Free day today! The kids are camping with their school, so I walked into town. It doesn´t take that much more time on foot, as the motor taxis crawl along...

Ok wow: English. I´m reading Henderson the Rain King to try to keep it up. Speaking Italian and Spanish all day is becoming easier though, especially since I can lapse in and out of both with the other volunteers.

What a week I´ve had. I wish I could post photos, but that´ll have to wait, as I´ve been postponing every electronic task... sorting out my phone, for instance. But it is just so beautiful here. Strong sun, even stronger winds. I found out the other day that people aroud here call Ccotohuincho, where I live, "the Afghanistan of Urubamba," which obviously is hilarious to me, a city girl in awe of all these mountains.

How to explain all this? It´s overwhelming, the idea of trying to communicate half of what I´ve been thinking. Here: I get up between 6 and 7, depending on the day, make breakfast for the kids and send them off to school. Then I help the women who come to clean and cook (whose kids are also around) until lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day. So far I´ve learned how to make many kinds of rice and have encountered at least 10 of the thousands of types of potatoes that grow in the valley. We chat a lot and one of the girls tried to teach me to dance yesterday.

The kids come back in shifts in the early afternoon, and it´s playtime. I´ve spent most of that time with the smaller children, who think that I draw really well (ha) and are teaching me important Spanish vocabulary-- animals, princes, castles, and the like. They´re all good fun, ranging in age from 3 years old to 16. I´ve won over a 14 year old boy with my copy of In Touch magazine. He now looks at it daily, trying to memorize all the facts about Bruce Willis´ hairdresser and Britney´s rehab, and constantly asks me: "But really, these stars don´t eat??" "That´s right, they have loads of money and don´t eat." There´s nothing like explaining something like that in Ccotohuincho to make you realize, again, how weird our culture is.

Oh, another funny cultural thing that happened: One of the eight year old boys, actually the cutest one, who makes me want to have children immediately, cut his head a week or so ago on a bench. A pretty bad cut. His mom, who does the cooking, hates the sight of blood so asked me to clean it. I did so, then got all anxious about him and ran for my Bacitracin and Band Aids. After I put on the Bacitracin though, his mom insisted that I cover the cut with egg skin, which is known to have healing properties. I mean, who am I to argue, but the sight of the egg skin sliding around on top of the Bacitracin made me laugh a lot. On the inside. At myself.

Anyway, later in the day, we help them with their homework, which really is awful. They learn practically nothing useful at school; everything is memorization. For example, an eight year old had to copy the word "trapezoidal" 30 times for calligraphy class. Great.
None of them know any English, only "how are you," numbers up to eleben, and colors. So I might start a taller de ingles, which may or may not improve the situation. I´m also planning something with their theatre teacher, who also plays the flute, so hopefully in October we´ll do a music class. From now until the end of September, though, they are all busy with preparations for the town festival.

After homework, I make dinner, which is just mate and bread. Then bathtime, which is pretty hilarious, then bed. On Sundays I sleep in the kids´ house, but in general I´m free around 9. I´ve been out in Urubamba now, to a couple of bars with lots of Australian volunteers, and to a club with hardly any gringos, which was cool. The altitude, though, I keep forgetting about the altitude.

I don´t know. It´s really strange to be dealing with this situation where the kids go home on the weekends, because their parents are present-- I´ve met some of them. But the kids need lots of attention, lots of kisses, lots of reaffirmation. I´m also beginning to realize the divisions that Mosoq Runa makes, as it´s doing so much good. There´s the division between the kids that live there and those that only come during the day, then there´s the cultural alienation that all of them encounter. It´s difficult, because all I want to do is help start a proper school there. But that would mean, apart from lots of trouble finding teachers, more alienation.

The 3 year old went missing for about half an hour the other day and everyone was calm, while I was practically in tears. He had wandered off towards his house, which is just not a big deal here.
They´re all so old in so many ways. Listening to the 13 and 14 year old boys talk about girls... so funny. And you´d think they were 20.

So Wednesday was a hard day. But still gratifying. And, at the end of the day, I really like my living situation- the guys are all great and I have a lot in common with them. Which makes sense, I guess, seeing as we´ve all chosen to be here.

Oh, my address, if you want to send mail, is
Rebecca Levi
Francesco Cioffi
Correo Central
Urubamba
Cuzco, Peru

Love to all

La prima vista

Here I am in Urubamba, in an internet cafe on the Plaza de Armas. A lazy Sunday, but only for another hour, as the kids will be arriving back...

I guess I arrived in Peru three days ago, but I´m really not sure. The past few days have been disorienting and at the same time shockingly familiar. On Thursday I arrived in Cusco, after a short layover at the Dunkin Donuts in foggy Lima. The descent into Cusco is meant to be very difficult, as the pilot must twist and turn the plane into the city´s bowl, avoiding bright red rooftops on the surrounding hills. Our pilot did an impressive job, though, as remarked upon by the English couple behind me: "Oh well DONE."

After a taxi ride through the chaotic streets of the city, which brought back memories of our trip here four years ago, I arrived at the hostel, only to collapse in the womb-like room (no natural light!) for 3 hours.

After that, I mostly felt pleasantly high off the altitude (and the matte) for the rest of my time in Cusco. Stef and I spent the next couple of days eating traditional Peruvian food-- like pork sandwiches--exploring the area on horseback--very slowly, accompanied by an eleven year old boy--and confronting our extremely low tolerance for wine as we watched Peruvian musicians cover Mozart. We really didn´t push ourselves too much-- although I´m still impressed by how many ruins we saw in a day. It was a perfect, gentle re-introduction to Peru, hanging out with a good friend who could cover for my woefully Italian Spanish.

Yesterday, the drive to Urubamba... oh my god. I had forgotten how stunning the Sacred Valley is. Roads curving past hillside graffiti--not like city graffiti, more mowed into the cliff--marking a high school class. Colors that remind me at once of Tuscany and (photos of) the Southwest US. Just VAST.

Then, in Urubamba, I had lunch with family friends under a perfectly blue sky--through which, incidentally, my hostess´ husband was paragliding. I met my boss, Ada, and we went on to Mosoq Runa, where I am volunteering.

At this point, I was feeling pretty good about my Spanish. I had understood everything at lunch, but then, there I was, back in Italy! Turns out I´m living with three Italian guys, two in their twenties and one in his thirties. I mean, I knew my boss was Italian and all, but I hadn´t anticipated how completely I would re-enter the country. We had risotto al zafferano last night, for real. So, again: the familiar.

The houses at Mosoq Runa are beautiful, and the volunteers´house is actually quite private, with stunning views of the surrounding mountains. Out front, sheer cliffs, all red, framing a group of dusty homes, tiny taxis and loud dogs rolling in and out of the picture. The kids go home on the weekends, so all was quiet. I met a couple of kids who were hanging around, but there will be lots more names to learn tonight.

Which reminds me, I should finish this. We´ve got to get back in time to welcome back the kids. Tonight´s bath night.
Many more thoughts circulating, including how sustainable this whole life, this situation seems! Then again, we´ll see how I feel next weekend.

Love to all.