Year Two: Inaugurated

On Sunday, 20th of March, the Sacred Valley Project celebrated the start of its' second operational year and inauguration of our new dormitory building. This 2011 school year, with twelve students and twelve families, management will surely be a tricky issue. However, the families and students alike have impressed us with their promptness, dedication and responsibility. Everyone showed up early Sunday morning to pitch in with all the to dos before the start of our inauguration. Furniture was rearranged, our lavish inauguration meal was prepared and some last minute renovations of the new home were completed.

Though not as extravagant as our first year’s opening fete, the day was a veritable success. The young women were calm and helpful, the mothers worked wonderfully together to prepare our lunch, and even the weather cooperated. The clouds cleared, the sun shone through, and we were all left in awe of the spectacular scenery surrounding the dormitory and town of Ollantaytambo.

Helping out in the kitchen, I was given the chance, nay the privilege to learn how to clean and cook the cuyes (guinea pigs), a special treat usually reserved for large celebrations and special events. Though a bit doubtful at first, I soon learned how to season the perfect cuy, and the mother’s of the young women of the dorm now avow that I am ready to meet my husband! Indeed!

In all, the mothers and sisters pitched in to make a delectable meal of cuy, rocoto relleno (hot peppers stuffed with ground beef and vegetables), tallarin al horno (baked pasta with olives) and choclo (good ‘ole corn). The meal was enjoyed by absolutely everyone, even the newer additions to the dormitory (a puppy named Osito and our boisterous watchdog, Doky).

As with all great inaugurations in Peru, chicha was present for the thirsty, plenty of hugs and complimentary words were shared, speeches were made and our stomachs were filled until they nearly burst. The students of the dormitory sang a few songs for those in attendance, and Yesica, one of our second year students even donned a dress and courageously sang a solo for the crowd in attendance. The occasion was merry indeed, and left me on the verge of tears.

Another year to come, and though it will surely entail a slew of work, we have no doubt that with the positive collaboration of the students and their families we will be able to advance and grow!

-Bianca

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