Past, present, future.

Here in Cusco there is a street for everything, there is a street of hair dressers, a street of mattress shops, a street of key cutters and little tiny hardware stores, streets of stationary stores, streets of cheap shoes, and around the corner a street of slightly cheaper clothes, a street of veterinarians, and our least favourite, stinky meat street. If you want it, as long as you know where to look, you can find anything. Even happiness.  Right now my happiness lies in the laid back pace of the weekend, a delicious coffee, a vegemite roll and an amazing tax return. I suppose I can also attribute happiness to the inspiring people I am surrounded by – James, who I love even more each day, our gorgeous housemates Kelly and Ruben who are proving that anything is possible, a weekly changing but always amazing group of volunteers who we are working with, the blind man from Guatemala who I see at the supermarket, the man in the coffee shop who was trying to teach me Qechua, and so importantly the beautiful children we are working with – as well as where we are, what we are doing and what we have to look forward to.

Sometimes I still find it hard to believe where we are, over five months have now passed since we landed in Buenos Aires, all those hundreds of kilometres and experiences ago. I remember feeling a slight disappointment as we were flying above the city, heading into the airport, I’m not sure exactly what I expected, purple trees, orange grass, green sky, possibly not. But I thought it would look different, oh so different. From up in the air the city didn’t look that different at all. But our main problems in those early days of our trip were the differences, the different language, culture, a different way to communicate, different ways to get around. A different lifestyle.  Now I guess the most difficult issues we are facing are the differences that we are finding within ourselves as we learn and grow each day, as we move further away from who we were when we touched down in BA and closer to who we will be when this journey eventually merges back into life in Australia. Who knows who exactly we will be when our plane touches down in Melbourne in mid-January next year, I wonder will we be astounded at the sameness, or will we be seeing things with such a different vision that things will never again be familiar. Who knows, it’s a long way off and I have a lot of growing to do before then, and I’m glad I can’t predict the future, as it will be a whole other adventure when we get home.

About a month and a half ago we were at the Aldea on a beautiful Saturday, the doors wide open to let in the sun and the breeze, cleaning out the classroom. As with any classroom they very quickly acquire a whole lot of unnecessary ‘stuff’ if you aren’t careful, so we were there to sort out the crazy clutter. A sad little face had been looking in the door for a while, curious but not confident enough to step in, I asked his name, how old he was, if he wanted to come in to have a look. I was met with very little response, a name after much prompting, a little glimmer in the eye when Peluche, the households dog, jumped up to greet him. The best method I thought would be patience. I kept going about my business, adding to the pile of rubbish, putting the toys on the new shelfs, sorting out the puppets, occasionally asking a question or saying something silly to see if I could get the start of a smile. After five minutes or so the sad little face in the doorway turned into a little boy with worn out shoes standing on the first of two steps to enter the room, asking a question about the toys. A break was needed from tidying the room, so I upended a puzzle of farmyard animals on the table closest to the door and sat down to enjoy it, and possibly entice this sad little figure further into the room. The little man gave in to his inner child shortly after, and joined me at the table to help me with the puzzle, though still he didn’t say much at all. We sat for a while in silence, occasional congratulations for finding a puzzle piece, until the little man’s older sister walked past and saw him, telling him to come home. Before he was gone I asked him to come back with his mum on Monday afternoon, wouldn’t it be great to play with these toys every day?

