Arpilleras-Women and Creativity

On Thursday I headed up to Pamplona Alta by bus with my friend Jean to meet with a group of women at Mision Nazareno. Across from the church, a house had been torn down leaving the shell and interior remains. This is part of the grit of Peru Ian and I often mention. I find the piles of trash, the untended gardens, and the dog leavings difficult to view each day. My eye has not yet learned to edit out the ugly and see beyond it. Some days I find myself searching for the lovely, the beautiful, the hopeful. On Thursday I found it in the Arpillera work of these talented women.
Three days a week Jean unlocks the door of the church and welcomes a group of women to a time of sewing, listening and sharing. This work provides a livelihood for the women. Some have added bathrooms to their homes, laid tile floors in their entryways, and one even put her son through law school. For many, this is the only source of income for their family.
Jean coaches the women in their designs and suggests changes when the colors don't quite work, or the work does not match the order. In this picture, Angelica is finishing up some bags depicting farm scenes. They are lined with fabric, have interior pockets and are closed at the top with velcro. Arpillera pieces are sold to churches in the States and England and to people like Ian and me. I have a toilet roll cover that would make Kimberly Clark proud!
When I visited, we looked at a glasses case I had that also had a zipper on the side to provide storage for cell phone, keys, and money. The women were going to make up a copy to add to their designs. Here they have finished cell phone and glasses cases and oven mitts. The little stuffed dolls and vegetables are made separately and then stitched onto the backing fabric. With needle and thread, the women add short stitches to show expression and add texture. The result is colorful and three dimensional. Each creation begs to be touched. I made certain my hands were clean! I asked one artist how long it took to create the oven mitts and she said a day; the glasses cases take about 4 or 5 hours. The women work in their homes and bring their finished projects along to the church. Usually, they spend their time at the church adding finishing touches or asking Jean for advice about design questions.
Jean works on this piece to help the women decide where to put the dolls. It was a custom hanging to be given as a gift. Each of the three dolls represented a woman known to the recipient.
When I looked at this wall hanging for a nursery, I was confused by the little animals and objects within each pocket. There was no correspondence in English or Spanish. I said nothing, but when Jean returned to the work room I asked her about it. "Oh," she said, "that is going to Holland. Those correspond to the Dutch words." My appreciation rose.
Sometimes the women ask for help in deciding where to put pieces, such as the lost sheep in this hanging called Jesus the Good Shepherd. The artist will add a Jesus figure, stitching detail and some leaves for the tree. One woman had a purple cow in a design that just wasn't working. She was advised to replace the purple with another fabric.
As the women worked, I walked around admiring their ability to do such detailed work. I felt clumsy in comparison. I asked one woman to show me how the little dolls were made. Their little heads are made with a small piece of fabric stuffed with a tiny wad of batting and then wrapped with thread to create a sphere. From there, other body parts are added and stitched on. No one uses glue for assembly; it is all with needle and thread.
Arpillera is not unique to Peru, I found out. It exists in a number of South American and Central American countries. The scenes generally represent community life and/or religious themes. In the tourist markets around Lima you can buy Arpillera pieces, but the quality varies. The women at Mision Nazareno produce work of the highest quality.

This hanging is the finished version of Jesus the Good Shepherd. He is the doll figure in the middle; the sun is rising behind mountains and three dimensional sheep dot the meadow in the foreground.
I loved the color of these parrots on the glasses case. This artist had chosen the fabric, stitched it on and added puffy leaves to the branches to give the piece wonderful texture. Her work is of such high quality!

Jean and I left the church with the women around six o'clock. She had ended the time together with a prayer circle where we prayed for some of the concerns the women had raised. Earlier, as the women worked, she had read aloud from Little House in the Big Woods. As she read, she translated the words into Spanish. The women enjoyed the reading and were caught up in this chapter about a bear visiting the farm. At the end I shared in my broken Spanish about a black bear which had visited our house in Vermont. I would love to establish rapport with these women and spend more time with them. Let's see where this leads!

News flash: For those of you in the USA, here is a note from Cindy Rawn about how to find out more about this ministry. I did not know about this wonderful name for the group, nor how to contact the Texas folks supporting this ministry. The Body of Christ is amazing! Cindy's comment:

Thank you for highlighting the remarkable women who make up Threads of Hope, the non-profit that supports Jean and 22 artisans of our sewing groups! I hope anyone interested in learning more about how to purchase or support Threads of Hope will visit our website at www.tohteaxs.org, or email me at threadsofhope@gmail.com.

God bless,

Cinde Rawn, Director
Threads of Hope
972.809.7500

Please read the third comment, too, about the history of this project. I cut and pasted it in comments.

