Week in Taray
Trip Start
Jul 16, 2008
1
8
84
Trip End
Ongoing
Taray,
Peru
Saturday, August 16, 2008
We waited for one bus to go without us so that we could get seats on the next one. We loaded all of our luggage on top of the bus (including our toilet paper and rice for the week!) and enjoyed the usual overcrowded bus ride to Pisac. Once in Pisac we unloaded everything and piled into a few mototaxis (like Cambodian tuk tuks) for the 10 minute ride to Taray.
Taray is a little town of 250 people. We heard various rumors about the inhabitants of the town, none of which were completely confirmed. But we were told that there are 5 families that live there and make up the 250 people. One man has 22 children. He is 83 and his youngest son is 3. His wife is 56. We were told all 22 kids are with the same wife. Apparently there are several foreign women who live there, from the US, Germany, France, and 2 other places. There are a lot of artists in the community who have gone traveling abroad, met and married women, and then brought them home to Taray. I absolutely LOVED Taray but Iīm not sure how I would feel had I met a Peruvian guy at home, agreed to move to Peru with him, and then showed up in Taray, where the population of stray dogs is larger than the population of people!
However, having spent a week there, I would gladly spend more time there. It was soo relaxingI spent the week with 7 students, 3 Dutch, 1 Swiss, and 2 Germans. We had a wonderful teacher with us for the week, Libia, and then two people that work for the school, one who cooked for us, Melissa, (delicious food!) and one who arranged various outings, Raul. The school has a house that ís almost gorgeous. Parts of it could use some refurbishing and there are bugs everywhere. Just ants and little flies though so nothing too gross. It is in a beautiful location, with mountains all around. There is a pool outside, a garden, a little playground, ping-pong and pool tables, and a lovely terrace. The house has 6 bedrooms, that have between 2 and 4 beds. So, we got to spread out since there were only 7 of us. I stayed in a room with Cristina, a German girl. Our room was outside the house, up two flights of stairs and had a magnificent view of the mountains and the valley. We had hot water everyday!!
The first night it was difficult to sleep. At night there were dogs fighting outside and we were awakened very early in the morning, first by the roosters and then by the cows. The second night I slept very well, I guess having become accustomed to the noises of the countryside.
I had my mornings and afternoons free until 4pm and then had 4 hours of classes. It is amazing to me how quickly the time went by. After 5 years of living in Manhattan I am surprised that I was completely happy living in small town. There were several stores where I could buy what I needed (really just water, candy, and some beer). For anything else we had to go into Pisac, a 30 minute walk (which explains the limited email contact I had that week!). Other than the stores, the town has houses, a plaza, a church, and a school. And amazing hikes into the mountains. It is beautiful and peacebul and quiet and sooo relaxing. I loved it. Sandra, the girl from Switzerland, is from a small town and absolutely hated it there. She said it reminded her of home where there was nothing to do. However I appreciated the nothing to do.
One morning we went to Salinas, some salt mines nearby. Apparently there are underground saltwater springs that were discovered long ago and people built terraces to get the water out. It is an interesting site, looks like it is all covered in snow!
We spent another morning visiting some hot water baths in a nearby town, Calca. It was a bit disappointing as the water was not all that hot and left you feeling very dirty. But, it was intersting as we were the only tourists there. Iīm sure all the locals appreciated us, what with our cameras and all. They actually did seem pretty amused and not too annoyed.
I spent one morning wandering around town on my own. I visited the school, which has 96 students up to grade 6. One of the teachers took me around to all of the classrooms and had the students introduce themselves and sing songs to me. I felt kind of bad for interrupting but they were very cute. Did not take any pictures though...didnīt want to interrupt and make them into objects. The school was pretty bare and dark. There were some charts up on the wall, as we have in our classrooms, but not very many. And all are teacher made. The alphabet, poems, numbers... All of the students had workbooks that the government provides. Other then that there were no other materials in the room. No manipulatives or toys or anything. And Iīm not sure if they had electricity. There certainly werenīt any lights on and it was pretty dark. I arrived during recess and all of the children were eating snacks. The teacher who was showing me around explained that a new initiative had recently been started so that the students will get food at school because there was a lot of malnourishment before. So, they are feeding the kids and weighing and measuring the kids to see how the meal and snack at school helps.
I spoke with the teacher and another teacher about volunteering there. He said they would love to have me. I was very exited by the idea. I met some of the older children and spoke to them about learning English. They said they would love to learn. However, I wasnīt entirely sure of the intentions of the teacher I met. Another teacher told me that the teacher I had been talking to really just wanted to find an American wife and move to the US. And, after my tour, he kept insisting that we go out somewhere together. He wanted to take me to Calca, another town, either that day or the next day. He was very insistent. I managed to convince him I had classes in the afternoon and would be unable to go. He said I should come back the next day at 8:00 to meet the principal. I left the school and began walking back home and when I arrived in the plaza, saw that he had followed me in his car. He tried again to get me to go with him to Calca but I just ignored him and went into the house. Iīm not really sure how he was able to leave school at that moment, seeing as there were still 2 hours of school left and I had just met his class. I later asked Libia, my teacher, and she said there is a big problem in the small town schools because noone watches over the teachers so sometimes they do just leave. She said that is probably why the principal was not there either. There is no higher authority coming to check up on any of them.
After talking with my teacher and the other students we decided it was best for me not to return to the school and volunteer because the teacher was so sketchy. And so I had to give up my dream of living in Taray for a month. Thinking about it more later we also decided that I might not like Taray as much if I had to actaully do my own cooking, which would require going to the market in Pisac and buying the meat from the stalls, where they are butchering cows in the open. Or maybe I just would have become a vegetarian.
Other than those big outings I spent most of my time relaxing on the terrace, enjoying the sun! At night we played cards and watched movies. And I got to use my swiss army knife finally, to open a (terrible) bottle of wine and a few beers! (Thanks, dad!) One night we had a campfire. We made bread on sticks (has anyone ever done this before? It was the Germansī idea. Iīm not sure if itīs a Eurpoean or some sort of scout thing but I had never done it!) and toasted really sweet marshmallows. We had some vanilla cookies which pass great for graham crackers. The Dutch girls made chocolate filled bananas. They cut slits in the bananas (with the peel on) and filled them with chocolate, wrapped them in tin foil, and pit them in the fire. So, we had lots of different traditions around the campfire, not sure if any of it was Peruvian however! Melissa (the cook) and Libia (the teacher) definitely had some new experiences.
