Machu Picchu Family & Simple Tasks

Last weekend, Briana, Kristen, and I took a short trip to Cuzco and Machu Picchu. They--whoever "they" are--say that you just can't go to Peru with going to Machu Picchu. I'm sooo glad we did it. The train ride to the waypoint city of Aguas Calientes was absolutely breathtaking, not to mention the ruins at Machu Picchu itself. Everywhere I looked there was something picture-worthy, be it a green jungly mountain reaching from a river to the sky, or an Inca wall still standing after centuries of earthquakes.

One thing really took me by surprise, though. My favorite part of the whole trip was not the view, or the history, or even the food. It was getting to know a family from Lima on the way to Machu Picchu. On the train, the seats where situated in groups of four, two seats facing two other seats. I sat with a mother and her two sons, and across the isle, Briana and Kristen sat with the boys' two aunts. The train was long and we were all eager to practice our Spanish, so naturally we got to talk quite a bit with this family. When the train was over, I wasn't really expecting to see them anymore; I just didn't really think about it.

Then after while we were waiting for the train back, I was looking through a souvenir market when I felt a hand tap on my backpack. I turned around and it was Diego! Him and his brother Javier recognized me in the market and got really excited! They asked what time our train back towards Cuzco left, and sure enough, we were in the same car again! On the way back I sat with Firelei, one of the aunts. She taught me all about various Peruvian "jergas," or slang words, especially the ones that have English roots like "chequear" and "luquear" which both mean "Look/Check that out." In return, she wanted me to explain some of the differences between England English and American English. As an example I showed her the difference between the US saying "Harry Podder" and England saying "Arry Potta." Understandably, she laughed at me...

After the train stopped in the town of Ollantaytambo, we were expected there to be a bus waiting to take us the rest of the way to Cuzco. There was no such bus. No worries, though, because our "familia fiel" offered to let us ride with them in the 10-person van they had reserved. As if we hadn't bonded with them enough during the two train rides, we got to drive another hour with them.

By sheer coincidence, the boys spotted us again in Cuzco the next night. They saw us through a window from the street while we were sitting in a restaurant. We immediately paid and ran outside to see them and asked them if we could do breakfast together the following morning. After saying goodbye, we spent the next few hours that night finding a gift for the family to thanks for helping our trip go so smoothly. We found a photo album then went to an internet cafe to print out the picture of all of us that we'd just taken outside the restaurant. We put the picture in the album and spent a loooong time thinking up (in Spanish) a note we could write on the inside of it that would express just how much of a blessing they were to us.

Breakfast was fantastic! I really felt like family with them, and I had to try really hard to hold back the tears when they read our note in the photo album. Like I said, I was not expecting the people I sat with on the train to be my favorite part of the trip, but they were.

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Overall, it is absolutely incredible how beneficial this internship has been to me. I told Robert Oglesby last week that regular intern-ish tasks become a lot more complicated in a culture, language, and city that I'm not familiar with. For example, we had a inauguration party for the first community library on Friday. Before we headed over to the library site, Greg sent me to get styrofoam cups for hot drinks at the inauguration. I was supposed to go get cups and meet them at the library. In the US, especially with your own mode of transportation, this would be extremely easy. In Peru, however, this involved taking a taxi to the San Camilo market, finding the disposable cups & plates store, communicating what I wanted, what size I wanted, and how many I wanted, paying for them, and getting another taxi to a landmark church near the library so I could find my way to the party from there. I've found that the increased potential for problems in simple tasks makes for increased problem-solving and responsibility on my part...