City Lights

As the end of the first school year approaches, there’s naturally been a great emphasis on after school tutorials and late night study sessions. Nonetheless, we managed to sneak in a formality that neither school nor dormitory could possibly deny its students: an end of the year field trip. Last week, the girls, Maura, Alex, Eli and I hopped into a minivan and made our way out to Cusco.

Many of the girls had never been to Cusco, and for those that had, it had been years if not a lifetime since their last visit. The trip from Ollantaytambo to Cusco itself was a thrill. The girls marveled at the distinct landscapes, gawked at high altitude lakes, admired other families’ livestock and guessed at the names of passing towns.

Our arrival into one of the largest cities in Peru was both intimidating and awe inspiring for the young ladies. After a hearty menu of chicharonnes, beans, chicha morada and flan, we headed out to the Incan fortress of Sacsayhuaman which presides over the city of Cusco.

The girls had never been to the ruins, and after a brief lesson in the history of the site, they set off to chase alpacas, navigate pitch black caves and explore the massive Incan stonework. Of course, as with most adolescents (and some of us adults), the favored activity soon became gliding down the ‘Incan slides’ of Sacsayhuaman. While I doubt that the smooth rock formations were originally used as slides by the Incas, more recent generations have taken to smoothing the surfaces via continual use. For three quarters of an hour or so, we too did our part to continue the wearing process.

Once our Sacsayhuaman escapades were done and over with, we explored the city of Cusco by foot, passing through old Incan roadways and colonial squares. As the day drew to an end we made our way to Maura’s house so that the girls might meet her family. It was a truly special occasion, though a bit awkward at first. Maura’s son shared some hilarious videos of street mimes and acrobats with us while we slurped up delectable mugs of hot chocolate.

Finally, though some of the girls were nodding off and others vehemently refusing to budge from the couch, we managed to load everyone back into the minivan and head back to Ollantaytambo.

Every time I leave Cusco at twilight, I marvel at the beauty of the radiant lights of a city encircled by barren mountains. As we snaked our way out of the city, the girls themselves gasped at the impressive sight, and Nohemi made apparent exactly what they, if not I, were all thinking. ‘Pobre planeta’ she mused. Poor planet. Though it took me back a second, I couldn’t help but to marvel at how insightful a comment and how indicative of our distinct backgrounds.

-Bianca

Party Time!

It was Bianca’s birthday on Monday (Happy Birthday!) and we had a party at the dorm. Maura cooked up some fried trout, choclo (big corn), chicken noodle soup and salad. Yum! Shiva, our all-star volunteer and art teacher from earlier in the year, returned to Ollanta from her travels in time to make a chocolate cake. Double yum! The girls were super excited. When I arrived, they were busy converting Yesica and Nohemi’s room into a party den, complete with balloons and toilet paper taper. It looked great.



After blowing out the candles they pushed Bianca’s head into the cake, a Peruvian tradition. This turned into an all out food fight, not a Peruvian tradition. There was chocolate everywhere. Clothes got dirty, but there were no casualties.


After dinner we danced Huayno. It’s a traditional Andean dance in which you hold hands in a circle and stomp the ground as hard and as fast as possible. Fun was had by all. I’m proud to report that none of our girls are wallflowers.

I can sense the end of the year approaching. Our next party will be with the families, a celebration of our first year of existence. I remember our first party. Everything was so new. Some of the girls were meeting each other for the first time. We told them that this strange building would become a home – and it has. Watching this community grow this past year, and having the chance to be a part of it, has been a pleasure. This next party will be better than the first. This time, it will be full of friends and people I truly care for and love. I can’t wait!

-Eli

Our New Spot

El Devino Maestro, once Ollantaytambo’s only private school, is now abandoned. Along the river, its empty classrooms look out onto magnificent ruins. Two buildings surround a walled in courtyard that is still half covered in grass. On the walls are painted cartoon characters, faded from time. The roofs have holes in them and there is garbage strewn about. Someone is letting her chickens roam the grounds. The static space is begging to be filled with laughing kids. It’s the future home of the Sacred Valley Project.



This is definitely an upgrade. Our present dwellings, though spacious, can get claustrophobic with no outdoor space. When the sun is out it’s always a good ten degrees colder inside than it is out. Our contract for the new space, like the old one, came out of our close relationship with the Comunidad Campesina de Ollantaytambo, who owns both of the buildings and many more properties in the area. Our rent will double, but that only means it will be 200 soles (about US$70). We get the school cheap, because they like what we’re doing. It needs a lot of work, but when it’s ready it will be big enough to house the dorm for the foreseeable future. Next year, with an incoming class of six, twelve students will have space to spare. In the years to come, it will fill with each new class until there are thirty, four years from now.

This year, our first, is almost over. School ends in mid December. The final stretch has arrived. The time for year’s end reflection is almost here, but not yet, for there is still work to be done. Maura, our housemother, has begun cooking, an arrangement that works much better than getting our food from an outside source. Alex is back in The States, leading our ever-expanding web of members on a drive to raise the funds needed to fix up the school. This October, he is hosting a fund raising event in Montclair that I’ll be sore to miss. Bianca has been working feverishly on our website and still manages to spend much of her time at the dorm, where her guidance and math comprehension are still very much needed. I’ve been teaching a computation course on two computers that an American high school student generously donated. The girls like it because, well, typing games are fun. I like it because it’s a tangible skill that I think will increase options for them later on in life.

So, with the new contract singed, we are working as hard as ever, with the help all those who have made this project their own. And that’s all I have to say.

