On Wednesday night, a friend and I decided, nearly on a whim, to take an overnight trip to Paucartambo, a town known countrywide for its celebrations during July in honor of the Virgen Carmen. The celebrations date back to the 17th century when the Cult of the Virgin Carmen, passing through Paucartambo on a trading excursion, witnessed the Virgin’s face miraculously emobossed on a clay vase. They have since celebrated the anniversary of that miracle in a party that lasts for days in honor of the Virgin. We arrived by bus around 11 pm and the party was in full swing – dances, fireworks, etc.
Two hours further is the park of Trez Cruces, from which you can watch what is known as one of the most beautiful sunrises in the world. We were told over the last few days that it is a special sunrise that can only be seen in Peru and Japan, but we still are not sure what exactly makes it so unique. Nevertheless, it was one of the most beautiful things to see – the park that we were watching from overlooks the jungle, which was covered in a layer of clouds on this particular morning. Watching the sun rise over those clouds was spectacular.
We then took the two hour bus ride back to Paucartambo for the party, which was like many of the other parties we have seen here in Cusco – cultural dress, dances, parades, etc. It was still great to watch. Our bus back was forced to stop in another small town, Pisac, for over an hour for another parade to pass. Peruvians love to party.
One of the more interesting things I have noticed in Peru – both in Lima and here in Cusco – is a government-based effort to clean up the cities. The worst part about Lima, and what probably made it so unattractive, is the fact that it is literally nasty. Pollution, contamination, litter, everything that makes a metropolis so unappealing. It has become bad enough that the government has decided to step in – whether it be posting signs encouraging people to actually use trash cans, encouraging environmental-friendly education, or allotting space on public walls for murals that are filled with environmental friendly messages, like one in Cusco that reads “da una mano a la vida, que el mundo es fragil” which literally translates to “give a hand to life, because the world is fragile.” This is coupled with new campaigns for potable agua in Cusco (you would never want to drink the water here).
It is encouraging to see the government and citizens beginning to take a stand and do something, while at the same time discouraging that it has gotten this far. The effort has filtered down into Asociacion Wara as well – every Friday, the first hour is spent cleaning the river that runs through the community, and everyday we collect at least a trash bag worth of crap. Plastic bottles, candy wrappers, plastic bags, shoes, tires, etc. People are undoubtedly lazy about throwing trash away, but that is just the way it has been. Everything is tossed out the window. As Williar, the manager of Wara, likes to say, respect for the environment is something that needs to be learned.
**The pictures don’t have much to do with the post. They are pictures of the city center here in Cusco that I have been meaning to put up.
This past Sunday, my friend Ricardo and I visited the Salt Mines and Inka Ruins at Moray. Its about an hour bus ride outside of Cusco, and is famous for essentially being an ancient laboratory. The Inkas constructed what first looks to be crop circles in a valley – they are actually a series of microclimates that were used for experiments with different seeds to determine the optimal environment to grow certain plants and crops. The different “levels” were only about 8 feet apart, but the temperature and climate were different enough that they could experiment. It was fascinating to see – and the ruins themselves were massive.
About 20 miles down the road are the Moray salt mines – originally used by the Incas and still in use today, the mines are built on the side of a hill. Water is filtered into pits, and then when the water evaporates, salt is all that is left. I kept thinking that the salt mines looked like an artist’s collage. It is so interesting to think just how they discovered either of these places, and both were amazingly beautiful.
Saturday is normally our day off, but since a friend and I were walking around the city (including a trip into the black market of Cusco), we decided to stop by the hospital just to say hello to the kids. We ended up in there for the greater part of an hour, having a one-handed origami competition with a child who only had one good arm. Because my hands were so big, I narrowly won, but my paloma (pidgeon) was only to be smushed by Sharmeli, a 7 year old girl who refused to let me leave without a fight. In the process she smushed my tiny bird – and my fingers.
It is getting harder and harder, as we get to know the kids and their stay at the hospital continues into the second or third week, to leave everyday. No one else comes to visit them, not even their parents, and its easy to tell that they are bored out of their minds. I am reminded that, beyond the healing that happens, hospitals are a very depressing place most of the time.
