Simple Abundance

Rural Development Project Kausay Punku

2011-03-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

As most of you know I have been living in Peru for over a year, my primary focus has been spiritual in nature and for a better part of the year i was living in a spiritual community undergoing profound emotional and spiritual learning and healing. My time with the community was amazing, at times down right ugly and oh so necessary. I have now been given the opportunity to integrate the aspects of spirit and all I have learned in a purposeful and practical way!

About a month ago I heard about a medicinal herb and organic agricultural project located in a nearby community, my interest was peaked so I went to visit. What I found was a very small project that was barely sustaining itself yet held undeniable vibrancy and potential.

The project and demonstration site was created and run by a local family, it is called Kausay Punku, which in Quechua, (the native language) means The Door to Life. I immediately recognized the potential that was yet to manifest as well as the intrinsic importance of such a project. I was drawn in and in that moment knew in my heart, that I was going to work with this family to bring this project to life. And indeed that was just what happened!

Kausay Punku is in the Quechua Community of Maska, 10 minutes from Pisac the little town i live in. The project´s close location to a common tourist destination offers a unique multicultural interface were a diveristy of knowledge, belief´s and cultures are shared. The project site also offers a great view of the archaeological ruins of Pisaq and its terraces. These terraces have inspired the people of Maska, in their project to keep creating and developing methods of original and organic agriculture,as well as plant and animal conservation.

Kausay Punku is a indigenous grassroots rural development project that aims to include the people of different communities in promoting an active and responsible participation in the social development of this region, in relation with their traditional culture.

We are now working together to move towards this goal, we are doing so by:
• Offering weekly permaculture (and related) workshops to the public.
• Hosting a weekly volunteer workday.
• Preparing organic products such as organic cheese, milk, veggies, native medicinal herbs and native seedsto market and sell.
• Started to organize a local apiary cooperative and have been teaching community members how to care for and produce the best quality honey in an efficient natural way.
• Formally defining the organizational structure so the project will be more widely recognized by the government and other organizations that can potentially provide resources to help the project grow.

This project holds such profound importance, effecting change on both global and local levels. Historically the loss and degradation of the natural environment has coincided with the loss and degradation of indigenous cultures around the world. The project is offering an example as well as inspiration to the local people while simultaneously healing the earth. This is an opportunity for the local people to be empowered by regaining autonomy and respect for their livelihood and traditions.

Floods in Peru

2010-01-29T08:13:00.000-08:00

I flew into Cuzco on January 24th in between storms and into a diaster.
As we drove from Cuzco to Pisac i noticed bolders and trees in the highway, but the only explaination i got was "mucha lluvia" ( a lot of rain)
My first night it poured all through the night and in the morining we woke to find more boulders had slide down the mountain side into the roads, the fields flooded, and the bridge to Pisac had broke of the bank of the river. Life for the people here has drastically changed over night. The bridge that crosses the Vilcanota river is the only way the tourists come to the market and ruins from Cuzco. There is a walking bridge about a mile down the road that crosses the river and this is how people get from Taray to Pisac.
The rain continued through the day and following night. The sitaution got much worse, the two main bridges that cross the once was stream to the town of Taray were uncrossable. The mountains on either sides of the valley were draining into this tiny stream bed. The people worked tirelessly though the night though in the end their efforts were futile, the stream broke through. The water´s force flooded the stream bank and redirceted itself through the streets and fields of Taray. Homes were flooded and destroyed.
It was now time to reasses the sitaution, to cross the stream we need to climb up the mountain side and down to the third and last bridge up the river. If that bridge went we would be stuck for awhile. We went into Pisac, the tourists had fled leaving the locals and the die hard tavelers. Most of the shops were closed the the locals stood at the bridge just staring at the water, their livelyhood furiously passing them by.
Days have passed, the Peruvian authorities have come to help blockade the water, redirecting it away from homes. The sun has also come, thanks to god! Though it continues to rain and will for the next 2 months. It has been much worse up the Sacred Valley and at Machu Picchu.
I take it day by day and hope the rain lets up a bit.
It will take months to repair the damage and for the tourist traffic to resume but the people have come together and are starting to rebuild the entrepreneurs are resilient as ever and all will adapt to the changes over time.

