My profession is to take small groups of travelers on trips to big cities like Paris or Rome and to some of the most remote places on earth. It is a rewarding job. Wherever I travel to, I enjoy saying hello to people of differing cultures, backgrounds, languages and traditions. By the time I say goodbye, I take joy in having made new friends.
This was not exactly what happened on a trip I took to Peru.
By way of an organization called Quaker Bolivia Link (QBL) and five members from Quaker Meeting (The Religious Society of Friends) in Purchase, New York, I volunteered my services to organize a trip to Peru and Bolivia. I wanted to volunteer because I have been blessed in my life. I retired from a tenured position as a mathematics professor after 31 years. I’ve written a best-selling book and started a successful travel business. QBL and Quakers offer me a venue to give something back to those who are not as fortunate as I am.
QBL is an organization providing hope to scores of Andean villages. In short, QBL runs vital development projects to provide food, generate income, and improve the health and well-being of communities. For instance, QBL built irrigation and drinking water systems in over 60 villages to combat water-borne sickness and parasites afflicting children and elderly. Piping irrigation to family fields means crops will grow through long dry seasons. It is also a goal of QBL to help these indigenous people preserve their unique culture.
After visiting Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu, I find myself with my five Quaker travel partners high in the Andes Mountains in Puno, the port city of Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America. At some 12,500 feet above sea level, it is the highest navigable body of water in the world. At one time, steamships crisscrossed the lake carrying passengers and cargo, but those days are long gone.
On the itinerary is a cruise on Lake Titicaca. We join about eight tourists on a 30-foot passenger boat. The ship is soon underway as the bow breaks a white frothy slash into the smooth blue waters of Titicaca. In no time, most are down below snoozing off the lunch-time Cusquena lagers soothed by the constant drone of the motor. Some are up top living dangerously, sunning themselves with UV rays deceptively stronger at this altitude than those on a 95-degree Miami beach. Tall puffy bright white clouds hang still in the rich blue sky. A few birds fly by, but other than that, the lake seems desolate.
In between the shores of Peru and Bolivia, a few small islands dot the lake. Closer to the Peruvian side is the 3.5 square mile Isla Amantani. While pulling into its small harbor, the fishing fleet of 4 red and white rowboats are crowded out.
Prior to moving onto Bolivia and the QBL projects, the six-member Quaker team is here on a one-night home-stay with a local family. It’s a program designed to help the incredibly poor people of the island. Visitors bring gifts of foodstuffs in exchange for meals, lodging and insight into the lives of some of the most isolated people in the world. More importantly, our presence helps the Amantanis preserve their way of life by supporting them in building an income-producing home-stay program. It motivates the residents to not flee the island to pursue employment in booming big cities like La Paz where their native language and customs will disappear into the modern world.
The people of Amantani live much the same way now as they have since the ancient Incan ruins were built on top of the island’s twin peaks. There are no hotels, tourist traps or gift shops. In fact, none of the families I meet have electricity. Cell phones, TV, internet, radios, and newspapers are non-existent. There is no indoor plumbing. In most households, a barrel collects rainwater from the roof. There are no vehicles or electric motors. Survival has been through farming and fishing. The homes are built with adobe and cinderblock. A tin roof is a luxury. There is a small elementary school, health clinic and town hall. Despite the lack of wealth, they are proud people and keep their island as neat and tidy as it is sparse and simple.
My host family meets me at the harbor. Maria is dressed differently than the bowler-topped women I met in during my previous days in Peru. She is probably in her twenties and stands about 5 feet tall. For protection from the sun she wears a long black veil. Her bright red billowy skirt accompanies a clean white shirt with a floral design. Her sandals are well-worn. She is with her 4 year-old son, Jefferson. He stares at me with a mix of shyness and suspicion, unsure of this strange giant before him while silently questioning why I am dressed so oddly.
