The last month has been one of those ones that has apparently passed in the blink of an eye, but when I think back, it seems an entire lifetime has passed. Every day has been jam packed. I've done and seen so much, had so many experiences and met so many new people I don't know where to begin.

I began my trip to Peru in Cuzco, where after a few days of logistical prep work I met my group of students, who had flown down from Miami with my co-lead Dora. We spent 2 days in Cuzco, getting oriented and acclimatized, and getting to see some of the city. Cuzco's an extraordinary city—the oldest continually inhabited city in all of the Americas, it was the ancient Incan capital before the Spanish arrived and took over. When I first visited Cuzco in 2004 I was so impressed, particularly by the incredible juxtaposition of different worlds—ancient Inca, colonial Spanish, and modern global tourism—that I wrote an article on my impressions which I submitted to a Latin American studies journal back at Hopkins. The city remains impressive and ironic, as enormous ruins which were once sacred places and the center of a 3,000 mile empire are now filled with casual tourists and desperate street vendors.

I was immediately happy when I met my students, a group of 12 high schoolers from the U.S. (although one was from the Caribbean). 7 girls and 5 boys, they seemed like a thoughtful, enthusiastic, mature bunch—a first impression which turned out to be true, for the most part.
From Cuzco we spent 4 days hiking through the surrounding mountains, where our final destination was Machu Picchu. It turned out to be a very memorable hike, and was unlike any I had ever done. The mountain scenery was quite spectacular, but not unlike other trekking I'd done in Ecuador and Nepal (I hate to sound too spoiled). What really made the trek unique for me was the level of luxury. Rather than “roughing it”, we were on a fully supported trek, with no less than 13 Peruvians coming along to support the 14 of us: 2 guides, 3 cooks, and 8 “muleros” to guide the mules that carried all of our bags and equipment-- we were quite an entourage, to say the least. I was a bit embarrassed at first, as I always laughed at the ostentatiousness of such immense groups when I encountered them as an independent traveler, yet I was quickly able to rationalize any qualms I had when I realized the benefits. As soon as we got into camp, everything was already set up waiting for us, from a separate dining tent to eat and relax in, to not one but TWO “toilet tents”, separated by gender and complete with an ingenious little mini-toilet, just like a porta-potty.

We spent 3 days trekking through the mountains, first up and over a 14,200 foot pass on the second day, then back down the other side. As we got higher up, the air became colder and the vegetation sparser. We were surrounded by high, rocky mountains and glaciers, and observed packs of llamas running by as we walked. The first night we camped on a soccer field in a small mountain village, where we played a great, heart-pounding high altitude game with some local kids.

We visited several Incan ruins along the way—Pumamarca, a lesser known outpost protecting the Sacred Valley from attacks on Cuzco from the jungle below; Ollantaytambo, an important Inca city whose ruins are still inhabited to this day; and finally Machu Picchu. Continuing our luxury tour, we ended our camping the night before arriving in Machu Picchu, staying in a beautiful hotel with large bathrooms with running water and a buffet dinner. Again I felt like a complete tourist, a bit out of my element in such posh surroundings, but there's nothing like a hot shower when you haven't had one in a while, and I decided to continue enjoying the experience for what it was.

We took the train to Machu Picchu the next morning-- It's still as beautiful and majestic as I remember it being. The dramatic slopes of the surrounding mountains; the lush vegetation of the cloud forest and it's contrast to the glaciers and snowcapped peaks further up; the soaring cliffs of Waynu Pichu, an immense pinnacle rising up over the city. While many poets and other writers have spent endless energy trying to describe Machu Picchu and the emotions it inspires, I don't have the lyrical talent to do it justice without being cliché, so I'll quit while I'm ahead.
After Machu Picchu, we spent 4 days in the Sacred Valley, about an hour from Cuzco, at a Spanish language institute in a tiny town called Taray. The students had Spanish classes in the morning and different workshops and excursions in the afternoon, such as Salsa classes, a Quechua lesson (the language of the Inca which is still spoken by millions of indigenous people throughout the Andes), and trips to a nearby salt mine and the impressive nearby ruins of Pisac. I had hoped to have some free time to relax and read during this section of the trip, but found my time taken up by paperwork, running errands, and accompanying a few sick people to the doctor (fortunately all for routine problems, not for anything serious.) The institute was fairly small for a group like ours, and we were fairly cramped the entire time. While a bit inconvenient at times, it also brought our group closer together, both figuratively and literally. We all hung out together in one room, where everyone did their homework while also hanging out and playing games.

After 4 days of Spanish classes, we flew back to Lima, where we then had a 10 hour bus ride to the Cordillera Blanca, where we were to begin our community service work with the Peace Corps. Starting from Lima, on the Pacific Ocean, we first traversed up the coast through the arid desert region, before cutting inland and beginning to ascend into the mountains. Higher and higher up, winding along precarious mountain roads, looping around seemingly endless switchbacks until our ears began to pop. When I opened my water bottle to take a drink, the change in air pressure caused the excess air to rush out as if my plain water were carbonated.
We met up with Erin, our Peace Corps volunteer who coordinated all of our activities, and spent a night in the beautiful city of Caraz, nestled squarely in between Peru's Cordillera Negra and Cordillera Blanca mountain ranges, and at the foot of Huascaran, Peru's highest peak at over 22,000 feet (nearly 7,000 meeters).

