The New Race: Traveler or Non (please check one)

At the beginning of each month, Peru's Challenge extends a welcome to 15-20 new faces from around the world and looks to them to build school classrooms, construct chimneys, plan lessons for 140 anxious children, grow gardens and liven up the sunny yellow house on the dirt road in Larapa. The past six days have been one big welcome party with people who, although I have never met in my life, are also in search of an adventure in a foreign part of the world, who have this little part of them that wants to change the life of a child. We aren't as unknown to each other as I thought. 

There is a lot to learn about Cuzco. There is also a lot to learn about each other. So Annie and I have been walking backwards, explaining when you can go inside of the Plaza's main cathedral and why its better to get meat from this grocer while we listen to stories of the occupations left behind, of the cities traveled right before Cuzco, of the kids who will be missing their mothers for this month. 

There is an automatic bond when you throw 20 people from around the world into one house, each with the same goals of exploring Peru and wanting to see a change in our neighboring communities. Of these new friends, many have traveled. For some, this is their first adventure, but this time in Cuzco will be immediately followed by pinpoints practically covering South America. Mornings ago, we all shook hands and questioned as to each others' home countries (UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, etc.) and, finding ourselves in this new part of the world together, greeted each other like kin. 

Just as people descending from the same small town or from an ancient-old religion, travelers do this. Each knows the other has the secrets to some destination they haven't yet unraveled, and it is hard to contain the curiosity of it all. You want to grab a map and share stories, get suggestions and find the one common place you both have been to. The conversation could go on for hours. You know the other will give you the best tips, relay treasures about the sparkling cities and looming peaks and little cafes by the the sea that are, at the moment, just a dream.  

I am thankful for these world travelers and the unspoken bond that sits in a room when we all sit down to decide what to teach Grade 1, go over issues in the community when a drunk man lay in the street on our way down the mountain or discuss the must-sees of (fill in any continent here). We have worked to make sure the new visitors don't get sick or lost, but they have reached out to us just as far. Anne, Francis and I walked half-way to town for the Sunday market where they encouraged me to buy all the flowers I wanted. Brugh has promised to use his recent marketing skills/contacts to aid me in my endless-seeming quests. Kristy has given me Spanish tips and teaching advice I quickly jotted down. Anne held my hand and talked of soothing things when I recently had to get blood taken, and Keith hugs me after inquiring about my health. Erin plays me Britney Spears on her ukulele, and Heather and Chelsea couldn't be better people to just talk to. It's only been a few days.

It isn't often you get to live with a group from around the world, all eager to write their own travel book. I am going to soak in this traveler bond; I want to hear about these people's experiences so I know where to go next. I'll store their travels in my head and relish the time we'll have similar ones, all about a place called Cuzco.     

An Andes Reenact-mint: Welcome to Pumamarca

On the way to the sky, there is a village. 

It is not easy to tell; there isn't a "Welcome, this many people live here" sign or a high-rise that boldly establishes the village as somewhere important. The houses are hidden behind neighboring valleys or thick green eucalyptus branches, but you know people live there because fields are neatly kept and women walk, carrying what looks like half of these fields on their backs. And you know it is a village because these people smile and welcome you to it, and that is all I need for anywhere to be established.

Welcome to Pumamarca. There are 200 families that live here, and each family has an average of six kids. It is quite common for three generations of the family to be under one roof. Also under this one roof are no other rooms, chairs, tables or beds. The family usually sleeps where they cook the food; that heat is necessary when it gets to -20 degrees C in those mountains that are too high to block winter winds. You just have to tolerate the cold as part of your surroundings; the windows aren't closed in and there isn't a door, so your home needs to mold into Mother Nature's arms--whether comforting and mild, soaked from a shower or stand-offish and bitter, biting cold. 

There is a family in Pumamarca with six kids, two parents and a grandmother, and they all sleep in one double bed using clothes as blankets. They don't have a chimney, so they breathe in that wood oven 24/7. 

Each of these families is in charge of 2-3 plots of land. Now, these plots are not owned by the family, but by the community, so they cannot be sold. Families sell their products in the market, earning S/ 10-15 (US$ 3-5) per week, but it costs to get to the market and back, so make S/ 2 disappear. 

In Pumamarca, you will not find a piece of machinery. Instead, you will find worn and weathered hands that are strong, defiant and don't know what a "day off" means. 

A few years ago, a person trying to win an election made electricity available here for a price most families wouldn't even make in a month. So we can stare at the wires, but we don't know what they do. Some families illegally connect, but those people who wanted to put light bulbs here quickly come and disconnect them. 

The water that doesn't run into houses for taps, showers, toilets, etc. has been tested. It is over 200 times the safe-drinking level, but it is what is available to drink. Everyone knows the human body needs water. 

There are a lot of stories here in Pumamarca, whistling in the cutting mountain wind and slicing the long blades of grass in the fields. Some are joyous and many are not, but right now in Pumamarca is a lot better than three years ago, a success story for another time. 

And right now in Pumamarca, school reopened for the soon-to-come fall, and there are children--more children in school than ever before-- waiting in new desks with new pencils, papers and hope. These are children whose stories aren't quite definite yet in whether they are going to shoot for the sky that literally seems within their grasp or stick to the ground where the water runs dirty. Their eyes look to combine ancient traditions of colors and hard work with literacy, art and feeling loved, and are hopefully looking up to where the birds soar; I have come here to help because I climb up the steepest heights to Pumamarca to see how close these kids are to the sky and a just-as-bright future. 

There is a village on the way to the sky.