Awamaki’s office and fair trade store are based in the Inca town of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley of Peru. The Quechua communities that the weaving project supports are located in the Patacancha Valley, which rises high above Ollantaytambo. We work primarily with the indigenous community of Patacancha, situated at an altitude of 12,600ft in the Patacancha Valley, just less than one hour’s drive from Ollantaytambo. As of June 2010, we have begun working with weavers in Kelkanka, a community at over 13,000ft, almost two hour's drive from Patacancha.
The town of Ollantaytambo is located at 2,800 m (9,000 ft) in the Sacred Valley of the Incas between Cusco and Machu Picchu. Ideally situated alongside the Urubamba River, this picturesque village is nestled among stark mountainsides dotted with Inca ruins. Ollantaytambo is the best surviving example of Inca town planning. Residents of Ollantaytambo today live in homes with Inca foundations, and work fields alongside Inca canals that even today are the primary source of agricultural irrigation. Towering above the city, the Temple of the Sun and site of Manco Inca’s last stand against the Spanish represent the finest of Incan masonry. Today Ollantaytambo is a living record of its past, and its people are heirs to the wealth of culture and tradition that has accumulated over centuries in the Sacred Valley.
Patacancha is a rural indigenous community located at 12,600 ft, high in the mountains above Ollantaytambo, in the heart of the Patacancha Valley. Patacancha is a village of approximately 250 families, distributed among many small hamlets scattered up and down the valley.
For centuries the Quechua communities of the Patacancha Valley have lived in relative isolation from the outside world. However, in the last 10 to 15 years, with the arrival of roads, electricity and schools, the modern economy has begun to penetrate these communities. Formerly subsistence farmers and weavers, Quechua families are now becoming more dependent on and marginalized by the monetary economy. Poverty is grave in these communities. Men often leave the community to work as porters with trekking agencies, leaving women to care for land, children and animals.
These women need income for modern expenses such as health expenses, school fees and food. With limited access to the tourist market and unable to read, write or speak Spanish, they are easily exploited by traders who buy their weavings for much less than they are worth. At the same time, as weaving loses the economic value it held in the pre-modern economy, women are leaving the tradition behind.
Overall, changes in the economy have done little to alleviate the poverty endemic to the area, whilst cultural traditions are gradually being left behind as their value ceases to be recognised. The language and traditions of the Quechua people are all at risk.
The Awamaki Weaving Project works to make a place for this unique and valuable culture in a globalizing world, and to give the women of traditional communities an opportunity to take an active role in keeping their culture alive.
Kelkanca, a village of about 50 families, is one of the most isolated communities of the Patacancha Valley. The village is located in the high Andean puna at approximately 13,800 ft. The community is well above the tree line; temperatures regularly drop below freezing, year round, and the only crop that grows is potatoes. Agriculture is the only economic activitiy, and people eat a diet of almost purely potatoes and coca. Until 2009, the road did not arrive to Kelkanca, and inhabitants had to walk for several hours before reaching the road. A telephone was just installed in 2010; before then, to communicate with Kelkanca, you had to put an announcement on the radio. Kelkanca has a primary school but older children travel 8 hours walking to Patacancha for middle and high school (where they bunk Mon-Fri).
In June 2010 we travelled to the distant highland community of Kelkanka to meet with a cooperative of 10 women weavers who are eager to work with Awamaki. In late June we held our first entrega, or buying visit, with the weavers, and we have already sold a number of the pieces in our store in Ollantaytambo. The style and iconography of their weavings resembles that of Patacancha, but the color palette of dyes used by these women is strikingly different, utilizing shades of blue, turquoise, and celestes given from kinsa k'uchu, a fungus that grows on high altitude plants but that is in short supply around Patacancha. For our second entrega in August, we have placed an order for smaller pieces like belts and scarves so that we can begin to gauge the skill level of all of the weavers in the group. As in Patacancha, we plan to hold capacity-building workshops for these weavers that will support and expand their knowledge of natural dyeing and sewing techniques in order to increase the quality and range of weavings they produce. We are excited to begin building a relationship with these women and look forward to our next meeting in August.