About Chahuay

In the rural community of Chahuay, leader Lucio Quispe identified 90 families in need. Even though the pandemic has been ongoing for the past four and a half months, no government assistance has yet reached Chahuay. When we spoke to community members, they said that they feel forgotten and they think that it is because their community is so isolated and far from real towns that have services like banks, clinics and pharmacies. 

Where they live is one of the most beautiful places that we have taken support to. They live on the shores of Lake Pomacanchi, a large lake, filling a wide valley. This area is home to the famous Four Lagoon Circuit, which used to be popular with tourists who wanted to see the beauty of the Andes, without the arduous treks required to see more mountainous lakes. They are at a higher altitude than Cusco, at 3,700 meters above sea level (over 12,000 feet). However, the valleys are wider, the mountains more gentle and there are roads throughout the area, so you can drive directly to each of the four lakes.

Obviously, with borders still closed and no tourists allowed to enter Peru, they have lost all of their jobs related to tourism. Nobody can get income from being tour guides, fishing guides, opening their houses for homestays or selling any of their artisanal products. 

As with other communities, one of the reasons we need to take assistance to them is to help them stay isolated. There are no cases of Covid-19 in the area and if any of them leave the community to look for work in the city of Cusco or the mines, they risk exposure to the virus. 

We are very careful to not take the virus with us when we visit these communities. We wear masks at all times, bring alcohol gel and this time we also brought disposable gloves. We used to just use alcohol gel, but with cases on the rise in Cusco, where we all live, we need to increase our caution and our safety protocols.

Going to Chahuay

Saturday, a van picked up Henry, Auqui and I, plus our friend Kyra Eddy, right at 8am, as they had promised. Kyra and her friend Justine, who lives in Australia, raised almost half of what we needed for today. 

Kyra and I sat just behind the driver, with boxes piled between us. Henry and Auqui sat in the back, with as much social distancing as possible. We wore masks all day long, including in the van.

It took more than two hours to drive to Chahuay from Cusco. The town is on Lake Pomacanchi, in an incredibly beautiful setting. They had set up for us on the soccer field, which is near the lake. We set out the school supplies, and the food that we had purchased for each family. We also got out the maná, which came to 58 bags, once I put the four kilos into smaller bags. Maná is sweet puffed corn and is a very popular treat for children.

We called the kids first, oldest to youngest, to give them their notebooks and coloring books to keep them busy while we called the adults to come get their donations. The kids happily started eating their maná and coloring in their books as soon as they got back to sitting with their families. Even though we gave milk to the kids under two, we saw a couple older kids drinking straight from the cartons. I was just happy to see the kids smiling and sharing their school supplies and maná.

It took a while to get everybody on the list checked off, but it was only about noon when we were done. After the villagers all left, the community leaders brought out a couple tables and their family members brought food for us down to the soccer field. They served us plates piled high with boiled potatoes and onion salad, topped with a whole fried trout. Their lake is known for great fishing and it was the best trout I’ve had in a long time. 

We ate with the community leaders by the lake and shared chicha. Most chicha is a lightly fermented corn drink. This chicha was made with barley, so it tasted a bit different, but was still delicious and refreshing. This chicha was also “frutillada” which means that they mixed in strawberry juice to sweeten the chicha.

Eventually, we had to leave and piled back in the van for the drive back to Cusco. Thankfully, we didn’t have any trouble with the police checkpoints and the driver took all of us home safely.

Logistics

We raised a fantastic $961.29, in large part due to Kyra, Eddy, an Australian kindergarten teacher who had planned to take this year off as a sabbatical to travel the world. She has been stuck in Cusco for the duration of the pandemic, so far. She donated herself, then told her friends back home about the Covid Relief Project. Her friend Justine Moorman started her own fundraiser for Chahuay and with her friends brought in a very generous $450 USD. This is about half of what we needed for Chahuay, which made a huge difference!

From the ATM in Cusco, we withdrew s/1400 Peruvian Soles on July 24, which cost $406.22; s/1400 on July 30, which cost $407.40 and s/500 on July 31, which cost $146.74. In all, we withdrew $960.36 and will save the extra $0.93 for next time.

We spent s/2,700 on food for families, s/48 on milk, s/299 on school supplies, s/37 on four kilos of maná (sweet puffed rice) and s/10 on gloves for the team handing out food. Of the s/3,300 withdrawn, we have s/206 leftover for next time.

For each family, we bought 5 kg rice, 3kg sugar, 2 small bags of oatmeal, 1 package of soda crackers (each package contained six smaller packages) and 1 liter of vegetable oil. The wholesaler we work with, Wagner’s, helped us find which products they could get the best price on. They also donated 40 cartons of fruit juice, completely free for the families. Unfortunately, they didn’t have 90, but any help is welcome.

Due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Cusco, the government announced that many of the strict quarantine restrictions of April and May would return, starting on August 1st. This sent most of Cusco into a panic and we went to the police station on Friday night to ask if we would need special police permission for tomorrow - like we did in May and June. They assured us that tomorrow there wouldn’t be the same restrictions tomorrow as during the first part of the quarantine and that we wouldn’t have any trouble leaving Cusco - or coming home in the evening. 

Still, the community leaders of Chahuay did not want to take any chances. They sent a truck to Wagner’s Friday night to take the food to the village, promising to send a van for us the next morning. Henry, Auqui and I sent to Wagner’s at 7pm to help load the truck and count the boxes to be sure that we knew how many to expect to have on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, we had official paperwork for Henry, Auqui, Kyra and I. The van arrived right on time and we loaded up the school supplies and milk. There are 75 children under 14 in the families on the list. For the 16 children under 4 years old, we bought a carton of milk. For the 22 children 4 years old to 8 years old, we bought coloring books and boxes of colored pencils. For children 8-14, we bought 37 notebooks, 37 blue pens, 37 red pens and 37 black pens. We also bought 60 pencils, for all children over 4 years old.

It was wonderful to have some extra donations after we had enough to buy food for the families. We hope to be able to take school supplies for children again on our next donation day.