero, have formed a self-help organization called La Association de Ayllus Ecologicos de Cusco, or the Ayllus Association. An ayllu signifies a cooperative family group that establishes trade relations and social ties with other ayllus for economic and cultural well-being. Since membership in the Ayllus Association is open to every community, the extent of its impact will certainly grow over time. HWF recognizes the tremendous potential in focusing our resources on the projects of the Ayllus Association and helping them eventually become self-supporting. Restoring these traditional intertribal commitments empowers the communities in sustainable trade patterns as well as strengthening them to negotiate more effectively with the government for land rights.

The Ocongate House

Ocongate House:
to be a sustainability model

This year our trip to the Hapu Q’ero village included spending a night in the town of Ocongate where the Hapu Q’ero, with funds from Heart Walk Foundation, purchased a piece of land and a rustic adobe house. The small town of Ocongate lies about 11,000 feet elevation and is a small commerce center for remote villages in the region. For us the town serves as a base for hikes into mountain villages. With the guidance of Alejandro Trevisan, the director of the Ayllus Association, the Hapu people are planning many projects for the land in Ocongate. The Ayllus Association intends these projects to become models for other communities to bolster self-sufficiency. HWF intends to fund the development of these demonstration projects at the Ocongate property as a way to serve all of the native communities in the region.

We were very impressed with the purchased property in Ocongate. The site includes over two acres of excellent river bottom soil close to a river, as well as the Ocongate House, a rustic two-story adobe building with five rooms but no plumbing and no kitchen. Volunteers made adobe blocks to construct an outhouse and tool shed. Soon electricity will be installed, and villagers will construct greenhouses and develop integrated agriculture.

In May, we arrived at the Ocongate House after dark and climbed the rickety steps to the upstairs room where we slept comfortably through the sub-freezing night. In the morning we walked the property and visualized upcoming projects: a reforestation nursery; a fruit orchard; greenhouses for a variety of foods; a carpentry workshop for income and training; tourism experiences; a museum of traditional medicines, foods, and arts; and a holistic school for village youth.

Hiking to Yanaruma Hamlet of the Hapu Q’ero People

Highway construction
brings changes and problems

Our travel to the mountain hamlets this year was less hazardous than in previous years. Although much of the road across the Andes Mountains remains a series of hairpin turns on a one-lane dirt track, we enjoyed the relative comfort of the newly paved sections, although with mixed feelings. While more comfortable for travel, the Inter-Oceanic Highway will open pristine regions of the Andes and the Amazon to unprecedented mining and timber extraction where tribal native people have been the guardians of the land for millennia. With this new highway, people living in isolated villages are now becoming exposed to the modern economy. Already, thousands of road workers from other areas are living in temporary tent cities. In addition to the influx of money and light commerce, highway construction has brought undesirable effects, including alcohol, crime, prostitution, pedestrian deaths, and candy and sodas as substitutes for traditional food.

Francisco and Vicente think
about the future of their people

We departed from Cuzco in a four wheel drive van, with eight passengers. Perry, Penelope and I represented Heart Walk Foundation. Accompanying us was Alejandro Trevisan who is the director of the Ayllus Association. Our group also included Francisco, the current president of the Hapu Q’ero tribe, with his wife Rosa and their youngest child. In Ocongate, we were joined by former tribal vice-president, Vicente, and his wife Felicitas with their two small boys, Fisher and Samuel. Felicitas was 8 months pregnant, so when her contractions began in the van on the rough ride, we were concerned about yet another premature birth that contributes to the high infant mortality rate of the Hapu Q’ero people.

Our hike to the tiny sector of Yanaruma started from a pass at 15,600 feet altitude. Vicente had run ahead on the trail to get the llamas from Yanaruma that would carry the donations and equipment to the village. Francisco and Alejandro waited for him to return while I started hiking ahead of the others, afraid that my bad knee would slow me down. I heard giggling behind me.

Samuel and Fisher were running down the trail. Felicitas had sent her three-year-old and five-year old to guide me along the correct path. I was delighted with their company and impressed that they knew the way through the mountains at such a young age. Where the trail climbed steeply, I often rested. My frequent stops and labored breathing puzzled the boys. I asked Fisher, who is five years old, how much farther to the village. His matter of fact response was, “Mas alla,” meaning “farther in this direction.” It must have been odd for him to guide an adult, but he took his charge seriously. Although Samuel fell back to wait for his mother, Fisher stayed right with me the entire hike.