Monday afternoon came and I was looking for his little face peeking through the door, but I never found it… I was a little disappointed but not surprised, I hadn’t noticed him in the neighbourhood before and guessed that his shyness may have overcome his desire to come along to WaaW. It was a couple of days more before I saw him again, enthusiastically asking him to bring his mum along tomorrow afternoon, met by very little response, maybe a twinkle in the eye, imagined or not I can’t be sure. It took a few more of these meetings in the street, but the following Friday his mum did come along and give her permission for him and one of his older brothers to start attending the program. Monday came and I was feeling pretty chuffed with my success, waiting and waiting, greeting the other kids as they came through the door but really hoping to see one particular little man’s face, which never appeared until the following day. When it did, it was through the window rather than the door that I saw his serious face, I went outside to chat, and after about 20 minutes finally persuaded him to come inside and join the other kids, as his big brother had without hesitation. For the first two or three days the only time I saw a hint of a smile was when Peluche tried to eat his snack, the first time I heard little guffaw of laughter was when he beat me at a maths game all of the kids were playing. He and his older brother have been coming to the program for around a month now. His older brother proving to be the almost exact opposite, a leader amongst the other kids, a charmer to the profes’, with enough confidence and kindness to make his life much easier than his little brothers. Though despite that over the weeks it has become very apparent they have a really tough life, they are the two youngest with seven brothers and sisters, living in a house without electricity or running water, wearing the same clothes day in and day out. Two weeks ago we noticed, on our Friday outing, that the little serious man was rummaging through bins, presumably to find food. It is just a little indication of how tough these kids have it, how easy it would be for them to resort to crime to survive, how hard it will be for these super smart kids to make a life for themselves, pull themselves out of poverty. The serious little man smiles a lot now, he is talking with the other kids and is becoming increasingly confident with the profesoras, he has proved to us he isn’t behind at all when it comes to his schooling, he concentrates well but still occasionally finds it hard to take that first step through the door into the classroom. He came and sat with me while another of our little men was reading to me, cuddling into me, for warmth or for comfort or just to see the pictures, I’m not sure. But he is often pretty close by me when I look up from what I’m doing.

The thing I worry about most for all for these beautiful, smart and loving kids, not just the little serious man and his older brother, is the future. Right now all is well and good, we are putting food in their bellies and a little warmth and joy in their lives. They respond with gratefulness and love to everyone involved, they prove to be kids built from the right stuff, despite their hardships they care so much about each other, always putting their friends and siblings first, sharing what they have and rarely longing for anything they don’t have. They have resilience that any teacher in Australia would be astounded by, after all it is a necessity in their life to be resilient to cope with the stresses and hardships that they face daily, obstacles that they rarely see as hardships, as they are, realistically, just part of a normal life for everyone they know.

These kids are living it up now, full bellies, people who want nothing but to see these kids happy, but how can we change their futures that have been laid out in front of them by poverty?  I think it’s a question that really is impossible to answer, but I hope in some ways we are making a small change, if not just to the present, to the future as well…

So, on a lighter note, a little insight into what we have been doing over the last couple of weeks. Last week we took off on a trek with Kelly and Ruben to Choquequirao, it was an amazing and extremely difficult trek, worth it for the experience, for the amazing ruins at the end of it, and for the walk in itself.  Check out some photos:

Getting ready to head off on our trek

Contemplating the world

Our Mule, begrudgingly carrying our things,
better him than me!

Hmmm, what would happen if I threw a rock down there?!

A lonely little tree.

Touching the moon.

Do Not Lean!

The sun setting over the Apurimac Valley towards
the end of our first day.

The moon and the crazy Dr. Suess trees.

If you look closely you can see the crazy climb we have to do tomorrow!

Contemplating the climb, hold me up James!

A tiny little town where we stopped to eat lunch on day 2, a long walk from
anywhere.

Cock of the mountain!

Our first glimpse of Choquequirao, only around 30% of the ruins have been
uncovered from the jungle, what you can see here is mostly terracing, at the
top of the mountain is the town, though the whole hillside is covered in
hidden ruins

Our inspiration for a day of 13km, crazy uphill the whole way.

Some of the ruins.

Look what I discovered!!!

The three explorers... I was stuck in the tent with terrible stomach cramps :(

Incan soccer balls!

The moon rise from our campsite

Despite my stomach problems I made it up to the
ruins for the evening
 (about 2km uphill from our campsite).

Camping under the southern cross, we felt
right at home.

A beautiful mountain creek.

It's easier to see in this photo the crazy hill we
went up 2 days before!

After our trek I made my way promptly to the hospital to be diagnosed with an amoeba parasite, I was given a whole lot of drugs and sent home. And during the week just past James spent 3 days being waited on hand and foot, watching a plasma TV and relaxing… with a  drip in his arm in the hospital. Another bout of gastro, nothing new, a whole lot of antibiotics and fluids, but all is well now! A bacterial infection, luckily nothing too serious.

Where will the coming weeks take us?? We are here for another month in Cusco, most likely finishing up our volunteering in around three weeks and spending our last week doing all of the touristy things we are yet to do here. And from there… who knows, we are dreaming of volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary in the jungle of Bolivia, drinking cocktails on the Caribbean Sea and following in Charles Darwin’s footsteps in the Galapagos…. I guess we need to wait and see.