June 20th was the first day the Engineers Without Borders Peru team got to La Huaylla, Peru. We were all very tired. We had stayed in the Lima airport the night before and didn’t get any sleep. It was a lot to take in since everything was so different. I had never been in a place where there were no English speakers. The infrastructure was very makeshift, looking like it might just crumble down during an earthquake. There were also stray dogs everywhere. We saw where we were staying, it was called the Polideportivo, it was an indoor soccer field surrounded by what seemed like hotel rooms. There weren’t many people living there, perhaps one family and one single man. The owner also kept guinea pigs caged by the field. We had met the Peace Corps. Volunteers in the area and Jorge, the head of the municipality who was in charge of the reservoir project, at the airport.
My stomach had not adjusted to the food or maybe the water yet, and I was having stomach problems. We had three meals that day and I could not finish any of them, I could barely stomach dinner, but it was rude not to finish your food. There was also so much walking and it felt like we walked 100 miles the first day, probably because of the lack of sleep the night before. I’m not really sure what I expected Peru to be like, if anything. All I could think was different, everything was just so different. And that’s still what I tell people when they ask me “How was Peru???”, I say “It was very different”. And I don’t think I had time to think about what it was because we were so busy. It was the process of adapting and learning how they did things there. It was also very exciting and cool to see how humans can live in this culture and it be completely normal to them.
Pictured: Our last flight to get to Peru! We still had to take a taxi and bus to get to La Huaylla. LC Peru only had two flights a day and we took the first one which was at 5 am. You get directly off the plane and walk to the airport, there is no enclosed entry into the airport.
Pictured: Walking through La Huaylla the first day. Left is Evan, the co-lead of the Peru project. He has been to La Huaylla the previous two years. Middle is the Peace-Corp member, Joe who we were most in contact with throughout the trip. And right is Semaj, fellow Blum awardee, this was his first year going to La Huaylla.
Pictured: This was the San Marcos square. San Marcos was the closest more developed community to La Huaylla and was where the Municipality was located and where we got most of our supplies and ate all of our meals. Left is the mayor, center is Hannah, the other Peru project co-lead and fellow Blum awardee, and right is Jorge, the head of the Muni who was in charge of the project.
Pictured: This was dinner the first day. It was actually one of the tastiest meals we got there. It was similar to an omelet with spinach and carrots over fried white rice.
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