My Blanky and Me

In Peru, one very common way to carry things is in a blanket on one's back. This can include anything from children to food to....well, pretty much, you name it and it's carried this way. The Quechua word for this blanket is q'eperina, which literally means "a thing for carrying stuff on your back". (I can't take credit for this picture, unfortunately. I found it on the Internet.) You must keep in mind that this is a very traditional Andean way of doing things. It is not generally used by anyone except traditional Andean people. So when I asked for a q'eperina for Christmas the other year, I knew I'd get some strange looks when I used it. And I have. I've gotten the whole gamut of reactions, from people laughing outright to others saying that I look beautiful to people remarking to other people on the bus about the gringa with her q'eperina to the beginning of conversations to people just looking at me funny. It can be rather uncomfortable, so I don't make a daily habit out of making a spectacle of myself in this manner. I have, however, done it a number of times now. I've also realized that there are some distinct advantages to carrying things in this manner. The most exciting one is that it keeps your upper arms warm. Since this is the first part of my body that usually gets cold, it's perfect for me. :) It's also easier to carry things on your back than in your arms and you can carry a whole lot (like an entire wheelbarrow full of grass....yup, been there done that) or carry stuff that melts (like ice) without it melting all over the place (been there done that too). Furthermore, it's safer. I've never heard of q'eperina slashing or of q'eperina pickpocketing, but purses are another story. Yeah, it's a handy thing. So here are some funny stories from some of my q'eperina adventures, just to lighten your day a bit.

Bolivia, January 2009
Okay, so I'm in the middle of nowhere between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, Bolivia with my friend Mari, going to visit her brother. And there's this big landslide and the road is blocked. So we have to walk for about two hours with all our stuff to get to the other side of the landslide and continue our journey in bus. She's got wheels on her suitcase, but I am not that technologically advanced. I have a full backpack and a duffel bag. So she suggests that we wrap everything up in my fleece blanket and put it on my back. This sounds like an excellent idea to me (keeping in mind that it's easier to carry things on one's back than in one's arms). So we stop right in front of a group of people from the country who were laughing at us throughout this entire process because neither of us know what we're doing. We arrange things about 3 times in the blanket till we finally get it right. So finally we get it and between the two of us, we heave the bundle onto my back. I'm really excited about it at this point. I tie it around my shoulders and we begin to walk. I quickly realize that fleece is stretchier than I ever realized. The blanket starts stretching and streeeeetching and streeeeeeeeeeeeeetching and soon I am doubled over walking and the bundle is wanting to shift down to about my knees (this is no longer the genius idea it once seemed). After about 50 feet of this, I turn to my friend and we mutually decide to go back to square one and keep walking like we were before. It gave us a good laugh though.

Joint worship service, November 2009
A little-known advantage of a q'eperina is that if you have food in it, it's like a ready-made picnic. Open the blanket and spread it on the ground, put the food on top of it, and voila! So for the joint worship service with all the Mennonite churches, I brought lunch in my q'eperina. (It also is handy for keeping things warm). I had my backpack with some things in it, as well. After the service, as I was getting ready to go, it began to rain. Juggling an umbrella, a backpack, a q'eperina and someone's left-behind big blanket was not working and the idea of a 20-minute trek like this was not so promising. So I put my backpack on, put the q'eperina around my shoulders on top of the backpack, put up my umbrella, and lugged the blanket in my arms. It looked rather ridiculous and made my roommate and I laugh, but it worked!

Huancaro Fair, June 2010
Every year in Cusco, there is a big fair called the Huancaro Fair. It's a lot like the small-town ag fairs in PA, just bigger and with different kinds of food and animals (you never saw a guinea pig farm with a stand at the Lampeter Fair, did you?) Becca (one of the other English teachers) and I went with our friend Pilar, one of the teachers at school on Cusco Day, June 24, since we had off school. (The picture is of Pilar and I). I took my q'eperina folded up in my purse, mainly for sitting purposes. Then Pilar decided she wanted to buy oranges and a papaya. We were lugging them around in plastic grocery bags for a while before it occurred to me that I was in possession of an easier way to carry these things. So we found a space, spread the q'eperina out and put everything in it. I then put it on my back and we continued enjoying the fair. I was nice and toasty and carrying the fruit and all our stuff was easier, so, aside from some funny looks, it was great! Then Pilar and Becca needed to go to the bathroom. I had soap with me, but of course it was in the q'eperina. So I took it off, gave them the soap and then had to re-form the bundle and put it back on my back. I put everything in the middle, wrapped the q'eperina around it, grabbed the two free corners and swung it onto my back, just like I've seen Andean ladies do hundreds of times. Unfortunately, I am not an Andean lady and I don't have the skill that they do. For whatever unknown reason, the papaya, the bag of oranges, my purse and the water bottle from my q'eperina all fell out in quick succession on the ground. Several women walking by saw and started laughing as I assessed the situation with "Well, that didn't work!" They kept going, then came back and said, "No, señorita, that's not how you do it. Here, let me help you." So one of them put all the stuff in a pile in the middle of the blanket, knotted two of the corners, then said, "Now you can put it on". So I did and it worked. I was laughing to myself at the ridiculousness of the situation and shared the laughter with Becca and Pilar when I told them what had happened. We then left the fair to go home and, waiting to cross the street, stood right beside a police officer. He looked over at me, grinned and said "How's your baby?" (since a lot of times people carry babies in this fashion. Playing right along, I grinned back and said "Fine". We all had a good laugh; then we crossed the street and got on a bus that would take us home. There was no room on the bus so we had to stand and we were standing for about 45 minutes during the drive home. I couldn't sit down to open the bundle and give Pilar her fruit when she had to get off, so I pulled it around my body so it was in front and she pulled her stuff out. Then I put it under my arm so it was crossing my body and stayed with it like that till I got home. At one point, nearing home, someone vacated a seat and a man standing near me said "Señorita, sit down". I don't mind standing on buses, but I didn't argue. As I sat down, he looked over at me shoving my water bottle farther into my bundle and said, "Oh, I thought that was a baby!" I laughed at that one. (Nursing babies here is not a private ordeal. You're on a bus and your baby's screaming because it's hungry. So you turn your q'eperina around and start nursing your baby, no covering required. My q'eperina was in perfect nursing position and, looking at it later, it really did look like a baby.)

So those are my most memorable q'eperina stories. It's always an adventure trying to mix cultures and never more than when I'm carrying stuff on my back. They laugh at me, but I think they like it. So I'll keep having adventures with my q'eperina and let them laugh.