Educational Post #3-- A Villager's Home

This was one of my favorite parts of the trip! I'm not sure exactly what I liked so much about it. I think it just made me aware of a lifestyle I could previously know nothing about. I love learning new things, and meeting new people, and this was such a unique experience. It makes me wish I could go back in time and be a foreign exchange student, preferably in a poor country. There isn't a way to experience another culture as a tourist like this. We were allowed to tour a local man's home in Quisicancha. It is the same man who you saw earlier in the shopping blog. He was previously a brick laborer and had recently gotten into the textiles business. He has six kids and he allowed us to tour his home and meet his wife and two of his sons.

This is outdoors, where is looms were set up. There were three walls and a roof, but it was completely open on one side. He had three looms and he made them all himself. His young son knew how to operate it, but it seemed very intricate to me. 

I took a bunch of photos from different angles, hoping I could figure out how it worked later.

This loom is almost empty. You can see the grey weights at the bottom. Each one is attached to a specific color and as you weave the yarn through the area you work in, you then slide this bar across the top and it changes the weights below. It is very homemade but ingenious. And too complicated for me.

Here is an outside view of his two story house. It was as narrow as this picture shows and almost twice the depth. You enter the door into an area that includes stairs, a doorway to the kitchen, and the potato pantry. Yes, I said potato pantry. Check it out!

A blue tarp and a dirty sheet draped overhead to hide the potato stash. This was probably 18" off the ground, filled with thousands of potatoes.

Here is the kitchen. Navidad and Kim explained that it is a new concept to build stoves and chimneys inside the homes. It helps heat the home. And of course, cook their dinners!

A shelf with a few possessions, namely a radio.

A bottle of cooking oil, more potatoes and some fresh vegetables.

A twin sized bed in the corner of the kitchen. No table, no cabinets. There was a small desk with school work and a school uniform nearby.

Upstairs there was an open room with a double sized mattress, a small dresser, and two or three sewing machines. There was a small shelving system to the right, but the shelves were basically bare.

I wonder if buying them with textiles materials such as thread and sewing machines would be beneficial? Or if the market would be over saturated?

The youngest of six.

The wiring and lighting and I was fascinated with the roof view from the inside. Plastic drapes made from recycled/disposable table cloth.

Here is the blanket for $65 (but no dollars accepted,) and his older son to the left, who knows how to use the looms.

And that, my friends, is their entire home and all of their belongings. Notice there are no toys, no televisions or computers, essentially no personal items. In fact, in three villages we visited, we only saw one toy.

It was the outer rubber of a bicycle tire and a wire hanger. It had a curved loop at the end of the wire and he would get his tire going and chase it. And he would laugh! He ran all over the playground with that thing. He never put it down or let another kid try. There was one other kid with one, but it was a smaller tire so it didn't work as well. The smaller tire required more wire pushing and less speed. The big tire was fun because he could RUN! (In the video from yesterday you can see it in action if you pay attention during London Bridge.)

The heartbreaking thing about the home, to me, was the two beds for a family of 8. I suppose it would certainly help with the cold nights. I felt sad seeing how few material items they have. I think Americans take possession into unhealthy overload, but I would love to have seen some books in their homes and maybe a doll or stuffed toy for the kids. I came home with a new desire for a minimalist lifestyle. I really want to embrace the "less is more" attitude.