On Returning, Long Hikes and Inhospitable Territories

So, clearly there’s been quite a lull in our postings, and what’s more, at a time in which so much has transpired. I won’t attempt to recap the last two months. Truly it would be impossible. That, and I was inconveniently absent for most of it.

My summer constituted navigating a frontier lake, escorting travelers to frigid and inhospitable emergency rooms, climbing to dizzying heights and learning and performing new dances with four minutes warning.

It was a whirlwind tour, and in many ways, coming back to Ollantaytambo and to the young women of the dorm has been a greater change than I could have imagined. Everything has stopped, slowed down, a transition that at first I felt hesitant of, but which now fills me with daunt and excitement.

The girls and Maura are phenomenal and have been thriving throughout the last 2 months. A generous Rustic student from the past year made a trip down to Peru this last June to donate several computers, and Rustic students from this 2010 season collaborated, and gave the dorm the gift of Internet. The girls, of course, thrilled. Aside from our newest class, computation, which they absolutely adore, trying to pry them away from practicing their typing and surfing the web is a wearying chore in itself.

As before mentioned, there are so many things that I could note in this blog, But I should choose some direction, a daunting task, and stick to one theme.

Last weekend, Alex, Edwin (our Quechua translator) and I took off on a three-day trek with the purpose of introducing our project to certain distant communities, and continuing the search for prospective students for the upcoming 2011 year. I say continuing, because the selection process and needs assessment profiles were established by Joe and Christie this past summer. Our hike began Friday morning, circa 9:30am, out of the community of Camicancha. We made our way up a dramatic and breath-taking canyon towards the community of Angascocha. A grueling hike, with a fair vertical ascent in which I painfully learned that my pride can easily be conquered by harrowing hikes. But despite a mild urge to die, I made it to Angascocha; we made it to Angascocha, by the early afternoon. Since coming back from our trek, I have described the community of Angascocha as a harsh and barren land, likened it to being in another world, the moon per say, an inhospitable and abrasive territory.



The primary school, alone in the midst of a monotonous pampa, only benefits seven children. As we quickly found out, the people of Angascocha themselves were all eerily missing, and one individual noted that most families were migrating towards the larger and more fertile communities of Camicancha and Chillca. In all, we found no prospective students, and the few girls we came across, sheep herding, couldn’t have been more than 8 years old.



Our second day took the three of us over the 4600m pass of Wayaray. A beautiful lagoon lay beneath the snowcapped range, and I quickly found respite and relief from the delicious waters of a glacier runoff. After a much needed siesta at the pass, we set off down towards the community of Qhesqa. My first impression upon arrival was that their houses reminded me ever so slightly of Smurf homes. At any rate, the town of Qhesqa resides a few hours off the infamous Inca Trail, and is comprised of a great deal more families than Angascocha. We set off on our rounds, visiting families previously profiled by Joe and Christie, and meeting some new families and students along the way. I found the process of talking to the parents indirectly via translator to be a bit unnerving, and in all, I didn’t find our outreach to be the most successful. But it was something, and the following day managed to make me feel as though the trip was a success and served it’s purpose.



So, without further adieu, on to the next day. The following day, we were fortunate to be included in a reunion of all the families within Qhesqa. First we met with the President of Qhesqa, a modest and quiet man, explaining to him who we were, why we were there, and talking openly about the families and individuals whom would most benefit from our project. At the meeting itself, we were introduced to the community by the President, after which Alex gave an eloquent and apt speech explaining concisely who we are and what our project is dedicated to. I was fairly proud of Alex and of the positive headway we had started to make in this town and region.



In all, it was a gratifying three-day hike, with purpose. We scurried back along the Inca trail towards Km 82, jumped in a taxi, cruised into Ollanta, ate a delicious chicken and slept. For the upcoming weekend we’re thinking of taking another hike out to the communities of Pilkabamba and Marcuray. I look forward to it tremendously.

-Bianca

A New Set of First Impressions

Another Gringo Arrives on the Scene

After finishing up my first year of grad school stateside this past year, I am finally down in the Sacred Valley to see what we have put together, and to work on developing the organizational aspects of the dormitory. My major goal is to figure out how many families in the surrounding communities have girls who cannot access a secondary education, and out of those girls which ones want to attend school. Then we will hopefully be able to figure out the most equitable way to choose the girls who want to go to school next year.

Arriving at the dorm mid school year has been at once exhilarating and daunting. It is amazing what the group has been able to accomplish since we started the project in November. On June 15^th, my second day in Peru, I went up to Ollanta to meet the girls. Eli met me at the plaza and we went up to the dorm

Meeting the girls

What I found when I arrived at the dorm were six very happy and energetic girls. They greeted Eli like a favorite uncle, calling him Tio Lizandro (or Uncle Lizandro). My reception was also warm, Eli introduced me as Tio Joseph, and with a few giggles the girls welcomed me to the dorm. The dorm itself was clean and more spacious than I expected. The girls had a hundred questions and requests for Lizandro, so during that time I met Rachel and Sarah.

Like Eli said in a prior post Sarah is tutoring and teaching the girls biology, and Rachel is tutoring, teaching English, and generally being awesome. We are really lucky to have these volunteers, and I am especially lucky because Rachel is interested in helping me with the aspects of the project that I came down to do. After the introductions and general questions and day to day tasks, the girls, Eli, the volunteers, the housemother and I played volleyball in an ancient square until the sun went down.

