We've moved!

 It has been quite a challenging time moving from Cusco where we have spent the last five years, but now Lourdes and I are living in a tiny rented house on Laguna Azul up in the northern jungle of Peru in San Martin province one and a half hours south of the city of Tarapoto.  Google Laguna Azul Tarapoto San Martin Peru if you would like to see further pictures and videos.

Lourdes made a commitment to teach a group of children in the Sacred Valley near Cusco for six years during which time local parents invited her to help start the Kusi Kawsay Waldorf-inspired school in the town of Pisac.

Having completed her commitment it felt right to both of us to change our base of operations to a climate and altitude that more suits us and accordingly we have moved to the small lakeside community of Sauce, pronounced 'sau-say' and meaning willow in Spanish.

Land prices here are much more reasonable than in the Cusco area and we have had the good fortune to have bought a 220 square meter building plot one block back from the three mile long lake where we plan to build a multi-purpose structure that will include our residence, a small cafe (serving really good coffee which is actually something of a rarity in Peru), a two-room bed and breakfast, a classroom for our newest branch of Estrella del Sur, our educational and social community outreach program and a woodworking shop.

In addition we have purchased a two hectare (5 acre) piece of agricultural land with an amazing view of the lake up behind the town where we plan to develop a biodynamic/permaculture garden and tropical orchard together with a ceremonial maloca for traditional plant spirit medicine ceremonies.

Lourdes will continue her involvement in the Kusi Kawsay school at Pisac in an advisory capacity.  She will also continue with her work training new Waldorf teachers in the Spanish-speaking world with upcoming journeys to the Dominican Republic and Chile.

After quite a number of years living without a boat I have just begun work on an experimental 10 meter wooden sailing catamaran.  At present I'm in the chemical purgatory of fiberglassing the hulls, but once that part is over it will just be carpentry work to get the vessel put together.  Stay tuned for updates on the building process on this website.  I've had the sails made by Lee Sails in Hong Kong and am going to be using a Parsun 25 HP four-stroke motor which is a new brand here in Peru.

We have also purchased two plastic sit-on-top kayaks to begin a small boat rental business and they will soon be joined by a single and a double traditional wooden dugout Amazonian canoe and a small rowboat/ sailing skiff in the coming months.  It's a beautiful lake for "simply messing about in boats"  to quote from the classic "Wind in the Willows".

Huachuma ceremonies to mark the October 28 Mayan calendar end date

Tentative dates for this year's pilgrimage up to sacred sites in the Central Highlands and around Cusco are October 26 - November 5.  Ceremonies are planned to begin October 28 which coincides with the end of the Mayan Calendar according to some researchers.  Contact  martinstevens@juno.com  for details.

Amazon medicine retreat

We had a wonderful two week retreat with our Shipibo family back in April.  Now I'd like to announce the next one which will be from 7 - 17 July. 
Please contact me at  martinstevens@juno.com  if you have any interest in joining us.

April Shipibo Ayahuasca Retreat

I'm putting together a small group of 3 to 6 people to join me in the Peruvian Amazon for a nine day traditional healing 'dieta' with maestro Teobaldo and his extended family in the Noya Rao plant spirit medicine center near Pucallpa for the first two weeks of April 2011.
Contact me at  martinstevens@juno.com  for further details.

Happy New Year!

Grandsons Bruno and Zair

Lourdes and I spent Christmas with our large family in Lima which was a first for me.  Nothing much happened on Christmas Day itself, all of the activity was on Chrstmas eve with a big meal late in the evening followed by singing up-tempo Christmas songs around the tree, opening presents and at the stroke of midnight the whole sky lit up with fireworks.  Christmas with a Latin flair.
On a whim we decided to head north by bus and we spent New Year's visiting Lago Azul near Tarapoto in the extreme western end of the Amazon basin which makes for a combination of mountains and jungle.  The lake itself was beautiful with an ideal tropical climate and not a bug in sight.  We are thinking of buying land there......



Our grandson Zair appearing as a chicken



Solstice and Yuletide greetings!

I climbed Apu Linley 2 days ago for this view of the town of Pisac and the Vilcanota river.

The Kusi Kawsay school is above the town on the left in front of some trees.  Our new house is just to the right of center.

Many thanks to all for reading this blog and for the help we have received over the past year in our work with Shipibo children in the Amazon and poor chidren at the CEBA school in Pisac.

It's been a great year that has seen the founding of the Kusi Kawsay Andean/Waldorf school which is now flourishing despite a rocky start as we all faced dealing with massive flooding in the early months of the year.  The school's success has been felt by all as a triumph by way of a positive project into which we have put our energies, a cooperative community effort in which we have shared the sensation of overcoming adversity and disaster in the creation of a wonderful new venture.

Lourdes and I have moved to a new house two blocks from the main square in Pisac from our house in Coya 7 kilometers distant where we have been for the last 3 years.  The new pad is a slightly ramshackle and eccentric building but we have fixed it up and are now enjoying living near many friends and close to both of the schools in which we are involved.  I now have a new woodshop as well, one mile away.  I commute by bike and I like the excercise.  We are using our car a whole lot less.

Kusi Kawsay School, Pisac Update



Kindergarten children with teacher Sara and Eurithmy teacher Darsi (my step-daughter).
The newly finished kindergarten building is behind.



The beautiful new kindergarten building is now up and running.  Yours truly built the Inca-style doors.

We are now at the end of the southern hemisphere school year and Kusi Kawsay school is one year old.   It's a new initiative combining Andean traditional culture and the agrarian calendar of the Incas with Waldorf alternative education.



The school is off to a really good start and we had a Unesco film crew come for one day which resulted in us being included in a promotional documentary covering schools who belong to the Unesco educational association.  These are schools recognized for holding to high standards promoting environmental awareness, equal rights and social conciousness.



We finished the school year with each class presenting dances and theatrical pieces.  Our secondary study group of older students wrote an Andean adaptation of Shakespeare's 'A midsummer night's dream'. They made masks and costumes.  It was a lot of fun.  The character of Bottom was transformed from a donkey into a 'cuy' or guinea pig and 'Inti' the sun presided over everything.





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'Inti' the sun and 'Cuy' in Andean version of 'Midsummer night's dream'.