Before I jet off to Buenos Aires I thought I would share with you guys my experience this weekend living with a Mapuche family in the Auracania region of Chile. The first picture below is the picture of me, Leah and the family I stayed with. The older man next to me is Alejandro, the chief of the community, or the community organizer. Next to him is his wife and the mother of their six children including the Pablo, young guy next to Leah. We had chosen this family because we were told they had a bee farm that we could work with, however we ended up not spending any time at all with the bees! As a family and as a community they have been working hard to create an autonomous economy through tourism, artisan crafts, and traditional farming practices. The chilean government has continually repress the Mapuche people for years and years and this community is one of the more positive examples of how the Mapuche people have conserved their culture and thrived in a harsh political, social and cultural environment. Sadly, many Mapuche have left the traditional way of life in search of jobs in the Santiago area, where most of Mapuche are found today. When given the choice to spend the weekend in a cabin with other gringos, or stay with a Mapuche family, there was no question in my mind of what I wanted to do.
We arrived at their home Friday morning after a twelve-hour long bus ride from Valparaiso to Pucon. From Pucon we got bused to Curarrehue, a small community of mostly Mapuche people. The valley in which we stayed was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. The following pictures are different shots I took of the view from their house and the surrounding area. The colors were so bright, the weather was perfect and I couldn't help but tear up a few times at the beauty of it all.
view of Volcan de Villarica from their house:
They farmed sheep! They had probably 100 sheep or so that would constantly be running around the pastures, escaping through the fences and creating mischief! On Saturday they asked us to help the chief find a young male lamb for a friend to kill and eat the next day! However the chief decided not to sell them a lamb because they needed it for their own festivities coming up. We helped corral them but mostly we just watched the chief watch the sheep.
These next two pictures are of the forest where we collected these little berries called dihueñes that I wish I had taken a picture of! They were round and high up in these trees. We had to shake the branches with a bamboo cane to get the berries out. Later we had a sort of quiche-like meal with them and other vegetables. It was not a sweet berry and was used in salty meals. We spent about 2 hours picking these berries and we only ended up with about half a plastic bag full. The forest was unbelievably beautiful, and it seemed more like a fairy tale forest than anything real.
These are the two little boys that we spent the weekend with! On the left is Kona who was a sweet heart and the son of the eldest daughter of the family who has the bee business. On the right is Benjamin who is the son of Pablo, the young guy in the picture above. They were so cute and funny and the whole time were competing for our attention. Benjamin would say, "whoever is macho does this" and then he would do whatever he said was macho. It was very interesting how even as little boys they both felt a sense of macho/men power and they would constantly do things for me and Leah to show their strenght (like take fire wood out of our hands because it was "too heavy for us").
Saturday morning we also had the opportunity to ride one of their two horses! This horse was just beautiful and so well trained. He was an old rodeo horse and those horses are trained very well because of all the specific work they do. He was sensitive and attentive to my demands. It was so, so, so, so exciting to get on the back of a horse again! I was a little nervous at first cause it had been so long but once I was in the saddle it was like I had never left. We only walked around the paddock a few times but it was still a great time.
On Sunday we went on a hike up to the Volcano Villarica and to see the Auracania or "pehuen" trees. These trees are what the Auracania Mapuche primarily fed themselves off of. Below is a picture of of of these trees. There are male and female trees, and the female trees are the only ones that produce the piñones. Piñones are these pine-like, chestnut-tasting things that come from a head-shaped ball of them at the top of the female tree. The Mapuche throw wood up high into these trees to try and knock down the head of piñones. They are beautiful trees that only grow two centimeters a year! Some of the trees we saw on this hike were thousands of years old!
The whole hike had tons of fallen piñones on the ground that had fallen and been frozen by the winter snow. The collection time of the piñones is in March and every three years brings in a larger count than the other years.
This pot is full of cooked piñones that were then made into a sort of mashed potato meal. Butter and cream was added and it was absolutely delicious and I think there is some nutritiuos values in these piñones!
Here is one of the many views of the volcano from our hike! The volcano is 9,341' in elevation and it is no longer active. We essentially ended up at the base of the volcano on our hike and could have easily kept walking up. When I say easily though, I don't mean the hike would be easy! It looked so extremely difficult and steep!
Well it was another great weekend, I think my favorite views so far. The beauty of this part of the country was unreal and I feel so lucky to have experienced it in such a cool way. Hopefully you guys enjoy the pictures and can get a little taste of the beauty. I'm off for a week in Buenos Aires tonight and I'll tell you all of my adventures when I get back! CHAOOOOOOOOO <3
This is amazingly beautiful! How lucky can you be to spend time with these people!
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