The rustic boards or ceremonial beams in Sarhua contain images of the family going about their daily business, which can later be remembered together with their favorite objects, animals and plants.

Sarhua is approached from the high Andean plateau. A mountain which seems enormous close to looks small when you see a village clinging to one side. You have to continue downwards by a footpath that stops abruptly at the river Pampas, and six and a half thousand feet above are the Sarhuinos.

The name of this community was first heard in the capital in 1970s, when some enthusiasts brought to Lima some of the ceremonial beams covered in drawings and color that are given as gifts to those building a new house. Limeños were attracted to these beams, but they are rather more than six feet long and too big to display in their homes or offices. This was how the "Sarhua board", which generally measures 24" by 12", developed in response to the new market.

Turning back to Sarhua, we can say that the community has slowly changed its traditional life style (but still makes its ceremonial beams). And although the elderly complain about pernicious modernity among the young, to visitors the village seems to be frozen in time. Quechua is the dominant language and Spanish is hardly spoken. The brightly colored clothes worn by women and girls and the single girls with their hats crowned with flowers contrast with the more westernized clothing of the men, though their hats too are decorated and many wear colored ponchos on festive days or at night when the temperature drops sharply.

Two authorities govern the Sarhuinos: the elected mayor representing the Peruvian State and the president of the community, whose authority has been respected since colonial times. The mayor governs a tiny district of 400 or so homes, and rather more than 5000 inhabitants. Rural affairs are governed by the president of the community and his constables, also known as varayoqs (those who hold a vara staff authority).

By day Sarhua is peopled by children and the old, as those of working age are in the hills looking after their animals or tending fields. Every so often they return to the village with produce or to take a rest from the arduous climate and labor and are replaced by other members of their families.

This routine changes in June and August for the festivals of St John and Our Lady of the Assumption. The faithful descend from the mountains for the festival, grouped by affiliation with the ayllus (there are two in Sarhua: Sawqa and Qollana), by their devotion to the images and by how the work in the fields is organized. Processions at Sarhua take place with or without the presence of the parish priest (who does not live in the village); there are bullfights, horse races, feasting with much drink - and fireworks.

The inside of the Catholic Church is covered with the paintings, many of them dating from colonial times; the subjects were set during the evangelization and probably inspired the drawings found on the ceremonial beams, the principal images on which are members of the family building the house, between the sun at one end and the village's patron saints at the other. Sarhua is still a place for missionaries, the Christian faith being supported by volunteers with little training and, therefore, a highly individual version of the doctrine taking the place of the priest who officiates three or four times a year.