This morning we departed bright and early for a town called La Grama, which is where a volunteer named Patty lives. Her site is nestled in the mountains and is definitely one of the smallest sites we saw. We were scheduled to host a field day and teach computer classes at the local school, but in true Peruvian fashion school was unexpectedly cancelled for the day. Luckily, the students love Patty so the entire school agreed to come in anyway so we could continue with our planned events. Because it is such a small site, every single person in town knows Patty, so she is greeted by choruses of “hola senorita Patty” everywhere she goes. When we visited her school, the kids were incredibly excited about visitors, and I was nearly tackled by a sea of primaria students who all decided to hug me at one time.

After working at the school for awhile, we returned to Patty’s house and made lunch with her host mom. Patty’s host mom is a baker, so we got to sample some of her homemade treats which were all delicious. For lunch we made vegetarian lentil burgers, which turned out really well. After lunch, the current volunteers came up with a scavenger hunt so we could meet some of the locals and have some truly “Peruvian” experiences. Among other tasks, we were able to ride donkeys through the fields, meet some of the local cows, help bake bread in the local bakery, try on traditional dress, and learn cultural dances. All of these tasks were accomplished by ourselves, just wondering around, knocking on doors, and hanging out on the farms. People were incredibly generous, and welcomed us into their homes without reservation. When I was looking for somewhere to find traditional dress, someone pointed me to the home of “Senora Gladis.” When I knocked on her door, she immediately invited me inside, braided my hair, and gladly let me try on her “fiesta dress.” Similarly, we followed the sweet smell of baking bread to a local bakery, where they invited us in and let us roll out our own sweet bread, bake it in the huge clay oven, and sample the results. We wondered through acres of farms, and found some farmers harvesting garlic and they gladly agreed to let us ride their donkeys.

Throughout Cajamarca there are various hot springs, and in La Grama there is a place where they pump the hot springs into thermal baths. After our long week, we were all excited to test them out. The thermal bath was really just a giant swimming pool, but the water was completely natural and really warm despite the cool night, so it was really cool to swim around and enjoy the hot water. Afterwards we made a bonfire behind our hostel to celebrate the end of field based training, complete with marshmallows and a rousing game of catchphrase.