Experiences of the volunteer program 2008

We are a group of four students, one education student of Austria and three students of anthropology and education of Germany, which worked with RUFADA for a month, from August to September 2008.

Our project was related to the textile workshops, which RUFADA offers in Rumira, Chaullacocha and Chupani, three andean communities of the Sacred Valley. But also we were able to learn a lot of the lifestyles of the people there and problems and also possibilities which are related with tourism in this certain region of Peru near Cusco.

The women there do not only learn to weave more neatly and to dye with natural plants, but RUFADA also shows them to use native plants for the washing of the sheep and alpaca fibres. The knowledge is often forgotten and only the grandmothers and grandfathers do remember for what the plants were used to.

The idea was to make an investigation of those two “washing-plants”, called Sachaparkay and Illmankae, and to register them in the “Registro de los Conocimientos de los Pueblos Indígenas” in the Institute INDECOPI in Cusco. The registration assures the protection of antique knowledge of the indigenous people and is for free, but they want a report that explains the exact use of the plant. So we took this as a working proposal, travelled to the communities to make the investigation of Sachaparkay and Ilmankay.

Working with RUFADA has been an extraordinary experience, one you cannot easily find anywhere else. We had the possibility to get connected to the communities sharing with them their traditional way of living (their food, their celebrations, their housing…) With RUFADA we really lived the philosophy of the ayni (quechua: solidarity, cooperation) that is practised by the native inhabitants of the area, trying to get involved with our personal knowledge and abilities, but in the first place learning more than we could give from the people of Rumira, Chaullacocha, Ccachin and Chupani. The people up there are just amazing. Although they seem to have little they can offer you a lot.

We all can recommend RUFADA to everybody, because it’s an initiative that has its roots in the same Sacred Valley ensuring an extremely good connection to the indigenous people and their culture. A special thank is for Helder Gutierrez, who founded RUFADA a few years ago for all the good organisation of his part for us ( the housing, transportation, food), the good and funny time we could have with him and for his enthusiasm for the project and the people, which is quite catching and impacting!!!

Thank you Rufada!

Simon Haider, Miriam Leidinger, Daniela Angersbach, Jona Glemnitz

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