Maura, our housemother, is a quiet and friendly woman who has a great relationship with the girls. They all get along, and she is very nice to them, but has a good grasp of getting them to calm down and do the chores and work that they need to do everyday. She is from Cuzco, and has a family down there, but her daughter has grown up, and she is now able to take a job 5 hours away. The distance seems to be the hardest part for her, as she has never been to Ollanta and doesn’t know any one in the town who is her age. We are hoping to have a party for her in the near future, so that she can meet people and build a community.

A hike up to the highlands

Since the girls did not have school Thursday due to the Paro, or strike, we decided to take them up to Pallata, where Yesica and Dina are from, to visit with Alex and the kids from the Rustic Pathways service project. The hike up was beautiful, and after a little grumbling about the heat the girls really enjoyed their walk up. This was the first time that the girls got to see their housemates’ community. Yesica and Dina were especially excited because they got to go home early.

The Girls and Rachel on a Water Break

The village was picturesque, houses were scattered along the side of a mountain leading down to a lively little river. Fields and narrow pathways made up most of the space in the valley, with a few houses scattered around a little further away from the center of the village. There is only one road in the village wide enough for a car, and electricity seems to be a grand luxury. The houses are adobe with dirt floors.

The girls went down to where the Rustic Pathways group was camping. They were really excited to see Tio Alex again. They all gave him hugs, and then they introduced themselves to the group in English and Spanish. It was amazing to see the girls make full English sentences in front of a bunch of teenage strangers. It was very brave of them.

The girls then did cultural exchange with the Rustic pathways kids. Braiding hair, playing games and learning English/Spanish were the activities of the day. After the fun and games there was an inauguration of a cuy hut, a place where the village will raise guinea pigs to sell. Cuy, as it is called in the Sacred Valley, is a delicacy in Peru. After the inauguration we had a cuy feast, complete with dancing.

The Rustic Pathway Students Dressed to Dance

Well, out of the one-hundred things that are new and exciting, these two days were highlights. The work I will do has not yet started, acclimating to the culture, making friends and seeing how things are done in the Sacred Valley are my goals for the first weeks. There will be more to come when I head up to the highlands to meet the remote communities.

There are many things to be done, but what I have seen has really impressed and inspired me.

transitioning

Maura with Nohemi


It’s been a week of transition down here in Ollantaytambo. Bianca left the dormitory for her summer job with Rustic Pathways, leading groups of high school students up giant mountains and to the floating islands of Lake Titicaca. In her place we have hired Maura, a teacher from Cusco with experience working in a dormitory a lot like ours. It was a long and hard process, finding a candidate we all felt good about. We were having trouble getting candidates until Alex put an advertisement on the radio in Cusco about a month ago. About forty calls started coming in a day. Bianca and Alex took care of the first round of interviews, seeing four or five candidates a day for a week. Then we all met with the candidates they liked for a second round of interviews. From there we came up with three finalists. Each came to the dorm for two days. It was hard decision to make – and a new experience for me – but we felt that with the Maura’s experience, plus the fact that all the girls liked her instantaneously, she was the right way to go.

This is Maura’s second week in the dorm, and first without Bianca, but so far I’m very satisfied with our decision. She seems to care for the girls in a very motherly way. She has a relaxed demeanor and knows when to impose order and when to let chaos happen. During homework time she sits with the girls, helping and supervising.

She’s definitely a little overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for six adolescent girls. My job, I feel, is to let her know that the responsibility is not hers alone. That is possible, in a large part, because of the wonderful help we are receiving. Rachel is a student at Evergreen College who started to volunteer a few weeks ago and decided to extend her ticket for the summer to stay and help out. She’s at the dorm every afternoon tutoring, is spearheading our plan to sell crafts made by the girls’ families, and is willing to step in whenever an extra hand is needed. Sarah, a Reed student, has been tutoring and teaching a great course on botany. Joe arrived a couple of days ago, just in time. He’ll be starting the process of figuring how to best select girls for next year. It’s a great team, and we’re doing it together.

So, let me back up and tell you a little more about this crazy week. Right now I’m stuck at home in Urubamba, unable to leave because there’s a general strike and businesses are closed and people are throwing rocks at any cars daring to move. For me, it’s a lucky break. I needed this day to recover from a soar throat and fever I’ve been fighting off all week. Yesterday, I got out of bed to go to Ollantaytambo and try to figure out whether we should send the girls home before the strike hit. You see, the strike is supposed to be today only, but there’s always the possibility that it will continue. Then we’ll have the girls for two days without classes and they won’t be able to go home until Saturday. I really liked the way that we sat down together – Maura, Rachel, Joe and me – and collectively decided that it was better to stay, rather than risk sending the girls home and having them miss a day of school. Today, while I rest, the three of them are taking the girls to meet up with Alex’s Rustic Pathways group for a day of cultural exchange. We gave Maura the option of taking the day off, but she wanted to go. I don’t want to rush and end up broken hearted, but I like her, I really like her.

-Eli

A Vacation

A week ago I left the albergue for a stint in Chile. A vacation of sorts, but mostly a visa run exalted as vacation. The six girls were left in the care of Shiva, and I continually attempted to suppress the urges to worry and to instead relax on the beaches of Arica. An impossible endeavor. I missed the six girls terribly, and incessantly thought of what a joy it would be to bring them to the beach and have them experience the vastness of the ocean for the first time.

My arrival six days later into Ollantaytambo and to the dormitory was marked by a slew of suspiciously stoic faces and a banner commemorating my return. I experienced a certain shock upon seeing the girls. While it had been a mere week, they seemed older, taller, and I grasped a trace of what it must feel like to be a mother.

