There and back again (Another journey to Salasaca)

We made another trek to Salasaca (the Quechua mountain town where we did the puppet ministry, tucked into the Andes about an hour and a half northwest of Shell), this time to help out with building an add-on to the church there. We were working with Shed and Chris Waskosky again, and the members from the church and community who were undertaking the project. Nate and I have both had some experience in construction in the States, but we were both in for a surprise to see what it takes for a building to go up here. More on that a couple of pics down. The two guys in the above pic are (left - right) Marcelo and Ignacio. We were working on the church with these guys and, in our limited Spanish we found out that they are both weavers. They invited over to see them weave that evening, which explains the following pictures.


Ignacio wanted to teach us how to weave, so we each got a shot at it which was great fun! Yes, we are now all professional weavers and will be taking orders on a first-come, first-serve basis when we get back to the States :) . It's a tedious task, but these guys are so fast and do beautiful work. It was so fascinating to watch them at work, especially after experiencing firsthand how difficult it really is (they make it look so easy).



Ignacio is coaching Nate through the maze of strings and yarn, weaving yet another colorful masterpiece. I'm pretty sure he had even more fun than we did watching us clumsy gringos make an attempt at his profession.

The artist at work. The hat he is wearing is a tradition Salasacan hat (as are the rest of his clothes), and it weighs about four pounds. We all got to try it on. It's very small and you have to consciously focus on balancing it or it will just fall right off. But to these guys it's just natural and they wear it without thinking about it.

We all decided that Bill was a natural Salasacan and should probably just dress that way all the time.

This is a very common sight here, a Quechua woman sitting at her stall in the mercado, or preparing a meal, or walking down the street while spinning her wool in to thread. It's an art and they have it perfected. This will later be woven into a colorful shawl or a pancho or maybe a tapestry like Ignacio and Marcelo specialize in making.

Another common sight here in Salasaca: a traditionally dressed elderly Salasacan man. Note the traditional hat again. After wearing one I can't believe how these people just walk around all day balancing those things on their heads without even thinking about it. It's such a trademark of this culture.

So back to my previous comment about how different construction is here compared to the States. Almost everything here is done in concrete rather than wood (termites are a big problem here). The rebar which you see myself and some new Salasacan freinds tying together essentially provides the strength of the structure. The concrete will be poured in and around the rebar, making the form of the structure. Each intersection of rebar has to be wire-tied by hand, a tedious task and quite time-consuming until you do it enough times to develop a system and get in a groove. Too bad there wasn't an arc welder lying around...

A Salasacan farmer and his farm hands on their way home.

What can I say? You got to do what you got to do. This farmer apparently couldn't afford a truck but hey, why buy a truck if a motorcycle does everything you need to do? Makes sense to me. Motorcycles are very heavily utilized here. Not too long ago I saw a family of four on their way somewhere, all stacked (some would say precariously) on their family motorcycle. Whatever works.

These people are so friendly! They were very appreciative of our help, even if they did have to coach us in their ways of construction. We all had a great time, despite the language barrier. Most all of them spoke Spanish pretty well, but our Spanish was pretty rough (and our Quechua even rougher). It was a great experience and gave me a huge appreciation for the importance of language acquisition.

Here's the finished project. These are several of the main supports which will be stood up on top of the footer substructure and, after the forms have been built around them, will be filled with concrete. They had to make fourteen of these, all by hand, wire-tying each intersection of rebar. It was a pretty amazing project to take part in and gave me a huge appreciation for welders and other, more technologically advanced tools we all take for granted back home.