Feliz Cumpleaños!

By now, you’ve probably realized that some of these posts are really long. Don’t worry, they won’t all be this way. I just feel that for the first week in a new country, it’s really important to explain all the details, just to give you all a clear idea of what life is like. As I continue this blog, the posts will be shorter and more concise, not because I have less to say, but because more of the details will be inferred.

Today I again woke up at the new normal time of 6:30am. However, it was a little different since today is my birthday! I am so excited to spend my birthday in Peru, though I do miss my family and friends back home. Before I continue, I have to say that waking up early really isn’t that bad. As long as I go to bed early enough and get a decent about of sleep, it really isn’t bad waking up that early. Anyways, today was like any other day: I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed off to the ProWorld office. From thre we took our bus to Occoruro and started our days’ worth of work.

Today, I worked with a family on building an alacena. From the presentation we had on Monday, the alacenas didn’t look like they would be all that tough to build. I mean, come on. How hard is it to build a shelf? However, I soon realized that this would be a lot more difficult than I realized. The alacenas are composed of four different compartments, although there are only three shelves that are enclosed. Each level has adobe bricks on each side, with the width of the alacena being about 120cm. I feel like I should make something clear: adobe bricks are REALLY heavy! Each one must have weighed at least 40 pounds, and coupled with the uneven textures and the fact that we didn’t have gloves, I realized that it was going to be a tough days’ worth of work. The process of building the alacena was relatively simple: after each adobe, a layer of barro, or mud, was slathered on top to serve both as glue and to level out the uneven textures of the adobe bricks. Thus, this was a project that literally required you to get your hands dirty.

The first layer of the alacena consists of three adobe bricks on each side. Initially, we had a little bit of trouble making the heights on both sides even. However, using some ceramic roof tiles, pieces of wood, and the mud, we were able to even it out. After the three adobe bricks, we laid down the first shelf (this was just wood, nothing fancy). The next two three layers were all the same, two adobe bricks followed by a wooden shelf, with mud in between each building block. As we started to build up our alacena, it started to get really high. Each adobe brick is about 15cm high. Thus, after nine bricks and the wooden shelves, our alacena was a good 1.5 meters tall. This doesn’t seem like too much until you realize that we had to put the top couple of adobe bricks on top of mud while not being able to see where we were actually putting them. Thankfully, by working together, we were able to complete the construction process.

Next, we smoothed out all the uneven surfaces on the adobe bricks. This includes both the outer and inside surfaces. To do this, we used mud to conceal the breaks between the bricks and used the roof tiles and wood to fill in any unstable areas or gaps. After we finally finished, we washed off our hands and went to go talk to the lady who lived in the house.

For our hard work, the lady gave us a bag of freshly steamed corn. I was really thankful for this, as the residents of Occoruro are extremely poor. It is impossible for them to repay us in money (honestly, they don’t need to repay us at all, since we are volunteers), but they insist on repaying us in agricultural crops. Sometimes we will get a couple of potatoes, and other times we will get some corn. Completely disregarding the fact that I might get sick from eating the corn, I dug in. Definitely not a mistake, as the corn was absolutely delicious. As I mentioned before, the Andean corn has bigger kernels and has more substance. After going through an entire ear of corn, I relaxed in my seat on the bus and headed back to Cusco with everyone else.

When I got back to my host family, they had a surprise waiting for me. Not only was the entire extended family there (about 20 people), but they had also gotten me a cake. But that wasn’t even the best part. Lunch today was steak, rice, salad, and French fries. Everything was delicious, but it was even more special that everyone had come over to celebrate my birthday with me. This only reconfirmed my initial observations that meals are a social time, and that family is extremely important. After lunch, we cut the cake, which was pretty awesome. It was a chocolate cake with three layers, each separated by a layer of fruit preserves. I definitely tasted raspberry and strawberry. On top of the cake, there were peaches and a cherry perched on top of whipped cream. After devouring a slice of the cake, I was so full and tired that I had to rest for a bit before my Spanish class.

In between lunch and Spanish class, I went to a couple of the museums in Cusco. Today, I went to the Popular Art Museum and the Regional History Museum. Overall, I wasn’t all that impressed with the Popular Art Museum because it was rather small and didn’t really have a huge variety of art. However, the Regional History Museum was really great. It had a large variety of art and sculptures, and I felt that it really covered the entire of the history of the area pretty well. After exploring these two museums, I went to Kuna, the premier Alpaca shop in Cusco. However, the prices were a little too high for me (around 400 Soles for a sweater), so I guess I’ll have to find another place to buy Alpaca clothes.

