To scratch my long-time itch for a visit to the Andes, in April I joined sixteen other travelers on a tour of Bolivia sponsored by Andean Textile Arts (ATA). As a first-time visitor to the region, I expected beautiful scenery, a few photos of llamas, and a close look at traditional weaving. What I didn’t anticipate was the sense of wonder and inspiration that would stick with me long after I returned home.
For the first several days, our base of operations in the Bolivian lowlands was Santa Cruz, the bustling business center of the country. At the nearby town of Buena Vista, we met artisans who grow and weave the leaves of the whimsically-named jipijapa palm. They demonstrated the laborious process of taking the palm leaves from harvested plants through processing, dyeing, and weaving into hats, boxes, and figures of plants and animals.
We stopped at the colorful store operated by Arte Campo, the local cooperative that provides a support network for the artisans. Our tour guide, the ever-upbeat Raul Jaimes of Day Hikes Peru, let us know that it was our opportunity to shop or, as he wryly described it, “time to support the local economy.”
As we traveled, we came to understand the expertise and human connections that distinguish an ATA tour from other tours. Political upheaval may at times disrupt the Bolivian economy, and many Bolivians routinely struggle to meet their basic needs. It was heartening to see how the grants and funding ATA provides, though modest when compared with the country’s challenges, are having a direct, positive impact on the communities we visited.
Our group also benefited from the trust built with communities over the years by guides such as Raul, who joked with the village elders in his native Quechua, and ASUR director Jimena Montero Sandoval, who works with the weavers to promote wider recognition and robust sales.
Our next stop, as we headed to the Bolivian highlands, was Sucre (known as Bolivia’s White City.) There we toured the ASUR (Anthropologists of the Southern Andes) Museum with its collection of astounding textiles by local Jalq’a and Tarabuco weavers. We would see more of these weavings–with their imaginative figures and complex techniques–when we visited the weavers’ villages in the following days.
I had a few pre-visit doubts. Past experience in Latin America had taught me that cross-cultural encounters can be awkward, leaving one feeling like a privileged intruder. But the Jalq’a weavers in Maragua welcomed us warmly with a hearty meal. Ironically, it seems technology has at least leveled the playing field in one small way. Villagers with cell phones captured images of us; we weren’t the only ones making digital records of the visit.
In Maragua, both experienced and student weavers shared their work with us. We saw weavers in brightly embroidered mantas (long shawls) manipulating two colors of fine wool thread–often black and red–as they created images of imaginary animals, known as khurus. The day was sunny and we, as visitors, looked on in amazement as the weavers invoked these ornate, fantastical creatures in wool.
Our immersion in centuries-old weaving traditions and local culture continued the next day as we visited the community of Pisili to see Tarabuco weavers at work. Our hosts demonstrated everything from shearing a sheep to dyeing wool to warping a loom–a process where two weavers sit at opposite ends of the loom and toss balls of yarn to each other.
Both Jalq’a and Tarabuco women wear woven panels, called aqsu (or aksu), secured to their waistbands. These traditional pieces adorn their wearers and communicate the home region of the wearer at a glance. The Tarabuco weave detailed miniature scenes of daily life in bright hues on a white background–an aesthetic completely different from that of the Jalq’a.
March is the month of the Pujllay festival, an annual celebration of the bounty of the harvest. Arriving in April, we had missed what is perhaps the biggest party of the year. To compensate, the villagers welcomed us with a replica of an altar like those traditionally built for the festival, laden with bananas, stalks of corn, potatoes, bread, flowers, and even such everyday blessings as half-gallon bottles of Bolivian soft drinks and six-packs of beer. (See lead photo.)
As the villagers swayed to flute music and formed a procession around the altar, they pulled Raul and ATA secretary Jennifer Moore into the flow. Our representatives donned traditional dress and ornate hats that sparkled in the sun. A feeling of contentment seemed to descend on us as we sat there smiling under the bright Bolivian sun.
Lead Photo: Tarabuco villagers dance around a model of a harvest altar they build each March.