Penelope and Perry hiking
at 15,000 ft altitude

Perry and Penelope started down the trail a little later with the women. Penelope lent a hiking pole to Felicitas to use for support through her long and strong contractions. Felicitas endured the contractions silently with slightly drawn facial expressions. Truly amazing, these people. Last year I wrote about the strength and endurance of the men. We were equally impressed by Felicitas’ determination and strength.

Hiking steep mountain trails can be difficult at any altitude. In the thin air over 14,000 feet in Q’ero territory, we were keenly aware of every descent and its accompanying ascent. As we neared the first high ridgeline, Vicente and Jacinto ran toward us with a pack of llamas they brought from Yanaruma to retrieve the loads that were still at the trailhead. In this one afternoon, Vicente ran the length of the trail three times to our one long trudge to his home.

Jacinto running with the llamas to get the bundles

Life in Yanaruma

When we arrived at the settlement of 12 huts, we were welcomed with tea and potatoes. We sat with Jacinto and others, reviewing the information on the families in the sector. Dark came soon in this high valley, and Felicitas faced a night of labor in her straw-floored stone hut with only her husband and mother as birth attendants. This birth would be as simple as all the births before the time of the Incas, with no electricity, no plumbing, no sanitation, no equipment, and no training.

As dusk deepened into darkness, Vicente, Jacinto, Francisco, and Alejandro raced into camp with the llamas. Apparently, right after loading the llamas with the donations and baggage, the llamas had taken off running for home, forcing the men to run all the way with the animals. Alejandro was exhausted, soaked with perspiration. With no light, it was a wonder no one fell on the rough rocky path.

Stone temple and our
sleeping hut in Yanaruma

Penelope, Perry, Alejandro and I stayed in a newly built stone hut next to the temple hut, also recently built. The straw on the floor and on the roof was fresh but insufficient against the intense winter cold of the night.

Felicitas with newborn Inti Wari

At daylight, Vicente announced the arrival of another baby son, Inti Wari. We joined Vicente and Felicitas in a coca ceremony to celebrate the birth. We surrounded the exhausted Felicitas and the baby, lying under a pile of wool blankets on the floor of the hut. The feeling was magical and calm, charged with the spirit of new life. The blessing to our trip … indescribable.

Ancient Ceremonies of Q’ollorit’i and the Ch’unchu Dancers

The Q’ollorit’i ice festival is the most important celebration for the Andean people, honoring their relationship to the sacred lands. Over forty thousand people make the all-night pilgrimage hiking up a steep glacier to an ancient sacred site -- many spending the entire week singing, dancing, and praying. Traditionally pilgrims return to their villages with chunks of sacred ice from the glacier to distribute to their village. Many of the Q’ero people now cry because they have seen the glaciers receding every year, as the earth is increasingly mistreated. Although we were unable to make the pilgrimage this year, we felt the protection of the spirits of the mountain when we passed by the trailhead.

Ch’unchus are dancers and musicians who make the difficult pilgrimage to Q’ollorit’i on foot from the villages. It is a two-day walk over the mountain. Once on the glacier, they dance all day and all night, taking periodic rests for food and drink. This goes on all week until they return to their villages where they will spend the last day of the festival singing and dancing into the night to finish the celebration.

The day of Inti Wari’s birth, the Ch’unchu dancers arrived in the morning. We heard the drums from the pass high above the village. Vicente and I were by the lake checking the fishing nets when the Ch’unchus appeared. We joined them as they approached the village. Alejandro dressed himself in a Ch’unchu costume with the feathered headdress and skirt, accepting the commitment to dance for the rest of the day and night.

Everyone in the settlement joined the festivities, welcoming the dancers with a giant pot of potato soup and roasted potatoes. The music and dancing continued throughout the day. Eventually the Ch’unchus made their way to the round temple hut where dancing continued. Later in the afternoon more food was provided, with ritual sharing an important part of the festival. Food and chicha were presented to individuals who then chose another person to share with. This was repeated over and over, with each person acknowledging another by sharing what they had received from another. Throughout all the eating was the constant ritual exchange of coca leaves. Hour after hour, the Ch’unchus danced and the musicians played.

