Part One
Part Two
On the morning of our second day in Ccaccaccollo, I awakened from fitful sleep, having had a gnarled and upset stomach all night, including several treks to our distant outhouse to pay homage to our hole in the ground. I told Lindsay I wasn't well, and she informed our hosts when she went downstairs for breakfast, while I stayed in bed, not feeling much like moving. Immediately upon being informed, our Mami was up in the room, checking my temperature, with her eldest son behind her bearing a tea that was a traditional remedy for upset stomach. The tea seemed to be Celery Leaf Tea, based on its distinctive smell. I stayed in bed through breakfast, but decided, after yet another herbal tea remedy, that I felt up to participating in the day's activities, as long as it didn't involve eating, or moving around too much. Fortunately, it didn't. First, we made a stop at the plaza, where the women of the community set up their daily weaving exhibition and market. Lindsay helped some of them hang their wares for the day.
It was fascinating to see them work at their craft, the knowledge of which had been passed down through countless generations.
At this time, I discovered that I hadn't been the only one to suffer intestinal difficulties. Both Steve and Victoria were much worse off than I was, both being unable to get out of bed and participate in the day's activities. After having missed the pinata episode with the Children of the Sun, I was determined to not let any ailments cause me to miss any more of the experiences of this trip. So I ignored my complaining stomach and went along.
This morning's focus was to be the local children. We headed up the road to the local school, and sat in with the children's classes. I had to excuse myself more than once to make use of the facilities. It was fascinating to try to make sense of what was going on in a school environment in a language that I only understand about half of. After class, we went out back to assist the children in tilling and planting the garden that they maintain behind the school. I joined in with a hoe for a few minutes, but the activity was increasing my nausea, so I handed the hoe off to Lindsay, who worked until she got blisters.
Here is the view, just to the right of the above picture. How amazing it would be to live in a place where every house has a view like this.
Once their class was finished, the others joined us in the garden. The resident purveyors of machismo, John and Tom, decided to have a race to see who could till to the end of the garden fastest. It was a tie.
After the nonsense in the garden, it was time for recess, while the teachers, and some of our troop, cooked lunch for the kids. Most of the others joined in, playing ball with the kids at recess, but I needed to keep my stomach still, so I sat on a wall and watched, taking photos.
While we were at recess, Victor, our kind host, came all the way down to the school yard to bring us some Kool Aid he'd made for us. We could tell by how warm it was that he'd even gone to the trouble of boiling the water first. I was repeatedly, truly overwhelmed by how incredibly kind this quiet man is.
After a time, we left the kids to finish their school day, and returned to our homes for lunch. I opted to skip lunch, since my stomach was still uncomfortable, and the thought of eating repelled me. And I took the opportunity to take another short nap. Our Mami brought me still more herbal tea, and made sure I was thoroughly buried in blankets.
After lunch, we went back to the plaza, to learn more about the local weavers and their craft.
It was impressive to learn how they make dyes out of things like small beetles that live only on prickly pear cacti. Most of the group was impressed and disturbed to find that the finished weaving was fortified by being boiled in the fermented urine of pre-pubescent boys. I'm not sure why it has to be young male urine, but it's probably a superstition or a relic of older beliefs. It is important to note that this did not dissuade me from purchasing some hand woven products from our hostess.
By the time dinner rolled around I was feeling much better. So, I took a stab at eating for the first time in 24 hours. I was hungry, and it stayed down. Success! I'm glad I got to enjoy more of their wonderful food, instead of being too sick to eat. Now, it was getting on towards evening, and tonight was the night of the Fiesta. It was tradition for these nice villagers to throw a big party on the last night of the visitor's stay. As part of the festivities, we'd all be festooned in local finery. Lindsay was first up to be gussied up.
Check out this handsome fella:
That's blur behind me is our Mami. She's a whirlwind of activity. She made all this stuff I'm wearing. Impressive, no?
Since we were in garb, and had our camera's handy, we took this opportunity to get some group photos with our host families. Yes, I am a giant amongst Peruvians. The two to the right are actually uphill from me.
Two of our hosts' three children were away for the evening, so they brought in our Mami's sister and her daughter as substitutes. They are on the far left, followed by myself, Mami (I wish I could remember how to spell her actual name, I'll add it when I can talk to Lindsay, who wrote it down), Victor, and their eldest son (who's name I also forgot, which sucks, because he really did a lot for me when I was sick).
Now, it was party time. The fiesta was being held at the house of the President of the Town. Here's a blurry photo of the President pouring beer for everyone.
(Note: my camera has a main shortcoming which is photos at night. It tends to blur movement when it is dark outside. Using a flash would solve the problem, but I hate flash photography and, besides, I've learned to use the bug as an effect, as you may have seen in some of my earlier photos from prior to Peru. Some examples follow).
Here, a better-feeling Victoria, and Amy, dance with one of their host mothers.
Amy, Anahi and Lindsay dance with the kids:
The party went on, late into the night (by local standards, and by ours too, since we were now used to local standards). We were told that we were the first group that had managed to outlast the locals at the farewell fiesta. I guess that's something. One amusing anecdote from the night:
The President of the Town apparently offered his 22 year old sister to Nick in marriage. Perhaps it was a joke, perhaps not, but either way, we weren't going to let Nick live it down for the rest of the trip. She's hot, too. We told nick that we expected not to see him in the morning when we met up to get on the bus. Unfortunately, we did. I'm not saying it was unfortunate for us, I like Nick, but it was unfortunate for him. He'd be next in line to be President of the Town, after all. How many people get to be a town president?
I enjoyed a relatively uninterrupted night of sleep, and my dinner stayed down, and wasn't in a hurry to get out the other end. This was not a small thing. In the morning we had a light breakfast, and began the sad process of bidding farewell to those that had been our family for the past 2 days. Lindsay and I, before bed, had purchased everything we could afford to from our Mami's personal stock of woven items. I got myself the cap I'm wearing in the above photo, as well as an awesome vest. Lindsay had been visibly disappointed at not being able to afford all the things she'd wanted to buy, and apparently our Mami felt bad about it. She bade us farewell with extremely generous gifts. She gave Lindsay one of the caps she'd wanted but couldn't afford, and gave each of us a ceramic Ocarina, which is delightful since we're both musicians. She gave me some popcorn and an apple for our journey, and we headed to the plaza to meet up with the group and the bus. I hated to see this community fall into our past. These people were so wonderful, kind, and enthusiastic to share their lifestyle and culture with us. Here's our group and our hosts:
(Photo by Percy, our day's tour guide, taken with Steve's Camera, stolen without permission from Steve's Blog of our same trip)
Ahead of us now was all the ruins I could care to cram into one day (yay!), a lot of bus rides, a train ride, and after 3 days without, a shower!