During my absence, Alex and Gabe had arrived in Ollanta, along with Aki Kaneda, an acquaintance of Alex’s from his hometown in New Jersey. For the first time, we have a majority of the board down in Peru, and it couldn’t have come at a better moment. What with Lisandro living and working in Urubamba and spending all his free time in Ollanta, and with my acting as a surrogate mother of six, there were so many to dos that were being perpetually jettisoned and postponed. Now with Gabe and Alex’s support I trust that we’ll be able to catch up on a slew of said necessities.

Mr. Aki Kaneda, or Mr. “Aji” as the girls dubbed him, had traveled both to acquaint himself with the project and with Peru at large. Last Thursday night, he invited the 6 girls, board members and families to a Pachamanca, a tradition meal of varied meats and potatoes cooked beneath a heap of stones and earth. It was a delightful meal with a rich and smoky flavor that was appreciated by all in attendance. To show their gratitude, the girls amassed an impromptu choir and sang songs in English, Spanish and Quechua. The gesture was welcomed and applauded, and the fact that the all the songs seemed to touch on the more mature subjects of love and deception went untranslated and as such, unnoticed.

This week, the dormitory is seemingly back to normal, and then some. Exams are encroaching and the next few weeks will be spent laboring over textbooks and revising notebooks. Perhaps it couldn’t be worse timing as this very Saturday also marks the commencement of a week long festival in Ollanta in commemoration of el Señor de Choquekillka. It’ll be nice to see how we manage to juggle bull runs and fireworks with cramming for math and physics.

-Bianca

Class 101

Thirty-four kids. Some are vaguely attentive, most are blatantly not. They are taking some species of a test today, although the environment couldn’t be less conducive towards an exam. The kids speak freely; they turn around in their chairs to consult their neighbors. Some simply don’t bother with the test but instead draw, daydream or gossip about the two gringas in the classroom. The doors are wide open as are the windows, and a boisterous volleyball game resonates from the patio.

Five minutes pass and most students haven’t written a single word on their worksheets. I watch Katy and she is struggling. It seems apparent that she doesn’t know the conversion from meters to centimeters, nor the steps of the scientific process, and a large part of me feels tremendously guilty. The test constitutes information that Katy has never showed me before, and I’m struck by the realization and fact that if the girls choose not to tell us what they study in school, we remain ignorant and useless.

The test itself is both drole and worrisome. The teacher wants to feel as if his students have retained some information, so he repeats clues, gives solutions, illustrates ideas, and still the students don’t seem to capture that he’s gifting the answers. They simply stare at him blankly.

As the end of the exam nears, all the student’s sheets remain blank and they look at each other quizzically pleading for a response. We have our work cut out for us. Not just for Katy, although I am understandably most concerned about her, but for all these students.

Once the test comes to an end, the teacher reviews the information in a self-interested manner. He announces that if one student can respond correctly to a question on the dry erase board, then he will give credit to all the students. The concept of the individual and of comprehension seem utterly obsolete in this classroom, and I can’t shake the notion that 90% of the class will never comprehend the information simply because one of their classmates did.

Of course not all classes follow this prototype. Some must be better, and others worse. But what becomes clear is that we need a methodology for rightly knowing what the girls are studying inside of school hours. Currently I’m working towards building a strong rapport with the school director in hopes that this liaison will help both to track our students and to build a more dynamic program in the future. A small step towards one of the many long term and daunting goals of this novel process.


ps... and completely unrelated: I apologize for the lack of photos currently on our blog. After our “photo shoot” with the girls, my camera mysteriously broke. Unfortunately, I have to travel to the big city (Cusco) to get it fixed, and at this moment I simply can’t be bothered. I’ll try harder.


-Bianca

Great People

Shiva's art class


I think you can tell from the bios below, but these young women are great! Besides being sweet, they are incredibly hard working and serious about their studies. No matter how hard their math homework is, they spend as long as it takes to understand it.

Every Tuesday and Thursday is art class. The girls get out their sketchbooks and push the study tables together. Class is taught by Shiva, a South African woman who is spending a year in Peru before going to University. She is a great art teacher and has been an incredible help to the dormitory. She is there most afternoons, helping with homework or serving lunch. She has a great connection with the girls. They are starting to understand the concepts of shading and depth, and their drawings come out really cool.
We also have a volunteer named Gaby with us this week. She’s helping while she researches the rural high school education system for her study abroad program. It’s been great to have both her and Shiva. They’ve really helped in providing the support the girls need.

I can’t say enough good things about Señora Bianca. While we look for a house mom she’s been living at the dorm and taking care of the girls, and she’s doing a wonderful job. She wakes up at 5:30 to give Dina extra help with her math homework. The homework is so hard that I’ve seen Bianca spend her free time learning math so that she can teach it. The girls know they can count on her when they need her and she’ll always be there to support them. Plus, they know that she can be tough if they act out of line. But that doesn’t happen often, especially when you consider that they’re 12-14 year old girls. Every afternoon, when I get to the dorm, the group I find finishing up lunch seems happy. When they sit down to do homework, there’s a seriousness to their work. Of course they get rowdy (Marie Elena is a little jokester) but they are organized and diligent, and everything else I wasn’t when I was 12. Dina got a perfect score on her math test. I’m very proud of them.





