Hannah in Cai Cay, Peru

Los burros, los gallos, y los chicos del campo

For those of you that don't speak Spanish (which is probably a lot of you), this title means "the donkeys, the roosters, and the children of the country"! My last week in Peru was spent in a rural village outside of Cusco called Cai Cay, and I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to spend time here. Cay Cai is the epitome of what you think of (or at least what I thought of) when you think of Peru.... it is in the "countryside" of Peru and is surrounded by simply incredible scenery. The people live VERY simple lives here, and most of them live in mud brick houses with a thatch roof that doesn't exactly help to keep the cold or heat out, dirt or concrete floors, and windows without the glass. Many people choose to wear indigenous clothing with EVERY SINGLE different color (!), a flat hat that keeps the sun off of their face, and layer upon layer of shirts and chompas (kind of like a long-sleeve over shirt) and skirts and knee high socks and sandals, etc. Most of the people here speak only Quechua, but thankfully, most of the kids also spoke Spanish, or else it would have been a very long week! While I was here, I helped out in a kindergarten (helping the teacher with whatever she needed) with some of the most precious 3, 4, and 5 year olds you've ever seen, and every afternoon, the other volunteers and I were responsible for running a youth center (by ourselves) where we'd help teach English classes or play games with the kids. We usually had about 50 kids or so show up every afternoon for 2 hours.... and some of the kids had to walk over an hour through the mountains, by themselves, afterwards just to get home at night (talk about an honor to get to work with these kids!). The people here were absolutely amazing, and welcome all of the volunteers with open arms. Not to mention the fact that when you live in a tiny little village (it was seriously 1 street long, and that's it!) where everyone knows each other, everyone acknowledges everyone else and they greet each other every time they see one another.... I seriously miss the fact that EVERYONE greeted each other everyday with "buenos dias" or "buenas tardes" or "buenas noches" ("good morning", "good afternoon", "good night").... most of the time here, it seems like people just walk right past each other without even acknowledging the other person's presence.

Cai Cay is also the epitome of the country (not just the Peruvian countryside).... very peaceful and tranquil lifestyle (the first day, we had 6 or 7 hours to do nothing except write in our journals or sit in the sun! what?!?), fresh corn from the garden (one day at the kindergarten, we all had a little picnic together outside with fresh choclo (really yummy "corn") and a salad made from fresh lettuce and onions from the garden!), ROOSTERS that crow at ALL hours of the night(!), and DONKEYS that are also incredibly loud throughout the night and make some very peculiar noises! haha. I loved these noises during the day, but most of the time I would wake up 5-6 times each night to the sounds of roosters or donkeys or barking dogs.... not exactly a restful week:) However, one of the best parts about being there was the view of the night sky! There aren't exactly a lot of lights in the country, and to be completely surrounded by a HUGE sky with stars twinkling like diamonds all night long was spectacular...I seriously felt like each star was smiling at me like in a movie scene. And, I even saw a UFO (in Spanish, it is OVNI), which I can tell you about later! SWEET!