Saturday, March 22, 2014

Last Day in Pijal :(

Today was the sad sad day of leaving Pijal. Our day stared with making breakfast (at 5:45am) for our family. They had been so wonderful to us, we wanted to return the favor and that is why Asha and Katelyn went to the market the other day. We made French toast, eggs, chicken and tea. I know the chicken is a little weird, but they always seem to have such large, hearty breakfasts, we were concerned that there wasn’t going to be enough food! This meal also presented the perfect opportunity to show them how to use the maple syrup we brought from home. Overall, I think they liked the breakfast, but where unsure as to how to take it. It was so different then the rice and potatoes we had for breakfast every day before that.  Esteban really enjoyed the breakfast and the syrup…which isn’t surprising since he loves sweets. We were really happy that we were able to cook breakfast for them, to even in the smallest way, pay them back for all of the hospitality they had shown us. There was never a doubt that we were welcomed into the family in that house, as we wanted to show them in return, how much we appreciated it. Lucia enjoy it before she rushed off to the next town to pick something up. We had to get our bucket showers anyways; so we boiled our water and got ready to leave for the exhibit taking place.

After we were all showered, Lucia was waiting for us downstairs. The reason she had gone into town was to buy us each a handmade beaded bracelet. She even got one for Lauren, who had only been there a couple of days. She helped us wrap them in the right way and next thing we knew, the bus had arrived to take us and our luggage to the community center. Typical to the rest of the trip, we started late. It wouldn’t have been a day in Pijal if we had started on time. All the families and students gathered at Sumak Pacha, the program center, to watch a slide show and have us present the five photos we had chosen to from the stay in Pijal. We all went around and presented the photos and why they were important to us. In the end, our host families said something to us about us staying with them and why it was important. Of course, this started tears on both ends. The community fostered in such a short period of time, is unbelievable and touching. Saying good-bye, is always the hardest. This time was particularly difficult because two years ago, when I left I knew I would be doing everything I could to get back. I knew it was a possibility to go back. This time though, there are no guarantees.

We stopped first at a local store that houses these two lovely llamas....


                

                On our way back we stopped for lunch at the same place as last time, with the zip line. People were pretty exhausted at this point. 







The six days in the village were definitely energy consuming. I know as much as I had enjoyed it, I was definitely excited to be able to sleep in at the hotel. We did have to work on some photography projects once we were back at the hotel first. We would be setting up the exhibit the following day. It was a long night, but the work had to be done at some point. 

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