Thus far, my comrades and I have put in three full days of service learning work in the farm country of Peru, where the indigenous lifestyle still prevails. Pinanaqay is a small village nestled on the side of one of the many rolling hills set between the Andes Mountains. Upon our arrival on the first day, many of the men in the village including their community president came to greet us at our bus. The women, though more timid, were also excited and stood at the edge of the road. In the city of Cusco, because of the amount of tourism, the people are both friendly and welcoming to us as they are advantageous and ridiculing of our ignorance. In Pinanqay I saw something different.

Looking out from the doorstep of the main building where town meetings take place, the landscape was exactly what you think of when you think Peruvian country: patches of cultivated land of different shades of green and brown crisscrossing the hills and small adobe and mud-brick structures. The women and younger girls stood at the doorways of their homes giggling animatedly as they watched us work and the men and boys ran to get us anything that we may need.

As the men work outside on the fields, the indigenous women of Pinanqay suffer from the constant smoke and fumes of their little ventilated indoor stoves. Evidence of their suffering lie in the layers of soot on the roofs and walls of every home and the next day as I blew my nose into a bloody tissue. Our job was to build chiminea stoves that would lead the smoke out through the roof.

Building these stoves was both a life changing and humbling experience. The man living at our first house project spoke little Spanish, Quechua being the principal language of the indigenous in Peru, but we were able to communicate with him enough to get by as he hustled back and forth getting us mud, bricks, adobe, cutting the roof, etc. The second house we walked to, was more what I was expecting the projects to be like. A little woman living therewith long salt and pepper braids trailing down her back spoke no Spanish. She greeted my friend and I with two mugs of “cafe con leche” that looked questionably made with dirty water and proceeded to show us her windowless kitchen. We turned on a lamp hanging from the ceiling and became aware of the 20 or so guinea pigs purring in the right hand corner of the room and the black walls.

The people of Pinanqay live simply, but are happy and content as pigs and donkeys linger along the side of the dirt path leading to their homes. It’s a content that comes with living by their hard work instead of for their hard work. A thing as simple as a well-ventilated stove brings happiness and excitement to the whole family. And returning for the second and third day brought the same feelings to me as I watched smoke rising above the adobe shingles of their homes.

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12 de Junio, 2011 (4:04 pm CT)

On the way back to Cusco from the glorious and spectacular Machu Picchu. I have been here now for two weeks, and the thought of my return to the U.S. sits in my mind with dread. It has been exactly what I hoped it would be and more. How many people can say with honesty that nature and the earth has moved them to tears as many times as it has for me here (4)? How many people can say that they feel more at home in a place a whole continent away from where they grew up? This trip has been a dream come true, and yet I’m still so young! It makes me feel like I have the whole world in my hands. It gives me butterflies and six-feet vibes.

I have been so anxious to get out of my little world for so long that it surprises and scares me almost as much as it excites me that I’m already doing it. I don’t know what I’m going to be doing or where I’m going to be in four years (or even two years for that matter), but I’d rather it be that way than have my whole life planned out in advance like I used to.

There have been so many times these past couple of months that my loneliness has made me sick. However, as I stood on the top of Waynapicchu today all I thought about was the fact that I could finally check this off of my list of things to do before I die. I looked out on the Andes Mountains and their beauty looked back at me. In that moment nothing stood between me and a happy soul. I don’t want to ever forget this feeling.

Four years ago if you asked me where I would be, going to school three states away from home and studying abroad in Latin America would not be something that I would have thought to say. Life takes you places. It takes you where you least expected you’d be able to go but where you always wanted to be. Even if at the time it seems like the one place you wanted to avoid.