| 2/27, 2/28, and 3/1: Casa de Milagros and Soccer |
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| Written by Josh Seamon | |
| Monday, 02 March 2009 | |
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Hello everyone, So, it turns out that going to bed really early doesn't mean I get to sleep in... it means I get to wake up early, enjoy early morning Cuzco, and type out another update :) The past three days have been glorious. 2/27 We had restful morning after our 8am wake up call. After another great hotel breakfast of juice, tea, and lots of cereal, we all gathered at 9:45. The bus showed up right before 10am and we all packed in. One thing that was great was that Nevers and Santos decided to come with us to make sure the transfer want smoothly. They have been so helpful that it was great to have them along. We took off a couple minutes after 10 and followed the road up past Saqsawaman and Pucapucara. We continues on into the Sacred Valley, through Pisac, and along the Urabamba river. At around noon we passed into the center of Calca, crossed the river, and worked our way a mile back along the other side to the drive way of the Casa de Milagros. The road was bumpy and we had some fun dodging some cows and corn. Nevers and Santos were again a huge help. At a little after 12:15 we made it to the Casa! We drove up the long drive way bordered by high clay brick walls and got our first full view of the Casa de Milagros. The compound consists of a front courtyard and house, along with 6 other building, most of which are interconnected. We drove up to the main gate and were immediately greeted by Marie, the woman who coordinates the orphanage. After a warm greeting, Nevers and Santos headed back to Cuzco with the bus and Marie led us into the Casa. What a place! Out the front we got a full view of gorgeous mountains the the very high Urabamba river. The inner courtyard was alive with flowers and tall palm trees. Marie led us through the sun room and into the main courtyard which is surrounded by the sleeping quarters for the children. We met our first children, most of whom were cleaning. The first one we say came right up to Karen and gave her a big hug! We walked to the back of the courtyard and into the main dining area where the kids dropped all of their gear. Marie then showed Karen and I sleeping arrangements (very comfortable!) and we returned for the kids. After the kids were settled, we returned to the dining area where Marie met us to start the tour. We saw all of the kids rooms, the play ground, soccer field, two gardens, green house, and dining hall. We learned that the 31 children and 8 adults lived together as one family. All of the children have no living parents except for 3 and that one girl is autistic and has a 24 hour caretaker. The children are not put up for adoption and instead live in the house until they are old enough to go out on their own. The place has been running for 9 years and the oldest child is 19 and is going to culinary university in Cuzco. All of the children that have come to live in the Casa still live there. On the tour we also met the house dogs Charlie, Jack, Blue, and Figo. After the tour we all gathered for a wonderful lunch of veggie soup.Then the kids were set off to interact with the children. I sat down in the main dining area and started folding cranes with the origami paper I brought with me. Soon I had a band of 10 small children learning how to fold and asking for different animals. Marie's 4 year old daughter Lily acted as my translator (too cute!) and I managed to only make a fool out of myself (in a good way) 9 or 10 times. Soon a few older children joined in and I taught them how to fold cranes. They memorized the process in about 5 minutes! Soon they were teaching other kids how to fold. It was wonderful :) Toward the beginning of my folding escapade Rahel and Eimile took off with Marie and some kids for the local market. Rahel was very excited to use her Spanish and Eimile was over the top excited to see another market. As I was folding Devon setup finger painting. In about 10 second she had a very animate gaggle of children having way too much fun with paint. The highlight was definitely when Lily and Esmerelda decided that it would be more fun to paint Devon's arms! What a sight. At this time I found out that a bunch of STJ kids had brought out the discs I had packed with me. I went to the front courtyard and watched as they threw back and forth with a big group of kids, saying the names of the people they were throwing to. Great stuff! I went back inside and continued to fold cranes with three kids around the age of 11. Our goal was to get to 100 and we managed to get to around 60 before things slowed down a bit. The kids continued to fold cranes and I started making pieces to construct one of the big stars that sits on the center of the round table in my classroom. At around 5pm I finished the star and Karen along with several STJ kids went with the entire Casa to a nondenominational church service. Around this time Rahel and Eimile came back from the market and reported that they had a wonderful time! About 15 minutes later I was well into stringing all of the cranes onto some thread (my pantomime of needle and thread is amazing) when I looked up and realized EVERYONE had gone to service... well, except me, a few STJ kids, 4 women cooking dinner, and Marie's oldest daughter Alexis. I talked with Alexis for a long while after I finished the 60-piece star and crane threading. She told me what it was like living as an American Teen in rural Peru -- how much she liked in and how she was not going to go back to the states. Interior