A Visit with Maurelio Huaraca

Recently the board of Ten Thousand Villages traveled to Peru to visit some of the artisans that make the products that they sell.  Yannina Meza, Director of Manos Amigas, coordinated their visit and Alison, Simon and I were fortunate to be able to tag along.  One artisan we met was Maurelio Huaraca.

Maurelio Huaraca

We drove to the town of Lurin, just outside of Lima, to visit the ceramics workshop of Maurelio Huaraca.  Maurelio moved to Lima when he was 14 to get away from the terrorism that plagued much of the Peruvian countryside at that time.  Maurelio lives in a modest home  with his family and makes ceramic figures using traditional Peruvian techniques. 

The technique was originally used for making utilitarian pieces but he has adapted it for making decorative pieces for export. He learned the trade from his father as he played in his father’s workshop as a child.  The figures which most frequently are nativity scenes are a combination of molded and hand formed clay.  Maurelio makes the molds by hand and the molded part serves as the base of his pieces.  He then hand forms pieces such as a head, arms, and so on and attaches them to the molded base. He uses natural colors and traditional glazes for his pieces.

(Maurelio formed this piece off one of the molds pictured in about 30 seconds as we watched)

His bestselling item is the storyteller.  He has sold approximately 2,000 of these pieces a year for the past 10 years.  Sales of all his items have decreased in recent years.  He has definitely been impacted by the world recession.  He is one of 5 brothers and they all do this type of work.  Depending on the level of orders he has, he is able to hire more people to work with him. When he doesn’t have enough orders, he has to find different work to make ends meet. 



(Maurelio holds up his best selling piece.  He describes the woman as reading the Bible to children)



Manos Amigas and other fair trade export organizations help Maurelio sell his work in the US and other export markets.  Through Manos Amigas, Maurelio has been selling his pieces to Ten Thousand Villages for 18 years.



(Maurelio holding a nativity scene purchased by Ten Thousand Villages and sold at Global Gifts.)



(Maurelio's daughter at the entrance to their home just beyond the workshop.)



(Maurelio holding a piece I purchased)

Simon Makes Friends

I am amazed at the ease at which Simon makes friends. With his blond hair he certainly stands out.  And his smile seems to win folks over with no trouble at all.

I appreciate the time he stopped to chat with an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair at the airport and I was impressed when a complete stranger recently handed over her dog so he could walk it. 

It was great to hear from Alison how he met a boy close to his age at the playground and they had a good time playing together. 

 But recently at the Lima airport, Simon found a particularly good friend.  He saw a little girl, about his age and ran up to her and stared (his typical approach).  Soon they were crawling on the ground and giggling together. 

But heads did turn when the little girl took Simon with both hands and kissed him on the mouth - - repeatedly.  Simon didn’t seem to mind a bit.  In fact, afterwards he ran in circles laughing.