Patabamba

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Saturday, September 17, 2011 | 5 photos

I am a returning student at the University of Utah. I am working on finishing my Communication degree with a documentary minor. I have a love for people, travel and photography that I have blended together to take in and record the images of different cultures. I went on a humanitarian expedition to Peru with Ascend Alliance. We scrambled up a dusty mountain road to Patabamba, high in the Andes. There I assisted a dentist sterilize his equipment as he treated patients that lined up at the door with a mix curosity mixed and in trepidation in their eyes. After a day of pulling teeth, literally, we watched as the town came together for a festival of dancing and music. A young child with dirty cheeks peeked at me with inquisitiveness. (1 Nino)
The next morning I awoke in the thin air, earlier than the rest of the group. I grabbed my Nikon and favorite lens and went for a morning stroll in the crisp air and morning light. I saw the grandfather of the family I was staying with, come by for breakfast, his shadow adorning the wall of the adobe home. (2 abuelo) In the kitchen breakfast was being crafted by hand with a pinch of salt for flavor. (3 cocinera)
I met a young boy who was drawing water from a channel in the village and he invited me to his home. With my broken Spanish I requested the permission of his mother to respectfully enter their home. I was welcomed in with arms wide open. They dusted off a flat rock and laid a blanket on it to offer me the best seat in the house to watch the mother and daughter duo, begin their daily ritual of weaving. Their hands worked in a familiar rhythm in the traditional fashion learned and passed down from mother to daughter. (4 colores)
As I walked along the river I came across a woman doing her wash in the stream of crystal water. Back bent in pain staking labor of the day’s tasks. (5 lavenderia)

I took in all these images and connected them to home. I felt the connection to me as I saw women providing meals, clean clothes, caring for their children and displaying their artesian skills. I related to the nurture in their lives.
The pictures I have submitted are images from this memorable expedition that etched an image on my heart.
Karen Melby Teerlink