My elementary Spanish is of no use here. Amantani is far from the cities of Peru and Bolivia, so pre-colonial Quechua is the native tongue. Somehow we figure things out and Maria leads me to her home. Nothing is flat on Amantani. The trek is up and down steep angles on well-worn trails. Despite my pre-trip workouts on the Stairmaster and a pair of $245 hiking boots, Maria and Jefferson easily outpace me, probably wondering why I am huffing and puffing so much.
She unlatches the hinge on the wooden gate to her yard. There are three structures on her property surrounding a courtyard. One of them serves as the kitchen. It is sparse with a dirt floor and a simple fireplace/stove made of bricks. A small wooden table with two chairs sits at one side, but Jefferson sits on a cinderblock.
My quarters are up the wooden ladder above the storeroom. The wood-frame single bed is covered with a thin mattress and warm alpaca blankets. A candle with matches is provided in case I need them after dark.
Then there is the outhouse. Maria demonstrates how to use it: grab a bucket of water from the rain barrel, then rinse the floor of the facility after use. It’s a good thing I remembered to bring toilet paper.
A few moments later, Maria’s daughter, Jessica, comes skipping home from school. I would love to ask how old she is and how the children were given their names, but anything other than hand gestures is futile. I think she is about 8 or 9 years old. She is pretty wearing a bright yellow sweater and blue sweat pants. She has high cheek bones, smooth skin and like her mother, long locks of thick black hair braided down to the middle of her shoulders.
As the sun goes down, Maria motions me into the kitchen for dinner. She quickly takes some branches, lights a fire and stirs up a quinoa soup. I thank goodness she hasn’t pulled out all the stops to make the traditional meal of cuy by roasting the guinea pigs being raised in a pen just outside the door.
I give Maria gifts of pasta and quinoa. It is difficult for people high in the Andes to get protein into their diet. Livestock like chickens and cows do not do well at such high altitudes. The grain-like quinoa is a lifesaver. It is packed with protein and has many other nutritional advantages. But the Whole Foods Market crowd has discovered quinoa too. The law of supply and demand has driven prices up, making it more difficult for people like Maria to provide nourishing meals to their families.
It’s pleasing to see how appreciative children can be of the simplest of gifts. Jessica is thrilled with her colored pens and notebooks for school. Both kids are not sure what to make of the small stuffed animals I’ve brought them. But they happily clip them to the lanyards I also gave them. They proudly display the curiosities around their necks.
Early the next morning I am awakened by Jefferson and Jessica getting ready for the day. I peek outside the door and there they are, standing in the courtyard proudly showing off the gifts of the night before.
After breakfast, Maria and the kids walk with me back towards the harbor to reunite with my Friends and catch the boat. A few minutes into the hike, Jessica inexplicably disappears, probably off to school, anxious to use her new pens and notebook. I am disappointed I didn’t get to say goodbye. When we get to the harbor, Jefferson runs to join the other pre-school age children, showing them the gifts. Maria surprises me, nodding the best “thank you” she can. Then she silently melds into the crowd of other veiled women and red skirts.
Cruising away from Amantani, I can’t help but wonder why after being welcomed into the lives of this small family why there were no goodbyes. Didn’t they like me? Were the gifts not appreciated? Did I unsuspectingly breach an Amantani custom or code of conduct?
As the twin peaks of the island vanish into the blue horizon, I wonder if the people of Isla Amantani actually understand the concept of goodbye. When I think about it, so many people come in and out of my life every day. I am constantly saying hello and goodbye. But for those who live on Isla Amantani, that is just not part of their lives. The serene island is an entire world upon itself. With so few exceptions, for so many years no one came to visit and no one ever left. There’s never been a reason to say goodbye.
Quakers strive to live their lives with simplicity. It’s a difficult task in this technology-driven, competitive global society of today. But Amantani is an oasis in this complicated world. From this tranquil island, I come away with the satisfaction of participating in a program that will preserve, at least for the time being, the Amantani’s own proud culture and ancient native tongue, free from the worries and hazards of the world I live in. I realize the value of that life of simplicity, and it helps me to be a better Quaker.