Day 12: July 7

This morning, the group started off the day with a hike to the "forgotten ruins" of Ollantaytambo. Found just 15 years ago, the ruins consisted of Incan baths and bedrooms. For ten minutes we sat quietly, resting and thinking. After lunch, we resumed our afternoon workshops (arts & crafts, games, and, of course, soccer). As usual, arts & crafts was swamped with children eager to learn, while soccer and games were kept busy by energetic athletes. Later on, we finished our third and final Quechua lesson (the native language of Ollantaytambo and the Incans).

Having learned all of the basics, the group can now tell everyone their favorite colors and names. Days in Ollantaytambo are long, but all-the-while engaging, and we are always learning. Half-way done with the trip, the group is well on its way to a better understanding of Spanish and Peruvian culture.

Day 11- July 6

Today we spent the day with our families. At seven I went to Mass with my mother. The service starts at 7:30, and went until 9. After a quick breakfast of eggs, bread, and tea, I went to the field my family owns with my mother and two brothers. They hooked up two oxen to a wooden plow and used it to churn up the earth; to my surprise there were potatoes! My mother and I walked after the oxen and  collected the potatoes the freshly churned earth turned up. We did this for around an hour and a half, and when we had finished most of the field we went home for lunch. After lunch I met up with some of the group members, and we went to a favorite cafe of ours. The rest of  the day was spent with the group in meetings or playing games. Below are pictures of all the students with their host families.         - Caroline Fisher 

Day 10-July 5

Hello everybody, this is Caroline (Morss). This morning, we made baskets at Pancho's house. While it was really hard, we all managed to finish our baskets (or Pancho and his family did). We also managed to break a lot of the sticks that we were weaving with, but in the end we all managed to come out with a finished basket. After we finished, we got our "prize" of chocolate-covered crackers called Choko Sodas, and Peruvian marshmallows. The Argentina- Belgium game was going on while we were weaving, so when everyone had finished we watched the rest of the game at Pancho's house. Then we all went back to our host families for lunch. We returned to El Tambo at 3:00 for Quechua lessons. We learned some very useful sayings like "Your eyes are like the stars," which is "Quanmikanki ch'askañawicha,"
and "Little mama, you're the only one I love with all my heart," which is "Mamallay qanllatan munakuyki llapan sunguywan." We then met up with our friends

from Lakeside School in Seattle for a friendly soccer game. They tried to sabotage our team when they took us into the town they were staying in and made us climb a lot of stairs to get to the field. The game was Groton vs. Lakeside. Sr. Fernandez was Groton's M.V.P with a hat trick. The game was very fun even though people kept kicking the ball all the way down the hill by accident. Groton came in second place. Afterwards, we walked back to Ollantaytambo for our meeting. If we play Lakeside again, we're definitely making them come to us.

Days 8 & 9: July 3rd and 4th

Hi everyone! This is Claire and Liza. We have just come back from our overnight hike on the Incan trail after starting the journey yesterday. We left at around 9 AM and hiked for around 3 hours with a lunch break and several snack breaks. Overall, the trip to the Pumamarca ruins, which is where we set up for the night, took us 5 hours. Before we reached the real mountain trail, our guide Porfirio told everyone to put a fist sized rock in their backpack which we then carried for an hour. In the Incan culture, the rock symbolizes the carrying of your sins. Supposedly, if the rock feels heavier as you walk up the mountain, you are a big sinner. Then, when we reached a certain point on the mountain, Pancho (our other guide) and Porfirio gave us three coca leaves which we had to hold with both hands. Pancho told us to close our eyes as he recited a prayer in Quechua.
He asked the “Apus” (gods) for a safe journey, good health, and good studies. We stopped for lunch around

an hour later, and they had already set up the tables and chairs. Most of the hike was unfortunately up hill. We arrived at our nighttime campsite around 3 PM. We had free time and we played cards and explored some of the nearby ruins. Teatime was served at 5 PM and everyone devoured the popcorn and hot chocolate they served. After teatime, we played man-hunt in the dark. Despite the fact that we couldn’t see anyone, people fell down mountains, and stepped in lots of donkey poop, we still had a lot of fun playing. For dinner we ate rice, steak, and French fries at a candle-lit table.  After dinner, everyone went star gazing. The stars were beautiful. We could see all the stars in the southern hemisphere, the Milky Way, and even a few shooting stars (which we were pretty sure were not satellites).  We also had a sing along where we relived our middle school years by singing Taylor Swift, Hannah Montana, Ke$ha, and Katy Perry songs for about an hour.  After singing Call Me Maybe, Sra. Vera informed us that nobody would call us… After these activities, everybody went to their tents of 2, 3, or 4 people.