The following morning we headed up to the tiny community of Huacanhuasi, where we would spend the next week. The hour car ride was one of the most adventurous rides I've ever taken in my life, taking us even higher into the mountains along even more precarious mountainsides. Traveling through the Andes, driving along immense, vertigo-inducing mountain slopes and roads with no guardrail is something you need to get used to pretty quickly, but this trip set a completely new standard. It felt like a roller coaster ride, due in large part to our taxi driver, who insisted on speeding around curves despite my numerous pleas of “DESPACIO, DESPACIO SENOR, POR FAVOR!”. Only a handful of vehicles travel to Huacanhuasi in any given week, which explained the poor maintenance and countless potholes which filled the old dirt road, making the ride even more adrenaline inducing. It looked like a road a child would dig in the sand at a playground, and at each turn of the mountain would appear to fly off into space before curving back around just soon enough. While tightly navigating each curve, with inches to spare from flying over the edge to our deaths, the driver was completely casual, even bored, for the entire trip, expressing that he just wanted to get there as soon as possible so he could get back to work and make more money. I decided to resign myself to fate, put my hands in his experience, and just enjoyed the ride.

Arriving in Huacanhuasi after that, I thought we'd be ready for anything. Nonetheless, none of us were expecting the welcome the community gave us, and it will remain forever in my memory as one of the best experiences in my life. Everyone in town, from the youngest schoolchildren to their grandparents, had gathered at the edge of town to meet us as we arrived. I later found out that we were the first group of foreigners to ever visit Huacanhuasi, and I'm not sure who was more curious of each other. While a bit timid and awkward for the first moment, our local hosts quickly took the lead to break the ice. One man began playing a local song on an Andean flute while another kept beat on a bass drum. All of a sudden a middle aged women, dressed in typical Peruvian fashion of a long pollera dress and large bowler hat, grabbed one of the 16 year old boys in our group by the arm and started dancing. One by one, we all lost our inhibitions and within a few moments we were all linked arm and arm dancing lively on the side of the road. Even the most timid guys in our group came out of their shell to take part in the experience, and it was clear that the local women enjoyed the unique opportunity, somehow managing to radiate energy and enthusiasm while also managing to maintain the reserve and dignity of their conservative culture. Perhaps this is a naïve statement, but the simple yet powerful connection we made, even if only for those few moments was a very powerful and meaningful experience for me, and I found tears in my eyes as I watched the scene unfold around me. It showed that even vast cultural differences-- like those between privileged American high-school students and poor indigenous Peruvians-- can be bridged. It gave me hope.

From there, we all made our way to the idyllic central plaza of Huacanhuasi, dancing arm in arm and laughing the entire way. We thanked everyone for their generous hospitality, and several of the group began a pickup game of soccer with the local kids in the main square, while others began unloading our bags from the taxis.

After the excitement began to die down and people made their way to their homes, we got settled in to our new home—the cozy single back room of the school house, where all 16 of us (12 kids, Erin, Alex our videographer, Dora and I) slept side by side, packed like sardines. While it got cramped by the end, it was surprisingly more comfortable, and there were a lot less overcrowding issues, than I would have expected.

We had two local women that cooked our meals for us, and we ate very authentic Peruvian food, which for the most part was quite tasty and nutritious—lots of corn, potatoes, rice, quinoa (a uniquely textured grain native to the Andes), bread and different varieties of soup, with meat mixed in. I guess I probably lost 5-10 pounds over the course of the trip, as food was healthier and there was little opportunity to snack between meals.

The next morning we began our projects in conjunction with the local school children. The kids trickled in a few at a time, having walked from their homes on the surrounding mountainside. While unsure of what to make of us, and painfully shy at first, they began to open up more and more throughout our time with them. They began their daily morning activities, and their teacher presented us as visitors from the U.S. We taught some games to them, and they taught some to us, and before long the formality of their regimented daily routine was shattered and we were all laughing and being kids.

Each morning in Huacanhuasi, we worked on different projects at the school, all designed to educate the children about important topics regarding hygiene and cleanliness. The first morning we teamed and had a community cleanup. As soon as we began, the local kids all disappeared before I knew what was happening, but returned moments later with trash bags full of all types of garbage, and this process continued over and over again as more trash accumulated in the school yard, where the Peace Corps volunteers educated about sorting garbage by type. I don't think anybody could have predicted just how much trash would be recovered in such a short period, and at the end of the hour the small field was almost completely covered with trash to be buried.

