Goodbye to Hualla

Today we left Hualla, it was bitter sweet. Hualla felt like home just within one week. 

We got in the car to head up mountainsides and twist up bumpy dirt roads where the air is too thin to take a sufficient deep breath. 

We stopped in a town on the way to being school supplies to the small local school. Seven children attend school there. Their ages range from four to eleven. They come from just three families. The oldest girl had two younger brothers, then there were two sets of brother/sister siblings. They spoke Quechua and learned in Quechua and it was beautiful. (I think the town was called something resembling Chamayo, but not sure).

We stopped for lunch in another small town Putaccasa the choice for meals was alpaca or trout. 

We hiked a bit to see a canyon and then to see an excavated mass grave near a river bed. Peru is beautiful, and healing. It is important to remember both.

We made our way to Sacsamarca which is beautiful so far, the bathroom is cleaner and the beds are 'comfier.' Small rooms but it's okay by us because the blankets are soft and we all know each other quite well by now. 

My feet stink and my knees hurt but I'm happy. 

In the quiet moments I have walking alone or staring out the van window I think about how this country is my home. I think about how it doesn't really feel that way, and how I'm eager to feel comfortable. I think about finally settling and how the mountains I see in Ollantaytambo will feel like home. I'm grateful to have this time to get to know other parts of my new country. I'm grateful to hike and learn and see and experience, and very grateful culture shock will (hopefully) have come and gone by the time of my arrival in Ollantaytambo. 

I'm grateful for the Spanish I hear everyday that makes me that much more confident in my listening abilities and, grateful for any little bit of practice I give myself when I try to use my Spanish. It's slow coming but I'm getting there, and I'm definitely hearing and using more Spanish than I have in years, probably since I was in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2013. It feels good, right, like a step in a really life-long productive direction. When people ask when we're leaving Peru, I tell them I'll be living outside of Cusco and they get so excited, like somehow the smile across their face is a proud welcome, an acceptance into a club of Peruvian residency. 

It makes me feel proud and honored to share a country with them, even if at the moment I know five other countries better than here. Tomorrow will mark three weeks in Peru. I spent one more week than that in Morocco, two more in Mexico, four more in Spain, seven more in Nepal, and a lifetime more in the good ole US of A. 

I still feel like I'm floating in an abyss of no reality, none of this is real, there's no way; it hasn't hit me, I wonder when it will. My prediction is mid August, when I presumably return from another country to renew my visa, and returning home means Ollantaytambo, especially an Ollantaytambo where I have my own place. 

I'm getting very excited for work, and to have things to do. It's been a while. I'm also excited to do the things that make me happy at home like painting and yoga. 

Field school is hard, but I'm so glad I'm doing this. So glad to have this opportunity to learn and meet so many people passionate about similar things. I like meeting people from all walks of life. 

27/06/17