design school in Cuzco or Italy for her! :) Everyone came back from services in a big flood and started sorting through all of the school supplies -- a mixture of stuff we had brought and that they had already. As Karen mentioned our timing could not have been better. School was starting on 3/2. We covered composition books, sharpened a couple hundred pencils, and were all school-supplied out by 8. At 8:15 we had a really fun dinner of peach jelly topped with Kinwa grains. Yum! I sat at a table with all Casa kids and stumbled through some explanations of where I was from and how I spoke Mandarin Chinese, not Spanish, which wasn't particularly helpful ;) After dinner we stayed in the dining area and socialized for a while. Jarret bonded with the little ones who were quickly climbing all over him. We listened to more American Pop music (which was almost always playing in the background -- yes, very surreal), as well as some guitar played by the kids. We then all met up at 8:45 for our group meeting and by 9pm were all fast asleep. 2/28 My alarm went off at 6am and I had the full intention of getting up before 6:30 to lead a small walk before our group meeting at 7. I ended up fully conscious at 6:45 to the irk of Eimile and crew, but shortly after our 7am meeting where we talked about just going with the flow of the day, Karen, Eimile, Rahel, and I went off for a walk. Charlie the very friendly German Shepherd led the way along the road next to the river, beside massive fields of corn. We soaked in the sun and made it 1.5 miles down the road to the bridge. We lounged on the bridge a bit and then headed back. Back at the Casa we all met up for breakfast in the dining hall which consisted of a hot thick cup of juice and raisin and banana pancakes. Yum yum. While eating breakfast Karen and I thought of calling Nevers, and then 3 minutes later Marie came in with her cell saying that Nevers had left a message. We called back and found out about the regional shutdown scheduled to start at midnight on Sunday. As Karen explained in her last email, these shut downs are good at stopping all trains, so our trip back to Machu Picchu would almost certainly not happen. Nevers told us that he was getting everything arranged for our return and then we gathered up the kids and told them the news. They were disappointed, but understood that this is something that we had no control over. Also, Cuzco is such a great place that all of them were happy about being able to spend more time in the city. Karen and I then went back to Marie's to make a few more calls and then we decided that we wanted to hike the mountain behind the Casa, to the Inca ruins on top... right by the waterfall coming down behind the Casa. Yah, that's right, there's a 1,500 foot waterfall behind the Casa Nice. Marie and her husband Allan arranged for one of the older children to be our guide. 30 minutes later Karen, Emile, Jarret, Seb and I, along with Evan (our guide) and 3 younger children around the age of 8, started up the climb. The first 500 yard was a narrow path through dense, fragrant, and wild growth. Lots of herb trees, cacti, and flowers. Next we met up with a dirt road switch back that had been recently carved into the mountain. After a km or so of rather gradual switchback road, we turned to the more steep switch back trail, and things got a bit tougher. The trail was fine, but at this point the altitude was slowing us down a bit. By us I mean the Americans. The Peruvian children were running, bouncing, and jumping all over the place :) After about 2 hours we had made the ~2,000 vertical climb to the top. At this point we were at about 11,000 feet. We walked on a trail around the edge of the peak and sat down to rest at the edge of a grassy hill. We devoured some oranges and took in the BRILLIANT sunny view of the valley. The small kids bounced around in a tree and we saw and heard a hawk diving into the valley. After a bit more resting we turned to walk up the hill, none too quickly. We walked through a group of cows, crested the hill, and got our first view of the ruins! They were beautiful and stretched out over a hundred yard of very green grass. There was a small waterfall over to the right and we headed in that direction. On the way we saw an alpaca -- who made some fun sounds, as well as the Incas house. Close to the waterfall the small kids found one, then two, then three walking stick insects. Neat. We made it to the shady waterfall which was just about the most perfect place for a picnic I have ever seen. At the waterfall we saw a giant hummingbird! It was about 9 inches long! We then turned around and walked across the ruins toward the guard tower. After a fun set of steps, we reached the location and sat down to rest. We hydrated, took in the view, and I checked our international cell phone on a lark to see if it got reception. It sure did! I tried placing a call, thought it failed, but then the call connected. From 11,000 feet in the Peruvian wilderness I talked for about 30 seconds with my 9 year old brother in western, MA. Nice. While we rested at the turret, I walked 100 yards around the corner and saw more Inca terracing, some of which was being used for farming. Wow. We then gathered up and started the hike down which was much easier than coming up. About 10 minutes down, at the place where we chowed down on the oranges, Evan gave a shout and pointed -- Out over the valley, several hundred yards away was soaring Condor!! We had a decent view of it for about a minute before it disappeared around a ridge. Wow, what luck! We continued down and cruised down the steep trail switchbacks that slowed us down o much on the way