Daily life of an Arhuacos family
The book, La Flamme du Vivant by Valérie Mostert is available. Those pictures are inside the story.
The Arhuacos are an indigenous group in Colombia. They mostly live in the North of Colombia in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range in the Andes.
It is 3 o'clock in the morning. The two twins wake up to light the fire in the traditional way. Little by little, all the women in the family get up and start cooking. At 5am, the men get up and have breakfast before leaving for work. They go to the fields all day and come back at nightfall. Sometimes they also hunt. For the moment, it is the mating season so they do not hunt too much; they do it very little and then leave their dried meat over the fire for the coming weeks.
While waiting for the men's exploits, the women have a lot to do as well when taking care of the house; around 7am, the women start sweeping the floor of the courtyard and the huts. Then they do the dishes and wash their clothes.
The children do what they can to help when the school is closed. If not, there is a school in the village for 3 days a week with teachers who come from the city. It would take more than two days to get to the village on foot.
The women also weave bags and go to harvest small weights for supper. Their meal consists mainly of root vegetables and sometimes meat.
Before supper, everyone goes to the river for a swim, which is a soothing moment for them all. Then, around 7pm, everyone goes to bed and the men stay a while by the fire smoking their poporo, which also symbolises sexual relations: it is offered to young pubescent men when they begin to date young girls.
And then, everyone sleeps and is lulled by the melodies of the moon.
