Bridges to Understanding: Ollantaytambo, Peru

Ollantaytambo is a pueblo tucked in the Sacred Valley of the Peruvian Andes. It used to be known as a resting place for the Incas that traveled from Cuzco to the lost city of Machu Picchu. Stories of love, conquest, loss, and regrowth are still told by the oldest villagers in Spanish and Quechua, passing down traditions and culture that are still so resiliently maintained and respected.

My search to visit Peru brought me to this humble town, where for the past 2 weeks I lived here while mentoring youth in photography through a group called Bridges to Understanding. BRIDGES is a Seattle based photography non-profit run by photographer Phil Borges, who conducts international photo workshops giving kids a voice to tell stories through documenting their lives and cultures. Volunteers are invited to improve their digital photography and learn advanced editing and moviemaking techniques while mentoring youth in the US and other remote places like Peru, Guatemala, India, and Kenya.

Originally, I planned to look for an opportunity to visit other hogares in Peru to compare the system and the kids there with what I’ve come to learn from my work in Chile. When I came across the BRIDGES website, the dates matched up to renew my visa and participate in this year’s Peru photo project. So with my fingers crossed, the last minute opportunity called and I joined up with the group as a Project Coordinator.

$80 and 2 days later, I traveled from Santiago to Cuzco by bus. It’s a grueling trek through an everlasting desert and bumpy windy mountains, but not as hard as to deal with as a last minute ticket for $800. What you lack in speed, you make up for in adventure and the first adventure always starts with the traveler’s digestive system. Pullman, one of Chile’s big brand bus companies, never seems to have an ending supply of plastic cheese sandwiches and lemon vanilla cookies that fall apart before the first bite. Actually, I hit up the grocery store before boarding, so this isn’t so much a complaint about the food as it is a warning. When crossing the Chilean border into Peru, food wasn’t served for the next 17 hours, but plenty of shadiness was at checkpoint after checkpoint. Buses entering Peru are packed with Peruvians smuggling contraband across the border from Arica to Tacna and we must have stopped 10 times so that the baggage could be checked and rechecked. Anything in synthetic woven oversized overstuffed bags was opened, emptied, hastily repacked, and shoved back on the bus. Women stood huddled together, crumpled papers in hand, ready to defend any item the police thought about confiscating. A few bottles of expensive liquor and fancy electronics were hidden behind new children’s toys, but besides that, nobody got anything taken away. The Peruvians on the bus worked together like a team to not have anything left behind. They were quiet and obedient when the guards would inspect everything out. Loud and frantic as soon as the bus continued on its course signaling that everyone was in the clear. It was weird, but not bothersome. Border towns, border crossings, border bartering. It’s always messy and shady. The most annoying part of the trip for me was really just using the bathroom. As the bus bumped along the lumpy cracked streets, winding one way and then jolting back in the other, it made it hard to not pee on myself. After a few days of travel, I was ready to arrive at my destination.

Cuzco is a beautiful city in the center of the town with its clean cobblestone streets and open plazas. It’s tourist central though and nothing about it or the allure of Machu Picchu really drew me to either. Vendors are in your face trying to sell you trinkets and knickknacks, tugging you into their restaurants, working to snatch up that strong American dollar, Euro, or Yen. Tourists are targeted and pressured and it’s really uncomfortable for the visitors that pretend to turn a blind eye and the locals that are frustrated from being snubbed. Limited spaces are sold on the train that takes people up to the main attraction, the main archeological site, and everything’s just pay this, this, and that, and you too can secure your golden ticket to get into our South American Disneyland for your amusement. Most people go with a tour group, buying into what they think is the real deal. They hop on a colorful tour bus that boasts some misnomer like Adventure Travel, get herded up like cattle to the amusement park, follow the tour guides and whatever stories they deliver, and then come back down the mountain to fill their bellies up in Cuzco’s bars and restaurants by nightfall. Machu Picchu’s spirit and energy is marketed as the things to do if you come to Peru. It is sold by locals for a handsome price and admired by outsiders who dig deep into their pockets to pay to go. There’s even a hotel at the top that you can stay in for what people say costs $1200 USD a night. To an extent I think that for Machu Picchu to survive it has to profit by reaping all the benefits of the few travelers that come to visit this part of the world. Mostly everyone I know who has gone, loved the experience, and if you’re in South America, it is a hot spot that the typical tourist does visit. Someday I’d like to go to appreciate it too, but under more alternative circumstances.

Working with BRIDGES, on the other hand, provided that entertaining, interactive immersion into a foreign culture that puts participants right in the center of a unique place to work, learn, and integrate into the community. The location in Ollanta is remote, but not too jungle (as my friend Mari Angela de Peru - now of Nueva York - used to describe the roughing it vs. the 4-star travel experience).

At El Tambo Hostel, the staff looked after us well - our stomachs, irregularity, altitude sickness and all. The cooks prepared foods that were high in fiber and particular to that region of Peru like granola and yogurt for breakfast, aji de gallina for lunch, and soups for dinner with plenty of fresh bread and pebre (spicy homemade salsa). Nevertheless, most of the group got sick from how the food reacted with the adjustment in altitude. Apparently eating avocados, bananas, or peanuts at night is too heavy and too greasy for being that high up whether you’re used to the altitude or not. If someone wasn’t pooping or vomiting, someone else was arduously trying to pass gas in some way or another.