Spanish was again relatively simple today, as we just reviewed my homework and studied some more of the present tense. By the end of the class, we were studying the preterit tense, which was definitely an improvement. After class, I came back home and had dinner with the family. Dinner was a simple chicken noodle soup Peruvian style, with different spices and condiments. After this, I relaxed for a bit before going to bed.

Beginnings in Occoruro

Today definitely started out a bit rough. Waking up at 6:30 was not easy, especially since I have gotten used to waking up at 10 or 11 at Duke, and even in Cusco, I had been waking up around 8:30. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed, excited for the day ahead of me. I had breakfast at the house, which was cereal and milk. Something I felt that was interesting is that people in Peru do not drink cold liquids. For example, milk comes in cans in an extremely concentrated form. To put the milk into a more normal form, the Peruvians mix it with boiling hot water. Not only does this kill the pathogens (milk is sometimes not pasteurized here), it also makes it have a more liquid-like consistency. It was definitely a new experience having this hot milk with our corn flakes.

After our breakfast, we took a taxi to the ProWorld office. There, all of the Cusco volunteers got into a bus. The ride to Occoruro was a little bit bumpy, as it followed much of the same road that we took to Maras and Moray. However, once we got there, all was well. In fact, we were so intrigued by the community that we forgot about the bus ride.

Occoruro is a relatively poor community. When people think of a poor South American village, they think of one consisting of little or no electricity, huts made of adobe, and a large agricultural community. Well, Occoruro is exactly that. When we first got out of the bus, we went to the community center to wait for some of the families. The community center is a closed area with different supplies and a couple of houses. In general, it seemed as though the community center is used for gatherings, general messages, and other communal events. As we waited, we watched the community leader go to the front of the area, and speak through a megaphone. This was really interesting for me. Because of the community organization, I had assumed we would just tell the community leader that we had arrived, and she would tell the entire community, with the information eventually spreading to everyone. However, after the community leader had spoken over the megaphone, we had a couple of families rush over and ask for help. We divided into groups, with two or three people in each group. Each group would work with a single family on a project, whether it was a stove, shelf, ecological refrigerator or sewing curtains for the shelves.

Today, I worked with a family on both the ecological refrigerator and sewing curtains for the shelves. When I walked into the house, the first thing I noticed was that the ceilings were really low. Most of the Peruvians are really short. In fact, I am actually tall by Peruvian standards. Additionally, the organization of the inside of the house is a little crazy. I did see a clean burning stove, one of ProWorld’s most successful projects. However, the ground was quite uneven (it was just the dirt), and there were guinea pigs and chickens running all over the place, not to mention a couple of dogs and occasionally a pig. Now, I can truly understand the impact we are trying to have on the families in this community. The theme of our projects is viviendas saludables, or healthy living. Throughout the next eight weeks, our group will look to help the families in Occoruro change the way they live, hopefully resulting in a healthier way of living.

Today, my partner and I first had to put some of the finishing touches on an ecological refrigerator. The way that this “refrigerator works” is not like those that we are used to. This refrigerator uses no electricity; rather, it has a large bucket of cold water on the floor of the refrigerator. As the cold water evaporates, it keeps fruits and vegetables “fresh”, at least for the day. Each day, the family changes the water, replacing the old bucket with another one with cold water. When we got to the house, the inside of the refrigerator was just the mud, with a couple of shelves. Our job was to line the insides of the refrigerator with plastic, to help prevent any moisture from condensing on the mud. If this happened, it could contribute to disintegration of the mud and eventually the ecological refrigerator. Using a measuring tape, scissors, and basic plastic sheets, we completely coated the inside of the refrigerator. It was a little bit difficult to nail some of the sheets in, since the mud kept falling apart. However, in the end, we figured out that the best way to attach the plastic was to push the nail in by hand at first and then to hammer it in really gently.

The second project that we had to do was to cover the shelves of the alacena with cloth, or tela. While this seems relatively easy, it was actually pretty difficult. The cloth we had available to us was tough to measure and cut, especially since there really wasn’t a clean surface in the house that we could use for support.in the end, we decided on putting part of the roll of cloth on the table and measuring and cutting off the table. For each shelf, we made the cloth cover not only the entire shelf, but also the piece of wood showing on the front side. Additionally, we glued the cloth to the wood on each of the shelves. Next, we had to sew curtains together for each of the shelves. This was done by taking a piece of cloth, folding part of it over onto itself, and then putting a string through the newly created hole. The hole was then sewn shut. The purpose of these curtains is to help keep bugs away from the food. Currently, the families have a lot of problems with bugs going in their food, not to mention eating it. By putting the curtains up on the shelves, we could help control the bug problem.