-Eli

Mini Bios & Photo Shoots

I believe that it was weeks ago in which I promised all of you lovely individuals that I would post haste be sharing more information about our six delightful ladies. It would seem that I had failed in my promise and good will, but alas, I manage to pull through. Instead of my prattling on about how ingenious or stubborn or silly or hardworking these six individuals are, I’ve decided to let them speak for themselves. So, after a photo shoot, a convoluted lesson in Photoshop and seminar in the follies of the imac and it’s many programs, the girls generated the following photos and mini bios (of which I translated, attempting to stay as true to the original text as possible):



My name is Maria Elena. I live in Socma with my parents. I like to study and to draw and I love eating chicken. One day I would like to travel to Lima. I like to listen to Cucho Macano, and I like to watch El Rostro de Analia on TV.



My name is Katherine Cabrera Surco. I live in Kamicancha with my parents. I like to draw, play volleyball and to look at photos. My favorite kind of food is rotisserie chicken. One day I’d like to visit Cusco. I like learning math, I listen to Agrupocion Marilyn, and I like to watch El Rostro de Analia on TV.



My name is Yesica Mayhua Solis. I live in the community of Pallata with my mother and my siblings and I go to the Ollantay School. My favorite food is rotisserie chicken and I like all types of songs. One day I would like to go to Lima.



My name is Dina. I live in the community of Pallata and I study at the Ollantay School in Ollantaytambo. I would like to finish my secondary schooling and then go to university to be a math teacher. My favorite dish is chicken and rice and I would like to travel to Arequipa. I like all types of music.



My name is Nohemi Orihuela Aguilar. I live in Socma and study at the General Ollanta School in Urubamba. One day I would like to visit the United States. I like the music of Grupo Cinco and I like watching El Rostro de Analia on ATV. I like to play volleyball and soccer and the food I like best is causa rellena.



My name is Yanet Ortiz de Orue Ugarte. I am twelve years old, I have six siblings and I live with my parents. I study at the Agropecuario Technical School and am in my first year of secondary school, section E. My favorite class is communication and my favorite food is trout.

2 weeks, 33 meals, a birthday and a death

The two weeks that have passed since our grand inauguration have felt to be mere days. Two weeks, 33 meals, 3 volleyball games, 2 English classes, one art class, one visit to the medical post, a birthday and a death.

Our second week was marked by nearly all of these events. Apart from homework and volleyball, it was our first week of supplementary English and art classes which have quickly proven to be a success. Lisandro is amazing with the girls, the girls themselves relish his English class, and I can proudly profess that thanks to Lisandro, they well know the colors in English. Similarly, I too have learned the colors in Quechua. An educational reciprocity! Art classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays are being lead by our first official volunteer, a carefree woman reigning from South Africa. So far we have touched on the subject of shading, yet out Thursday class was cancelled due to daylong power outage across the regions of Urubamba and Ollanta.

Wednesday marked an especially eventful day for myself as I was invited to one of the mother’s 40th birthday festivities. Right after school, Katy and I took off for her hometown in Camicancha. Our suffocating combi ride was spent listening mindlessly to the Huayno blasting on the radio, and our subsequent hike up to her home was dominated by my practicing how to say “happy birthday. I invite you to a beer and oranges” in Quechua. At our arrival, my dictation of the phrase was adequate, yet not without faults in pronunciation. Katy and I stayed for two hours of caldo eating, chicha drinking and huayno dancing. Everyone at the celebration was eager to hear about Katy’s progress in the program and insistent that she was a bright girl who could advance greatly despite her previous and inferior schooling.

And of course, with the upsides in life comes the down. On Tuesday evening, our house mother, Graciela’s mother in law passed away. Graciela was unable to work with us throughout the rest of the week, and will subsequently be leaving the position. Her mother in law passed away in Lima, and the family decided to bring her body back to her hometown of Ollantaytambo. On Friday, the coffin arrived, a procession ensued and then a daylong wake. The six girls and I went to the wake to pay our respects that very evening. It was a somber affair, but necessary for us to be in attendance.
I suppose one can never plan for such things in life. No matter how much of a perfectionist one may be, one needs to submit to the utter chaos of existence. And so, our search for a house mother starts anew, and next week I’ll be living alone with our six lovely ladies.

-Bianca

Well be right back after this brief commercial break

While Bianca and Eli are still down in Peru doing everything, I escaped back to the States for a wedding and to try and keep our fundraising efforts alive. As you can see from our pictures, the dorm looks great and is becoming more like a home with each passing day. While the space is ample and will accommodate next years' incoming class, that will be it. As you may know, the goal of this project is to support the girls through their 5 years of secondary school. If we expect 6 students every year for the next 4 years that would bring our total enrollment to 30 eager young students. In order for us to accommodate such growth, we will have to begin build our own place by the end of this year. This building will be a major step to increase the solidity of the project and to take us in the direction of self-sustainability. To do this we need to make a huge fundraising push. This means searching out large private funders while at the same time continuing the push for small scale contributions through alpaca sales, student groups and individual donors. We are also looking for students interested is setting up a sister school program at their high school. If anyone is interested in helping us keep the dream of education alive for these girls please contact us as sacredvalleydormitory@gmail.com.

and like that a week has passed

People keep telling me that it must feel great to have the dormitory up and running. Sometimes it does feel great. Like on Tuesday when I went with the girls to play volleyball. Watching the girls become a team, I got that gushy feeling of “I’m doing something great!” that all volunteers are ultimately selfishly working for. It quickly passed.

