RECUERDOS | SOUVENIRS

Photo: Anthea Clarke

‘Recuerdos’ is the Spanish word for souvenir.  It stems from the Spanish verb ‘recordar’ – meaning to record or remember. In this sense, the souvenir goes beyond being a simple objectification of one’s journey, instead becoming a tool with which to carry memories that attach themselves to people and places. I was recently remembering Ollantaytambo in Peru - the tiny cobble stone village where I volunteered for a few weeks. I was working with Awamaki, an NGO which supports the livelihoods of indigenous Quechua women through fair trade initiatives and sustainable tourism. I was involved in their marketing and tourism sector, helping to produce a cultural immersion tour that is to be directed towards international fashion students wanting to learn more about the local culture and their weaving and dying practices. Whilst working as an assistant at their fair trade store in the village I was drawn to a vintage jacket that just came into the store. Part of the costume the weavers wear daily, it was hand sewn, made with a striking rust coloured hemp like material, finished with a peculiar pattern of white and coloured buttons that reminds you of your childhood. When I wear it now, I remember the women sitting in the cobble stone pathways wearing their red jackets and black billowing multi-layered skirts. Attached to their waists would be looms that they would use to record their daily life and history, detailing their weavings with images of Spanish colonial ships, condors and baby llamas.

‘Recuerdos’ are the gifts you give to others, mementos of your travels. One day as I was wandering to the main square where the annual ‘Choquekilka’ festival was taking place (a fun-filled four day fiesta of dancing, beer and guinea pig eating), I ran into another volunteer photographing kids playing in the cobble stone irrigation ditches. Perhaps she was American, there are lots of ‘gringo’ tourists in Peru, I thought. Unbeknownst to us both, she not only lived in the homestay house directly behind me, but she was also from the same city as me….Canberra of all places! She had been feeling quite homesick and was glad to have finally met someone with the same ‘occa’ accent. Not only that, we had coincidentally traveled to Cuba at exactly the same time and both shared a love of hipster holga photography and the idea of wanderlust; an impulse desire to travel and rove about. Before she had to return to Australia, she gave me a hand woven and beaded black and white ‘senkapa’ she had purchased from the Awamaki store. Commonly used as a headband, I now wrap it around my hand as a friendship bracelet to remind me of the time I met home on the other side of the world.

‘Recuerdos’ not only acts as a way of remembering the past, but also as a way of envisioning the present or the future. I think about the geometric beaded head-dress I picked up In Iquitos, a little city on the edge of the Amazon Basin.  My friend and I were there to go on a shamanic medicine tour to check out an enigmatic phenomenon called ‘ayahuasca’, an hallucinogenic natural drug that once consumed allows you to see visions of the ‘future’ and animals from the jungle. Before leaving for the tour, I had a perusal of the local craft market and was immediately struck by the intricate geometric patterns expressed in local pottery, clothing and jewelry made by the residing Shipibo tribe. I immediately spotted a handbeaded white, yellow and black head-dress that was being painstakingly beaded, one by one. I was so excited to purchase it that I kept coming back to check on it, every hour to see when it would finally be finished. I later discovered that my ayahuasca trip and handbeaded souvenir were actually connected as the refined geometric patterns are sometimes produced whilst the female artisans are high on ayahuasca, allowing them to invoke their cosmic visions of the universe; the geometric patterns referencing their idea that the jungle and constellation are connected as one.

Most importantly, ‘recuerdos’ remind us of our journey from place to place. I remember when I crossed the Andes over from Santiago, Chile, into Mendoza, Argentina the iced capped mountains looking so serene, the sunlight fading into the background. I was clutching onto a “Trapelakucha”, a giant silver pendant I had picked up in Santiago. I remember scurrying around the different venders, trying to find out as much information as I possibly could on the strikingly enigmatic silverware. In her swift Chilean Spanish, a woman explained that the two birds represent the equilibrium between man and woman; the top representing el cielo (the sky) spiritual plane whilst the bottom pentagon shaped plate symbolising la tierra (the earth). Binding the two are three silver links, a metaphorical staircase representing the mapuche’s journey between the two worlds. It is especially worn by woman to offer protection, kind of like a badge of honour and grace. When I wear it now, I’ll always remember what it represents, and the journey it took me to get there.

Whilst voyaging around South America and Cuba, I picked up some handicrafts. Click on an item to learn it's story.

Photography by Anthea Clarke