padre las casas and beyond

My coworker, Francisco, is coordinating a project of building weaving workshops for 15 of the artisans to be able to have a dedicated space in their home for their craft. Today we went to visit two of the women who will be having workshops built. We took the city bus past Padre Las Casas to the end of the line to visit the first artisan. We were told to get off at the ¨trunk¨ bus stop, which of course we missed because it wasn´t a bus stop but a tree stump at the fork in the road. We walked for a half an hour down a dirt road eating blackberries from the vine along the way. Francisco had visited this house before, but it had been almost a year. So we asked someone if they knew where Sra. Iselia lived and he directed us to keep walking, count the houses, and when we got to the fifth house, that would be hers. We finally made it after walking for an hour past countless fields of wheat and eucalyptus trees. When we got to Iselia´s house, she served us instant coffee and bread while we talked to her nephew about agriculture and the education system in Chile. Afterwards, Iselia, a heavyset woman in her 60s, walked with us in shoes that were too big for her, another half hour to her sister´s home where the weaving workshop will be built. We never would have found this place since it was off the main (dirt) road and behind a magical pine forest. We must have jumped three fences to get to the property. Francisco took some measurements of the building site and I took some pictures. Iselia´s sister showed me her current weaving space in a dark shack with a dirt floor. She said it´s difficult to work in the winter because the wind comes in through the slats and it´s really cold. Despite the rustic conditions, her loom and the weaving on it was a beautiful thing to see.