Merry Christmas from the jungle of Peru!

 Despite a year with various challenges we have been able to keep our Estrella de Sauce Waldorf community outreach program going with two groups of children and our grandmother's weekly gathering.

Today we had our end of year celebration for the children who received good things to eat and drink and various gifts along with live Christmas music, games and a revision of all the songs and poems in English they have been learning throughout the year.

Thanks to all who have helped us keep this program in Sauce and the new Tarapoto Waldorf school Khuyay (love in the Quechua language) going and flourishing during this difficult time on planet Earth.

We send out heartfelt good wishes for the Solstice, Christmas,Yuletide, Hanukkah, New Year and all other seasonal festivities to all our family and friends.  Do please come see us!

Field trip for local children on 'La Laguna'

There is a great divide between well-heeled tourists who come for vacations to Laguna Sauce and children in the lakeside community who rarely get to go out in boats.  Today we took a group from our 'Estrella de Sauce' community outreach Waldorf educational project on a boat trip over to 'Recreo Paraiso' on the other side of the lake for swimming, games and other fun.

Three of my guitar students are in the front row.

Noble cider

 Asheville North Carolina's favorite beverage kicks off a unique promotional campaign here in South America with this tanker train stopping in the small jungle community of Sauce, Peru as its first destination.  Soon to be appearing in a cantina near you we hope.

Repair and re-vamp

 We had rain damage to a wood-framed wall at Estrella de Sauce and had to demolish it and re-build with bricks.

Following this we re-vamped our garden by changing the soil in our enormous planter made from a wooden canoe, planting flower and vegetable seeds and making a painted rock feature. Here's grandson Zair and friend Shilo painting and arranging rocks.

Then granddaughter Xiara and Lourdes repainted our tree-stump gnome.

Classes continue with both older and young children's groups in Sauce.

200 years of independence

 On July 28 Peru inaugurated new president Pedro Castillo and celebrated 200 years of independence from Spain.

Here in Sauce Lourdes invited 15 grandmothers from the community to a celebratory lunch at Las Cabañas restaurant followed by ice-cream in the Plaza de Armas.

Posing at Lourdes' son Luis Justo's Pizza Castle under construction.

                                                              Our community is called 'Sauce' which means willow in Spanish.

We begin building a new small house

 White string and stakes indicate the planned 8 meter x 8 meter (25ft x 25 ft) footprint of a one-bedroom house overlooking Lago Sauce on 2 hectares (5 acres) of land we have owned for the past ten years.  I'm remembering as a child seeing the construction of  my paternal grandparents Victor and Doris' retirement home at Lechlade on the river Thames in the UK and I guess we are doing something similar here in Peru.

We have in mind some solar power, organic raised-bed gardens, chickens and fruit trees.

We will proceed 'poco a poco' (little by little) with the construction and right now are at the very beginning figuring where the house will go, levelling the building site and clearing brush.

Also planned is a a rainwater collection tower that will double as an elevated lake viewing platform.

So far there are 4 posts in position next to a huge Ojé tree where the tower will be built   Stay tuned for future developments.

The Sacred Valley and Cusco revisited

 How time flies!

Lourdes and I have now lived in Sauce for over ten years and have just got back from Cusco and the Sacred Valley where we went to participate in a southern hemisphere winter Solstice gathering in the small town of Taray.  This was where we lived back in 2006 when we first met and married.  In the photo above taken on our second day I am chewing coca leaves to counteract the strange effects of altitude which in Cusco is over 11,000 ft.

  It was wonderful and slightly surreal to be back there after so many years.  There has been much building of houses and businesses and the children of Lourdes' Waldorf education class are now young adults.  Here's Tika who I remember as a 7-year old and is now studying chemistry at the university.  She is soon to fly to the US for further studies.

And here's Lourdes back at Ulrike's Cafe in Pisac, home of the best carrot cake in Peru.

          

                            

                Our hotel on the Plaza de Armas in Pisac.

                                                                                    Lourdes at the new crafts market in Pisac.

Here is the bonfire that kept us warm as we stayed up all night in the open air at 10,000 feet on the longest night of the year accompanied by music and traditional dances by many indigenous groups from all over Peru including the famous and fabulous scissors dancers of Ayacucho.

And here is Joel, another former Waldorf student from the Kusi Kawsay school, showing us his organic garden from which he supplies many local hotels and restaurants and whose water supply is an astronomical pool carved out by the Incas.

Some of our ex-students are now black belt karate champions, some of whom have been on the Peruvian national team.

We stayed two nights with our friends Sergey and Mercedes Baranov in the town of Calca at their natural medicine center called Huachuma Wasi.

We spent our last day visiting the city of Cusco with its curious mix of colonial and Inca architecture. I had a Guinness at the highest Irish pub in the world.

New Roof for 'La Escuelita'

 Our location backing on to the local soccer court in daily use by the youth of Sauce has meant an awful lot of stray, high-flying soccer balls landing on our back roof over the years leading to damage and leaks.  To fix the problem I decided to re-roof with extra-heavy steel roofing and put up a mesh barrier to hopefully prevent some of the low-flying shots coming onto the roof.

Here's me in roofing mode which I am doing every fine afternoon when the heat is lessening.  Little by little the job is getting done.

Re-roofing finished

We hosted a pre-Mother's Day lunch for seniors in Sauce

 Our grandmothers group now stands at 20 members attending every Thursday afternoon for crafts, exercise, chatting and snacks.  All were invited to our pre-Mother's Day lunch which we have offered yearly for the past 9 years.  However due to fears about Covid, some stayed away so we had only 13 joining us for lunch this year.

Jungle sailing

 

Eight year old grandson Lucas steers the only large sailboat in the Peruvian Amazon area that was created in 2012 by joining 3 traditional wooden boats to form a trimaran. When the breeze is blowing it moves right along powered by 3 sails.  In calm weather we use a low-emission Evinrude 6HP 4-stroke motor.  As you can see there is planty of space for 2 kayaks which we use at our various swimming beaches.

Lucas and Paulo's dad José hauls up the mainsail.

                                                                                      Bondo, Lucas and Paulo. 

Our friend Willi Helmbrecht from Germany relaxes in a hammock with a bottle of Peru's finest brew.  He took these pictures.  Danke Willi!

                                                                  Martin, Lourdes and Maria Lourdes, fifth grade teacher at Colegio Waldorf  Lima having a well-deserved vacation. 

Lima Colegio Waldorf eurythmist Darsi and family.

                                                                                              Heading back.

                                       

                                                                                              Bondo ready to jump ship.

                                                  Here's our repaired 18 ft dugout canoe ready to be put back in the lake.

Learning the guitar

 Feels good to be out of lockdown here in Sauce and starting to teach a few chords to youngsters so we can play the song 'Todos juntos' (all together) originally by the Chilean band Los Jaivas.  We are not quite ready to give a concert yet!

Along with other guitar playing basics I showed how the guitar can be tuned without using an electronic device.  There was some amazement expressed.

Grandmothers group resumes

 

The last meeting was back in March 2020 and now Lourdes' group of abuelas (grandmothers) is back in its Friday afternoon time slot for stretching exercises crafts, talking, snacks and a personal consultation with our friend Dr Oscar seen in the background.

                                       Very proud of their new teeshirts organised by Lourdes.