I really feel like our work is just getting started and I have little yet to be proud of. The goal is not to take girls away from their homes but to provide them with a nurturing environment where they can excel in their studies. I know that is a process that takes some time, but I am increasingly confident that we are moving towards our goal. That is thanks in a large part to the incredibly hard work of Bianca. She’s been living at the dorm and dedicating 24 hours a day to its improvement and upkeep, from buying food at the market to organizing community building activities for the evenings when the girls have finished their homework. Graciela, the woman we’ve hired, has been living at the dorm as well. She cooks and has been hard working and supportive, though I should let Bianca talk more about her. Bianca has been living at the dorm to get it started and make sure Graciela works out.

A sign now hangs in the common area listing dorm rules. The girls made it themselves during an evening activity. The girls, though, are incredibly well behaved and hard working. They get back from school around 2pm, have lunch, and then immediately clean up and begin their homework. Some stay home and some go to the town library for help and materials. If they’re done by five (a lot of their homework is painstakingly tedious), we have an event planned for them. I’ll be teaching English Mondays and Wednesdays, with the other days reserved for something a little more fun. At around 6:30 is dinner, then its chores, and then the girls hang out until nine when it’s time for bed.

Of course, I’m always out of the dorm around dinner time. I’ve been living in Urubamba (about 25 mins away) and teaching English at an elementary school in the mornings. That distance, plus the fact that I’m a man, delegates me a peripheral role in the dorm. I’ve been working more on the administrative aspects of the dormitory, and spending at least an hour with the girls every afternoon. There is still a lot to do, a lot to buy, and a lot to figure it out. But it feels good to be working to run a dorm rather than working to open it.

March 14, 2010

In briefing, the inauguration was a success.



Our six families arrived early in the morning to help prepare the inaugural feast and to get their daughters situated for their first daunting evening in the dormitory. Throughout the morning, mothers busied themselves gutting the cuyes and cleaning the house, fathers readied the ovens and the girls decorated the dorm with serpentinas and flowers. The ceremony was set for one in the afternoon, so naturally, people started to trickle in at three. The radio boasted the best of huayno, the chicha infused with strawberries and delicious, and the people steadily gaining momentum and vigor.

I’ve attended five prior inaugurations in the Sacred Valley, so to a great extent I knew what to expect. The tardiness was essential and was naturally followed by a circular congregation marked by a myriad of speeches, the formal inauguration of the building by smashing a champagne bottle hung over the entrance, an inaugural toast of mini pisco sours, and a true feast of cuy, chicken, papas, choclo and spaghetti.

The attendees came from a slew of communities, and included the President and Vice-President of the Indigenous Community of Ollanta, the community President of Huilloc, Ollanta’s school director, English teachers from Urubamba, a vivacious Brazilian couple living in Rumira, volunteers from the valley, and a slew of friends that we’ve made and who have aided us along the way. At the moment, there was so much anticipation in regards to the event and what would ensue that I barely had a moment to entertain the notion of what was happening. Today, and as I write this blog, I’m filled with honor, with pride, and with a pressing urge to cry.


After the inauguration, a party ensued, and while the chicha was tempting, work had already begun. The girls had homework to finish, showers to take and packs to ready for the upcoming school day. I’ve spent two nights in the dormitory with the girls, and the excitement of being in a new home has not yet abated. Our first evening together, I asked the girls what time they normally went to bed and subsequently woke up in the morning. The general response was that a typical bedtime was from seven to eight in the evening with some girls rising as early as three in the morning. Our first night, giggles and fright impeded the eight o’clock bedtime, and the girls finally managed to fight off the exhilaration and fall asleep at ten. This delay was in a large part owing to the thrill of the shower. I nearly had to shut the water key to coax them out of the bathrooms.
We’ve been waking up at five am daily, which constitutes sleeping in for these ladies, and often I find that they’ve slept in the same bed together. Surely, some things will take getting used to, but as a whole, this dorm has been emphatically filled with smiles.

This week’s projects include painting names on each girl’s door, a photo and mini bio writing session so that you can get to know these six individuals better, volleyball, an English class and a potential hike to the surrounding ruins. We’re thrilled!

-Bianca

Primera minca
Faena, as it is know in the Sacred Valley, has no direct translation to English. It is the act of collective work that is required in schools, rural villages, community associations. This norm spawned from the rich Incan tradition of required communal labor. Faenas are used to improve water supplies, maintain communal land and build community buildings. On Sunday, the Wachay Wasi dormitory held its first faena. It was a great success! Five fathers and one mother journeyed down to town Sunday morning to paint the walls, put together the beds and clean and arrange the dormitory. In one day we witnessed a dramatic change in the dormitory and we encouraged about the families´ commitment to the project. The sight of all the families working together for the collective good of their daughters was both satisfying and inspiring. Below are some pictures of the event.


Also, earlier that same morning we participated in the general assembly of the Communidad Campesina Ollantay, the community organization from which we rent our building. At start the meeting, about 200 people sat in rows and listed semi-attentively to their elected officials list the issues that would be addressed during the assembly. The dorm was first. The majority of the meeting was conducted in Quechua, so I did my best to listen for my name or Spanish words that would indicate that it was my turn to speak. It wasn’t until I got up on stage that I realized how intimidating a setting it was. My thick gringo accent and quivering voice made me wonder if anyone would be able to understand me, especially the older women many of whom still struggle with Spanish. I brutally spat out semi-developed concepts of community involvement and transparency before I handed off the mic and embarked on the long journey back to my seat in the last row.
We are set to open the dormitory with a big inauguration party this Sunday. We are frantically trying to get everything together. The biggest challenge that we are facing at this point (and it’s a massive one) is the selection of a house mother. We put the word out about the position and have gotten a very strong response. It is a very delicate process and has caused some tension within the board. It is another difficult decision that will make or break the success of this project, and because almost all of the candidates are from the central community it even more difficult to turn them down. I just hope we can find the right person for the job without causing too much friction between the women and their respective families. Either way, I am really glad that Bianca will be here to see us through in these first few months and I am really excited and anxious about Sunday and the girl´s official arrival to the Albergue.

