During our last week before the winter break and family reunion, we spent time in Quito meeting three potential partners. The first was Karla Rodríguez of KUN Eco Fibres. After having spent the weekend with her and her partner, they had offered us to join them to one of the indigenous communities they work with, to see what their mission is about. We gladly excepted and, early Monday morning, embarked on a lengthy drive through the Andes and into the Riobamba region.
Upon arrival, we were greeted by some very excited children from the community. Karla explained that they visit them regularly. Today, they brought essential medical supplies to the remote location, and were going to offer basic vaccinations to the children. And, to ensure the experience would be positive as a whole for the children, they planned some fun activities to lighten the mood - kids are not usually thrilled about vaccinations! So to distract, various activities were arranged, and on Karla's request, Gabriel and I taught an improvised guitar version of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, including the choreography. A football match concluded the day, and the kids were just as sad as us about our departure.
To many of you, a pertinent question might arise: what does all this have to do with fair fashion and alpacas? For us, this trip was a way of verifying that the communities Karla works with benefit significantly from the cooperation. The medical and educational support provided during this visit, paired with the great time the kids and teachers had, prove just that. We thus see a good case for working with KUN Eco Fibras.
On Tuesday, we got to talk business. Karla showed us her workshop, where the magic happens. First, she classifies the different parts of the alpaca fibre she receives. Her classification is based on hue, fineness and contaminación, a term used to describe the percentage of thicker and thus potentially itchy hairs found in the fibre. She also reports the quality back to the communities, recommending which animals to breed for better quality, and thus higher income. After classification, she washes and brushes the fibre, and finally produces the high-quality felt required for her lovely products. Later this week, we also purchased some wool and product samples, and are strongly considering further co-operation with KUN Eco Fibres.
This week also saw two other introductory meetings, with Yolanda Huaman from Q'inti, as well as the mother-in-law of the founder of PAQOCHA. Yolanda works intimately with various communities to produce alpaca products and wool, and the brief meeting highlighted her ability to reliably provide alpaca yarn in larger amounts. If the samples we purchased prove to be of good quality, she could be a great potential partner. The next day, we visited PAQOCHA's show room, where we learned that the organisation has a vision similar to ours, providing high-quality, traceable alpaca products. We purchased a beautiful scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves for our grandmother's 80th birthday and are excited to learn more about the project when we meet its founder Felipe. Both Q'inti and PAQOCHA are promising partners, and we look forward to meeting them again after the winter break.