Before today, I honestly have never sewed before. Laugh all you want, but this was honestly a new experience for me. We measure the lengths of each of the shelves to be about 60 centimeters long. To provide a little bit of leeway when would tie the knot and put the curtains up, we measured pieces of string about 70-80 centimeters long. Each shelf would have its own curtain, and each curtain would be made of two parts that could slide apart to create an opening that family could use to get their food from the shelves. The first half of a curtain I sewed was really awful. Not only were the stitches really big, I couldn’t figure out how to end my stitching or how to keep the string within the stitching (again, please feel free to giggle, chuckle, or whatever you please). While my partner and I were struggling mightily with these curtains, the lady who lived in the house came in to check out what we were doing. Not only did we get to talk to her and understand more about the culture in Occoruro, she also showed us a much better way to sew. Initially, I was going one stitch at a time, taking the needle completely out of the cloth after every stitch. She showed us how to simply fold the cloth over on itself to make the stitches smaller and to make the process faster in general. As a result, my second half of the curtain was loads better than the first. Next, we had to put the string through the stitched hole. Naturally, this was a problem, since the string wasn’t actually stiff enough to pull through with ease. Once again, the local woman was able to help us out. She tied the end of the string to a nail, and then threaded the nail through the hole we had sewn. Inspired by her brilliance, we proceeded to try out the new method, and naturally, it worked great. We then put up the curtains on each of the shelves, nailing them into the mud and adobe bricks.

After a long day at Occoruro, we came back to our host family for lunch. Lunch today was rice and chicken, which naturally was delicious. I then took a little bit of time off and took a short nap. Shortly thereafter, I went to Spanish class again. Our class runs Monday through Thursday, with 80 minutes of class per day. Again, I worked on the present tense with my teacher, looking at irregular verbs as well as the difference between verbs of similar meaning. While I initially thought I was completely comfortable with the present tense, I realized that there were a couple of concepts that it wouldn’t hurt to review.

After returning from Spanish class, I had dinner with my host family. Like yesterday, dinner was fried eggs and rice (no fried bananas this time). After eating, I read for a little bit, watched the Thunder-Mavericks basketball game, and finally went to bed.

Project Orientations

Today was technically our first day of work in Cusco. While the past four days have been dedicated to more tourist activities and getting to know our host family, today we actually had some work to do. In the morning, we had our orientation for the different projects we will be working on, both in the schools and in the community of Occoruro. First, we had our orientation from Milagros (one of the staff at ProWorld) on the different projects we will be working on in Occoruro. She explained to us about what problems the community faces and what our roles will be as volunteers. She also tackled the issue of a language barrier. While we all speak relatively decent Spanish, many off the community members speak very little Spanish or none at all. Instead, many of them speak Quechua, the native language in the area. However, we were told that this would not be a problem in general, since the community leaders all speak fluent Spanish.

Next, we had an orientation presentation from Lalo. He told us about how we would put the refrigedoras ecológicas (ecological refrigerators) together and how we would assemble the alacenas (shelves) in the community. I really felt that Lalo gave a great description of our projects, but I know that we will never know what it is actually like in the community until we are there.

To conclude the presentations, Maria (another one of the staff at ProWorld) talked to us about public health issues in Peru. We learned about the major causes of death, relevant health statistics, and some of the possible topics we could discuss in the schools. After the presentation, we worked as a group to brainstorm topics that we could talk about over the next seven weeks in the schools. Our target age group is elementary school students, so we decided we should use a lot of pictures and have interactive activities to help them understand our message. In the end, we decided on doing our first lesson on nutrition. Some of the activities we came up with were asking the children to draw a plate of their typical meal, deciding which foods belong to individual food groups, and having them draw a balanced meal. We also will speak with them about the importance of having all food groups in their diet to help them live healthy and happy.

After our meeting with the group, we went back to our host family for lunch. Today, we had a pasta dish, with potatoes, chicken, and vegetables. The best way to describe it would be as a chicken soup with pasta. Like always, it was delicious. One thing I noticed again was how social of a meal lunch really is in Peru. When Jordan and I walked into the dining room, the table was already full, with six family members sitting there. As one person left, another person would sit down. But the person who left would never actually leave the area. He/she would only sit down in the living room, but the conversation would continue. Jordan and I did the same thing, and for this reason, lunch lasted about one and a half hours.

