You might think this a strange picture to start with. And it is. But I just love the multicolured ear tassels which identify the owner of the animal. Actually it was quiet in the first week of the volunteering so in order to do something useful, Kelly (US born but secondary school in Ireland) and I went out on an information gathering mission. The idea was to take photos of the soil to send to people developing a motorised plough project to help the good folk of Pachachaca.
Because, as you can see below, the old team of oxen method is the most common method for ploughing the fields. And at 3700m, that's quite hard work. It was really great to be able to use the language skills for something other than teaching, yet still being in development. And it was a good initiative test to get something done when I could have done nothing.
My house was at the north end of the valley which slopes down into Pucará, a small town, from where you can get easily get a Toyota Hiace van thing into the city of Huancayo. This view is from the higher, southern end of the valley, looking down on the barrio of San Cristóbal.
You may not be able to see but the majority of the houses are made of adobe - mud/straw bricks and with a pretty tiled roof. The trees are mostly eucalyptus, a species which has dominated since being introduced by the Spanish.
It was pretty dry when we got there, as you can see from the stone wall :)
And this was my new place of work - Héroes de Pucará secondary school in Pachachaca. Set up by the parents of the community in 2004 to give some education to the kids whose parents didn't either have the money or want to send them the 30 minute walk to Pucará. With only 50 kids it's an almost stress-free environment compared to a big secondary. Unfortunately absenteeism is quite a problem with the staff. Especially at this closing end of the academic year. In the heart of the rather-spread-out Pachachaca, the school is 30m up the hill from the new Church and about 100m down the hill from the new medical centre that is currently being built.
One of the main aims of the plough project was to provide a machine to both break the soil and break up the lumps. This last job is often done by the kids at the expense of school time. In this case, it was quiet for us because it was half term for the kids, so no problem with these little ones helping out.
Walking north down the hill...
Until you get out to the north part of the village that is San Martín - my house is just a few minutes walk from here.
As far as walks to work go, this is about as good as it gets. This is me doing final interviews about soil quality in the last bit before my house, just about to have a hearty mountain soup of pasta, potates and rice. Yep, that's three carbs. Some veg as well, and chicken, often, and it's not like we had that all the time, but I'd certainly NEVER had it before.
As the farmers were all busy ploughing and sowing at this time, the rains should have started soon after, but they didn't. Which is why I got 2 months of really good weather. The rains only really properly came in my last two weeks. The valley would normally look more green and lush than this at this time of year, but I wasn't complaining.
When Isaac, one of the founders of Wasiymi Wasiki (My house is your house in Quechua) and Katie, who has been with the project almost since the beginning, came to visit, we took the opportunity to go to a local beauty spot, Jauja and the Laguna de Paca.
Kelly, Katie, Isaac...
And about 3 weeks in it was birthday time for me. So they duly got me an enormous chocolate cake. You can see some of the parents in for a meeting in the background.
The kids weren't in uniform for some reason or another...
But they sang songs for me, including one in Quechua by Gladys, and a very naughtily humorous song by the 11 year old Elvis who is third in line in the photo. And they all gave me a hug and when I said there was nowhere in the world I'd have rather been for my 35th birthday, I really meant it.
Katie did a great job with the cake.
On the Monday, it was a national holiday so Kelly had popped off to Lima with Isaac and Katie to take advantage of the long weekend. As the director called the kids into school and the parents were working, I decided to do a birthday of solo yoga and meditation with a few tunes in a pretty house nearby which had a nice lawn space to relax in (unlike my house which was more functional and on the austere side).
It was so relaxing and tranquil with birds singing, the soft scent of grass and flowers, and the humming of insects - bucolic paradise.
- The view was just stunning. Not really done justice by the photo, but you get a bit the idea.
And yes, that is a moustache, because this is MOVEMBER... in Huancayo. Where no-one has a moustache and no-one cared about mine because I'm just a gringo. It' quite wearing at times, total strangers shouting out 'Hola gringo', from 3 year olds to 83 year olds, 'gringo, gringo'. And as they are generally very kind, laid-back folk, they don't mean anything by it. But it really sounds derogatory to many tourist ears.
These kids may not rock the world at English (although many made very creditable efforts given the pitiful lack of opportunity they've had), but they ploughed up all what you can see plus another half behind me plus another half going UPHILL in about an hour and a half. Now I don't think 35 kids from the city schools in Huancayo could have done that, let alone kids in Manchester. Very strong and very hard-working...
And here lined up as they did every morning for assembly.
The director. Maybe a pledge of allegiance type thing. They certainly sung the national anthem regularly in the morning.
And here is the computer lab installed by Wasiymi Wasiki with 10 computers, a multi-media digital projector and, thanks to Chris Smith, headphones. Many thanks to those of you who donated for the projector in Colombia. The remaining money was used to buy more supplies in Colombia, pay some bills at the summer school in Ecuador when they had no money and to buy a juicer for a project in Cuzco, Peru. I didn't want to let Chris miss out so I offered him the chance to do the headphones :)))
Madaí, in 6th grade of the primary school just across the road from the secondary. She is a lovely, bright girl who thoroughly deserves her chance to get some of the same opportunities as kids in wealthier schools in the world. She was one of the daughters in Kelly's homestay family. See an interview with her Mum, here.
I did a powerpoint project with all the groups, starting from Year 5 primary who did something fairly rudimentary. Year 6's efforts were pretty sophisticated and Years 1-5 of secondary had to stand up and present theirs as well in front of the kids in their class. I was really happy with the results. As the computers had only been in since June, for many of them, keyboard and mouse stuff needed doing first.
Towards the end of my two and a half months volunteering, it was duly parade day in Pucará, quite a bustling place with a proper internet connection and a fair amount of commerce. There was also lots of drunken dancing later in the day, known as Huaylash (pron. Why lass) to Huayno music (wine-o).
