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