Swing.

Our intention this morning was, like yesterday, to wake up at 6 am and be in the community around 7 to catch people before they left for the fields. Unfortunately (or very fortunately?) Wednesday night is the most happening party night in Urubamba (mostly because everyone leaves for Cusco on the weekends) so we decided we owed it to ourselves to hit Club Tequila. 


We didn't end up leaving the house until 8 this morning, and had a frustrating time trying to track down the people we needed for our surveys. The sun was boiling, and the faint red undertone I've been sporting recently upgraded to a light burn. We trudged from house to house, Yasmine taking charge of brandishing rocks at dogs, with little success. Just when we were ready to give up we found a house with a beautiful front garden, and stopped to tell the owner how lovely it was even though he wasn't eligible for our survey (no kids in the elementary school). He invited us in and before I knew it I was being pushed on a home made rope swing beside a duck pond. We laughed like kids, partly because swinging is an awesome activity and partly because we couldn't believe the whimsical turn our day had taken. 

Doing these surveys with Yasmine has really been a gift. We go when we think we can find the most people, we make our own schedule based on our flimsy understanding of the village layout, and we get to do things like play with babies and help women strip down thin branches for basket weaving. We get offered food, and always have a beautifully woven blanket spread out over rocks or stools before we sit down. Now when we arrive in the morning we exchange greetings and kisses and waves with the people who allowed us (strangers) into their homes just the day before. When we say goodbye we promise to see them at this Saturday's general assembly, and when they tell us how delicious the peaches will be in January, I can say I'll be around to taste them.

gameface.

I had an off day on Thursday. It was my job to buy entrance tickets for Machu Picchu, and instead of strolling 10 minutes from the Plaza to the station I got lost and ended up scrambling along rocks between the river and the train tracks for almost an hour. I finally emerged at the back of the station through a thicket of brambles, much to the surprise of both passengers and crew. Tickets purchased, I got back on the bus to Urubamba, met Yasmine for coffee and was finished with lunch before I realized that somewhere after buying the tickets my wallet had disappeared, taking with it my rent money, the cash for Machu Picchu and my reserve fund of US dollars, not to mention my driver's licence, SIN card, 2 debit cards, 3 credit cards and Canadian citizenship card. Plus, I really liked that wallet. I bought it in Hong Kong, for full price while Aaron wasn't looking.

I spent friday morning alternating between crying on the phone with my mom and calling to cancel cards. Luckily Ana arrived that night, and we put our gamefaces on and left for Aguas Calientes. Machu Picchu is probably the only thing that could have successfully taken my mind off how screwed I am, and I'm grateful for it. There's something comforting about ruins, especially when they look like this:

Sound the alarm.

I looked over at Yasmine and seriously considered making a medium funny joke about how she should, in true Yasmine style, be taking pictures of us looking exhausted and frazzled in the early hours of the morning. The atmosphere in the car was tense, though, and I figured that if the mudslides did turn into a tragedy I would regret saying anything, so I kept quiet along with everyone else as we drove towards Ollantaytambo and away from the overflowing lagoon. In the front seat were Yovana, her son Joel and her partner Luis. When we arrived in Ollantay Maricarmen, our director, begged them to stay with us in the hotel but Yovis just laughed, said goodnight and drove back to Urubamba.

We stayed in a nice hotel and at around 3am, as we were listlessly sitting around the room wondering if we should go to bed, Yasmine snapped a couple of photos and we all laughed. Everything is really fine in Urubamba, though the river is gushing with unusually brown and silty water and a few streets have traces of mud and small debris. Although she is staying here, Mari is worried about more rain and more mud, and the legal issues associated with injured foreigners. She was so upset last night that I buckled to social pressure and said yes when she asked us to please stay in Cusco for couple of days, even though I think it's unnecessary.  In a few hours, then, we will head to higher ground and spend a few days eating tourist homefoods and lazing around coffee shops while every other Urubambian goes about their daily lives with slightly damp feet.

Cuncani

We did the farthest houses first, climbing up a hillside full of buried potatoes at around 7 am. At each house  I sat as Ian and our Quechua translator, Juana, slowly gathered the information necessary for our needs assessment. By the end of the day we had only completed 10 surveys, and I was exhausted and sunburned to a fairly ridiculous extent. The village pooled together animal skins for us to sleep on, and we passed out on our beds of llama by 8 pm.

The next day there was a town meeting, and during its lunch break we were able to gather groups of people to interview. Most people under 40 spoke better Spanish than I do, and we trudged through the questions with occasional help from the translators, who were busy running between clusters of people spread across the field. I felt ridiculous fairly often; certain questions, like "what do you like about your village?" where met with blank stares or laughter. Going through a checklist of food and hearing no to vegetables, no to meat, no to fish and no to milk, and realizing the widow you are interviewing literally only eats potatoes, made me feel like an asshole for asking in the first place.

I hope that the information we gathered will be useful and that we will be able to design and implement a project with the ability to do some good. Right now, we are in Cuncani's debt- for the village's hospitality, patience and kindness towards us, as well as a delicious sheep and about 400 potatoes.

Villa Marcelo Garden Project

Villa Marcelo is a primary school, accessed by a sharp right turn off of the paved highway 25 minutes north of Urubamba. I had met Hector, the school's director and 5th grade teacher, at a meeting to discuss the agricultural project being implemented in his school. The next day we stood in the greenhouse built in the back corner of the grounds, staring at a one-square-foot hole dug into the earth. It took a minute for me to understand that the missing soil was a sample, sent to an agricultural lab. The results aren't so fantastic; a heavy coating of humous is needed before the anticipated strawberries or tomatoes can be planted.



The greenhouse is part of a larger project which has two interconnected target areas: education and health. It aims to improve academic performance and attendance by giving children lunches at school, and to improve the overall health of children and families through an increased understanding of nutrition.

Peru is ranked as one of the worst countries in the world based on educational performance. A staggering 85% of citizens between the ages of 18-45 lack a sufficient education for joining the skilled workforce.  Concerning nutrition, between 8 and 29% of children in Urubamba are chronically malnourished, and between 63 and 89% have iodine and/or iodine deficiency, which can cause a serious reduction in learning capabilities.

In an effort to combat these problems, students will participate in managing the school's garden and, in the process, learn the basic principles of healthy eating. The school lunches prepared with these products will provide an incentive for families to send their children to school and help the students to concentrate better in class. Pictured below are two fields owned by Villa Marcelo which, in conjunction with the greenhouse, will provide the project's food. In the field pictured on the right, corn planted in September has already broken the surface.


Participation from the community is necessary to transform the agricultural products into meals, but also to ensure that the nutritional lessons can be applied at home. Helping parents integrate healthy practices into daily routines means that younger children, in their earliest and most formative years, will also receive better nutrition. Parents will be invited to informative meetings and cooking classes, and mothers are volunteering to prepare and serve the lunches on a rotational basis.

In a nearby town a similar project was instigated by an NGO who, also recognizing the link between nutrition and education, wanted to pay to provide school lunches. Problems arose when other community members asked to be fed, and when the funding stopped the project disappeared. Villa Marcelo is determined to take a different approach. Prefacing the lunches with nutritional education, having students create their own food in a sustainable garden, and involving community members and families in the project are all means to ensure its longterm effectiveness.

After insisting I say hello to every class and taking me to look at the lunchroom (above left) where meals will eventually be served, Hector walked me to the school gate. Having rested at the end of the line, the bus was to ready to return to Urubamba.