Various local schools all paraded in front of the local government representatives after the aforesaid had lied through their teeth about all the things they'd done for the community with the people's tax money. In fact they had done nothing. Even the botched toilet facility at Pachachaca had been "done" by the previous administration. They also got the school's name wrong.
Here are our kids all scrubbed up doing last-minute preparations in their bid to win the prize - a printer.
The director, profesor Lisinio and profesor Eusebio.
You've got to love the tassels....
Ayda, with the flag, in 4th grade was very bright and did an excellent presentation. You can see an interview in Spanish with her and her two friends here.
This was one in a very, very long line of drunk people in Pucará who came up to me and babbled incoherently. He assured me that if anyone robbed me, he would cut their throat. Well that's good to know then.
Aren't they sweet?
Very hard to get the girls to smile. This is one of the best I got.
5th year lads - (Jarlín on the right) and David (on the left), a budding DJ and Kelly's housemate, whose music taste wasn't always to Kelly's taste. I think both of us listened to more pop/reggaeton in a few weeks than we'd have wished to in our entire lives, but you have to defer to people's taste when you're a guest.
And here's Aldo, the youngest son of 6 brothers and sisters in my homestay family. The other 5 all live in Lima or other cities. The secondary school and the investment by Wasiymi is, in part, an attempt to stop the drift away to the cities which will otherwise leave magical places like Pachachaca derelict. When Gladys in 5th year sung for me in Quechua, and when Teodósia, Aldo's mother, talked to me in Quechua, it is the voice of people who have inhabited these valleys for thousands of years. Aldo understands Quechua but doesn't speak it, a pattern I'd seen with children of his age in the Chuvash republic of Russia. I can't help but feel that an effort needs to be made to save the language of these wonderful people, but sadly in Peru, the "serranos" or mountain folk are widely disrespected and saving their culture is not seen as a priority in the rush to open as many new shopping malls as possible. Despite the city's headlong rush to imitate our dubious model of modernity, up in the village, I found the best welcome of any in my whole trip. Oh and we won the marching competition in the parade, despite the scruffy gringo who at the last minute decided he'd tag along at the back :)))
And the kids were like kids anywhwere but wth something that kids in England may have lost through no real fault of their own, just the environment they have grown up in, which is a respect for the opportunities that education provides.
The walk down to Pucará to catch the van into Huancayo or to sit at the lookout with a drink and a biscuit.
Starting running was one of the nicest ways to see these hills at 6 in the morning... And the peace and quiet allowed me to do more meditation than I've ever done before and to feel as happy as I ever have. I also learnt the poems for my second zine here And had a flash of inspiration about what I want to do next in my life. Who could ask for more from 2 months?
Towards my last day, on the lookout for final photos, I couldn't resist this. I love the kind of place where you see little families of piglets roaming around, see two cars and hear a hundred birds. Rather than the kind of place where you see a hundred cars and hear two birds....
In addition to teaching IT and English, Kelly and I also opened the computer room every afternoon for the kids from 3.30 to 6.30.
Chess was the most popular and the chess competition was one of my favourite things that I did, but some would also play language games using the headphones for the games which I made with the sounds of my dulcet voice :)))
On Thursdays, I did English and teacher training at the Francisco de Zela High School in the impoverished El Tambo part of town. This is class 5b who I would see again several hours later at their graduation ball.
Lovely kids and mostly very keen to learn English. Some of these kids were very good too.
And I have to include Rambo, one of the dogs who lived outside my house, who decided he would accompany me whenever I walked into the village and back. Little things like that were just SO sweet. In case you hadn't guessed it yet, I really loved Pachachaca.
And the fnal assembly when I said goodbye to the kids. They sang more songs for me. I wasn't upset as I'm usually not when something wonderful has come to an end and something great is about to start. I just felt very happy.
Me with La Bandida, who as the name suggests, was as audacious a food thief as you could hope to find.
The cuys (guinea pigs) in the kitchen! The school had its own cuy rearing shed and the aim was to sell them to make money to cover the cost of the internet each month. This micro-business is part of the Wasiymi approach to sustainable development. It is a pre-requisite for the school to get this to a decent stage before the computers arrive. This also requires the support of the parents. Thus the idea being that everyone is more involved, more committed and the children get the valuable experience of running a business in addition to their usual classes. A business which is appropriate to the local knowledge and skills base and which offers the chance of breaking out of the limited set of activities with their limited economic prospects.
When the rains started, the ultra-eco friendly house gets a bit less comfortable. There is almost no plastic garbage here. There is no rubbish bin. All organic stuff goes to feed the animals. What tiny bit of rubbish there is is burnt. Although many might descry the basic, and apparently unsanitary environment, for me, it was a super-modern eco house. And my stomach was far better here than in the supposedly more developed Cuzco.
As you can see, the hills have disappeared behind the clouds.
Don Osías, often worked away, getting up at 3am often to do the family's milling business.
And the woman to whom I owe a HUGE debt of gratitude. Teodósia looked after me like one of her own children. Her hospitality is something that will live with me forever. I hadn't really thought about the fact that I would be living in a family, much less in such basic conditions. But Teodósia served me three fantastic meals a day most days, cooking until 2-3am to do my farewell mondongo soup. And if it wasn't Teo, it was Aldo. At 15, looking after me, with no problems whatsoever. You are always given the best part of the meat. You are always fed more than you need and NEVER would you feel that you are a burden. It was really quite something. THANK YOU SO MUCH :)))))))))) xxx
And that is that. Now it's time for Christmas in Lima, then shoot down to Cuzco and into Bolivia for the month of Jnauary.
Lots of love,
Steve
