making belts and washing clothes

I have an action-packed blog post for everyone, with wow factors and everything. I will start right off with something that few will believe. I just finished washing my clothes by hand. Amazing right? Why I washed my clothes by hand will remain a mystery until later.

So this past weekend Sara and I went on a different sort of adventure that was lacking dangerous hikes and climbs. We learned how to weave our own belts in a traditional Andean style! This adventure started bright and early Saturday at 6.40am. We arrived in Cusco at around 8 and started our belt crafing fun.

I have made a weaving before, but the style and technique used here is truly amazing. Everything is done by hand, from the spinning of the alpaca yarn to the building of the hand loom, to the weaving itself. The loom was made by pounding sticks into the ground like tent stakes, then lashing another stick across it to form a little box (refer to photo). Then two people sit facing each other on opposite ends of the box and throw yarn under and over the box to form a figure 8 with the yarn. They then readied the pattern for us by arranging 4 sections of pull cords (in our case bamboo) that must be pulled to seperate the top and bottom sections of yarn. I memorized my pattern almost instantly and my instructor kept joking that he was going to leave because he did not need to be there anymore. Sara on the other hand had a bit of trouble remembering her pattern (its 4-3-2-1-4-1-2-3-4, for those who might want to try and remember it for her). She kept thinking they were making fun of her in Quecha for not being able to get it, I think they were just talking about how amazing I was doing on mine, which might not be too far from the truth because they kepts stroking my belt and saying "Muy Bien" (very good).

To make the belts, we had to sit on the ground in the hot mid-day sun for four hours. We had a cactus to shade us until about 2 hours into the weaving when suddenly an umbrella magically appeared for Sara and a sign was placed next to me for some shade. We had rope tied around our waist with the belts pinned to them and the other end of the loom was a lashed stick. I got to sit on a nicely crafted slab of wood, while Sara sat on a tarp.

After four of so hours of weaving (and only finishing about 10 inches of belt) we backed up our weaving and headed to my new favorite place-Cafe Punchay, a German-owned cafe that sells massive waffles covered with sugery milk cream (I love sugery milk cream) and some really good coffee. We met our Colorado friend, Charlie, for some after-weaving breakfast/lunch. I say breakfast/lunch and not brunch because Charlie and I ate two full meals, not a mix of one. We both had a nice sandwich and a huge waffle. The newest addition to this lovely restruant is a new, very clean, kitten. This kitten was crazy and kept running around attacking anything that moved. Then it got a little too excited and released its bowels all over my shirt and crotch region of my pants. The kind barista took me to the bathroom and gave me a scrub down, both shirt and pants! I did´t even get a discount for getting shat on, but I love the sugery milk cream so much I will go back anyway.

So I am sure some have now guessed why I did some hand scrubbing on my clothes. Sundays are usually laundry days, but very few people have washers, and none have driers. Let me tell you something, washing clothes by hand in the hot sun is no easy task, scrub scrub scrub, rinse, scrub, rinse and hang. I hate it, but it saves me money, and makes me more thankful for what I have and what I would expect of someone to wash my clothes for me for just 8 soles ($2.70ish) Also once I wash my clothes I can see how brown the water turns and know how dirty they really are (something you never see using a machine).

Apparently, I am some sort of sight to behold because not only can I wash my own clothes, I can also wield a needle and thread well enough to repair some holes (which I guess is not a common male task, though most of the men here can weave and knit like no one´s buiness).

So there you have it, the action-packed blog post of weaving belts, cleaning clothes, and a cat that shat.