Over the past four days, I´ve fallen in love with Cusco. As my volunteer project, I am currently helping build a preschool high in the hills around the city. I live close to the center, so in order to reach my site, I have to take a minibus, which equals squishing 30 people into a vehicle meant for 12- ladies with babies tied to their backs in colorful blankets, young school children in matching uniforms, and then us, the gringos looking as out-of-place as ever. The bus wound up narrow cobblestone streets and finally into native neighborhoods, where houses are built on the sides of eroding clay embankments.
Right now we are helping to plaster the walls and lay a concrete floor on the two-story structure that will eventually serve as a preschool for the locals. As we progress, the people of the neighbordhood constantly wander in to say hello and inspect our work (which is generally sub-par and slow- plastering is difficult!) Because we are obviously short on money, when we aren´t plastering walls, we sit outside and use hammers to straighten out bent nails. Empty concrete bags are actually imbedded into the cinder block and concrete walls as ¨reinforcement.¨ I promise to get some pictures up of this soon! Today, I arrived at the work site a little early and this six-year-old girl was wandering around. Most of the kids here will say hola and smile, but are shy (I mean, I get it: I am pretty strange looking and can´t seem to string a correct sentence together in Spanish.) Angela, however, wanted to talk up a storm, and she told me all about her school, her brothers and sisters, then returned home so that she could get her doll to show me. The doll had no eyes or arms, but she carried it in her sweater on her back with infinite amounts of pride. I love moments like that.
On Monday, I went on a Cusco city tour. My tour guide, although English speaking, was pretty terrible at his job, but the ruins were incredible. It´s such a moment of tranquilty when in just 10 minutes, you can leave the honking cars, construction workers, and air pollution for the silent hillside. The Saqsayhuaman national park contains stone ruins that you could easily spend a day hiking through. The views of the city are incredible and even more incredible are the size of the stones- some weigh as much as 600 tons and the walls are built in a flower formation so that they can withstand strong earthquakes. Along with several ruins, I also visted the Catedral at Plaza de Armas and Qorikancha, which were interesting because they exemplify the clashing of two cultures- the Inkas and Spanish empire. At Qorikancha, the first 6 feet of wall are the perfect Inka stones without any mortar or gaps, and then right above it, there is the colonial stonework constructed by the Spaniards after they conquered the Inka empire. I was also able to visit the house of Garciloso de la Vega, an man who was half of Inkan descent and half of Spanish. He spent his life cataloging the Inkan culture and wrote several books imperative to its preservation. His house is now a museum, but I just spent an afternoon sitting in the plaza and marveling at the architecture. Intricately carved wooden railings and pillars all painted blue against stark white walls, stone arches and the beautiful orange roof. As I was drawing, an old museum guard came over and sat next to me to watch me draw. We talked a for a while and he told me all about Garciloso and about his own life as well. After the museum, I wandered through narrow cobblestone streets and found a nice small park with fountains. My favorite part of Cusco is wandering the local streets- one day, I got a big chicken sandwich and my first Inka Cola (it tastes like bubble gum) for 4 soles, or just over $1. I also made a food budget because there are just too many delicious things to try- cakes, ice cream, pies- I´ve made it a goal to try a new sweet everyday. Lemon merengue pie here is to die for.
Yesterday I got incredibly sick- high fever, headache, and chills, which I think may be attributed to sun poisoning. Cusco has the highest UV index in the world and after work yesterday, a couple of guys and I decided to walk from the construction site back to Cusco. The walk was awesome- we got to pass all the adobe brick houses, guinea pig farms (haha), and little neighborhoods, but the walk was easily 2 hours in the hottest part of the day. I spent all day in bed, so now I must go and explore to make up for lost time! Tonight I´m going to a native dance with a couple that works with me.
Oh and I´m also loving my homestay- lunch is the big meal, so we all sit around and talk. I am actually beginning to understand what my host family says the first time and can relay my thoughts to them with less effort. We laugh a lot and it´s always satisfying when we can understand each other without repeating ourselves too much. Still missing chedder cheese though.
Leah
It is not cheddar cheese, but Mark said to try the guindas or tumbos - fruit you can get from the market. He was impressed you had your first Inkacola!
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