Mazunte and El Neem

2009-02-27T07:27:00.001-08:00

In this sweet little beach town of Mazunte, I was staying at a family run posada called the Gota de Vida. Mazunte is named after a beautiful blue, red and white crab that is now endangered due to over fishing. The posada is off the main road tucked away under the palms, the owners have a passion for gardening so it is a lush paradise. The posada has 4 or 5 cabanas always occupied by people from all over the world. The family who owns the posada are among the few who have been in Mazunte since it became a town some 40 years ago. We spent a lot of time talking about about plants and the changes that the town has seen due to tourism. I feel like one of the family, so if you are ever in this part of the world, go to Gota De Vida, a peaceful, clean and cheap place to stay.

A couple of weeks into my stay here i found El Neem, a yoga school perched on a hill over the ocean. It is called El Neem beacuse there are Neem trees all over the place. According to Don Pedro, the owner of the posada, 20 years ago a man from Africa brought the seeds planted them on the hill side and ever since they have been self seeding all over the place. Neem has many medicinal and cosmetic qualities with which i have been experimenting.
I have had a relaxed yoga practice for a few years now and wanted to expand and heal. I found so much more at this school. El Neem teaches Agama yoga, which is a type of tantric yoga.
(dont be scared i am not spending my time having crazy tantric orgies). We practice yoga 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours as the sun is setting and have a 1-2 hour lecture every night. I am not only learning how to hold poses for amazing amounts of time, I am also learning so much about the yogi way of being, culture, India, chakras and much more. I had no idea that yoga is a whole philsophical way of being in this world, one which i admire and understand. I am loving this place fully! However i will be leaving on Sunday, I am pretty bummbed beacuse i would like to finish the 24 day yoga course, which will end with 5 days of silence, can you imagine, 5 days of not talking... wow! I am bumbed about leaving however i am moving on to a beautiful place as well, Cusco Peru! Yes a change of pace. I will be spending a few weeks with a friend in Peru.

Lastly I would like to share with you just one example of the beauty of manifestation, prayer, power of the mind what ever you want to call it. Before i left the states i sat and meditated on what my intentions were here in Mexico, i knew that working in the mountains would be very important but something kept pulling on me about healing my spirit and taming my monkey mind. I asked to find a yoga school where i could practice yoga on the beach. A beach which met the mountains. And not only practice yoga but do it cheaply in a work trade situation. And 2 months later I am living that prayer!
Ask! do not be deceived by the notion of scarcity. Ask! With faith and love we live in a world of abundance. Even in this time of economic crisis, and paniced hubbub, ask with an open heart and have faith you will be cared for by the divine.

Love to all

My last days in San Miguel

2009-02-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

Wow, It has been awhile since i have written, sorry to leave you hangin but life just has a way of taking you!

I have left San Miguel and the beautiful Sierra Madre mountain range about a week and a half ago. My job was complete and it was time to go. Leaving was bitter sweet I felt heavy with sadness for leaving the people i connected with. My specific job was done but there is so much to do, I felt i hardly skimmed the surface. I feel a strong connection to the people and land i pray that I get the opportunity to work with them again. Though the work is so hard, the living conditions minimal i find such satisfaction in this work. I love the challenge and the exchange of knowledge and experiences. My last day i made the rounds to say good bye to all of the people i met and worked with. I had been feeling frustrated and down trodden with my work, it wasn´t until that last day that i realized the impact I had on the people i met. It is a very satisfying feeling however at times it is a bit much for me to bare. The generosity that the people i met exhibited puts us fearful Americans to shame. They shared everything they had and opened their homes and hearts to me a stranger. We can learn a lot from this practice.

The projects that we were working on shifted and continually changed, after spending days working with coffee farmers to put up and use the solar dryers they proved unsatisfactory and were a big disappointment. We salvaged them by moving them to another home and setting them up at plant nurseries. Only time will tell if they will function as anticipated. The failure of the solar dryers was a bit disheartening for the coffee farmers and devalued our reputation. It is SO important to have the resources and knowledge to make each project work, if not the farmers will turn their back to anything you propose.