I began to get to know the kids slowly, one at a time. For some reason I don't know, American names are very popular in Peru—Elizabeth, Kelly, Jonathan and Oliver, pronounced in Spanish of course, were just a few of the numerous children I got to know and will remember. After overcoming their initial shyness, they went directly to the other extreme, showing a curiosity and energy that was both extraordinary and overwhelming at times. I couldn't help smile at the realization that, whatever their background and life circumstances, kids are the same the world over, and they all want to play and have fun. As we learned more about the community, we were told that kids here had less childhood, and are forced to grow up and take on adult responsibilities at a much earlier age. Perhaps this explains their enormous enthusiasm for the opportunity to play and interact with us, since this is a rare opportunity that they don't get to do very much.

The setting of the village was high up in the mountains, and it almost seemed too beautiful to be real. One morning, after climbing out of my sleeping bag to brush my teeth, I looked out across the valley at the white snowcapped mountains on the other side, and saw the sun peak out over a glacier, illuminating everything all at once in a golden light. After that, I would try to watch the sun rise as often as I could, and observed how the suns rays would first illuminate the top of the mountain high overhead, and slowly work its way down until reaching the town in one bust of light—sunrises in the mountains are quick and brilliant, unlike long drawn out ones over the ocean, since the sun is already at full brightness by the time it gets over the mountains. In the afternoons, sitting in the schoolyard and looking up to the mountains behind the kids playing soccer in the foreground, the white snow in the distance would gradually change colors as the light faded away, shifting from yellow to orange to blood red as the last rays of light faded away into the evening. I found a quite place next to the school where I would go to be alone during the mornings and evenings when I had a bit of free time, where I would sit in silence and just watch the mountains and marvel.

Each day we had a different activity in the morning. One morning we focused on dental hygiene, doing activities to show kids the importance of brushing their teeth. Another morning we worked with local health care providers, who checked each kid for lice while we washed everyone's hair and cut their finger and toe nails. Afternoons were less structured, and our students worked on planning and painting a world map mural on a wall in the main plaza, which turned out remarkably well. We also hung out with the kids, teaching them different games and playing soccer in the schoolyard with the boys. I have to hope that having our teenagers there as positive role models made a real impact on the kids of the community.

Despite all the positive experiences and optimism my time in Huacanhuasi brought, I couldn't help but have some skepticism and doubt mixed in at the same time. The irony of the situation did not escape me that, whatever positive benefits we were bringing and receiving from the visit, we were all only there because of our position of privilege and surplus wealth within our own society. I also found something perverse in the fact that Broadreach, my employer, is a business making money from this trip. “Community service” has been turned into a commodity—turned into a package, marketed in Broadreach's promotional materials, and sold for a profit. Another quandary was the inherent paternalism in the trip—when they wrote about their hopes, many of our students expressed a desire to “educate the natives of Peru”, despite knowing very little about the problems facing these communities, and much less about how to solve them. As a critical article we read as a group was quick to point out, there is an inherent hypocrisy built into “community service” trips, where the superiority of those making the visit—their culture, values, and knowledge-- seems implicitly assumed, to at least some extent.
For these reasons, I was very happy to be working with the Peace Corps, which seems to do a great job mixing idealism with practicality—realistic, long-term approaches to development while still keeping an ambitious and bold mission. Nonetheless, like many issues, I could only contemplate the problems, not resolve the dilemmas. In the end, I am forced to just trust my own instincts and observations that everyone involved in our activities benefited from the experience and will be better off from it.

After nearly a week in Huacanhuasi, we descended the mountain on the same roller-coaster road to the nearby town of Mato, larger and closer to civilization, where we spent 2 more days doing different activities with the community. From there, we spent another night in Caraz, en route to Lima, where we spent our last night as a group before our students flew home on an early morning flight.

Dora and I have spent the last few days hanging out in Lima at a really nice hostel in a nice section of the city, taking care of paperwork and arrangements for the next group which arrives tomorrow morning, and relaxing as much as possible for the coming weeks. We've spent a lot of time together over the last month, and been getting along remarkably well the entire time, and still chose to spend our time off hanging out with each other, which I think says a lot. She's become a great friend, and I couldn't have asked for a better co-lead. We've had a great time working and playing.

A final observation I have had about this last trip is how routine travel and leading trips has become to me. On one hand, it now takes a lot more to excite me, which is a bit sad. Nonetheless, at the same time, I'm a lot less anxious and nervous than I once was about the pressures of leading a trip and being responsible for a group of minors, which allows me to relax, get to know my group, and just enjoy things more.

I realized I haven't written much specifically about my group of students—Adia, Caroline, both Ellens, Rebecca, Sarah, Laura, Mike, Arun, Luke, Louis, and Lukas— but one of the highlights of the trip was getting to know them all, and seeing them grow and learn so much during such a short period of time.

I felt respected and appreciated, which was a very satisfying feeling, and reminds me why I willingly do such a demanding job for so little monetary compensation.

As usual, I ended up writing much more than I'd planned, and it's already past noon on my last day of freedom until the end of the month. I think I'm going to end here and go read a bit while I still have the opportunity.