Hi, It’s Mene again! This blog post is going to be dedicated to a life lesson learned while working at the Sacred Valley Project. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to visit the community of Socma, about a 4 hour walk from Ollantaytambo, or a 2 hour walk from the...
Hey again! It’s Mene, volunteer for the Sacred Valley Project! So far, I’ve been really happy to be Joe’s assistant as this entails managing volunteer groups from all around the world and helping with the construction process on a daily basis. This past week has been INCREDIBLY busy! Basically, it marked...
Hello! My name is Menelaos Mazarakis and I’m writing the blog post today! Just a bit about me, I’m a Greek citizen who is currently living in the U.S. after being raised in Mexico as a child. I’m also a rising senior in high school, and am really excited to...
On Sunday, 20th of March, the Sacred Valley Project celebrated the start of its’ second operational year and inauguration of the new dormitory building. This 2011 school year, with twelve students and twelve families, management will surely be a tricky issue. However, the families and students alike have impressed us...
El Divino Maestro, once Ollantaytambo’s only private school, now stands abandoned. Along the river, its empty classrooms look out onto magnificent fort where the Incas once held back the Spanish invasion. Two buildings surround a walled in courtyard that is still half covered in grass. Cartoon characters are painted...
While Bianca and Eli are still down in Peru doing everything, I escaped back to the States for a wedding and to try and keep our fundraising efforts alive. As you can see from our pictures, the dorm looks great and is becoming more like a home with each passing...
People keep telling me that it must feel great to have the dormitory up and running. Sometimes it does feel great. Like on Tuesday when I went with the girls to play volleyball. Watching the girls become a team, I got that gushy feeling of “I’m doing...
In briefing, the inauguration was a success. Our six families arrived early in the morning to help prepare the inaugural feast and to get their daughters situated for their first daunting evening in the dormitory. Throughout the morning, mothers busied themselves gutting the cuyes and cleaning the house, fathers readied the...
Primera minca Faena, as it is know in the Sacred Valley, has no direct translation to English. It comes from the rich Incan tradition of communal labor. Schools, rural communities, community associations all require faenas. These faenas are used to improve water supplies, maintain communal land and build community buildings. On...
Now that we had secured a place for the dorm, we shifted our focus to community outreach and student selection. During this process we suffered our first missteps and learned some tough lessons. Our plan was to spread the word to three of the most distant and impoverished communities in...