Children at Play in Ventanilla

On Tuesdays and Saturdays the children in this area of Ventanilla come to the Anglican church, San Patricio, for play and Bible class. They arrive around 3 p.m. and stay until 6 p.m.When I visited Ventanilla with Sarah this week, I observed the children playing at the various centers set up around the large room. We had transformed the sanctuary space to a large play area with tables, chairs, and floor mats spread around to accommodate ten play stations. After helping to set up the play centers, the children choose an area and settle in to play, read, or draw. In this picture Freddy is tracing a picture and the others are watching him. Every class has a Freddy--active, short attention span, bright and full of potential. I have always had a heart for the Freddys.
After an hour of play, the children gather for a Bible story. Sarah tells the story with lots of expression and animation. It was the story about the healing of the paralytic, and the children were fascinated.

These children are constructing a marble maze. This same group designed and re-designed this tower a number of times and were quite successful at it. Having studied education for twenty years, I am a strong advocate for this kind of free play to help develop problem solving skills, social skills and learning. The educational gurus would love what is going on here. Sarah and I visited the stations periodically and encouraged.
At this station the children were drawing. What is interesting here in Peru is how the children approach art. They are quite keen on tracing and copying. Some produce lovely pictures of perfectly copied figures or designs, all colored within the lines. The schools place the emphasis on doing it right. I believe that creativity needs to be encouraged, but I am concerned that my American values may be at work here, so I temper what I suggest. According to others I have spoken with, this rote learning also spills over into adult education. Questioning, problem solving, debate and experimentation could be encouraged more. I believe this needs to start with the children. I think ahead to the economic impact creativity and problem solving have.
I loved this photo. These two girls are just lovely and full of spunk. The older sister reminds me of the actress in Amelie, Audrey Tautou. Perhaps she will be discovered as she walks the streets of Ventanilla! I complimented her on her darling haircut, and Sarah later told me that she had been teased about it because girls in Peru wear their hair long. She is a spunky young chica, so I think she will hold her own.
At the reading center, children picked up books and read them. One boy I observed was slowly following his reading with his finger under the words. Next time, I would like to sit with this group and encourage them. This station was empty toward the end of the hour.
This station with blocks and farm animals was popular with this group of boys. They eventually constructed two corrals filled with sheep, cows, some hens and shrubs. Another pen had pigs only. I enjoyed practicing my Spanish with them as I named all the animals. No girls joined this group during the hour of play.
The young girls loved the doll station. Older girls and younger girls played together acting out family behaviors. Sarah had asked me to keep any eye on them because sometimes sharing was difficult for them. They were quite the little mothers. A doctor's kit was nearby and sometimes the babies received shots and bandages.
Sarah worked with one young girl as one of the neighborhood dogs looked on. The street dogs come in a variety of shapes and colors, and are generally friendly. They wander in and out of the room through the open doorways that lead out onto the street and the back yard.
Jonathan and his brother worked together on these flying tinker toys. His patience with his younger brother was delightful to watch. As Sarah and I later walked up the road to their house, she told me that Jonathan had attended the youth retreat the previous weekend and was involved in the worship and prayer time in significant ways. His peacefulness and quiet joy were evident as I watched him. His mother helps Sarah by making up the snacks for the children on Saturday, and his father drives the local public bus. An intact family such as this is rare in these communities. Jonathan and his brothers are blessed in many ways.

Children in Ventanilla

Yesterday I traveled with Sarah Tester, another missionary here in Lima, to Ventanilla, an area north of Lima. Each Tuesday and Saturday, Sarah works with the neighborhood children at the Anglican church, San Patricio. While I gazed out the window of the bus as it moved through cityscape, airport, oil refineries, cow pastures and desert mountainsides, Sarah worked on her lesson plans. During our travel time of about two hours, we took three different buses with a stop in between at the local supermarket to use the dependable restroom.
In the areas leading to Ventanilla, the houses sit up on the sandy hillsides. Ventanilla looks down onto the Pacific Ocean. The sun rises behind the mountains, and sets down below them into the ocean with its white breakers and sandy beach.

Sarah and I got off our final bus and headed up the hillside. Running down the road, the children greeted us warmly, shouting "Hola!" They grabbed Sarah's hands and walked up the street to the church building which is up on the left. On Tuesday and Saturday afternoons Sarah runs a Bible camp for them that includes play centers, Bible stories, games and teaching. The 30-50 children are from two years old to about twelve. Older siblings bring the younger ones along, so there is quite an age range. Some moms stay and help, and on Saturdays a mom prepares and helps serve a healthy snack for the 40-50 young children who come for Bible class.
The older children take charge of the younger ones and teach them all manner of things.
Sarah with her young charges. They love her and she them! She visits their families on the hillsides after the program finishes around 6 p.m. Mothers greet her affectionately and she always asks how they are doing. On this day she had some used clothing to share with some of the families.
This young boy was ready for the program to begin. I enjoyed playing catch with him later in the area out behind the church. Children and the neighborhood dogs wandered in and out of the church during the afternoon.
I was struck by how helpful the children were in setting up the space and sweeping it clean of the ubiquitous sand. When Sarah brought out the containers of games and toys, they helped arrange them into centers. At the end, they helped put things away. She had taught them well and they took responsibility for the toys and supplies. I think they are used to helping at home with cleaning and care of siblings.