Last year our Garza Viva manager Andrea was approached by the interior designer of the new Aventura Mall in Iquitos to produce a large hanging array of jungle animals to greet people entering the mall.
She spent months working with this designer and four artisans to make dozens of colorful balsa wood birds and giant chambira butterflies. The birds included an egret, tiger heron, toucan, macaws and a kingfisher. When we stopped at the mall after visiting the aquarium, I loved seeing these creatures twirl around in a mild breeze.
The artisans from Padre Cocha who made the birds and artisans from Amazons who wove the butterflies were very proud to have their creations displayed where thousands of people could see them.
Our final stop was visiting an artisan by the river in Iquitos. We had seen a purple gallinule on a mural the day before, so it was fun to see real birds walking on water plants with their long yellow toes. Their natural diet is snails and other aquatic creatures, but they were happy to gobble up bits of bread that Nixon tossed them.
I was most happy to hear the Chino artisans wanted to resume attending our bird ornament workshops. Half of them have made some birds based on what they learned five years ago, but they were eager to improve the quality of these woven animals they could sell to their visitors and have secure sales to us.
I selected a few baskets laid out on benches and placed an order for elegant two-color models. Lindy reported good progress making lady bug ornaments and planned to attend our artisan facilitator training. We were happy the group looked forward to hosting a bird-making workshop in July with artisans from 3 Tahuayo communities.
When I started attending their annual meetings in different parts of the US, I knew I had found an important new tribe. Many of these enterprises were started by former Peace Corp volunteers, mission oriented people from churches and others like me who had had a life-changing experience meeting traditional artisans.