After lunch, I had some free time before my first Spanish class. I napped for a little bit before finally going to my class. I have class with one other person and the teacher. Today, we just introduced ourselves and reviewed some verbs in the present tense. Specifically, we looked at those verbs that have irregular conjugations. While I haven’t spoken Spanish in three years, I still feel that I know some Spanish. Thus, the class was a little repetitive and boring. I’ll give it some time before I make too harsh of a judgment though.

After class, I walked back home, since our house is only about a ten minute walk. However, it was somewhat scary, since it was already dark. As I have mentioned before, Cusco is a lot like India; thus, there are stray dogs everywhere. Whatever I did, I had to make sure not to anger the dogs or get bitten. On my way back, I started to walk down our street. When I heard some walking behind me, I quickly turned around, and saw some dogs running towards me. Like last Saturday, I quickly went to our door, opened it, and slammed it behind me.

For dinner, we had a fried egg over rice, with some fried bananas. Although this sounds a little strange, especially to those used to having fried eggs at breakfast, I really liked the dinner. The fried egg and the rice went really well together, and when I wanted a little change in my palate I would have a small bite of the fried bananas. Usually after dinner I would relax with the family for some time. However, I felt really tired today and knowing that I had to get up at 6:30am the next morning, I went to bed early.

Peruvian Customs, Maras, and Moray

Today I woke up relatively early in the morning, around 7:30am. I said hello to Margarita and the rest of the family before having breakfast, which was eggs and rice, along with ham and bacon. Something I feel like I forgot to mention earlier is the custom in Peru of greeting everyone when you enter or exit a room. For example, if there are ten people in the room when you entered, you must greet all of them when you enter and when you leave, regardless of how long you stayed in the room. This is done with a light kiss on the cheek to all women and a firm handshake with all the men. In general, when men greet each other, they do it with a firm handshake, while male-female or female-female greeting is the light kiss on the cheek.

After breakfast, we headed over to the ProWorld office, where we waited for the other Cusco volunteers. The plan for today was to visit the ruins of Maras and Moray. Both of these sites are about an hour outside of Cusco, on the way to Urubamba. After everyone had piled into the van, we set out as a group towards Moray, which was our first destination. Although I don’t usually get motion sickness, I have to say that this was one of the most unpleasant car rides I have been on. There were many curves coming out of Cusco, and the driver really sped through them rather than slowing down. Never before have I seen so many people looking queasy at once. However, once we got to Moray, we all felt better, partially because we got to see the rest of our group from Urubamba for the first time in about two days.

I feel that Moray needs an introduction, as it is really that magnificent. The natural depressions of Moray are arranged in perfectly concentric circles, with each level about six feet below the one above it. This perfect terracing suggests that Moray may have been an amphitheater or a ceremonial center when the Incas populated the area. However, careful archaeological investigations have discovered that Moray has a series of microclimates, with each terrace having a slightly different combination of sun, shade, and elevation. I noticed that at the very bottom terrace, it was considerably warmer than near the top. The discovery of irrigation canals and different seeds on the terraces in recent years suggests that Moray was most probably a giant crops laboratory. It is possible that the Incas learned how to grow many of their crops, including corn and potatoes, at various elevations through the successes and failures of crops at Moray. Slowly, our group descended down the terraces one by one until we got to the very bottom. On each terrace, there were three or four stones without support that were carefully embedded in the rocks, providing a way to descent without jumping the six foot drop. My first reaction to this layout of the terraces was that it was like a real life Tomb-Raider (for any of you who have played the game, you know what I am talking about). Anyways, once we got to the bottom of the terrace at the very bottom, we were treated to an incredible view. Not only were we a couple hundred feet lower than where we began, but the concentric circles above us provided a view of everything that the Incas experienced over 600 years ago. When it was time to go back up the terraces, we experienced yet again the effect of the altitude. Moray is even higher than Cusco, sitting at around 14,000 feet above sea level. As a result, the air was really thin and it was difficult for us to breathe and to ascend through each terrace. I feel that I am relatively fit, and I had great difficulty in simply climbing up to where we began. Hopefully this is only something that is temporary, as we are going to climb up the glacier of Chicon later this month. If I am not acclimated to the altitude then, I don’t know what else I could do.

