May 12, 2010 - Steve's 40th Bday and our life in Pisac

Hola Amigos,

Saludos desde Pisac, our new home for two months. We have rented a spacious and comfortable house here in Pisac, the Sacred Valley of Peru, 40 minutes from Cuzco. We are sharing the house with Rachel and Paul's family. We have two spacious bedrooms, a living room, a big sun room, a bathroom, kitchen and a garden. The garden has pear trees, fig tree, an avocado tree, bougainvilla, call lillies, some vegies and herbs. The kids are delighted to have a space to call our own for a while, and so are we!

Steve turned 40 on Friday of last week. We celebrated on Saturday with a fabulous adventure party. The day began with a bus ride to Chinchero, a Quechua highland community where our friend Natalia's family lives. A group of Evergreen students joined us. We shared chocolate caliente and birthday cake in town, and then hiked up to the family's potato fields at 13,000 feet! The tradition this time of year, potato harvest, is for entire families to spend the harvest day, digging potatoes, and then building an earth oven and roasting potatoes and eating them right there in the field with aji (spicy chile sauce), cheese, chica (corn beer) and maybe pisac (liquor). It is Steve's kind of thing! So, we all harvested potatoes and ate potatoes and spend about 5 hours up there with incredible views of 20,000 foot snow capped peaks (apus) all around. Epic! We didn't get back to Pisac until 9:30 that evening. It was great fun!

This week, River and Sage started school here in Pisac. They will go to school for 7 weeks. My homeschooled kids are getting their first taste of full time school in Peru! The school is called Kasi Kawsay which means in Quechua: Live Happy. It is an alternative school founded by a small group of parents from this area who are looking for an alternative to the state schools. This school has a Waldorf pedagogy and funds from a Canadian Waldorf School in Nelson B.C. have helped make the school a reality. The land itself is incredible. The school sits above the town with a view of Pisac, the surrounding mountains and the Sacred Valley. The adobe classrooms are lovely and surround a courtyard area with several huge boulders which the kids play on at recess. Everything is open air and sweet. Lessons are taught in Spanish, and additional lessons are taught in Quechua and English. River and Sage are happy and challenged! There are two recesses where the kids run around outside, climbing on rocks and building forts.
Sage is learning his Spanish vowels and River is learning cursive. They both love the movement lessons. River is doing knitting too. They are both learning and using tons of Spanish, which is the main reason I wanted this for them! School is over at 1:30 which leaves us plenty of time for afternoon rest and recreation. I am super pleased!

Steve's students are beginning their 4 week independent projects. Some are continuing to study languages, others highlands agriculture, medicinal plans, weaving, bee-keeping, coffee growing, education, etc. All the projects are so cool - I'm excited for them! Steve has several field trips organized for them over the next few weeks as well as his own research and investigation with Rachel around their common questions of the links between language and agriculture in this region. I have been busy setting up the school situation for the kids, as well as the house, and doing my yoga studies and practice. I love meeting new people and sharing stories. The people of Pisac are lovely, and I'm enjoying myself!

Hasta luego!