Patacancha is a lovely town. It is situated in a small valley with mountains surrounding us on all sides. We are still getting used to the high altitude, but the school children run and play up and down the mountain as if it is a piece of cake. We are hoping that we will have that stamina before long, too! We took a quick tour of the town and visited the teachers at the elementary school as well as students at the high school.
High schools are uncommon in this part of Peru and so most of the students are boarding students who stay in Patacancha during the week. We met two sophomores who walk 6 hours to get to school every Sunday night and then 6 hours home on Friday! Now that is dedication! The high schoolers showed us all of their weaving projects and promised to join us for a game of futbol later in the trip.
We also had the chance to meet some local women who promised to stop by and show us how to weave the traditional textiles of Patacancha, so we are all looking forward to that.
Our housing is fantastic and – surprise – we have bunk beds! We all were expecting to sleep on the floor during our time in Patacancha, so these bunk beds are a real treat. We also learned that our showers are solar heated, which is great news. Most showers in the mountains of this region are not heated. And our cooks are fantastic. All things considered, this is really comfortable!
Today was our first day of community service work. We divided the group into three groups of six. One group visited the classrooms and worked on teaching Spanish and math to the kids (most of whom speak only Quechua!), one group started drawing a mural that we will later paint and the third got to work on finishing the construction of a classroom. Construction of this classroom began over a year ago, but they haven’t had the man-power to finish it, so it will be great to see this project to its completion.
Everyone worked very hard all morning and by the afternoon, when the local women arrived to teach us weaving, we were eager to try our hand at the task. What we learned is that it is very, very hard! These women work two months to finish a small blanket, up to a year for large, bed-sized ones. What they got us started on were belts, which sounded easy enough but proved to be very tricky! Needless to say, we are all very impressed with the great skill and patience that goes into this handiwork.
We are loving it here in Patacancha. The people are incredibly friendly and there seems to be an endless supply of children to play with. I’m sure that we will be busy for the rest of our time here!
Saludos,
Hannah and Yaser
