Sunday, Oct. 9 The view from the palace at the top was gorgeous. At the end of yesterday we headed for the outskirts of Cusco and two small towns – Lucre and Huarcapay – that have Mennonite congregations. Half of the students stayed in one of 3…
Saturday, Oct. 8 A genuine 16-person Andean musical and dancing troupe. On Friday we took a short flight from Lima to Cuzco (a trip by bus through the mountains takes 21 hours!). Saturday was dedicated to visiting sites in Cuzco, the capital of the Incan empire that…
Thursday, Oct. 6 Josh and Maddie sing an Andean folk song. To mark the end of the study portion of their SST the students hosted a goodbye (despedida) and thank-you party for their host families. Instead of a regular afternoon lecture on Thursday, the students prepared a…
[Note: No blog entries were posted while we took an extended trip to the Andes to visit Machu Picchu and the surrounding area. After returning to Lima the students traveled to their service locations for the next six weeks. All arrived safely at their service locations. We will now go…
Friday, Sept. 23 This rock stood in a central plaza and was part of a sundial. Ancient Caral is very ancient; at 4,600 years old it is the oldest civilization discovered in the Americas, having been built at the same time as the pyramids in Egypt. Indeed,…
Thursday, Sept. 22 The level fields in the valley are irrigated from a river flowing down from the Andes or from wells. We took a two-day field trip to see the ruins of Caral, a city built north of modern Lima about 4,600 years ago. But before…
Wednesday, Sept. 21 The students admire a mummy, in a sitting fetal position, with a gold mask. In preparation for a two-day field trip to a 4,600-year-old city later this week, today we visited the Larco museum, well-known for its collection of pre-Columbian artifacts. Although everyone has…
Tuesday, Sept. 20 Learning Peruvian culture means learning Peruvian dancing. Dance instructor Pedro Farias came to teach us dances from the three regions of Peru: the coast, the Andes mountains, and the Amazon jungle. Each region had very distinct dance moves, which the students learned in short…
Monday, Sept. 19 Art major Rachel makes a new friend. In the afternoon we took a bus to the artistic Barranco neighborhood, home to famous Peruvian artist Victor Delfin. Delphin has created sculptures and paintings that have been exhibited in many collections outside of Peru. The sculptures…
Friday and Saturday, Sept. 16-17 The neighbors who prepared the land and will attend the gardens worked with us. We took a two-day field trip to Villa Salvador, a relatively new urban area at the southern edge of Lima where Alicia (who prepares our lunches 2-3 times…
