Into the Indigenous Highlands

Why do I like blogging so much more when I am not at home? Partially because I want to record my memories, partially because it´s easier to keep in touch this way, and partially because I spend more time on the computer when abroad as it takes the place of my friends, family, husband, etc.

So here I am, just back in Cusco after what must have just been one of the longest days in a long time. I got up super duper early (3am to be precise) because I was sure that for the fourth morning in my time in Peru they had forgotten to wake me up. I pretty much stayed up after that with only brief reprieves with weird dreams. I have now had 10 or so dreams about forgetting to do homework, failing tests, or being late for school (what is that about??). I arrived at the take off point at 7am, on time. However, my NGO hosts notified me that the driver of the truck was lost. He is from Cusco. How he was lost was beyond me.

So about an hour late, we begin to trek up up up up into the mountains. A few hours later, at the appointed spot, we realize the artist I had hired (but not yet paid) was not there. Goodness gracious. So scramble, change of plans, and now someone else has to be a psuedo artist for this focus group I am about to lead. We are very late, and I know Hora Latina means late, but I have no idea what people in the indigenous highlands will think of extreme tardiness. I would be pissed.

It gets worse. We keep having to stop, to pick up people, things, etc. We are all pretty durn stressed out by now. So by the time we arrive in the community, we are shocked that there are even people there waiting for us at all. It starts out as 2 and grow to about 15. That is a perfect number.

To make matters almost impossible, most people in the group don´t speak Castellano (spanish) and are Quechua speaking, and our translator colleague also had to bow out at the last minute. So we then are forced to rely on the goodness of a few folks who can translate back and forth.

To sum up, it goes well, and I get extremely sunburnt. I was thrown off in that it was cold and windy. But I am quite red. The community is very kind and gives me some potatoes. Those potatoes literally taste like styrofoam. But I am thankful for them and impressed that in a country of thousands of varieties of potatoes, I have found one variety I simply cannot gag down my throat. Thank god they didn´t offer me the delicacy of guinea pig, I don´t know what I would have done!

But wait, the meeting was really interesting. They talked about how they want to provide feedback on projects in which they are beneficiaries, how do they log official complaints, and how do they work in true partnership with NGOs? We got some basic images out of it that I will now work with another artist on.

On the way down from 13,500 feet back to Cusco valley around 9,000 feet, I am more relaxed, enjoying the beautiful blue sky and the shocks of green pasture on the steep slopes that someone has cultivated. We pass what I think is the world´s smallest volano (which is so small I can´t even find it on google).

The slog back to Cusco is made worse this time around though because I am squished into a humid, stinky bus and crisscrossing the valley. Still I dont feel bad and am glad to be here.

Finally back in Cusco I get myself a guanabana milkshake and plop down for a bit. Here I am.