Summer is here! December 21st brought
the Summer Solstice to the Southern Hemisphere and the rainy season is
well and truly here. The Q’ewar land is bursting with growth – flowers,
fruit trees are maturing, the vegetable garden looks beautiful and the
pumpkin patch is a riot of stems and leaves, hiding the already growing
pumpkins from the intense sun. And of course, the bean plants are
happily flowering amidst the maize – corn plants that even now are
“higher than an elephant’s eye”!!
Work continues around the
house, two terrace walls have been completed – one a partial remnant
from pre-Inka times and flagstones have been laid in the entrance yard.
The Q’ewar ladies have been very very busy making dolls since the
orders started pouring in around September. Our doll distributors in
the USA and Europe – JoAnne, Heidi and Jean, have been very busy –
working new markets and fulfilling requests from return customers.
Waldorf School fairs, specialty toy shops, cooperatives and customers
ordering via our new website – all have made for a very busy time at
Q’ewar! Those volunteers helping the distributors, Margret, Carrie,
Tanja, Laurence and others, have been giving of their time and energy
towards opening new markets and finding new friends for the Q’ewar
Project.
At a special conference in Lima, our Directora Lucy
was awarded $1,000 for her work at Q’ewar. This money is now being used
to build a structure for w.c.’s and showers for the use of the women
and men who work at Q’ewar.
The front room of the Q’ewar
House, with windows at each of the three sides open to the gorgeous
vista of mountains and the valley below, has been being used for a
school room since October, 2004. Volunteer university graduates from
the USA, Katie Fritz and Erin Walsh spent 3 weeks at Q’ewar in
November/December teaching several women their ABC’s and numbers. They
tirelessly worked each day in their teaching sessions, planning, buying
supplies and making teaching aides for the special needs of the ladies.
During the doll making workshop breaks, Erin and Katie did yogic
exercises and taught the women simple movement techniques that they
could continue to do on their own.
It was a very special
three weeks for all of us at Q’ewar. Katie and Erin jumped right into
the heart and soul of Q’ewar and grew very quickly to show their love
and care for the women and work of Q’ewar. It is impossible to recount
all the activities with the women and children and the help to Lucy and
Julio that Erin and Katie gave to Q’ewar. Suffice it to say, there were
tears and hugs all around when it was time to say good-bye.
In October, a small group of women began weekly sessions in the Q’ewar
schoolroom that involved movement therapy and artistic work, in
addition to being given Flower Essence therapy. (THANKS to the great
generosity of Senora Patricia Kaminsky, Director of the Flower Essence
Society in California who donated the complete Flower Essence Repertory
for use at Q’ewar.) These weekly sessions were geared towards fostering
lively INNER movement to help the ladies find a greater sense of their
own powers of imagination, through movement and color.
In
February, 2005, this group will begin a 2nd series of sessions and
another group from the doll workshop will begin their 1st series. There
is a great need to work with the women on a spiritual and emotional
level. Their economic situation has greatly improved since coming to
work at Q’ewar, but what has remained deeply embedded in their hearts –
the harsh experiences of abuse, violence and abandonment – calls for
attention too. The purpose of the Q’ewar Project is not only to uplift
the women out of extreme poverty, but also to make every effort to give
assistance in the learning of self-esteem and worth as a human being –
for each individual woman who comes to work at Q’ewar.
Along
with this news, Julio, Lucy and all the workers at Q’ewar extend to all
our friends around the world, a Blessed Christmas and a New Year filled
with marvelous challenges and joys! A personal thanks to each one for
helping to help the women of Q’ewar.
Very sincerely,
Carmen, for the Q’ewar Project