The last few days at my projects have been very encouraging. I wrote earlier about my frustration with the fact that nothing was really getting done, and what was happening was taking an eternity, but things are starting to look up.
Although I have only been at the hospital for a few days now, it has already been a very rewarding experience. It was so wonderful to come in this morning and see smiles on the faces of the children that I know hadn´t had a conversation about anything other than pain or vital signs since I left the day before. Sharmely, a 7 year old girl, absolutely loves math, and I spent the greater part of an hour yesterday morning trying to convince her that, indeed, 6 + 11 does equal 17. And Vicente, a cute 4 year old boy with a shattered arm who couldn´t speak a word of Spanish was finally discharged today. His dad came down on Monday morning and slept on the floor next to his son´s bed last night. His only remark was that, yes, it was cold, and that the hospital hadn´t fed him anything the entire time. He was going to stay there, though, until they let his son go. If only you could have seen the expression when he finally saw ¨ALTA¨written on the board behind his son´s head, meaning that he was essentially discharged. Vicente was ecstatic, too, and immediately began trying to put on new clothes for the journey home, which ended up being difficult with only one good arm (but that is why volunteers are there!).
At La Asociacion Wara, or the futbol project as it is referred to by most of the volunteers, the manager has been describing for us his grandiose dreams – that there be a mini-hostal built for tourists on site and that a ¨social cafe¨be set up as a means of making the project more self-sufficient and less dependent on foreign organizations for all of the funds. But while those ideas are a long way from being realized, tangible things are starting to happen. For starters, the community has plastered and nearly finished a new room where the little kids will be able to play games, and we are hopefully going to paint it (in the brightest colors we can find) this Saturday. Lights are going to be installed by our volunteer organization this weekend (or so we´ve been told), and we are hopefully going to buy a TV and DVD player to go along with the new electricity in the coming weeks, mostly to distract the younger kids while the older ones are doing thier homework or studying English.
But most valuable to me was the look on one 10 year old girl´s face at Wara yesterday while we were working on her division homework. She turned to me, with a smile on her face after she successfully divided 243 by 3, and just whispered ¨Estoy aprendiendo!¨or ¨I´m learning!¨.
Note to self: Peruvian fireworks are not very reliable.
Yesterday was the fourth of July, and seeing as many of the volunteers working in my house are from the States, we all decided to import a good ol´ fashioned 4th of July BBQ. And for our British friends, it was their first crack at American tradition.
The day started off with a trip to the Peruvian supermarket, where we bought atleast one half of the available ¨hot dogs¨ along with some ground beef. We didn´t exactly have a grille, per-say, so we substituted a grill/skillet that was meant for the stove top. In memory of Michael Jackson we played his greatest hits on repeat (his earlier stuff is better than I remembered), and then capped the night off with a small fireworks display from our in-house pyrotechnic. For whatever reason, we decided that the best place to set off the explosives was on a grassy lawn right outside one of the biggest shopping markets in Cusco – I´m pretty sure we induced at least three heart attacks inside, but we fled the scene before anyone could report us. It wasn´t quite the same as watching the fireworks in downtown Nashville, but it was close enough.
My first day with the Red Cross branch in Cusco was today. There are 3 large hospitals in Cusco, and of the two public ones, the Red Cross works with the poorest – El Hospital Lorena. It’s demographic is similar to my other project – those in rural villages in the hills surrounding Cusco.
Without any medical qualifications I can’t do much, but what we are doing is important. Many of the kids at the hospital are from families who can barely afford any medical care, much less make the trip down to the hospital to consistently visit their kids. Imagine being 5 or 6 or 7 years old alone in the hospital. That is where we can help keep the kids company and help while the doctors make their rounds. It will allow me to talk to the patients and the doctors, and it will be one of those volunteering experiences that is what you make of it. Hopefully it will be a meaningful experience both for us and the kids, and also an opportunity to learn first hand about the Peruvian healthcare system.
Already today, of the 10 or 12 patients we saw, one of them couldn’t have a necessary arm operation because he couldn’t afford the pins, which would cost $23 for 2 of them, and another couldn’t afford the medication. The red cross manager assured us that was par for the course. Your first reaction is to buy the pins or the meds, until you realize that every single bed is filled with a person carrying a similar story. We can only do so much, but thats hard to accept that sometimes.
