Oaxaca Knitting & Culinary Adventures, February 9-16, 2014 page 1

Oaxaca Knitting and Culinary Adventures with Cat Bordhi, Jim Petkiewicz, and Arturo Ortega — February 9-16, 2014

Our home in Oaxaca is Casa Arnel in the historic art-filled Jalatlaco barrio of Oaxaca City. You will have the comfort and familiarity of sleeping in the same bed every night while your days overflow with a kaleidoscope of colors and experiences. You’ll love the breakfasts, gardens, hammocks, parrots, and location. Wifi is included.

Jim (Pecko), Cat, and ArturoRead our bios on page 4.

Our team includes world-famous knitting teacher, designer, and story-teller Cat Bordhi, never-cold philanthropist and knitter Jim Pet-kiewicz (also known as Pecko), and anthropolo-gist and award-winning musician and budding knitter Arturo Ortega. Altogether we are 247% bilingual and have lived in Mexico for 57 years. We are experts at making, sharing, and eating artisan helado, sourdough pan, and sopas.

Fees for this trip support Community Links International, a rocking nonprofit dedicated to sustainably changing communities through holistic engagement in central California, highland Peru and south-central Mexico. We are jazzed by, and dedicated to, environmental sanity & healing, community-based education with kids and their families and right relation-ships. For more information, just ask Pecko (peckos@me.com).

Once you sign up you will receive FAQs as well as access to Cat’s ever-growing interactive dictionary of Spanish and English knitting and textile terms. We are dedicated to awakening and nourishing your curiosity and heart to deepen your experience of the beauty of the people, cultures, and places we will share with you.

Oaxaca Knitting & Culinary Adventures, February 9-16, 2014 page 2

Day 1 (Sunday): We will meet you at the Oaxaca Airport and bring you to our home away from home: Casa Arnel. You may nap if needed to adjust to the mile-high altitude, and then emerge to explore our surroundings at your own pace. This evening we’ll gather for our welcome sup-per of Oaxacan fare at the Casa, share more details about our week together, and our community will begin to form.

Day 2 (Monday): Breakfast at the Casa is included daily. After breakfast we’ll meet in the beautiful upstairs open-air terrace for knitting class with Cat (she is designing a special project for you and is always glad to help you with any other projects you bring along). At noon we’ll all stroll to the Zocalo and introduce you to points of interest and suggest restaurants to suit your preferences. Lunch and dinner are on your own and the afternoon is free to explore the centro historico, Santo Domingo, museos, etc.

Day 3 (Tuesday): After breakfast we’ll gather for our knitting class, followed by free time and lunch on your own. At one o’clock we’ll depart for Santa Ana del Valle for an after-noon dyeing session with the master Zapotec weaver, Ernesto Martinez, and his family. Dinner is on your own in the centro historico, where you may already have a collection of favorite spots and people.

Oaxaca Knitting & Culinary Adventures, February 9-16, 2014 page 3

Day 4 (Wednesday): After breakfast we’ll leave at nine o’clock for a visit to the Monte Alban archaelogical site. Lunch is on your own at the site’s lovely cafe with its valley views. Then we’ll return to our Casa and set you free for anything you choose: more explora-tion, knitting in the gardens, visiting the mercado, who knows? Dinner is on your own.

Day 5 (Thursday): After breakfast we’ll depart to go shopping with a lo-cal chef-abuelita and then join her at her family’s home for a mole-making class (including arroz, frijoles negros, corn tortillas, salsas, jugo de jamaica, chapulines, guacamole, etc.) and then share the feast we have prepared. We will also receive a presentation from Mijail Zarate and enjoy a tasting of his international award-winning organic Mezcal Embajador. Evening is free in the centro historico.

Day 6 (Friday): After breakfast, at 9 we’ll depart for a textile intercambio in Jalieza (with lunch provided) and will also stop at Centro Mundial de la Cochinilla (a museum dedicated to the red dye, cochinilla). You’ll have some free afternoon time in the centro historico and then we’ll regather for our evening goodbye recep-tion (aguas frescas, vinos, mezcal, tlayudas) at Demos Art Gallery & Taller. Live music provided by our very own Arturo Ortega.

Day 7 (Saturday): Either brown-bag snack or breakfast at the Casa, then off to the Oaxaca airport for departures....

Oaxaca Knitting & Culinary Adventures, February 9-16, 2014 page 4

If you have any questions about traveling in Mexico More than twenty million US citizens visited Mexico during 2012. There is no travel advisory for Oaxaca. We have experience in Oaxaca dating back to 1985. Arturo lives near Mexico City, and Jim lived and worked in Oaxaca with his wife and two children for 8 years. For more information about travel in Mexico: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_970.html#page

Your Trip LeadersCat Bordhi’s mission, according to Stephanie Pearl McPhee, “is to make you a more creative, freethink-ing knitter who problem-solves and experiments with vigor and fearlessness. The best part? She can.” Cat’s Youtube knitting tutorials exceed 3,000,000 views, and her 7 innovative knitting books and award-winning novel, Treasure Forest, have reached hundreds of thousands of readers. Cat founded the synergis-tic Visionary Authors in 2003, resulting in a stream of spirited, independently published knitting books and a powerful and generous force for good. She has a BA in Russian from the University of California, a teaching credential from Western Washington University, and has done cartwheels in eight different countries. For more information, visit catbordhi.com.

Jim Petkiewicz holds a BA in History from Georgetown University and a Masters in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico. After extensive time in language and cultural immersion programs in Bolivia and Peru, he and his wife Mags moved their young family to Oaxaca to work with community organizations dedicated to the protection of human rights, peace and justice, and democratic education. Jim is the co-founder and president of Community Links International (www.commlinks.org) and a co-founder of Frog Tree Yarns, a not-for-profit Fair Trade company that supports the same values. Small children and dogs fall in love with Jim in nano-seconds.

Arturo Ortega is an anthroplogist, educator, and song writer, with 28 years of experience working with international delegations in several countries throughout North, Central, and South America. He has worked with a multitude of American universities and high schools and has led thousands of U.S students into the realities of Latin America. He co-founded Community Links International with Jim Petkiewicz. His musical work Teoría Híbrida won the 10th anual Independent Music Awards. His fluency in English is the result of loving and memorizing virtually every Beatle song decades ago, and he can (and will!) sing almost any of their songs upon request, accompanying himself on one of his guitars.

Price, and additional Community Links Sponsorship opportunities$2100 for double occupancy (single occupancy supplement $300), all breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 dinners, all group transportation, all group activities, and a yarn kit for the group project in the color of your choice. If you bring a friend, you will receive a discount of $150 per person—$1950 per person.CLI Sponsor levels: Payment in excess of the basic fees above qualifies as a tax-deductible donation (501 C).CLI Sponsor level I: $2250. As our thank you, you may choose any Cat Bordhi digital ebook (if you already have all of my books, these gifts may be diverted to the recipient of your choice). CLI Sponsor level II: $2500. As our thank you, you may choose any 2 Cat Bordhi digital ebooks and 1 full bag of Frog Tree yarn in the yarn and color of your choice, with Cat Bordhi patterns to match.CLI Sponsor level III: $3000. As our thank you, you may choose any 3 Cat Bordhi digital ebooks and 2 full bags of Frog Tree yarn in the yarns and colors of your choice, with Cat Bordhi patterns to match.

To sign up or to ask questions, email Jim Petkiewicz: peckos@me.com