At 8 AM we ate breakfast and made our way up the mountain to see the Pumamarca ruins. Despite the lack of oxygen, we all made it safely up the last stretch of the mountain. Porfirio told about the the Quechua town near our campsite and the history of the Incas and their ruins. Pumamarca was a military base used in the battles against the Spaniards. He then told us why it was named Pumamarca from stories he had heard from his Quechuan father. Apparently there were many pumas around the base at the time of the Incas and the area itself was called Marca. We proceeded to go down the mountain and return to Ollantaytambo.

As Claire, Allie, Grace, and Mr. Pomeroy were almost in Ollantaytambo, they came across a group of American High School students from Seattle whom they talked to for the duration of the journey. Some of them knew Gates McGavick, a rising sixth former.  Due the fact that we don’t have any American friends here, and it is the Fourth of July, we invited them to El Tambo (our meeting location and former home) for a party where we ate and watched Brazil beat Colombia 2-1. Before this gathering, a few of us ran into Liberty Potter’s (a rising fourth former) younger sister who will be coming into third form next year, as we were trying to exchange money.

Even if the hike there was tiring, we arrived safely back to Ollantaytambo, made new friends, and continued to have a good Fourth of July (even though there aren’t any fireworks).

Day 7- July 2nd

This morning we completed the finishing touches on the playground in Rumira. It turned out very well, and the children at the school cannot wait to use it. Before leaving, the entire school gathered to sing us a song to show their gratitude, to which we responded with a rendition of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. After lots of hugs, photos, and goodbyes, we boarded the bus and returned to our homestays for lunch. At 2:30 we reconvened at El Tambo to prepare for the workshops, which we held from 3:00-4:00. We saw lots of familiar enthusiastic faces from the previous 2 days. Just before 5, we boarded a bus that took us to Nicholas Asheshov’s house in Urubamba. Nicholas is a British journalist who lived in Peru during the time period that our book Death in the Andes is written. It was very interesting to hear his perspective and stories, and we were all grateful for his generous hospitality.

                We embark on our overnight hike tomorrow morning, so expect our next post on Friday. The photos below show the before and after pictures of the playground.

 Hasta luego,

Delaney

Before Zebras

 

After Zebras

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 6- July 1st

This morning we all met at El Tambo after breakfast with our host families. We continued our work on the playground and made lots of progress. Today we focused on painting the slide and the monkey bars, but the rocks and bits of trash that seemed to appear from thin air demanded out attention as well. I was on trash duty for the first bit of the morning, but later I painted part of the slide, which was a task that left us all covered in splashes of blue, yellow, white, and red paint by the end of the day. In addition we added monkey bars to the playground and painted them with alternating white and red stripes. As we were leaving the school the kids came out to play with us; they brought puppets out with them and we also played many games of catch with our football when they weren't too focused on watching the construction on the playground.

We reconvened after lunch with our families to organize our workshops. I'm working with Claire, Mims, Grace, and Ivana on an arts & crafts workshop where we learned through trial and error not to let the kids use paint. We had two stations today: bracelets (pulseras) and drawing. The bracelet station definitely gained a more widespread popularity, as each of them got to choose their own colors and finish them at their houses. As we were heading back to El Tambo for our meeting we saw about five kids  all in a line with their bracelets taped to their backs, trying until the last minute to finish them before they reached home.


The soccer workshop and the games workshop finished early to watch the US vs. Belgium game, but my group returned in time to watch overtime and see the amazing goal that prevented a shutout. We were all yelling at the TV so loudly each time we shot on goal that I'm positive our neighbors could hear us.

Overall, we had a productive day of working on the playground and with the kids in our workshops, and, although we were upset by the outcome, we had a great time watching the game together this afternoon. I'm looking forward to our project tomorrow and getting to know the children at the school better.

-Allie

June 30- Day 5

Hola amigos! Mims here. Today was a very fun and packed day. This morning we all woke up and ate breakfast with our families. Already we are all becoming closer to our families and everyone's Spanish has improved. At 8:30 we all made our way over to the homebase, El Tambo, and prepared to depart to Rumira.
Rumira is a local school that many of the kids in town attend. For our community development project, we are working on rebuilding their playground. This entailed picking up the trash, removing the rocks, and sanding the old slide. It doesn't sound like a lot, but let me tell you every time you picked up a rock or a piece of trash, more would force their way up to the surface and magically appear. After working for two and a half hours, the school graciously offered us some delicious food, and we got to go see the classes and talk to the kids.

The group at Rumira.

We all went home for lunch and then returned to El Tambo, so we could all walk over to El Telecentro together. In El Telecentro we set up for the community workshops, which include arts and crafts, sports, games, and La Marinera. La Marinera is a Peruvian dance, at which Senora Viacava excels. She is the reigning world champion!! The sports group and the games group both had a lot of fun with their kids, who really liked to roll on the ground. I worked in the arts and crafts group, which was supposed to be relaxing, but turned into absolute madness when appx. 50 kids showed up out of the blue. We were caught completely off guard, but managed to finish without any meltdowns.

Overall it was a great day!
-Mims