Feliz Navidad

I had hopes that the second Andean overnight bus ride would be better than the first but after two flat tires and sitting without air in a traffic jam at 19,000 feet for two hours I began to have my doubts. I don’t want you to think that this represents the tone of our experience here in Peru, in fact experiences like these are more comical in hindsight and are the exception rather than the rule. We decided to leave Christmas night for the beach after a particularly cold and wet week in Ollantaytambo. We traversed mountain roads in the pitch black and at many points swore that if the bus tilted one inch further in either direction we would be in a canyon, but our driver was steadfast and we arrived in Arequipa as the sun was rising over Mt Misti (19,101 ft!). We promptly boarded another bus to Camaná (a town that was decimated by a tsunami 10 years ago and is now beginning to resemble what it once was). We spent a couple days at a small hotel on the beach where we were the only guests and hung out on a beach that we shared with two fishermen and 4,000 scurrying crabs. We made it back to Ollantaytambo yesterday and today I wanted to take the time to describe some of our experiences and thoughts with our closest friends and family.

It has now been a month since we arrived and we are finishing our stay with our wonderful host family. It has been an incredible experience staying with them and we are so thankful for their endless patience, companionship and never-ending food. It was a joy to share Christmas celebrations with them, which included throwing confetti on people’s heads and hugging them while telling them how much you love them. We also went to midnight mass amidst a veritable firestorm of small explosives (another interesting Christmas tradition). The streets were filled with small children hurling M-80s to celebrate the coming of the Christ child.

Overlooking Ollantaytambo

It has been an interesting mix of business and down time during December. Many of the volunteers, both long and short term, are home visiting family or taking the opportunity to travel within the country. The office here is calm and quiet and the internet is much better when 25 people are not sharing it. We have had many opportunities to hike and enjoy the incredible beauty that surrounds us. Emily is (predictably) working hard and there are many amazing things going on here through various programs. One of the main programs that is going strong is the training of a number of women from Ollantaytambo to become Spanish teachers for tourists and volunteers alike. The training is going well and one of my highlights in the last few weeks was cooking with the women for a Christmas party that we had at the office. I made chicha morada, which is somewhat like mulled wine, except instead of wine they use purple corn water. Yes it sounds a bit odd, but it was surprisingly tasty! I am going to continue to help Emily and possibly help with volunteers who need orientation and mediation in cross-cultural communication, although there are also half finished projects around the office that call gently to my tendency to complete physical projects.

We are moving into a beautiful house for the month of January while the owners (our Spanish teacher and the director of a local pre-school) go on a well-deserved vacation. It is exciting to have a kitchen at our disposal and we look forward to having more time to focus on each other. The home is in a field and we have to pass through stoic bulls that bring to mind the watchers of Cirith Ungol; I only hope that my headlamp will shine like the phial of Galadriel, keeping the beasts at bay.

It has been one of our favorite things to receive updates from our friends and family so please continue to keep us posted on your lives and doings. We also appreciate your prayers and emotional support here, and if you don’t have skype already, put it on your computer and we can talk for free! We miss you all so very much and look forward to hearing about everything that you are doing. With much love,

Jonathan & Emily

Plaza de Armas, Arequipa

Mt. Misti, from Arequipa

Poncho and Espresso!

Sunset in Camana

 

Church on the Beach, Camana