26 Peru Menlo Abroad

 Hola from Peru! The whole group can't believe that its our last day working in Zurite! However, before we got to finish our projects at the high school (working on the greenhouse and painting the mural), we took the morning to visit a local cheesemaker.  Our cheesemaking experience started when we were first led into the back door of a small yellow house, where the cheese was made. A man with rubber boots and gloves then started teaching us how to turn milk into curds and whey. Then we took turns straining out the curds from the liquid whey, plopping them into the cheese moulds. Last, we flipped each mould and added salt. We all loved learning about the creation of the dairy products we eat every day in Zurite and had a lot of fun making cheese! In the afternoon, we returned to the high school and continued working on our projects. Again, we split into two groups. The first group finished the lettering and detail work on the mural alongside some of the local high school stude...

  ¡Hola familias!  Bella and Audrey are back again! We are coming to a close on all of our projects. This morning, we split into three different groups: the  biocorridor, mural, and greenhouse. The group visited and worked with the biocorridor for the last time this trip, while the other two groups started to wrap up our part of the mural and greenhouse! The mural is coming together beautifully, and everyone is done with their month and finishing the outline. We put plastic up for the most insulated part of the greenhouse and also worked on the compost section as we mixed our cow poop fertilizer with fresh soil.  Lunch was, as always, amazing, and everyone continued their friendship bracelet making process. Right after, we all got into the trailer of a huge, open-air truck in which we drove 45 minutes and 3,000 feet up into the mountains. Good thing we packed our layers, because we needed them at the top. Around 14,000 feet (way higher than Lake Tahoe), the air was f...

 Salutations familias,     Today, Kurt and Alex are writing the blog. Buckle up and hands and feet inside the car for the best ride in Zurite!     The morning, as usual consisted of a yummy breakfast for all. At our homestay, we had banana pancakes alongside fresh fruits and veggies. When everyone converged onto Don Tomás's house, we went around with our routine check-in + stretch circle. After the check-in concluded, the boys snuck in a quick game of Quadritos, a local street game that is the equivalent of four-square but you can only use your legs.      At the school, the group broke up into four groups: the greenhouse, the mural, the dancers, and the musicians. At the greenhouse, we started putting up the plastic lining around the structure. This will ensure that when the seeds are brought to the greenhouse, they are given the best living conditions. At the mural, the team worked on finishing up individual sections, and finding the best paint c...

  ¡Hola Familias! It's Ellie and Murohn again, we know you missed us :). Today was a very special day... w e got to meet the president of Zurite!       But let's start from the beginning. In the morning, we woke up (some earlier than others) to a delicious hotel breakfast. Once we finished the meal, we got back on the buses and said goodbye to Cusco (for now). After a bus ride full of music and singing, we were back in Zurite at Doña Gladys'!      This is when the big moment happened. THE president of Zurite visited us for an hour! He was scheduled for 11am but came at 11:30 (he's a busy man), giving us some time to sunbathe and start preparing for our final Artistic Presentation to the school (more about that later). President Herbert (not Hoover) told us about political and environmental issues that are important to him and the community. What's really cool about President Herbert is the legacy he plans on leaving behind, as he intends to create...

 ¡Hola familias! Today was our retreat day so everybody woke up as usual, and prepared their daypacks for an overnight stay in Cusco. After a hearty breakfast, we met up at Doña Gladys' for our stretching circle and check in. By 8:30, we were loaded on the bus and headed out to Cusco. The bus ride was awesome as we queued songs on Chris' phone and sung our hearts out to Adele.  We got off the bus and came to the hotel, where we dropped off our bags and then headed to the Mercado de San Pedro. This market was vibrant and full of sellers, smoothies, butchers, and pretty much everything else you could think of. In the market, some of us had the luck of finding great things and were naturally good at haggling, while some of us spent the entire hour negotiating prices.  For lunch, we went back to the same restaurant we had dined at during our first day in Peru, and the food was delicious. From fried chicken, to pork chops, to plantains with rice and sausage, everybody had a de...

