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This woman with the big smile and even bigger heart has overcome
incredible hardships, but sees each new day as an opportunity for success.
Timotea Quispe de Bautista is a native of Ayacucho, Peru, a centuries old Andean city
perched 8,000 feet above sea level.
Illiteracy is widespread in this area, and many people, like Timotea, speak only Quechuan,
the ancient language of the Incas.
Timotea and her family have overcome much more than language barriers however, surviving the
ruthless "peasant revolution" in the late seventies carried out by the Shining Path
whose brutality touched peasants, trade union organizers, popularly elected officials and the
general civilian population.
The angels she and her family carve from the stone found in the mountains here are a true
symbol of the strength of the human spirit.
To learn more about Timotea and why One World Projects is honored to be her very first
export customer for these stone angel decorations, please continue reading below.
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Timotea's Hand Carved
Stone Angel Decorations
$14.00
About 2.5" high, 1.75" wide x .75" deep.
FINCA:ST-ORN-ANGL-S
The instruments the angel holds vary.
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We also offer these hand-carved stone angels without the ornament loop.
The small angel is about the same size as the hanging ornament, plus there's a larger angel, also.
Small Standing Angel |
About 2.5" high, 1.75" wide x .75" deep |
FINCA:ST-ANGL-S |
$11.50 |
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Large Standing Angel |
About 3.5" high, 2" wide |
FINCA:ST-ANGL-L |
$19.50 |
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The Shining Path destroyed families and villages
In the late 1970's when the Shining Path was organizing its plans to overthrow Peru,
the newlywed teenager and her husband Juan were settling into a small farm in the
mountain village of Vincheros.
Through hard work and saving they accumulated a few animals which they bred and sold in order
to continue reinvesting in their future.
Their future looked bright with two newborn sons and a third on the way.
The Shining Path would destroy that future, terrorizing the Peruvian countryside by murdering
civilians and dismantling infrastructure.
The very group this movement claimed to support was the one that suffered the most cold-blooded killings.
Timotea and her family were no exception.
Timotea and Juan spent years working their farm by day and hiding in a mountain cave at night,
until one night when their cave (and all the belongings in it) were flooded out by a torrential storm.
Forced back into their home, the Shining Path finally caught up with them.
Timotea and her now five children were away, but her husband and other family members were
home when Shining Path terrorists broke into the house, murdered all of Juan's brothers and sisters
and kidnapped his nephew who was later found dead after being brutally tortured.
During this reign of terror many of Timotea's neighbors and friends also were murdered,
houses were burned to the ground and livestock was systematically killed.
Many people just disappeared - whether they escaped the terrorists to live as internal refugees or
whether they were murdered, she will probably never know.
Timotea leaves with what's left of her family and enters true poverty
Like so many others, Timotea and her family saw no alternative but to set off on foot to the closest city,
Ayacucho, with nothing more than the grace to be alive and the clothes on their backs.
Every way of life Timotea and Juan had ever known was useless in their new world.
Without capital to purchase livestock or sufficient land to graze, they could not return to agriculture to make a living.
With the flood of internal refugees, job opportunities were scarce.
Even when the terror ended and the economy improved, Timotea and Juan had little chance of finding
employment since they have no formal education and only speak in the antiquated Quechuan.
For eight years, the family lived in a degree of poverty unimaginable to most of us.
The seven family members wore the same clothing they had on their backs the night they fled
from the terrorists. They ate when they could, subsisting on potatoes.
When they couldn't grow food or afford it, the family went hungry and patient until the next meal came.
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To cut the large pieces of stone into properly size pieces takes about 1-2 hours
of very hard work - per cut! |
Carving out a future - with your help
But with plenty of time and a team of seven potential workers,
Timotea and Juan began teaching themselves how to carve crude animal figures from the stone
that is commonly found in the mountains.
Eventually they opened a small booth in the local artisan market and could sell enough to ensure no one
went to bed hungry and all had a roof over their heads.
Today Timotea works with her daughters and sons, and with a 3-year old grandchild at their feet.
Through a generous gift of the Nantucket Tennis Club which sells
One World Projects' products in an annual fundraiser, we are setting up an equipment bank.
This will include bench grinders and cordless rotary "dremel" tools to complement the hack saws,
chisels, rubber mallets, files, and sand paper typically used to create these products.
The tools will be available to the more than 500 artisans carving in Ayacucho, and each workshop
can purchase goods with a long payment period. Profits from sales can be used to buy more tools.
Tools are only useful with knowledge on how to use and care for them.
So via FINCA Peru (www.fincaperu.net/es/ - Spanish site),
One World Projects will create a training workshop to bring
highly skilled, Ecuadorian tagua nut carvers to Ayacucho to work with Timotea and others like her.
See tagua nut carvings from Ecuador here.
For information about how you can contribute to this effort,
please email us at owp-info@oneworldprojects.com.
And we offer our thanks to Kassi Sande, Founder FINCA Peru Exports,
for much of the information provided here.
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43 Ellicott Ave 