Across Cultures: A Visit From Our Sister School in Peru
Last week, our school community received a very special visit Roman Vizcarra, a Quechua educator, activist, and founding member of Waldorf-inspired Kusi Kawsay Andean School in Pisac, Peru. Roman’s much-anticipated visit to our school was another chapter in the long-term collaboration between the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training (BACWTT), Marin Waldorf School, and Kusi Kawsay.
Since 2013, students and teachers from BACWTT and Marin Waldorf School have been visiting Kusi Kawsay through a collaboration we call The Tinkuy Project. Tinkuy is a Quechuan word for an exchange of ideas, experiences, and values. It describes the experience of encountering another being or culture with a deep level of respect and with the intention of truly seeing who and what is there.
During his visit this spring, Roman taught lessons in our grades classrooms, played the pan flute for kindergartners, and spoke and facilitated discussion at our faculty meeting after school, discussing the importance of reviewing our curriculum with a rigorous eye toward cultural diversity.
Roman’s visits are a highlight of the school year, and we look forward to the next time we meet! Below, we’d like to share reflections Hollyhock lead teacher Ms. Kimi about Roman’s visit to the kindergarten classrooms.
The Kindergartners gathered around Roman as he shared stories about his village and how music and dance are at the heart of every aspect of life and all celebrations in Peru.
He described how the Andean people do a special dance that helps to make the potatoes grow, they even pour a little bit of libations on the soil; for this makes the potatoes happy and when you eat these happy potatoes, you are taking in this happiness.
Roman then reached down into his brightly colored hand-woven satchel to produce his Andean pan flutes. He told us how people in his country bring their flutes with them wherever they go, to play songs for the wind, for the trees and for the animals and birds; to converse with them. We listened, as he played for us and for the birds and the wind.
He then invited us to join him in a rousing dance around our yard. We made a VERY long train, each of us holding the waist of the friend in front of us, as Roman joyously led us, playing now on his drum as he danced us around the yard. Everything came to a joyous conclusion as Roman gradually led our long line of dancers into a spiral; as our spiral wound in upon itself, we found ourselves increasingly bound together, unable to move any further and all that remained dancing was our laughter!
What a treat it was to have him come and share a bit of time with us! Thank you, Roman!
—Kimi Keating, Hollyhock lead teacher, May 2024
(Photos and video by Rod DeRienzo, Hollyhock assistant teacher)