Race of the Chasquis, part 3

On the day of the race, we traveled the half hour or so from our site to Sausa to get dressed at Sergio's house. On the way, we came upon a fiesta. Around here, there's a fiesta in one neighborhood or another pretty much every week. We stopped to admire the costumes.

 

At the house, Sergio gave us a room to get changed in. The transformation began.

 While Laura braided Kristi's hair, Stasia took the opportunity to get my help with the statistics section of her master's thesis proposal. We worked out the research design and determined the number of participants she needs to see whether gender, age and length of time as a resident predict accuracy of medicinal plant knowledge in her community. It's an interesting study.

Once they were in costume, our doughty chasquis got their numbers and were labelled with their home towns.

Then it was quiz time. Professor Henoch Loyoza was in charge of the test. Each runner had to demonstrate her or his knowledge of chasquis. Kristi went first and got easy questions like "what is a chasqui?"  Laura went second, and got moderately hard questions like ""what was the purpose of the quipu?" By the time he got to Stasia, the questions were really tough, like "why is your headband red?" and "how were chasquis chosen?"

Once the test was over, all the runners lined up for photos in the street. At that point, there were 4 men in the men's competition, and just three in the women's competition, all from Peace Corps. Our confidence was running high. 

Everyone hopped in cars and rode downhill to the place where the race would begin. The competitors crossed the river on the footbridge.

and walked along the railroad tracks toward where the race would begin.

At the starting line, our team warmed up.

Then, suddenly, some additional entrants arrived. The Peace Corps racers found themselves facing competition. These women were rumored to be strong runners and their feathers were much bigger than ours.

We could no longer be assured of capturing first, second and third place. An strategy conference ensued.

Undaunted, the Peace Corps racers vowed to run their best.

In any case, it's all about intercultural exchange, not winning, right?
What an impressive sight the 10 runners were, in their Incan clothing, blowing their pututos.

Finally, the moment came. The women lined up and began the race.

 followed by the men.

Off they went, up the hill and along the route described in the post "Race of the Chasquis, part 1". The rest of us observers walked back along the railroad tracks, over the bridge, got into cars, drove up the hill, past the road construction, into Sausa and to the finish line, only to discover that several of the racers had gotten there before us! But we did get to see some of the later runners come in.

Unfortunately, the race course was unmarked and three of the runners got lost on the mountainside. They turned up eventually, but it did cause frustration for those competitors. Everyone was very sorry about that and swore to do better next year. The racers rested and drank chica morada for a while, then walked back through the plaza, and then to Sergio's house.

Of the women, this marathon runner from Jauja took first place

Kristi took second place and Stasia took third.

and Chasqui was in second place among the men.

Then, there was a lunch, with speeches, pachamanca

and beverages.

We gave a radio interview after lunch. It's gratifying that I can now speak Spanish well enough to give a reasonably articulate explanation of what Peace Corps is, why we're in Junin, and how the Race of the Chasquis relates to the Peace Corps goals to increase understanding between the people of the United States and the people of Peru.

For a little while, we helped the Incan chasquis live again. Then it was back to modern Peru, our normal clothing and regular lives. But it was definitely a project I'll always remember; a highlight of my Peace Corps service.

Race of the chasquis, part 2

     In my last post, I described a little bit about the planning process for the Race of the Chasquis, and how Kristi and I went with Sergio, Tomas and Chasqui to walk the route. Sergio and Tomas were two of the organizing team, and Chasqui ran in the race. His name is really Abel, but he goes by Chasqui. He's a marathon runner. He once ran the length of the Inca road from Ecuador, the whole length of Peru, and to Bolivia, in a period of 3 months. So he's earned the right to the name of Chasqui. He helped us a lot with getting ready for the race.
     Our Peace Corps entrants were my sitemate Kristi, and two other environment volunteers: Stasia and Laura. They arrived the afternoon before the race. We gathered in Chasqui's art studio to finish the racers' costumes. Chasqui painted designs on the tunics.

     Each runner was required to carry a quipu, so we made them. A quipu is a message system that the Inca used by tying knots onto lengths of string of various colors. The knots could indicate time, place, number and some nouns. A quipu could carry information like "bring 60 llamas to stable 6 in Cusco in 3 weeks and we'll pay you 413 coins for them". No one knows exactly how to translate quipus anymore. We certainly don't. Our quipus probably said "two Guinea pigs April".

     We started the quipus by rolling thread into thicker strings. It's easier with two people.

It's also easier if you lick your hands first.

It took quite a while, but it was fun. We were happy to get to spend time with Stasia and Laura, who live north of here, several hours away by bus. We rolled...

 and rolled...

and rolled.

until we had a pile of quipu strings. Then we tied knots (two guinea pigs april?) and constructed the quipus.

We also made knee fringes for each of the runners.

Meanwhile, Chasqui kept on painting tunics.

The costumes also had to have a pututo, which is a conch shell horn. I bought the shells on vacation in Paracas, and Chasqui made the blow holes. None of us could make more than a squeal on them. Fortunately, there were no points awarded for being able to play the things. Each chasqui also had to wear a red headband (red means from Sausa) which we sewed up, and into which we stuck a feather. The costume also included a manta (brightly colored piece of cloth), a woven belt, a bag and a slingshot. After we finished everything, we went out in the street and practiced with the slingshots, throwing rocks up the dirt road. This drew quite a crowd of small children, who watched us with amazement. Chasqui and four gringas, flinging stones at nothing and laughing.

The final product was pretty impressive: three American Peace Corps volunteers, outfitted as messengers from the long-ago Inca civilization, ready to run a 5k race over a mountain in the Andes.

Race of the Chasquis, part 1

The Inca were famous for their public works projects, one of the most impressive of which is their road system. It stretches throughout Peru, and into Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. After 500 years, much of it is still traceable.The messengers who ran on these roads to deliver messages for the empire were called chasquis.
Our site is close to the intersection of the major north-south Inca Road, (the Capac ñan) and a transverse east-west road that runs from the coast, over the Andes through our valley, and then down to the jungle. The intersection is in Sausa, a few miles from my house. Some people in Sausa, led by Sergio, decided to organize a foot race on the 5 kilometers of the Inca road leading into Sausa. They called it the International Race of the Chasquis. To make it international, they invited Peace Corps to participate. I agreed to be the organizer, which involved a lot of emails and meetings and the job of pulling together the costumes for our runners. That was the coolest part--they ran the 5k race dressed in the traditional outfits of chasquis.

Kristi and I walked the route with several of the organizers prior to the race. The race started at the ruins of an Inca bridge. This is Sergio, the mastermind of the event, with the bridge in the background. The Inca road went steeply up over a hill from there.

We prepared for the ascent.

The Inca roads vary a lot. Some part are very overgrown.

This section was grassy with stones along the sides.

 We found the ruin of a waystation where the chasquis kept supplies for their long-distance runs.

It was a misty day, and the rain was on its way. We could see it in the distance, heading toward us.

When we got to the top of the mountain, we came upon a family who were watching their animals in a high pasture. They invited us to come in under their tarps.

We shared some herbal liquer that Sergio had brought along.

By then it was raining, but we continued on. The views of the villages in the valley below were soft and lovely.

The next section of the Inca road went along the top of a ridge high above the Mantaro River,

and then, finally, down into the town of Sausa where the race would end.

 

It was a help to know what to expect when the day of the race came and it was a pleasant hike. But I think it took a whole day before I felt really warm again, after hiking soaking wet at 12,000 feet. Ah, the Andes...