July 28 2010, Peru Blog
Hola Amigos,
Well, I realize that it has been over a month since I updated this blog! A lot has happened since then!
We are still in Pisac. My parents joined us for the first two weeks of July. It was a total delight to spend time with them down here. We took them exploring all over the Sacred Valley, to some of the our favorite places and some new places as well. Our agenda consisted of doing a lot of hikes to ruin sites, highland communities as well as the small towns and markets. I bet Dar Dar and Stevo needed a vacation after our their vacation with us, as we worked hard! How wonderful it is to have kids and parents who love to hike. Sage and River are truly awesome hikers! I realize down here how much I am a mountain girl at heart, having grown up in Utah. The mountains around here lift my spirits and make my heart sing. We loved sharing our Pisac life with D and S: the school, the friends we have made, the town, etc. It was a fabulous time.
Well, as I have written before, my intention for myself and for my family as well was for all of us to be open to this experience of living in Peru and to be transformed by this experience. This has happened and is still happening on so many levels. 15 years ago when Steve and I spent nine months travelling in South America, we were enchanted (as we are now), and we felt very inspired (as do we now), and we made a strong intention to come back down here and to make something positive happen. Well, here we are and we are doing this, but it doesn’t stop here. As some of you may know, Steve and I have a quote that we try to live by. This quote is from Howard Thurman, mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr. I don’t have the exact quote with me, but this is basically it:
“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. For what the world needs, is people who have come alive.”
So, that is just it. We feel so very “alive” down here. All through this experience, we have continued to ask ourselves what can we do to come back down here and stay here and start a project of some sort because we love it here. We love the area. We love the school that the kids are attending. We love the highland communities. We love the Pisac community that has been so gracious and open with us. We envision all sorts of positive future options: more study abroad opportunities for college students (Steve), a bio-diversity and eco-agricultural center (Steve), collaboration with the highlands communities and the local universities around themes of biodiversity (Steve) a Pisac yoga studio (Annie), adult education in ESL and/or basic literacy (Annie), work as a primary teacher at the Kusi Kawsay School (Annie) and more.
About two months ago, we visited a local farm, about 20 minutes walk from Pisac. A beautiful location, a farm set above the corn terraces with views of the Urubamba River, the Pisac ruins, and the sacred mountain Apu Linli. I nudged Steve and said, “Wow, Steve, this could be your dream farm!” It was so beautiful. Over our time here, we met a few people with property nearby. Just about 4 weeks ago, Steve was chatting with a neighbor Senor Hilario who owns a piece of property with peach trees right next to the large farm that we had visited. Senor Hilario knew of Steve’s farming background. Steve was telling him that we loved it here, and out of the blue, Senor Hilario told him that he was going to sell his property and asked if we were interested. So, we continued conversing about it, and lo and behold, we agreed to buy it, and now we are the owners of a beautiful farm with all the views described above and an easy walk from town! Yes, it is a little crazy, but hey, you get one chance in this body, so why not live your dream! The property has 400 peach trees and some other fruit trees, a very rustic home/shack and lots of possibilities. For this current year, Senor Hilario and his family will care for the trees and sell the fruit. In the future, we’ll see. We would like to build a house on the property and in time, spend more time down here and start up a project or two.
In these last two weeks, we have continued to build connections and friendships with the many wonderful people in this area. Pisac celebrated its biggest festival of the year. The Fiesta of the Mamacha Carmen was four days of non stop music, dance, and parties in the plaza and all over town. For me, the best part was the day of folkloric dances. There were 20 dances total, all held in the beautiful colonial plaza. The costumes were incredible! Since then, we have hosted two parties at our house with food, dancing, etc. The kids finally had their last day of school with celebrations in their classrooms. Now, Steve is taking a few days to help set up the peach trees for another year of fruit production: irrigation, fertilzation, etc. Since we agreed to buy the property, we are not doing the big trip we had planned out of this region; however, we still plan to do a shorter trip to the high jungle area this week and then a final week in Pisac to finish everything up and say our good-byes.
We will see how it all unfolds. We return to Olympia in just over two weeks. I expect that it will be both wonderful and also dis-orienting to return home. The kids have survived well for more than four months without Legos, but I’m sure they will be happy to see their Legos again! We look forward to seeing all of you friends and family of course! We look forward to blueberries! Before, I had thought that we would resume life in Olympia as it was before, but I know that it will not be the case. Some changes will be made. For one, we plan to have River and Sage in school. This will come as a surprise to some of you as I have been a dedicated home schooling and mostly at-home mom for almost a decade. But, the kids’ experience here at the Kusi Kawsay School has been so positive on so many levels, that we have decided to try out school in Olympia when we return. As I approach 40 (soon!), I am ready to move in new directions and begin working more. I plan to continue offering yoga classes, but I am also ready to re-engage with my prior skill set in the area of multi-cultural education. I don’t know how it will all unfold, but I am interested once again in using my skills in Spanish, ESL, adult education, and/or social development. Steve likewise has new directions to explore with his connections and interests down here. We hope to come down again next summer for a shorter time. So, we’ll see how it unfolds.
In the meantime, dear friends, thank you for reading our blog! We look forward to connecting with you. We will back in Olympia on August 11th!