up. We rested for a bit before the trail turned to dense brush and right around that time it started to rain. Soon after Karen gave a call and we all turned and looked down to see a perfect rainbow in the valley. Another WOW moment indeed. We continued down the dense brush path and I managed to have to pull another cactus thorn from my leg. No pain, just a strange weirdness to having to pull one out at all. We made it back to the Casa by 3:30 (we started at 10am), ate a huge late lunch of meat, potatoes, rice, and salad, and by 3:45 I was out. I awoke briefly at 5pm as the other STJ kids came back from their walk to town, then went back to sleep until 5:45. At 6pm we had our group meeting and at 7:35 the dinner horn was blown. We gathered up in the dining area and had a great time socializing with the kids. There was lots of laughing, guitar playing, and general goofiness. The kids played tears in heaven on the guitar and we had a great veggie soup for dinner. We met up at 9pm for our group meeting and soon after we very much asleep. 3/1 Most of us woke up for a bit at 2am to Charlie barking, but were soon back asleep. We all met up at 7am for our morning group meeting. All the kids were then sent off to pack for our return trip to Cuzco. Breakfast was at 8:15 and consisted of a very tasty bowl of milk, fruit, yogurt, and Kinwa grain. We also had another round of hot, juice based tea. The morning was a bit rainy so we stayed inside and under roof ledges. We did some more socializing and I played fetch the rock with Charlie. This was not a new game. He really did fetch rocks. Seriously. At 9:15 our bus arrived and we said our goodbyes. It was really quite sad and we didn't like leaving. Marie said we should definitely come back next year and that the kids loved having us. We told her we would certainly try. We loaded up the bus with our kids plus a couple of the Casa workers who needed a lift to the next town. Our trip out over the river was smooth and after dropping off the two workers we were on the road back to Cuzco. Karen and the driver went back in forth learning Engligh/Spanish phrases. We passed by Pisac and some Inca sites we had seen before. For most of the trip is was raining and the clouds were very scenic over the mountains. We made it back to the city by 11am and it was sunny! Nevers greeted us at the hotel and the kids were sent upstairs to get cleaned up. 30 minutes later we were all gathered downstairs for our check in. The kids were then sent out into the city to find lunch on their own. Karen, Nevers, and I went out to do some errands and eat lunch. We ended up eating at a nearby cafe with Santos. Some great fresh fruit juice and some grilled chicken sandwiches later the sun was fully out and we were back at the hotel. After resting for a bit, I joined the group down in the lobby at 1:45. We all had our red jerseys on and Karen and I gathered up every one's passports to leave at the hotel. Right at 2pm our group -- 12 STJ kids, me, Karen, Nevers, Santos, and 4 of Santos' friends headed out to the stadium. The walk took us about 20 minutes and we got some great cheers from passing cars -- they like our group all wearing the local jerseys. We made it to the stadium and lined up in a crowd to go in as a group. We had to chug our water since they didn't allow any to be brought in, and 3 minutes later we crested the walkway and were inside the huge stadium -- which was already almost full. Nevers and his crew led us through the crowd and we found great seats. The whole place was concrete steps so everyone was packed in. Lots of people in our group bought fun hats and some snacks. The sun was out but we were in the shade. The opposing team (Lima) came out onto the field to see the conditions at around 2:20 and there was a bunch of whistling (booing). At around 2:45 Cuzco come out to warm up and at 3:15 the teams came out for their official introduction. Once end of the stadium was filled with Lima fans and the other 80% Cuzco fans. Everyone was really loud and the super fans at the ends of the stadium never stopped jumping, setting off loud explosions, and holding up road flares. It was pretty neat. There was also a chain link fence topped with barbed wire around the field, along with lot of police on the edge of the field. Everything was definitely just a show of force as nothing violent happened during the entire game... well, some of the players threw some nasty elbows. The game started and our whole group got right into it. Cuzco scored about 20 minutes in off of a penalty kick, and played a great first half. Cuzco didn't play so well in the second half and with less than 10 seconds left gave up a penalty kick to Lima... who scored to tie the game with no time left. The Lima fans were pretty happy. The game ended in a tie but Cuzco definitely felt like they lost. We then waited for about 10 minutes for the stadium to clear a bit then waded though some large crowds out onto the street. The walk back was smooth and by 6pm we were back into the hotel. We had another great hotel dinner (alpaca, chicken, and veggies with garlic) and Karen and I talked with Nevers. At 8pm I headed up for dinner and Karen took over the night check in. It's now a little before 5am on Monday, 3/2. In a couple hours Karen, Nevers, and I will be going to the train station to get a refund for our tickets. We'll then scope out the city to see how shut down it is, which will dictate what we'll be able to do today. Lots more pictures have been uploaded to the Peru 2009 gallery. Cheers, - Josh |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 02 March 2009 ) |
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