The next place that we went to was the salt flats, or salineras, of Maras. Like Moray, I feel that the salineras need an introduction. The salt mines are elaborately arranged along the mountain slope, and there are over 5,000 small pools that yield about 150 kilograms of salt per month during the dry season. This amazing natural source of salt was again a product of the Incas. They diverted a warm, salty spring to these pools, and the sunlight evaporates the water from the pools, leaving behind a crusty layer of salt. Our tour guide explained to us that there are three of four different grades of salt, with the pure white salt being of the highest quality. She even encouraged us to taste the warm water, and truth be told, it was really salty. I even tried some of the salt crystals that had formed on the side of the stream, and they were actually pretty tasty (I like salty things, so others may not feel the same way). For about half an hour, we walked around the salt mines, taking care not to fall in anyone’s pool of salt or to tumble down the mountain slope (there are no rails to prevent this from happening, so the traveler is at his/her own risk). Today, each pool is owned by a different family, and it is their responsibility to take care of the pool and exploit it to its fullest capabilities. After touring the area and tasting some of the salt for myself, I decided to purchase a small bag of salt, for only 2 Soles (about $0.70). Shortly thereafter, we bid farewell to our Urubamba friends and headed back towards Cusco.

When we got back to the ProWorld office, it was about 3:30pm. I was starving at this moment, since I hadn’t had lunch yet. Luckily I was blessed to have Margarita’s delicious cooking with me, and she had prepared lomo saltado. After eating, the nine of us in the Cusco group played cards for about an hour before finally returning to the homes of our host families.

When I got back to my host family’s house, I was surprised to see over 25 people in our living room. There were a couple of the daughters, their husbands, and Luis and Lalo. I noticed that they had a lot of beer and were celebrating something. Curious as to what the occasion was, I asked some Luis, and he explained to me that the husbands of two of the daughters (Marisa and Trini), were policeman, and that they had just broken up a large cocaine operation and seized over 170 kilograms of cocaine. Naturally, I could understand the reason for celebration. They asked me if I wanted some beer, and in the spirit of the social nature of Peru, I graciously accepted. I talked with them about their day, and they also asked me about mine, wanting to know where we went and how I liked it. They also asked me about where I was from, how long I would be in Cusco, and what I would do in the time I was here. Something I found really interesting during the conversation was their discussion on drugs and the legal limits in Peru. Like the United States, cocaine is illegal in Peru. However, marijuana is legal as long as a person has no more than three grams on them for personal consumption. Lalo then asked me about whether I knew about the uses of medical marijuana. I feel that he is more aware of the happenings in the United States than many of the others, as they were all confused when I explained to them that marijuana is sometimes given as a pain killer in the United States.

When most everyone had left, I had dinner with the family. Like every other day, dinner was again excellent. Today, Margarita prepared a kind of omelet for us, consisting of eggs, bacon, ham, and vegetables, served over a bed of rice. I found it to be really delicious, especially the omelet. It was nothing I had ever had in the United States, but was really fresh and tasted great with the rice.

After dinner, I was starting to get tired, since I knew that we would start Spanish classes the next day and that we had an orientation for our school teaching at the ProWorld office in the morning. However, Jordan and I talked a bit with Luis, this time mostly in English. He explained to us that he was in a three year English program and that his eventual goal was to get a scholarship to study in the United States. He kept talking to us about how he wished that Peru would have the same opportunities as the united states, as he felt that Peruvians would really appreciate having choices in education and in life in general. Luis really speaks English well, and I was really surprised when he told us that he had only been learning English for two years. I know from experience that learning a language is really difficult, and I know English is one of the most complicated languages. For that reason, I was even more impressed.

After our discussion, Jordan went to bed, but I continued talking with Luis about music. He explained to me that he really likes listening to American music because according to him, it has better melodies and rhythms. Additionally, since the songs are in English, it helps him with comprehension. Luis also told me that he liked orchestral music, but that he never got to listen to any because there is no orchestra in Cusco. I played some of the songs that I had on recording from this past school years, pieces that I played with the Duke Symphony Orchestra. Luis really enjoyed them, and then asked me if I had any recordings of myself playing. Fortunately, I had one from when I auditioned for college, and I played this for him. He thought it was really good, and asked if I would play for him sometime. I explained to him that I didn’t have my violin with me, but he said that he knew a friend who had a violin that I could borrow. At this point, I was really starting to fall asleep, so I said goodnight to Luis and turned in for the night.