I spent many days up in the mountains at the "Finca". It is there that i learned about the process of coffee production. Interestingly enough i wrote my thesis in college on Mexican coffee cooperatives and Fair Trade. I never anticipated meeting the people i was researching and living the reality of which i was trying to portray through my thesis. Which by the way didn´t even begin to get into the juice of coffee production in Mexico. I will write more about the life of the coffee farmers later.

While up at the Finca we put in place a beautiful garden/ plant nursery. The goal is to make the Finca a demo site for people to come and learn techniques to enhance coffee and plant production.

I have many experiences with in me to share, however I get caught up in the movement of life and forget to write about them.

However below are a few of the things i learned:

Cultural differences can be breached with patience and perseverance.

The Mayan population needs to accept the past injustices and take responsibility for their future.

The government needs to provide more then money, it also needs to provide education.With out both educational and monetary support the indigenous population is doomed to remain dependent on governmental aid.

I love the tropics and want to learn more about tropical agriculture.

Rain boots are ESSENTIAL for working in the mountains. Provide protection not only from the slippery mud and rain but also from the snakes.

You can survive with out a mirror.

The body can go for days on nothing if it has to.

The Fair trade system like the organic certification is an idealistic notion that has been polluted by corporate actions.

Rats will eat anything.. including refrigerators and bee pollen!

Photos

2009-01-22T08:36:00.000-08:00

For now all photos are at this address:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amckim/

The practice of present moment travel

2009-01-20T08:42:00.001-08:00

It is so important to break free from the comfort of our day to day lifes. The lifes that move like clock work; sleep, eat, work. Overtime we accumulate bad habits, such as isolation, overeating/drinking /shopping, harshly judging ourselves and others, building walls and feeding fears. On this trip I have realized the importance that travel has for my quality of life. It is a challagning yet healing effect for me, in many ways wiping the slate clean, clearing space for better habits and complete presence to fill.

Everything is new. Colors are brighter, I am forced to let go of the illusion of control. I have no idea how i will get from one place to another, or what that place will have instore for me. When forced into uncomfortable situations, I am forced to break out of my mind, out of my isolation and into the world fully present. I have to re-learn evertime i travel how to let go and just go with it. When i do let that everything i need is handed to me and i find myself and everything else beautful and fluid.

It is important for us to force ourselves into uncomfortable situations so that we can expand our understanding of the world and ourselves in it. I hope to strenthen this practice of letting go and being present and bring it home to my day to day life.

The Finca

2009-01-20T08:10:00.000-08:00

The past cold rainy week has faded away as i have fed my body and spirit here at this amazing little beach town of Mixunte.

Everyone in the household made the treck up to the Finca. It took in total 3 hours of up hill terrain, half of which was walking through the once was jungle. It is now all second growth, coffee farm or pasture. The coffee farm is not what I excpected it, and most, are coffee trees under a canopy of larger trees, it is essentially a forest.

The Finca itself is a tiny old cement building with a leaky rook and an out door cooking eating area. I was grateful we brought a tent! If we had not it would have been 10 of us sleeping on the dirt floor in the tiny house!

We got one productive day we cleared an area for the nursery and started a little kitchen garden. We picked coffee seed and hand husked them all preparing them for planting. It had been wet for days but the rain came in quick and heavy and stayed with us for over two days. We were stuck up on the mountain with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

Food was running scarce, beans, tortillas and coffee. Yes one can live off of these three things only and do physical work as well.

A couple of guys went out hunting and came back with an endangered animal, the ant eater. It was beautiful and lying dead before me. I was disgusted and intrigued at the same time. I watched as the kids play with the body and the dogs fight over it. I could not eat it, though everyone else said the meat was great... of course it was they had not eaten anything substantial for days.

