We sat in on the grass, suspended between the Earth below us and the clouds swirling around us, moisture gracing our faces. Esperanza sang from her belly, a song of the Chakra, or the physical space where Quechua peoples traditionally grow their food. Esperanza sang the Chakra song with a spriteful cadence and a deep knowledge of its meaning. The Chakra, is a space that provides both food security and sovereignty for Andean families and a sacred space that protects ancient cultural and spiritual beliefs about relations to land, to food, to Earth, to ancestors.
As she sang of the Chakra, I listened with curiosity as I looked down at the Lares valley below me, seeing the high Andean ecosystem transform into a tropical environment where bananas and oranges grow, just down the valley. These mountains we sit on grow potatoes, carrots, maize, and cereals. Enough to survive on, the only things that need to be purchased are sugar and salt. And in fact, on Mondays, many of the communities gather in Lares for a barter market in which they exchange bananas for maiz or oranges for potatoes. No money, only intercambio, or exchange. Non-economized forms of social life, a tenet of ‘Buen Vivir.” Esperanza stops singing and sighs with particular joy, saying she will take un sueño or a nap. I follow her lead and rest my body on the soft grass, the Andean sun strong on my skin and the sounds of Esperanza’s sheep in the distance. For now, we rest. Later in the day, after a lunch of vegetable soup and mote (a type of maiz), Esperanza asks if I’d like to visit her chakra. With eagerness, I say yes. We begin our walk to the chakra, through the hilly, remote village of Cachin. As we walk I see women sitting in the grass in their yards, working on their weaving, an artistic specialty of the Lares region. As we climb upwards through Cachin, Esperanza points out a plethora of plants and their medicinal properties. She knows so much about every plant, and touches them with gentleness, recognizing their power. “Una descansa” she says, and plops down on the side of the hill. In the distance, the eucalyptus trees sway, almost as if they will break in half, their trunks are so thin. And again, Esperanza begins to sing a song of the past. This song is about Eucalyptus, one she remembers from long ago, she heard it when she was a child. She sings: “Eucalytpo mi primero amor vas a igualar Lo que comido en mi plato Que vas a poder igualar Lo que dormido en la cama que vas a poder igualar” The eucalyptus trees shimmy, feeling grateful to be acknowledged, as her song travels into the afternoon breeze, making their leaves spin and dance. We rise and walk a few more steps, and we have arrived at the chakra. The chakra is covered in alfalfa, to feed the hundreds of cuy (guinea pigs) that Esperanza owns. The cuy love alfalfa but also eat any sort of food left over from cooking, leaving a waste-free household. Can you imagine? Esperanza lays out a woven blanket and encourages me to sit, and she diligently cuts the alfalfa, placing it in the other blanket. Then she shows me her methodology and hands me the blade. I cut the alfalfa and throw it into the blanket. Next, we harvest carrots, “only the big ones”, she says. She mentions that she received the carrots from Andes, the organization I am collaborating with. And we dig our hands into the soil to retrieve the orange roots, proving more difficult than expected. We throw the carrots into the blanket and Esperanza shows me how to tie the blanket on, gently placing it on my back, full of alfalfa and carrots, and tying a knot by my collar bone. We are ready to return home, both carrying full loads on our backs. On our walk home, she walks me past a weaving center, that was built here just a few years ago by an organization I had recently interviewed. Here she gathers with other weavers of the region of Lares. There are beautiful pictures on the walls of all of the women dressed in their traditional clothing that they have woven. When we return to Esperanza’s home, she puts on the kettle, and traipses out into the garden to pick an herb for our tea. Camomile today, their white flowers wilting in the boiling water. Together we remove the pieces of dried maize from their stalks, and she pours them into a pan with a pinch of oil and salt. Canchitas! We sit at her table, munching on canchitas and sipping camomile tea. She teaches me to put a handful of canchitas in my mug, so they pop into my mouth as I drink the tea. Now she begins to speak about Sumak Kawsay and Ayni. Esperanza explains Ayni, which is broadly translated as “reciprocity” or “today for you, tomorrow for me.” “Ayni is in all. Cooking for each other in the chakra. Getting medicine for each other. Helping with the sheep or with weaving. When we are in Ayni we make Chica of maiz together in the chakra.” ‘Sumak Kawsay’ es para compartir (to share). You cannot have Sumak Kawsay without reciprocity (anyni). But how do people live Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay? It is both deeply related to their traditional customs, ways of being and knowing, and to land. Ayni, reciprocidad, they clothes they wear, the land they cultivate with respect, the chakra, relationships with family and with land. Really, sumak kawsawy is about how humans relate to each other, meaning familial relations, relations with neighbors, relations in the community, and extending beyond humans. In my first homestay in Lares with a woman named Maria, she clarified that everything they do concerning the land is with deep respect. Esperanza also mentioned this, describing how she always provides an offering of coca leaves when she visits her chakra. These values are embedded in cultural systems and territories, and the knowledge of how to take care of the land, produce food, and live well is passed down from generation to generation. From what I have witnessed through living through the daily lives of people in the High Andean region and being in relationship in this way, it is much more challenging to ascribe meaning and categories to indigenous ways of being and knowing, related to Andean cosmovision. For Sumak Kawsay “is the dance, the language, the food, it is all.” (Interview with Daniel, 2022). Vida en plentitud. Buenos vivires. It is a simpler task to understand how civil society organizations use concepts like Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay to further the rights of indigenous peoples in Peru. Or how some governments use the term Buen Vivir in lip service to the rights of nature and the rights of the Pachamama and use the term in order to justify further extraction. In reflecting on my shifting understandings of Buen Vivir and Sumak Kawsay, it is difficult to consider how a cultural value system can be an “alternative” to mainstream development and progress. What are the implications and limitations of naming a way of understanding the world and our place in it as an “alternative”? And how might we center and valorize these ancient knowledges that respect that there is no difference between Nature and culture and emphasize the reciprocity of life, “being in relation” and living in harmony? I am laying in the grass with Esperanza as she sings a love song to the land, the air she breathes. What love songs do I sing to the Earth? How I might carry forward that spirit of respect and reciprocity to all that sustains life? And then, I begin to sing, the clouds carry my song and my ñanay (sister in Quechua) Esperanza’s.
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Sammi Bennett I am a dancer, singer, creative non-fiction writer, yoga teacher, outdoor lover, and book-binder. Archives
August 2022
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