Amantani Island

Today we arrived back from Amantani Island, having been there for three weeks. It´s pretty hard to sum up the whole experience in this post but i´ll write a bit about it.

My host family met us when we came off the boat and we walked about 15 minutes from the main port to our house. Other people in the group were spread over this part of the island. We arrived at the mudbrick, courtyard house and walked up the stairs, banging my head as i went and we were preparing ourselves for the worst. They opened the tiny metal door and we walked into a long room with four single beds and a long table in the middle with sunlight pouring into the windows. It was so much better than expected and we were really happy with our room. The view from the balcony overlooked the lake through eucalyptus trees and other houses. Our host mother Esther is only 23, she has a four year old daughter, betsy and a mother and sister.

At first we were really happy about the food. After a while though, the food became repetitive. Every single meal, except breakfast, involved some sort of soup - and a big bowl of it. Our family usually served us either soup with fried batter balls, or fried egg on rice, or potatoes with fried egg, or as on the second last night, cold potatoes with tuna. agggh. For breakfast, on a good day we got a pancake with jam on it, or otherwise we had fried egg in bread, or fried flat batter things, or egg on rice, or just plain bread with jam. Everything is extremely salty, and when i say ¨fried¨i really mean fried. They don´t hold back on the oil. When you bite into a fried egg sandwich you sort of get squirts of oil that come out of the egg! But despite that i think i still probably lost weight, purely because you are walking all the time about the island, and at that altitude you get quite puffed. Oh, also that fact that we were working everyday doing physical labour probably helped.

We worked for five days each week for four hours each morning. The project was to build a school lunchroom for the school there called Inti Wawacuna. It wasn´t quite as satisfying as our last project. We had a new maestro who wasn´t quite as cheerful as the old maestro in Huaran. We pretty much did all the bitty work like collecting sand and rocks from the beach for the cement etc. Obviously still an important job because someone had to do it, but it didn´t help with feeling like we were part of the project. That´s probably why i´m finishiung this paragraph here because there really isn´t much to write about it other than we finished it andf did a good job and now the kids have somewhere to eat - all the other stuff is the interesting stuff.

Quite a few times we played volleyball against some of the local teams (volley is really popualr in Peru). Of course they always beat us but we had quite a few really fun games, and even some really competitive games. One time we walked up to the high school and me and Stephen took the net from my ¨mum¨Esther. When we got there we were swarmed by kids who wanted to play, but we didn´t know how to set the net up, so they grabbed it from us and and set it up. Even the kids were really good players and beat us!

The lifestyle was very different. There were no cars of course, and there is no electricity (i think purely because people in general can´t afford it, even though it works out as about 5 dollars a month per household to pay for power), no showers or running water or flushing toilets. Every few days we would go down to the lake after work and try our best to clean our clothes. I think i washed my hair three times in three weeks. The first time i went in the lake i underestimated the coldness. I had my bathers on and thought it would be a good idea to wade out into the deeper part and try to submerge myself in order to wash properly. I got down to my shoulders and had a sudden feeling of not being to breathe properly. I think the cold stunned me and i flapped around for a few seconds saying ï can´t breathe, i can´t breathe¨. From that day i decided i would rather be dirty than be that cold again. Other washing times consisted more of a light splashing motion than a full bathe. The strange thing is there was no point, except maybe once, when i said to myself that i really really wanted a hot shower. In fact, a hot shower was out of my realm of thinking - the m,ost your mind can comprehend is cold unning being a luxury.

Before i went there i thought that the lack of mod cons would be a big deal. But the longer we styaed there the more i realised how unimportant all those things really are. Of course, having lights and hot water is great and i wouldn´t want to live without them, but i can understand different priorities now. If i had to choose between hot water and lights, or more food, i would definitly choose food. All the other things fade away, but hunger is not something you get used to.

As a result of living by candlelight our bedtime was usually in the hour of 7. Which meant my candle was usually blown out by 8ish. We had one or two late nights which meant going to bed at about 10.30. Its amazing how much of an impact the moon has when you have no lights. A full moon means you can walk around after dark and see where you are going, or got to the outhouse without a torch.

On the thrusday night of the first week we had soup for dinner and we ate in the small, smoky kitchen withy the family. I was quite full and really didn´t feel like eating but the family is so poor and i didn´t want to be rude and not eat, especially when food is so precious. So i ate, then i went to bed and started feeling sick, and that was the beginning of one of the worst nights ever. I was up all night running outside to the cold balcony and throwing up. I don´t think i got any sleep. I didnt realise until about two later that that was the beginning of the return of the Giardia that i had had in Huran. This time it was worse and it took me much longer to recover. On sunday went to the doctor and got some medicine, and Rob and Bonny organised for the three sick people to stay in a house called the Casablanca owned by the people we were working with on the project. The house had solar power which meant we could switch lights on at night time, but there was still no running water. I didn´t go back to work until the tuesday, but even then i wasn´t any help because i had no energy. it wasn´t until thurday or friday that i could really do much or eat much. From the thursday when i got sick, for about a week, i had no appetite and pretty much just ate bread.

On the last wednesday there i walked up one of the big hills on the island where there is an old temple on top and watched the sunrise. Me and Stephen left just before 5am and it took about 45 minutes to get up the hill. i wore my thermal pants, two thermal tops plus my overclothes becaus ei knew it would be cold. It was getting colder every night when we were there and apparently it gets fown to minus 10C in mid-winter. So anyway, from the top of the mountain the view is spectacular and the there was already an orangey glow when we got there and the wobbly ball of sunshine appeared from behind a distant mountain across the glassy still lake. It rose quite quickly and as always began a brilliant sunny, clear, but cold day.

