a swing and a miss....

we had our first big miss.  our intention was to volunteer at a wwoof (world wide opportunities on organic farms) site in the northern highlands of peru for a week.  we took a bus to cajamarca...which was a little 'meh' as cities go.....and we thought we were going to be at a farm about 40min outside of cajamarca.  we met our host humberto in cajamarca, who guided us to the combi's (mini-buses) that would take us to the site. certainly we may have missed something with our sub-par spanish but we didn't realize until we were on the combi that were not going 40min away but in fact we ended up traveling about 3 hrs....most of it on rustic dirt roads!  from a parent perspective this was far far too remote to take the kids and we never would've agreed to this particular site had we known.

we ended up in a small town called sorochuco which given how remote it was actually had an impressive amount of infrastructure....paved roads within the small town, street lights, a bank.

the second surprise was that instead of the the "eight rooms and five bathroom" accommodation for volunteers promised on the wwoof site, we would instead be sleeping on the floor in one big room with humberto's whole family.....including his parents (both in their 70's), his brother and his brother's two kids and then us.  apparently there was a farm 40 min outside of cajamarca and there was a big house with lots of rooms, but the woman who owned the house died and her kids divided up the property. so humberto still being the contact from the wwoof site just started to take the volunteers to his home village and farm....failing to update what is on the website.  once this all sunk in we were not happy.

let me be clear for our potentially worried families.....we never felt that we were in danger and nothing ever felt sketchy at all.  we were safe, but we were just not where we thought we would be when we agreed to this volunteer gig.

that said we would've left the next day but the icing on the cake of this whole thing was that the only combi out of this town back to cajamarca leaves once a day.....at 4am!

humberto and his family were quite friendly...humberto himself was very enthusiastic about having volunteers. the family generally loved having foreigners....and enjoyed parading us around to friends and family in town.  the grandpa delighted in calling lucy 'gringita' which basically means 'little white girl'.  grandma spent all of her time cooking over a fire and the food was simple but good.

the four of us were in one big bed together.  they had pushed together a couple mattresses or actually one twin mattress and one pallet with blankets (boy was i dreaming of the massage i will be getting when i get home!).  grandma and grandpa were on a bed in the corner, the brother and his kids (who were visiting from cajamarca) were on a bed in another corner, and humberto was on a twin bed on the floor as well.  there was also an alter in a corner of the room complete with old incan skulls, dead eagle and skunk bodies, a pile of coca leaves and random dolls and action figures.  i really don't mind a 'home stay' but the kicker was being all in one room together....no privacy to change clothes so we all slept in what we were wearing.   the second night was a special treat in that grandpa got drunk and then tried to get it on with grandma in the middle of the night.  the kids were fast asleep and i sleep with earplugs (travel tip: always travel with earplugs!) but todd was fortunate enough to listen to the entire encounter.

our bed

the alter

 it was actually quite beautiful back up in these peruvian mountains....

we helped with one day of work.  it took two hours to climb up the mountain first to where the horses are kept and then to the field.

grandpa and the horses

then there was a couple hours of just hanging out while everyone socialized and drank (this was very reminiscent of the peace corps especially for todd in thailand....lots of hanging out and waiting, nothing happening very quickly.  you have to shed the american notion of productivity)

eventually we helped in the harvesting of some grain....

it was interesting to watch the process.....they use the horses to separate the grain from the husk

as a random aside, one the the boys would blow this shell.....i think this was a novelty and not really something of cultural significance but he did it so often during our stay that i had to include a picture.

and of course the hat picture.....these hats might be my favorite so far!

she is spinning wool into thread

so we were only there for less than 48hrs.  these folks are very poor and leaving after just a day could easily be seen as a reflection on their living conditions.  we tried to be as gentle and diplomatic as possible, and i hope they understood.
one of the goals of this trip was for the kids to see how others in the world live, especially those in poverty.  i think this was achieved here.  i also think that i might be too old to show them anymore details in this regard on this trip and future poverty experiences will have to wait until they can do it on their own.

we are now back at the beach.  we are in mancora a town in very northern peru close to the ecuador border.  it is sunny here and the water is warmer.  we weren't actually going to come here at all but when we bailed we needed a place to land for a few days and this seemed a good choice.  we will enjoy our last days in peru here and then head into ecuador.
hasta luego!