BRIDGES has been active in Ollantaytambo for 3 years. The teenagers that participate seem shy and soft-spoken at first, but then show their young adult, sharp, sociable, strong-minded sides. Gisela, Dina, Cynthia, Katy. Perecles, Aderly, Irvin. Maberic, Marilin, Fernando. They are part of the museum’s youth group known as The Footprints, Los Patos del Museo CATCCO, and the museum is their stomping ground. The facility is amazing not only for its art and Lucho, the potter that dabbles in traditional photography and has his own darkroom on site, but for how it unintentionally became the after school cultural and community center for Ollanta’s kids to hang out. Everyone knows everyone and kids of all different social classes are welcome to watch, learn, or just run around and be kidlike. What struck me was how curious and well behaved everyone was around our equipment. No fighting, stealing, jealousy, attention grabbing, misbehaving, nothing. We had digital cameras and laptops laid out in the museum which served as the home base for BRIDGES to work and edit. Traditionally dressed Quechua speaking kids would watch quietly over our shoulders as we worked in Photoshop to edit. Smelly grimy girls and boys who just explored trash dumps would plop down and ask us questions, want to view pictures, or play games on the computers, too. These kids were so gentle and open compared to the Chilean girls I’ve been working with at my hogar. Being around other children gave me more insight about what it looks like to be an abused and abandoned child versus a kid who has a family and is integrated in their community. Even though I was working with a different group under different circumstances, my mind was focused on my girls back in Santiago at the same time, thinking about how they’ll be when we start the photo project there soon enough. I hoped this experience working with BRIDGES would also teach me more about the process and structure of photographing with kids, what to be prepared for, and how to guide them.

In the past years, Los Patos have made socially conscious creative films about themselves and their community. Once they showed the responsibility they have to their families by working despite being kids. They work in their parents’ restaurants, kiosks, stores, or hostels, selling food like sodas and snacks, or arts and crafts like handmade dolls. Another year they documented life as a street dog from a street dog’s perspective in their village. However, as their skills advanced, so did their subject matter. Last year they documented how dirty their pueblo’s rivers get from people carelessly throwing trash in them. In Ollanta, water flows through the town’s major streets, transported by canals built by their ancestors. Trash from the river clogs the canals, dirtying the water and city streets. The kids recognized this, tackled the topic by writing and photographing, organized cleanup projects, and put posters up in the community promoting environmental awareness while discouraging pollution. They even took the movie to the mayor who supported the kids’ clean up efforts. Through BRIDGES outreach, Ollanta’s youth have not only learned to appreciate and have fun with photography, but that their work can make influential changes on many levels.

This year the kids and mentors tackled another community conflict by making a movie about how they view tourism in their tiny town. The kids painted a picture of typical tourists who comes to visit as camera toting, water bottle buying, walking stick sightseers who arrive in big buses that clog their central plaza and congest their humble streets. Visitors come with just enough time to herd themselves to the archeological fortress, the town’s obvious highlight, but don’t make time to do much more. Their visit is very calculated and routine. Rushed by the time schedule of what their tour package packs in in a days visit, they lack time to purchase goods from local vendors and to appreciate much of the culture and hospitality Ollanta has to offer. So in their film, the kids invite tourists to come for at least a day, to take advantage of nearby villages like Willoq and Patacancha, where Quechua woman weave textiles and clothing from alpaca and lambs wool and see more archeological ruins off the beaten path. After all, it’s just a car, bike, or horse ride away. They also suggest trying a popular beverage unique to Peru called chicha, which is made from maiz and sure to relax the thirsty traveler and hard worker who can’t help but fall in love with this drink.

Amazingly, the film was finished about a half hour before the screening. It is titled Ollantaytambo: Living Inca City and narrated by Dina, a 16-year old who has been participating in BRIDGES since it began coming to this site. Along with her strong photography skills, her tenacity and work ethic were so impressive and inspiring. We worked together to write the script in Spanish and despite having to fill in at her parents’ pharmacy till after dark, she’d show up to the museum at 9 at night committed to edit and record, to finish before our deadline. The older participants pulled the movie together in Premier and used Cuebase to edit sound. Background music from the region added another layer of life to the piece. The local radio station announced the night of the viewing and the kids posted flyers throughout the town to advertise. Ollanta is so small anyways that the word traveled mouth to mouth. When we finally showed the film the museum was packed with viewers of all ages devouring popcorn and animal crackers, apparently a cross-cultural phenomenon that accompanies the movie watching experience around the world. We even invited a few US and Canadian visitors to the event who we met last minute in the plaza who appeared like they were looking for something interesting to do that night and who even showed up. We showed this year’s film on tourism, a short on recycling, and films from the past Ollanta workshops, too.

After the big premiere, BRIDGES treated the kids to pizza at a private congratulatory celebration. Only one of the participants couldn’t make it to the screening or the dinner because her parents made her work the front desk of their hostel that night. I think about the responsibilities that young kids are given in countries like Peru and compare it to where I come from where game boys, iPod’s, brand name clothing, and other must haves occupy boys and girls minds. I know what if feels like to want the coolest toy as a kid or a new car as a teenager. Looking back, it’s a long ways away from where I am now and what I believe in. Sometimes the rest of the world makes more sense to me outside of the bubble I was raised in. That’s why I stay here. Here, relationships, conversation, and what you create with your own hands and mind are valued more than anything. I respect the way of life here. But it was also heard to see Gisela put so much effort into making the BRIDGES movie this year and know that she couldn’t come to the screening or goodbye dinner. Her friends wrapped a few slices of pizza in a napkin and brought it to her.

Our last day, a group of the girls, the museum staff, and the cooks from our hostel escorted us to the plaza and wished us well until the next time we return. I rode the 2-day bus back to Santiago, ready to get back to my life there and start my own photo project with my girls at the hogar.