Buenos días, queridos!
Ha, I almost continued writing in Spanish, but that probably wouldn´t be too helpful for most of you. =)
Anyway, things are going well here! We´re starting to get into sort of a routine of things, which is really nice. Wake up, breakfast for 3 soles next door, read and/or journal back at the room, errands, lunch on the go, meet Adolfo in the afternoon, chat for a few hours, go home and grab dinner at the pollería (chicken store/restaurant) down the way (1/8 chicken plus fried potatoes for 5 soles, or about $2!), talk and/or rest till bedtime, sleep.
Significant updates from the last few days:
1) Monday, after I wrote "Episode Uno", Daniel and I went to meet Adolfo at Belenpampa, the clinic where Daniel volunteered last time. While we were waiting for him to come out, we ran into Doctora Haydee, who was Daniel´s "mamita" (mama + ita = little mama!) at the clinic. It was a sort of bittersweet meeting, because it was wonderful to see her and catch up, but we also saw firsthand some of the hurtful things that short-term volunteer trips can do to the people left behind. Mamita talked about how she had missed Daniel a lot, and how she hadn´t heard from us (apparently our emails and messages went astray... not uncommon, unfortunately). I think the saddest part for me was after she talked about being sad, she said something like "But time eventually buries our feelings, so I´m not as sad now." To me, that was much harder to hear than just that she missed us -- she had actually had to traverse multiple stages of grief on our account. Daniel and I talked later about that whole situation, and I think it´s really reinforced our commitment to (a) do right by our friends here and put relationships first, and (b) NOT participate in forms of volunteering/volunteer tourism that put the local people in the situation of having to pour themselves out over and over to new people every two months, only to get hurt and burned by that trust when people leave the locals behind as just another part of their "experience".
2) Yesterday (Tuesday) morning, Daniel and I spent a lot of time talking and journaling and sort of figuring out where we were at with our work and our emotional states, etc. We wrote down and talked about a lot of stuff to bring to our later meeting with Adolfo. Then last night, we sat down with Adolfo in a little cafe and had a FABULOUS meeting!! We went through some "appreciative inquiry" stuff (what are strengths, what are concerns, what are proposed action steps) about our plans for Wiñarisum (the organization we hope will come about from our work with Adolfo) and about our international collaboration in general. It was super great -- Daniel went through and was able to be open about some of his/our worries and fears, like that his loyalty to Adolfo would cause him to take on roles or responsibilities that he shouldn´t, and Adolfo was incredibly supportive and "on-the-same-page" about it. He said, "You´re right, Daniel, that would be a problem. But just remember, that if you do something you shouldn´t out of loyalty to me, you´re not being loyal to Wiñarisum." It was AWESOME, and just what Daniel/we needed to hear to be reassured that we really do have a strong working partnership here, and not some weird dependency situation. We also talked a lot about the specifics of the scope and focus of our work, which was really great to start the ball rolling on planning our next steps. All in all, a pretty fantabulous meeting! =)
Other than that, we are continuing our acclimation process. In the next few days, we will probably move from our current (temporary) apartment to a room at Adolfo´s brother´s house, where we will probably remain until the end of our stay here. Today we´re working on tying up some loose ends -- like buying some toothpaste, since our travel one is toasted already -- and so it will probably be like a "catch up and plan tomorrow" sort of a day.
In other news, look for a "Spanish lessons from my translator" note in the next little while. You wouldn´t believe the hilarious specificity of some of the phrases they tell you how to say in there...
All right, well, it´s off to another crisp cusqueño day. Hope you all are well!
Un abrazo fuerte,
Danielito y Rebequita
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