Some of the Ch’unchu dancers were dressed as osos representing bears in shaggy costumes who entertained with silly voices and bawdy humor, making fun of each other, threatening to whip people who misbehave, and involving everyone in the celebration with their antics.

Small Wedding Ceremony

Since no priests come to the most remote hamlets, few couples celebrate their marriages with wedding ceremonies. Vicente asked Penelope and me to sponsor their wedding ceremony, a very special honor and responsibility. The simple wedding was in their little hut, attended by Alejandro, Perry, Penelope, me, and two relatives. Dressed in traditional ceremonial clothing, the couple knelt on the straw in somber attention as I guided them through their vows and a simple, sweet and powerful ceremony. Vicente translated from Spanish into Quechua for his wife.

As sponsors of their wedding, Penelope and I entered into a new relationship with this couple. We are now padrinos to the couple and their children, which means that we are lifetime relatives of special importance and status. We are second parents to Felicitas, and have become mother and father to Vicente, who lost his birth parents when he was very young.

Supplications for Help

Informal conversations help us understand

As representatives of a humanitarian organization, part of our work includes discussing individual and community-based requests for assistance. Some of the supplications were submitted to us in writing this year, a laborious task for tribal members who are barely literate in Spanish. Two hamlets asked for their own schools, since they lie three or more hours by foot each way to the one-room classroom in the hamlet of Hapu. The Peruvian government pays the teacher and provides only a few simple books and supplies in Spanish for grades 1 through 3. Because the children do not understand Spanish, few ever learn to read and write among those who live close enough to attend. To address the realities of life in the tiny villages, HWF is discussing models of natural, holistic education that would be parent-run and based on daily local life. We made suggestions to the community about planning for schools in the hamlets.

Children have no toys or learning materials

Projects to Sustain Life

The list of actualized and possible projects has been growing for the past five years. Good outcomes require patient discussions, reflection, and careful considerations of possible impacts and consequences. For now, HWF recognizes that the Ocongate House provides a center for many projects, a site for training, a place to bring the Ayllus together in cooperation, and a center for activities close to many Andean villages of various tribes.

In addition to our primary focus on projects at the new Ocongate house, HWF, in partnership with the Ayllus Association, will investigate ways to support the native villages in the following areas:

Natural medicines can cure infectious impetigo

Health and Nutrition:

Receiving prenatal vitamins

Support for the elderly; childbirth kits; vitamins; training in first aid, medicinal plants, and preparing natural medicines; sanitation and clean water; reducing smoke in the houses with better stove structures; latrines; greenhouses for vegetables.

Economic Self-sufficiency: Weaving training; use of vegetal dyes for weavings; the vicuna net; growing food for trade; re-establishing trade relationships among the Ayllus (communal groups); carpentry training; eco-tourism managed by the villagers.

Education:
Recording of cultural histories by the elders; local culture-based curriculum for education of the children; school supplies and materials; training villagers to create educational projects in the context of daily lives; building classrooms in each settlement for education, training, and meetings.

Every child deserves education

Protection of Resources:
Reforestation of native trees; planting of maca and other native nutritional food plants that grow at high elevations; cultivation of indigenous plants for medicine, dyes, and food; supporting the legal establishment of a protected Q’ero Culture and Ecological Reserve to permanently protect the ancient homeland of the Q’ero people.

Cultural Preservation:
Support for villagers to continue to interview and record oral histories of the elders; transcribing these interviews; creation of booklets for children as educational materials; supporting connections and collaboration among traditionalists in various villages in the region.

Oral histories of elders convey wisdom to children

Looking to the Future

Since our first service activities in 2003, Heart Walk Foundation has deepened in vision and expanded in scope. Rather than offer charity, our activities support sustainability, self-sufficiency, cultural integrity, respect for nature, and community cooperation. In linking our resources in partnership with the Ayllus Association, HWF recognizes the tremendous potential of the communities to develop models of sustainability and collaboration that can be replicated in other regions. We are excited to participate in the development of these promising programs.

Hiking between hamlets at 14,000 feet altitude
Air and water are still clean here.

HWF recognizes that we are not giving charity; we are building relationships of ayni and building bridges between traditional communities and ‘western’ culture. With the love and guidance of our Andean relations, we heal ourselves of our own cultural legacy of consumption, domination, alienation, and fear -- and we open our hearts to experience increasing balance, harmony, and connection with the sacred essence in all of life.