Care for Cuzco was life-changing

Our trip to Peru was one was the most amazing experiences of my life and I feel like in the space of one week, I learned so much. I went to change one small corner of the world, and it changed me instead. I applied for a $5,000 grant through Travelocity’s Travel for Good program to take a volunteer vacation with a small group. Miraculously, we won and spent a week in Cusco, Peru working in an albergue. Initially I thought the albergue was an orphanage, but it wasn’t–and now I understand the confusion. We don’t really have a word for what this place is. A “kids’ center” doesn’t quite explain it and the kids definitely have parents who love them very very much. In order to explain, I’ll give you a little background. Cusco is situated high in the Andes at 11,000 feet. During our week there, two of my teammates got severe altitude sickness and permanent headaches were de rigueur. Life at this height is extreme to say the very least. But the kids from the albergue do not live in Cusco proper. They are from tiny, tiny villages even higher up, perched on steppes in the mountains. The villages usually don’t have schools or they have very limited school opportunities so the parents–wanting to help their children get ahead in life–send them to school in Cusco. To make this happen, kids as young as 10 years old walk up the mountain for AN HOUR to their bus stops, then take two-hour bus rides into the city. Because the kids simply can’t do that every day, they get apartments in the city, like little adults. Once there, kids work all day to support the apartment they have and then go to school at night. The albergue was started as a way to help the Andean kids get an education in Cusco, stay safe, and most importantly, be kids. They live at the albergue Monday-Friday and then go home to their parents on the weekends. During the week, they go to school in Cusco and do some kid-friendly chores at the albergue. Their parents volunteer at the school four times a year to “pay” for their tuition–and a steady stream of volunteers like my group come in and help keep the place running. We worked from 8am till 6pm every day, doing some of the hardest labor of my life. We were building bleachers next to the basketball/soccer court. All buildings, roads, and otherwise in Cusco are made from white granite because it’s found in the mountains nearby. Then after dinner, we played with the kids. And through it all, what I was amazed by was how little these kids had and how awesome they were. Watching an 11-year-old happily wash her clothes by hand in the afternoon sun tends to put your troubles in perspective. You know, every time I volunteer, I am reminded that you go in wanting to help others but instead they help you, they show you what is (family) and is not (iPhone) important, what does and does not matter. And for that, I’ll forever owe the kids at the albergue.

Alison P.