another kid-friendly letter to kids

To all my dear friends at Northeast Kids Count,

Welcome back to school! How was your summer break? I hope you all got to spend some quality time with your friends and families over the last few months. To tell you the truth, I've had quite an eventful summer myself—I've made it pretty far south since my last letter. When I last wrote to you I was still volunteering at the school on the northern Colombian coast. Since then we traveled through Colombia and into Ecuador where I volunteered for a short while before heading south again into Peru.

It was there in Peru that Gabby and I spent the last four months. We only planned on staying for two months but we liked it so much that we couldn't leave! For the first two weeks we made our way through the beautiful mountains in the northern part of the country. We even had the pleasure of hiking through a mountain range called the Cordillera Blanca, which is the highest mountain range outside of Asia. We met a couple of folks from California on the coast and they too came along for the mountain adventure.

The hike took us four whole days and was some of the most beautiful, breath-taking scenery that I've ever laid eyes on. We hiked over high mountain passes at almost 5,000 meters, dove into sky-blue glacier lakes, and wove through high altitude pastures as the snowy mountains reached all the way up to the sky around us. We sat atop massive boulders and cooked fresh curry over a small campfire; filled our bottles with the nearly-frozen water from the mountain streams. We huddled together to keep warm as the raging winds whipped at our tents and tried to rip them from the ground.

Then, after our hike came to an end, we headed south once again to arrive in Pisco. Pisco is a small city on the dusty, Pacific coast, just a few hours south of Lima, the capital. It is an area known for the wine that it produces, but more so for an earthquake that destroyed the region just over 4 years ago. It reached 8.0 on the Richter scale and the destruction that was left behind is unimaginable. Pisco and neighboring villages along the coast were all reduced to rubble, driving thousands of families from their houses and communities—places that they had called home for generations. Now, four years after the earthquake, much of the city remains in ruins and a majority of the people still live in abject poverty; families of 10 huddled together in tents, huts, and crude shacks of plastic, metal, and cardboard.

During our four months in Pisco, Gabby and I had the pleasure of working on a large variety of projects for a volunteer organization called Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF). PSF has been in Pisco for 3 years, working to rebuild the homes, schools, and communities that were left devastated by the earthquake. The volunteers, which range in number anywhere from 50 to 100 on any given week, work day in and day out to ensure that the organization keeps moving forward and that they continue to aid in the reconstruction of the homes and lives of the local people.

I had the pleasure of leading my own project after working on a wide variety of others over the first couple months. Our team of 5 helped to provide a new, safe, and comfortable home to a family that had never had one, even before the earthquake.

The house that Elena, her husband, and her 5 kids had previously lived in was made of whatever scraps they could find or afford: pieces of plywood and tarp held up a makeshift roof of cardboard and old broken pieces of bamboo. The children, the oldest of which turned 13 just after we finished the house, had never even had a bathroom. When asked what they do when they needed to use the toilet, the mother told me that they used a bucket and then emptied it into a plastic bag to go out with the trash.

Although none of us on the team were carpenters, we managed to put together a home that would endure time and weather, and hopefully make the family proud. The house we built for Elena and her family isn't fancy. In fact, most Westerners would probably consider it a shack by their standards—not much better than a tool shed. After all, it doesn't have the comfort of sealed windows, insulation, and a two-car garage. But to Elena and her five children, it’s just enough. It has a concrete floor, solid wooden walls with plastic insulation, lights and electrical sockets, a door with a lock, and even a bathroom with a toilet and a shower. No more bathing underneath the knee-high tap where they fed and watered their ducks and the seemingly ever-pregnant street dog that hangs around the house.

The volunteers at PSF are always working on a variety of projects like that which we did for Elena and her family. They build houses, schools, hospitals, parks, public gardens, and practically anything else you might imagine that could help improve the lives of the local people. They work together with locals to lift roof beams and raise spirits, lay bricks and improve livelihoods, teach english and slowly chip away at poverty.

During our time at PSF, we left only once. My mom and dad came down to see us for two whole weeks but it felt more like just a few days. We packed our days to the brim, going to beautiful places, hiking steep mountains, eating food both foreign and delicious, and enjoying what time we had together. We covered an enormous part of the country for a short two-week trip, spending a lot of time traveling from one place to the next, but it was great to be together and see a new place alongside moms and pops.

We met them in Lima (just in time to catch the opening of Harry Potter) and then headed to beautiful Cuzco. From there we went on a short trip to Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountain towns. We arrived at the ancient ruins before the sun had time to rise and watched the warm, red glow climb slowly up behind the sky-high mountains in the distance. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the fog crept eerily away to reveal more and more of the sprawling rocks and ruins. We had just enough time to clamber up the steep, rocky slopes of Mount Machu Picchu for an epic vista before we caught the train back into town. And you know what made the view even more incredible than the mountains in the distance? I got to look out over them and the ancient ruins from behind my awesome tie-die Kids Count t-shirt that you were all so generous to make for me!

After Machu Picchu we explored tiny mountain towns where llamas outnumbered people and everything closed before sunset. We took an 11-hour bus ride to the Bolivian border and discovered the beauty of Lake Titicaca, the world's largest high-altitude lake. A small boat took us far out into the deep mountain waters and introduced us to the floating islands and the people who still inhabit their shaky surfaces. We spent the night with a family on another small island and learned what it was like to live as a native in such an isolated place—both from Peru and the rest of the world. They shared their food and culture with us while we shared stories and smiles around the fire.

Another bus brought us half-way across the country to Arequipa where we feasted on local specialties and let our eyes soak up the gorgeous colonial arquitecture. Then, before they returned to Lima for a flight home, we introduced them to Pisco—the place to which we'd dedicated so much time and love over the last few months.

In truth, we saw much more of Peru during those two weeks than I would have imagined possible, and even more so than I could describe to you in a few short paragraphs. But most of all, we enjoyed each other's company and the opportunity to share a smile and a game of cards with a couple people who we hadn't seen in so long.

We stayed in Pisco for another 2 months after my parents left. We still could have stayed longer, could have done more. But the end of our trip was closing in on us and we still had so much left to see. So we finally packed our bags and hit the road again, headed farther south yet. We traveled through the south of Peru, the north of Chile, and into Argentina in a very short (and yet long) week. But that story's for another time.

I hope all of you are enjoying what is left of the summer. There is nothing more beautiful than a summer in Ithaca. And that's the truth. I miss you all and hope all is well with you, school, your families, and your friends.

Best wishes from down south!

Wren

P.S. One of my teammates took a bunch of photos when we were building a house for Elena and her family, which you can check out here.

P.P.S. You can see more photos of our trip that we took with my parents here. I'll be uploading the rest of them in the next couple weeks once Flickr lets me do so.