-Alex

And the Rains Continue

In Ollanta on a dismal and sodden morning. Today marks the third day of March and consequently the first day of school in Ollantaytambo. The rains continue and the newspaper reports ‘Otra Tragedia’ as the Quesermayo River inundates the Pisac region leaving seven dead in Taray and hundreds more without shelter. That’s a mere hour and a half upstream from where we reside, and daily I’m thankful that the town of Ollantaytambo is located at a higher elevation.

On the last day of February we had a reunion with the six girls and their families. A simple exercise in bureaucracy and law. More concretely, the point of the reunion was simply to go over our contract of consent, a liability waiver that covered every possible incident from expulsion to doctor’s appointments, pregnancy and death. A document that we as foreigners are well accustomed to since we’ve surely signed our lives away an unimaginable quantity of times for every and any activity conceivable. Death by ceramics isn’t an impossibility in the States. Nor are death by tennis ball, by golf club, by cello.

But as we read the form of consent aloud, the girls’ faces contorted, muddled and steadily plummeted to the ground. It was a cold yet necessary document, and we tried to divert the dismay and precaution by avowing that we too would do everything possible to create a safe and nurturing environment. When all was said and done, I thought that we might have some separatists, but perhaps more predictability, each family lined up to sign the paperwork, or, in lieu of, to leave an impression of their index finger.

The girls themselves are six in number reigning from four separate communities: Socma, Rapcca, Pallata and Camicancha. Our dormitory unit shall consist of Maria-Elena, Nohemi, Janet, Jessica, Dina and Katherine, the former three whom will attend school in Urubamba, and the latter three who will study in Ollantaytambo.

With this milestone, however, comes the sound yet daunting program decision that I shall act as ama de casa (house mother) for the first few months whilst we locate an educated and suitable candidate from the local community. As the ama de casa will act as the backbone of the program, this is a decision we cannot afford to rush. Nor is the concept of hiring a woman and telling her to do her job when we have no clear notion of what that job entails a sane methodology. I expected the families to have some sort of objection to my acting as ama, or in the very least to be wary, and to demand of me concrete evidence of my experience and background. But the general response proved to be a nod in my direction and a few escaping giggles from the girls. I welcome the challenge as any in life, and am ecstatic at the opportunity of getting to know and understand these girls as intricate individuals.

Lisandro cast an adamant promise that I would write more about each girl individually today, but all I can aver is that as I get to know them better, so will you.

-Bianca

Soccer and Chicha

Yesterday Alex and I spent the afternoon playing pick up soccer with a group of guys who get together most days. It felt good to have an afternoon off from working on the dormitory, but it also felt productive. A big part of working in a town like Ollantaytambo is getting to know the community and, as much as possible, becoming part of it. Like the afternoon I spent drinking chicha – a fermented corn drink – at the chicheria next door to the dormitory. All the men bought me a round and I returned the favor. I left tipsy and having made a connection with a group of people who would be watching the dorm’s development, and inevitably judging it.
I am amazed daily by Alex’s connection to the people of the town. Almost every time he walks down the street he stops to talk to someone. In a large part it’s soccer. Alex is in the process of picking which town team he’s going to play for. He’s already scrimmaged with one of them. Sometimes I think my poor ball control and shoddy footwork is a real detriment to my community standing. Bianca too has built a little community of women that she’s friends with. She is also able to make immediate connections with the girls that we meet with. As a result, when we present our project at this Saturday’s open meeting for the community, many people will already know who we are and what we’re about.
Update: The walls are pretty much up. The contractor we hired has been working hard and I’m going to buy him a lot of chicha when he finishes today or tomorrow. The electrical company and bank, however, won’t get any chicha. The electrical company keeps setting dates to install power and then not showing up. The bank rejected a money transfer and then charged us for it anyway. Things like that are frustrating but inevitable, right?
We are aiming to open the dorm March 15th, and I’m optimistic that we can do it. Today, Bianca and Alex are in Cusco buying furniture. We still need to introduce you to the dorm’s future inhabitants. We had a great meeting this weekend with all the families. We discussed how the dorm will be run and had the parents sign releases for their daughters. The girls seemed excited, but shy. Bianca promises to introduce each one in tomorrow’s entry. I can't wait to read it, Bianca.

-Eli

The parts of the road the river washed away (the hardest day yet)

Now that we had secured a place for the dorm, we shifted our focus to community outreach and student selection. During this process we suffered our first missteps and learned some tough lessons. Our plan was to spread the word to three of the most distant and impoverished communities in the district. Our first trip was to the village of Socma. We had heard that the heavy rains had washed away parts of the dirt road that winds up to the small agricultural village, but we had no idea of the extent of the damage. Where there had once been a road wide enough for a 3 axel truck, there wasn’t even room for us to pass on foot. The detour lead us along a rocky ledge that even a sure footed Incan would think twice about before crossing. This was the first of many difficulties that we would encounter over the following 4 days.