On the middle weekend saturday i spent the morning walking around the island. It is a fair way but i stuck to some of the inner paths and overlooked the edge of the island the whole way. There are several different communites spread around the island and i passed through some of them. It was one of my best walks ever, it is hard to describe so i will include some of the diray entry i wrote whilst walking:

After walking for an hour i´ve just sat down at a beautiful pebble beach on the southern side of Amantani. There aret iny waves lapping lazily at the edge of my toes and the calm water ripples and twinkles in the bright sunshine. At firslt glance on coming down the hill the beach appears deserted, but as you approach you notice a man washing from rocks to the left, and in a sheltered cove two fishermen sit in seperate boats talking to one another, oars ready to go. Up to the right above some terraced walls is one mudbrick house - a little girl carries a bleating lamb in her arms.

After another hour of strenuous walking i sit perched on some rocks on a steep hillside overlooking a wide cove and a large but sparse village of red-roofed mud huts. The sun shines behind over the steep, jagged rock formations towering above me. To my left a line oif sharply rising narrow rocks splinters its way down the hillside and becomes smaller in the valley below. etc etc

Another hour of walking and i am sitting sheltered by a small semi-circle stone wall in a grey dusty landscape looking down at the shear drop below me where grey chunks of rock become big speckled boulders, which cascade vertically into the dry terraced hills below which in turn runs sharply down into the lake where it abruptly meets the clear green water. The only sounds come from the wind and a family harvesting their crops from a small field on the hill face below me. On the wayi stopped and asked a woman working in the field whether it was possible to walk out here to the edge of the peninsula. I had already walked up a massive hill, through old stone archways on a paved path and it appeared to be the highest point. It platueaed out into dry fields bounded in a maze-like fashion by stone walls. After discovering i was a volunteer her mood instantly changed and she smiled and asked me where i was from and let me know the best route through the maze of walls.

Of course i have to mention this next thing. It happened as i was finishing my gour hour walk that i describe above. Lunch was at the school at 1, so i ran for the lasy half hour because i got a bit lost and was jumping ovver stone walls and running through peoples courtyards and corn fields in order to find my way back down to the port where the school is. It was saturday and there was a fiar bit of action down at the port. Obviuosly some boats had come in and there were many locals down at the port hanging around. I came down the very steep path from the plaza and had to walk past the port area to get to the school for lunch. I had just seen from above everyone wlaking inside so i was trying not to be late and was concentrating on trying to walk fast. A large bull was coming in the opposite direction to me and i was going to walk right past it but didn´t give it much thought as i have been walking past bulls for the past 3 months. This time, i should have noticed that it didn´t have an owner and was actually walking around by itself. All the locals that were sitting around on the grass began to stand up and yell to me but i couldn´t work out what was happening. Well, it only took a second or two for everything to start after they yelled at me. Just as i appsed the bull i saw out of the corner of my eye that it was lowering its horns and turning around ready to charge. When this happened i was only a mtre or two from the bull, and thats when i knew i had to run. I bolted and then the bull charged. There was a one mtre drop down to a pebbled beach area next to the pier, so i jumped down there and continued running. To my horror the bull obviouldy had no problems jumpiong down and following me. I kept running and there was an uptunred dingy on the pebbles so i ran towards the water and then around the dingy - the bull still followed. The only thing left to do was run back up the hill and to my extreme relief the bull slowed on the hill and eventually stopped. I slowed down and everyone was looking at me and shaking their heads as if to say ¨that was close¨. I didn´t stop but kept towrds the school as there was still the issue of being late! My hand was shaking all during lucnh. it wasn´t until the next day that i walked past another bull (with an owner) and then when it had gone i sat down on a rock and cried my little eyes out!

Speaking of the next day - we had a boat trip to the closest island an hour away, called Tequille Island. It was quite pretty but very touristy and not nearly as spectacular or untouched as Amantani Island.

On frisday we had our official opening of the lunchroom where we spent the morning cooking lunch for all our host families and all the kids at the school which was about 80 people. We bought lamb and bread and salad stuff and cooked the most massive barbecue operation i have seen. Luckily some of the local women cut the whole two lambs up for us. That morning our family dressed us in traditional clothing as organised by Bonny. I had to wear my thermal pants and then a bright underskirt, then a bright blue and very puffy, knee length blue skirt. As a top i wore a white, long sleeve shirt with clourful floral embroidery. A colourful woven thick belt was wrapped around the waist and the final touch was a black shawl type thing with coolourful floral embroidery that is used as a sunshade and usually worn on top of the head draped over the back. Eventually we all had our traditional clothes on as we prepared lunch in the dark smoky kitchen by the eucalyptus fire. It was a really fun morning as some people in the group played guitar and everyone chopped, peeled, washed, stoked, fried and sang! It was such a big job that we didn´t serve everyone till 2. The families all gathered outside on the grass and we all lined up and served platefuls of lamb and lettuce, tomatoe, cheese and bread. It may not sound like much, but meat is rarity and probably a never-ity for most of the families. The closest we had to meat was a small piece of boiled something with lunch, and even that was a treat. So to have succulaent, juicy barbecued lamb, and lots of it was a treat for both them and us. It felt like quite an acheivement to cook for and serve 80 people - 80 deserving people who probably won´t eat such food for a very long time.

There are many other bits and peices and impossible things to describe including seeing the sun setting across the lake a different way each evening, or hanging out with Bonny and Stephen, or sitting in the sparkling afternoon sun with not a care in the world washing my clothes, or being freezing cold and drinking Moonah tea to warm up, and just the general pace of life where you are able to think clearly enough and see through everything else and realise the things in life that really matter - family, friends, beautiful nature and possibly pancakes for breakfast!! yep, that´s all you need.

I have many photos which i shall try and put a few up when i get Cusco tomorrow or the next day. Love you all : ) Nicky XX OO

Next stop: The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.