¡Hola familias!       Today was quite the busy workday! For the first half of the morning, we joined the entire high school at a local corn field to help them collect this year's corn harvest. All the students absolutely dominated us in harvesting corn, as they flew through 5 piles while we struggled with one (oops). To be fair, they've had years of experience.       We had a bit more time before lunch after the harvest, so we went back to the high school to work on the mural and greenhouse. One group started drawing outlines on the mural, while the other groups dug trenches and cleaned the area around the greenhouse.      As usual, lunch was quite eventful. We discovered unique forms of holding our forks, and some of us were a bit sleepy from the morning. We had our usual soup along with pesto spaghetti with chicken (this was the time of fork technique discovery btw). Many of us got seconds because the food was so good! The guys on...

¡Hola familias!       Today was more than just another eventful day of work, as today we got to meet the high school students of Zurite. Unlike the previous morning routine of a 6:30 wakeup and a 7:00 breakfast, today we ate at 6:30 in order to make it to the opening assembly at Zurite High School.     The opening ceremony set the tone for the day as Christopher gave a speech in Spanish on teamwork between the students of Menlo School and Zurite High School, a theme that would carry on throughout the day. Today was the first day that we had the helping hands of Zurite students for the projects at the school, those being the mural and greenhouse.       After the assembly we were split into the previous day's groups. While one group worked to finish painting the mural wall, the other worked alongside students to lift wood beams and weed the area surrounding the greenhouse.      Like usual, both groups met at Doña Gladys' hou...

¡Hola from Zurite!  Today we woke up at 6:30 as usual and did out check-ins with the group. Then, similar to yesterday, we split into our two groups and started work for the day. The first group visited a local farm to gather dry manure for the greenhouse and the second group hiked to the biocorridor and continued digging a hiking path to encourage future tourism in Zurite.  In the first group, we set out in a cattle wagon loaded with tools and wheelbarrows, all a little apprehensive about the poop-scooping ahead. After we arrived at the farm, we began shoveling the dry manure into the wagon. We were all looking forward to a shower, especially after we rode back in the same wagon as the manure. But our troubles weren't over yet. We still had to load it all out of the wagon, getting even more manure dust all over us. Even though the morning task was a difficult one, we knew our work was going to create nutrient-dense soil for the plants in the greenhouse.  Meanwhile, the s...

 ¡Hola, familias! Today was a very eventful and tiring day, and everyone worked extremely hard! After our morning stretches and check in, we dove straight into our work projects. We split up people into two groups: one for the greenhouse and mural, and the other for the bio-corridor and the greenhouse. In the morning, the bio-corridor group returned to the mountain to carve out a new trail in the hillside with pickaxes, and cut and planted stakes so we can start planting native plants around the trail. The other group mixed cement and put massive logs into place for the greenhouse behind the local high school. We then all reunited at base camp for a delicious lunch Doña Gladys, with lamb soup and noodles with spicy peanut sauce. After, we all returned to the high school, where one group shaved and transported eucalyptus logs, while the other group began preparing the wall for the mural by sanding and painting. All in all, this was our first full work rotation day, where everyone pu...

¡Saludos de Zurite! Today was our second full day with our homestay families, and our second full day exploring the surroundings of the town of Zurite. We once again began our active day with breakfast at our respective casas, and we did our morning stretch circle / status check to ground ourselves. We then took (bumpy) transportation up to Punto Cero, the trailhead for our day's three hiking destinations. We started by hiking up to Q'ente Q'enteyoc, or the "Hummingbird Terraces." We initially expected to be surrounded by buzzing birds, but we soon learned that the terraces' name is actually sourced from the shape of the structure cut into the mountain--from afar, it resembles a hummingbird! Our guide additionally taught us the significance of hummingbirds to the Incan peoples as we partook in an offering ritual to gain spiritual permission to hike the mountain.  Leaving, the terraces, hiking became incredibly steep as we trekked toward our next stop: pre-Inca...