It’s been a month since my last post, and many-a-thing has begun. Let’s start where we left off – New Years. New Years consisted of eating 12 grapes at midnight and making a wish after each one, while standing on the road outside our house and watching fireworks go off all around us. Catucancha, my village, is high up and surrounded by lower pueblos, so while we didn’t have a firework show of our own, we got to watch dozens at one time. It felt like being in an airplane over the U.S. on 4th of July.

January 1st ended up being even more of a celebration. The family made a pachamanca – in Quechua, “pacha” means earth and “manca” means pot, so it translates to “pot of the earth”. My family prepared chicken, pork, beef, omitas (sweet tamales), corn, and potatoes, and stuck it into an oven of hot rocks, alfalfa and banana leaves. A few hours later, we were feasting on fall-off-the-bone meat alongside the smoking earth flavor that encompassed everything else. What I thought was just a 3pm pachamanca lunch turned into hours of dancing. I think it was 11pm by the time I retreated back to my room for my first night’s sleep of 2024.

January 13-14 marked Día del Niño Jesus, Catucancha’s biggest celebration of the year (or so I’ve heard, though I feel as though every celebration is the biggest of the year). Every pueblo here has their own patron saint, whom they celebrate once a year. Back in December, I partied for Día de Guadalupe in Tocash, the town over. As it sounds, Día del Niño Jesus celebrates…baby Jesus. Now, you may ask, isn’t that what Christmas is for? The answer is yes, but I don’t ask questions if it means 2 days of hanging out, eating, dancing, and drinking a few chelas. Looking forward to the second Sunday in January 2025 to do it all again.

In terms of work, things have taken off over the last month. January 15 marked the start of Vacaciones Útiles, or “useful vacation”, where kids go to school Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 8am-1pm to take classes in dance, math, communications, sports, and with me, English. Now a bit about geography – Pueblo Libre, where I live, is a district made up of 36 “caserios” or small communities. I live in Catucancha, the biggest of the caserios. Vacaciones Útiles is happening in 5 caserios, and I am teaching in each one – Catucancha, Marca, Coirocsho, Haunayó, and Acoyó. I teach in a rotation of 5, so this week, for example, I teach in Acoyó on Monday, Huanayó on Wednesday, and Coirocsho on Friday. It’s a bit hectic, given Acoyó and Haunayó are an hour up the mountain, but I love getting to know the outskirts of Pueblo Libre … not to mention the beautiful drive up. Each morning, I leave my house around 6:15am, walk down the big hill and wait for the car to pick me up. It drives by anywhere between 6:40am and 7:15am, so I just sit and wait patiently. The van is always a rickety old thing, though this week was extra eventful as we got a flat tire about 10 minutes in. The lot of us piled out of the car and watched as the driver replaced the blown tire for another that looked just about on its death bed. In the same day, the sliding door came off its hinges … though nothing a good shove couldn’t put back in place.

Sometimes, the transportation norms here are mind-boggling. We once picked up 2 young boys on the way up the mountain. Given the van was packed full, I wasn’t quite sure how they’d fit. Without hesitation, they climbed onto the roof of the car and rode up there alongside the alfalfa and spare tires. Every big bump (which there are a lot of), I looked out the back window expecting one of them to come tumbling down, but sure enough all was well. The best part is that no one in the van batted an eye when the boys climbed up there. So of course, I tried to act cool as a cucumber. That’s the name of the game here – pretend like you’ve seen it before.

In the realm of health, things have also taken off. I’ve yet to find where exactly I fit in the mesh of Pueblo Libre’s health system, though in the past couple of weeks I’ve assisted a nutrition session with mothers of babies 7-9 months old, sat in for the nutritionist on his day off to give nutrition counseling to mothers with anemic or underweight children, and my favorite, an all-encompassing alcohol, drugs, sexual decisions talk with 15-16 year-olds. As painful as the latter may sound, this is the aspect of my job that I’m most excited for. No doubt, the fact that these sessions are in Spanish makes practicing what I’m going to say even more essential, though I’m really excited to answer questions that these kids have. It’s such an interesting age, 15-16, when there are so many questions and you don’t know who to ask, or so many vulnerabilities like low self-esteem that can get detrimental, fast. I’m already impressed by a lot of the boys and girls I’ve met here, and those relationships are only just now forming. I can’t wait to see where they go once classes start in March.

For now, my life is Vacaciones Útiles, taking runs, kicking a soccer ball with the kids that live up the road, playing with my little host sister or chatting with the older one, hanging out at the health post and attending the occasional meeting. Mixed into all of that are meals with my family (pictured at top), which never fail to be delicious. It’s a pretty good life. Not to say I don’t miss being surrounded by things I recognize, or not being the center of attention, or attending events I know will start on time, because I certainly do, but it’s a beautiful thing to experience life here.

February 9 marks the start of Carnaval, a weeks-long celebration. You heard me right … weeks. Pueblo Libre has its own celebration, while Huaraz and other surrounding districts do it their own way. The timeline for Day 1 of Pueblo Libre’s celebration goes as follows: Concurso de Carrera de Burrocros (which I believe entails donkeys racing each other), Elección de la Shumaq Wayta (Beautiful Flower in Quechua, basically a beauty queen competition from each caserio of PL), and the best part, Concurso de Carrera de Cuyes (a guinea pig race). Pretty sure my family is going to bring their guinea pig to participate. I couldn’t fathom a more stellar line-up of events.