August - the Month of the Burning

                    April-May is the month of harvesting, while August is the month of planting. 
Planting the seeds of different crops now means that by January-February the crops will be ready for harvesting.

After gathering all the crops- corn, green bean, quinoa, grass in during the two months of April and May, the land rests until August, with all the roots and stems left to dry.

Corn takes 6 months to grow fully while grass only three.


A corn field in the day-time. All the of the stems are being pulled out, with the root, and thrown into a pile. They make many piles and as they do, they burn each pile. If they is luck, there is wind, spreading the fire, making them less work.

 Antonia, one of the workers in Willka Tika- she is actually Carol's "right hand". She is everyone's boss, and Carol is hers. She and her family, Eulogio- husband and Cristian, 11 year old son- without an "h", have kind of adopted me. In the last few weeks there have been no guests at Willka Tika, so I have been sleeping in their house, helping them around the house, cooking, eating with them and working in their field. Just behind Willka Tika, hidden away from the road, Antonia has a small house and a field, which Eulogio often works at. Many years ago, before she had a family, Antonia lived there, and later her brother, Mario, who also works in Willka Tika lived there with his growing family. Two years ago, he moved away with his wife and young son to a different house, a lot bigger, which is still being reconstructed, and left the house. Since then, no one has lived there. A few weeks ago, Antonia decided to start kind of like a project with that house, bringing it back to shape. Her plan is, in the next year, to grow a garden, paint the walls, build a proper kitchen and later rent it out.

To get the house back to living conditions a lot of work has to still be done- we already have done a lot- but not enough. Just last week we worked one whole day in the house, planting seeds for grass for the guinea pigs using bulls, collecting all the dry leaves to burn, cutting down huge eucalyptus tree and gathering all the wood for fire. 

I have been surprised by how many eucalyptus trees there are in this area. The cover the house completely. The guests who come into WIllka Tika have no idea there re houses just behind that wall
of stone and trees. These tree leave many dry leaves-  here you see Cristian to the left, Eulogio to the right and Antonia in the middle collecting both the leaves and the dry corn stems to burn.

                     Could you even have guessed that Willka Tika is just 100m from this place?