Our plan was to call small community meetings in each village in order to learn as much as we could about the daughters’ situation for the upcoming school year. We found that, regardless of the physical or financial sacrifices that a high school education would require, most families were doing everything in their power to enroll their daughters in their first year. This came as a surprise and meant that we would have to re-evaluate the prerequisites that we had established for acceptance in the dorm. We had originally thought that we would accept girls that, because of the difficultly of getting to school, had abandoned the idea all together. We realized that ‘access’ to high school, as we had originally defined it, was not so clear. Many of the students had arranged to work in the houses or shops of relatives or family friends in exchange for a place to sleep, while others would make the daily journey of 2-3 hours each way. Either way, they jumped at the opportunity to live in the dorm. It did not take long for us to realize the error we had made. By spreading the word in such a public fashion, we had given hope to more students than we could possibly accommodate. We mentioned the limited resources of our first year and stressed that the dormitory would be for those with the greatest need. Given our limited knowledge of each family’s specific situation, we hoped that the community itself could decide which girls they would send to the dormitory based on individual needs. In retrospect, this was an ignorant and harmful presumption. As you would imagine, most families were not willing to concede their daughters’ spot so as to benefit someone else’s daughter. We asked those interested to come down to Ollantaytambo the next day to meet with us.


Yesterday, while Eli and Bianca traveled to Camicancha to fulfill the heart-wrenching task of telling a mother of four whose husband has fallen victim to the bottle that there was no space in the dorm for her daughter, I stayed behind with Max to wait on the families from Socma and Raftca who would be making the 2 hour trek down to meet with us. Three families arrived to petition for our remaining two spots. For three and a half hours we tried in vain to facilitate a productive dialogue. We met first with the group as a whole and when that failed, we broke off and spoke with the fathers and mothers separately. As we were still unable to make any progress, we tried meeting with every family individually in an attempt to assess for ourselves who was the most appropriate candidate for the dormitory. This put me in a very uncomfortable and inappropriate position of power that was amplified by centuries of imperialism and external oppression. We decided that in the end, because the family from Raftca had the most children in elementary school and seemed to be in the worst financial position, that we would accept their daughter and continue to try and reason with the two remaining families. We offered to help both families with the purchase of a school uniform and school supplies and stressed the difficulties of being a part of the dormitory, but that didn’t seem to persuade either of them. When left to their own devises, the two families decided that the only way to reach a conclusion was by lottery. This plan seemed extremely unjust, but after a brief protest I realized that there was no other option. We decided to flip a coin. It was the most painful and inappropriate thing that I have ever witnessed first hand. In the end I had to tell my goddaughter, the girl for whom I had originally planned this project, that there was no room for her in the dormitory. This painful lesson is one that will stick with me and the Sacred Valley Project, and one which will change the way we handle the selection process for years to come.

- Alex

Yachay Wasi

At two in the afternoon yesterday we exited the office of the Ollantaytambo town judge having just signed a two-year contract for the building that will become Yachay Wasi. That’s the name we’ve decided to call the dormitory. It means “Casa de Aprendisaje,” or “House of Learning,” in Quechua, the indigenous language spoken by the local population.

The building is perfect, but it needs a ton of work. It’s a big room with two bathrooms and a kitchen attached to it. There’s no shower, no oven, and though it’s wired, it has no electricity. It was built in 2008 as the communal dinning hall, though the community has used it only a couple of times a year for weddings and quinceñeras. Animals clearly come through the open windows and there’s a rat carcass in the kitchen. Nonetheless, it’s easy to imagine the place clean, with walls separating different rooms, and filled with stuff.

Getting the contract was only possible because Max Loayza arrived on Sunday. He’s the son of Juan Loayza, the President of the Campesina (indigenous) community of Ollantaytamba, and whose house we are staying at. Though Juan is president, it is clearly a family enterprise. Walking through town, Max stops to chat with almost everyone he passes. At the breakfast table this morning he had a clear plan for how we were going to get the contract. Since Juan is involved with the project, the vice-president was the one who had to sign the document, for accountability purposes. In order for the proposal to be more appealing to the community leaders, Juan suggested that we reserve two spots for girls from the district that they represent. There are still little towns within the district without access to high school. The reason that this politicking was necessary is that we’re renting the building for next to nothing. We’ll be paying 100 soles, or a little over 30 dollars, per month. I was scared that the vice-president would see that we are gringos with macbooks and want more for the space. In fact, the vice-president seemed to be very interested in the project and eager to sign the contract.
Now we have a building. It’s the first step among many that still need to come. But it felt damn good to walk out of that office with the assurance that for the next two years we have a space we can use at a price we can afford.

-Eli

Three Cups of Mate

In the summer of 2008, a tall idealistic American sat down with his frail and pensive Andean goddaughter in the rural community of Socma. Shrouded by the dramatic mountains of the Sacred Valley, he questioned her about her educational future. High school is not an option, she retorted. She would probably stay in Socma.
And so was born an idea that would inevitably snowball into the Sacred Valley Project. An initiative that would enable young women from rural villages to continue their studies. A venture that would likewise enable our growth as foreigners in a sacred land.
Today, in the town of Ollantaytambo, three gringos share one cramped room, two beds and a single lightbulb, working endlessly to get these young women into high school, and slowly driving each other crazy.
So, why write a blog? A blog to keep our sponsors, our friends and family in touch with the development of the project. A blog to provide a new level of transparency as to who we are and what exactly it is that we do throughout our days in Peru. And of course, a blog to enable an outlet for a more whimsical and sometimes sarcastic literary prose.

-Bianca