An Andes Reenact-mint: Holy Smokes, A Chimney

The closest I've ever been to the Andes is when I stand drooling over an array of the crisply wrapped chocolate mints, shelved like books in the box they come in. I love those Andes.

That little mint candy was founded by Andrew Kanelos, hence Andes, p.s. But how did the little mountains come to coat the wrapper? Maybe it's the green. It has to be the green.

We are currently experiencing Peru's summer and rainy season. It's that wonderful mountain weather where the sun beats down hard (who knew we were so close to the equator and should don sunscreen every time we dress?) even as gray clouds roll ominously over spread-out Cuzco, like a blanket for the city's quick, scheduled afternoon nap. It pours, and the sun shines, and the world is green. 

The first day we were in Cuzco, Peru's Challenge had a scheduled house visit. (If you are unsure of what our organization is about, visit the website; it is inspiring.) This involves volunteers heading up to the village of Pumamarca to help out a local family; it could be anything from construction to agricultural/livestock assistance to intervening with a violence/alcoholic problem. On this day, a house needed a chimney. We climbed into a rickety van and took hair-pin turns up into the mountains until there was no road to drive on, and we could only reach the family by foot, so we got out of the van and jumped, like Mary Poppins, into the picturesque scenery we see surrounding us everyday. 

I do know I was out of breath, but I am not sure if it was the new altitude or view that was taking it out of me. We were in the Andes, in a village that has been alive since before Cuzco laid itself out below as an expanding city with seemingly unnecessary things like grocery stores or cinemas. You don't drive out here. You walk, and you carry whatever you need on your back--flowers, a lamb, a child. 

Up here, you work around the beauty that lies in the sloping hills and wildflowers. Tiny huts seem to stand there embarrassed, as if impeding on the more-triumphant nature's ground. Cows, donkeys, pigs, chickens, goats, cats and dogs run freely. The curves of the untouched hills seem to go on forever against the sky's backdrop; it's The Sound of Music's Maria's heaven, and it took a lot for me not to twirl through, looking for the brook that trips and falls. 

It is even more beautiful to pass those who live here in their colorful clothing, welcoming smiles and cheerful "buenas tardes." The women have a load on their backs, a goat on a string and children in a wheelbarrow. Groups of people stand in pits of more carrots than I've ever seen in one spot, using water and their feet to clean them all. As I walked by, a little girl came up to me, offering one of her orange prizes. I pretended to take a bite and said, "mmm,

 delicioso," and she laughed. They were still working two hours later when we walked back in the dark, the moon shining just enough to see orange.

The beauty that is here is that of a double-edged sword. The poverty competes with it for the most outstanding feature. The family of four receiving our visit today lives in one room with Earth as their floor and no lights or furniture. The yard behind their fence is pure mud and manure, but the two children had us as guests; they still wanted to play with us in it, so we rolled up our pant legs and headed in, following their smiling, dirty faces. 

When the rainy season hits or the cold nights start to set in upon the mountains, the families cannot have open doors or windows in their houses. However, they need fires to keep warm, cook, boil water, etc. In a closed house, the smoke fills the room and presents health problems and annoyances, especially for the young and elderly. The solution? A chimney. We cut some surrounding bamboo and wood, did some magic with hammers and nails to create a flat board of these materials, put this board into the mud wall of the house in front of where we had created a hole and then threw wet mud the father had dug from their yard at the wood/bamboo. This was sprinkled with water and spread out to dry. There, using the Earth I stepped on and the trees I swayed in between, a house has a chimney; a family can breathe a bit easier. The children, amidst chasing chickens, asked if we would take a picture with them, and the mother hugged and kissed each one of us, speaking in Quechuan, the local language. 

Her delight in our simple task lifted my spirits so that I didn't even notice we were treading through water or trekking up rocky passages in the dark as we walked back to the van, which all of a sudden looked so out of place. We climbed in, and some of the local boys ran after it, laughing and staying right at our wheels until our speed picked up, and their waves ushered us out of their hills and back into the town where those hills are once again just the picturesque scenery. 

I know I love these Andes, too, crisply wrapped in their green.  I hope we spend more time jumping into the painting rather than just admiring it.