It is important in this kind of work to stick out the hard times with the people who live there and have no choice. My instinct that first rainy day was to flee and fast. But i could not and many great experiences came out of our time together in such lousy conditions. It demonstrates conradmanship, dedication and fosters a deeper understanding for the hardships that they endure. It builds trust which is a key componant of organizing a group of people and advancing as a community.

The treck off of the mountain was to say the least insane, The mud was overwhelming, the trail we came in on was now a stream. We were a sight as we climbed up and onto the street, head to toe mud and wet.

Needless to say the next day i was out of there, I had to take a break from the constant struggle, i had to eat and revamp before we start the next phase of the project.

The Community Development Project

2009-01-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

The meeting for the coffee growers was announced over the loud speaker that blares thorugh out the small town. 13 people came up to see what the leader, who had just come down from the mountains had to say. Almost half of the participatants were women. The coffee cooperative was disband do to corruption and now is trying to reorganize. I was introduced as the agronomist for the coffee solar dryer project and the plant nursery. Agronomist? Yikes... Everyone had a lot of questions for me and were very receptive to my ideas. Many decisions were made and off each went back to their own coffee crops.
For the months of December - February almost everyone is leaves town to treck deeper into the mountains to harvest their coffee.
We have bought and essembled two coffee dryers which will improve the quality an quanity of coffee that they are able to sell.
Tomorrow i go up to the coffee farm to start the plant nursery project with the folks up there.
We are starting new coffee plants, ceder and fruit trees, along with cover crops.
It is two hours from this very rural town. The conditions are minimal to say the least. I will be up there with 10 others who are harvesting coffee.

San Miguels Jewel

2009-01-12T16:35:00.000-08:00

Before i go on to talk about the project, i must share with you the jewel of the little town of San Miguel.
A Beautiful fresh water spring that comes out of a large cave.
It comes out of rock onto rock and is marked by the two amazing Cider trees that grow above it!
We went exploring in the underground cave. It is enormous the water is the most pure water i have ever experienced.
The women go there to detox, the spread the mud full of minerals over their bodies and even eat it to purify their bodies of illness an impurities.
The outside spring/cave has become my daily haven.
It has powerful healing energy, and though it has yet to be confirmed i am sure it is this water source that brought people to settle there.

2009-01-10T17:07:00.001-08:00

THE COMPUTERS RUN TOO SLOW TO DOWNLOAD PICTURES.

I WILL HAVE SOME UP NEXT WEEK WHEN I GO INTO TOWN.

San Miguel

2009-01-10T16:58:00.001-08:00

The day i arrived to this beautiful mountain town i got sick i have been sick ever since. It almost feels as if the mountains are cleansing me of my idustrialized impurities. Testing me, deciding if i am worthy of being here. Jason my American compadre says he has felt the same energy and as hard as he has worked still nothing of grandur has come of it. Perhaps they are keeping us out. These mountains are powerful and abundant with food, shelter, medicine and water.

Questions i have been asking:
If so abundant then why then do the people still suffer?Are they suffering or is it the outside western eye that percieves this way of life as poverty and suffering?

The mentality of the opressed around the world is similar. They are resentful and expect money from the goevernment or those who have abused and took advantage of them.Accepting the realities of the situation I see the solution to be that the dominant entity gives the opressed communities a certain pre determined amount of money with the tools to succeed, i.e. education. And then leaves it to the communtiy to grow and determine its future.However in the case of Mexico the government is willing to give money but no education. Leaving the mayan people wanting more.It is the responsibiltiy of the people to accept what is and accept responsibilty of their actions and push through with solidarity and hard work.It is similar to breaking the cycle of abuse in a family. Those who break it live hard and self disciplined lifes so those after them are able to live more freely.

2009-01-05T16:11:00.000-08:00

They say that the road to Hana on Maui is the curviest road in the world. I could have died a happy girl believing this. I have experienced massive car sickness many times taking the road to Hana. However the road from Oaxaca City to the coastal beach town of Puerto Escondido is much more windy, steep, long and terrifying.

Tomorrow i leave the beautiful city of Oaxaca to Xcpatec a small village in the mountains.
Wish me luck