June & July

English club after eating at McDonald´s


Watya after finals


Hiking up to Qoyllurit´i...


...We made it!...


Hiking back down...


Inti Raymi

Well friends, it has been too long since I blogged. June and July have been very busy months, so I will give you some highlights.

It is the time of fiestas here in Perú (especially in Cusco). We´ve had some sorrow, but mostly joys here in Andahuaylillas.

June

1st week - We took the English club to Cusco to visit McDonald´s and order in English (first McD´s fries for all of them). Then we went to the chocolate museum and talked to some American tourists in English for a while.
Finals for our first trimester at Fe y Alegria. It was actually kind of fun to write my first finals. The day after finals, the students celebrated with each class having a watya...they build a small oven on that looks like a bee hive on the grond with adobe, light a fire with wood inside of it, once the adobe gets so hot that it turns black they colapse the top, then add potatoes, then colapse the entire thing and cover it with dirt. After about 45 minutes you have delicious roasted potatoes.

2nd week - Sam and Silvia´s birthdays! We celebrated on Friday by dancing at Club Bambo (the less sketchy of the 2 dance clubs in Urcos) which was a ton of fun because it was just us and our friends. Then on Saturday we had a house party (which Mateo and I snuck away from for about an hour to go to one of our student´s quiceañera...my first one!)

3rd week - A group of students arrived from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati to volunteer in Anda, and participated in some of the following with us:
Desfilar: "to march"...for the anniversary of Quispicanchi (the district where we live), all of the schools march in Urcos as a competition and the celebrate Quispicanchi.
Peregrinación a Qoyllurit´i: The pilgrimage to Qoyllurit´i. We left Anda by car at 1:30 am, arrived in a small town to start our walk at 4 am, then began an 8 km, 4 hour hike at 14,000 feet up to a valley next to a glacier where about 100,000 Cusquenans trek every year. It was an amazing (and cold) experience. We celebrated mass then came back down the same day.
Inti Raymi: The festival of the Sun God in Cusco. We were fortunate enough to get a seat on the roof of the Jesuit Church in the Plaza de Armas. Unfortunately, I´m scared of heights. So I quickly bajared to the comfortable and safe window seat in the bell tower.

4th week - Día de San Pedro y San Pablo: A huge celebration in Andahuaylillas because the church is La iglesia de San Pedro el Apóstol. There was a lot of dancing and fireworks being shot (dangerously) into the crowd.

end of June/beginning of July - The Tacna volunteers came up for a mid-year reatreat with us. It was a really special time. We went up to the small town of Ocongate (about 2 hours and 4,000 feet higher from Anda), where people speak more Quechua than Spanish, to the empty volunteer house. We spent 2 days all together, then the Anda crew had about 2 days for our own community retreat.

July

4th of July - With the students from St. X we made corn dogs, potato salad and 2 kinds of baked beans. It was really fun!

The death of Colitas; our dog who lived in the parish was poisoned :(. Please see Cara´s blog - carainperu.blogspot.com - for an accurate, yet somewhat insensitive recap of what went down.

3rd week - Ashlen spent 5 days of her vacation with us to see what we do here in Anda. It was really fun and special to have her with us for that time.

This week - Cara´s mom arrived to spend the week with us...bearing lots of gifts! On Sunday night, we had "Christmas in July" for the gift revealing...I think we´re set on Chocolate and magazines for a while!
Yesterday, we had another desfilar to celebrate Fiestas Patrias(which is tomorrow). And this time I marched with the teachers...It was really fun and I hope to get some pictures up soon.

What´s Next?

Tomorrow is Fiestas Patrias (independence day) in Perú. It´s also the day the new president, Ollanta, takes office...it should be an interesting transition. We also have tomorrrow through August 7th off, so we will be travelling to Lima to get our residency cards (finally) and will hopefully see Harry Potter while we´re there! Mateo´s birthday is August 5th, so we´ll be celebrating that as well.

Until next time...