Our final day volunteering with the sweet students was filled with lots of smiles and many tears. After a pretty early morning wake up we left our home stay after eating the final meal carefully put together by our hosts (bread, avocados, and fresh pulpy orange juice). After a short bus ride my group of ten experienced the happiness of a little festival put on by the school leading up the Inti Raymi festival this Sunday. Kids everywhere danced, ate popsicles and guinea pig, and ran around the little play place enjoying their Friday afternoon. Colorful flags adorned the area accompanied by equally colorful clothing on all the little boys and girls. Each of us soaked in our last moments with the kids; playing, running in circles and singing, and sitting to watch the dances the students had worked to perform. When the time came that we all had to say our goodbyes, the hugs and tears started overflowing. The goodbyes to the kids we had bonded with all the five days we were at the school and the kids we had just met today were equally as hard, and our hearts were just filled with thankfulness. The last goodbye to the wonderful community at that school will be remembered as joyful. We left in tears and gratitude, knowing that the impact the children and teachers had on each of us will be carried with us always; that school has a special place in our hearts. After leaving, we gathered our bags at the homestay and moved back to Niños Hotel. Coming back tired and out of breath, people settled in and split off into little groups to go to lunch, and then we convened back together for a debrief at Máximo Nivel. Happy to receive our certificates of achievement for “working with kids” and soon learning about our 2:00am wake up time for tomorrow’s hike of rainbow mountain, we all left and either went to the marvelous alpaca shop, dinner, or just back to the hotel to rest for tomorrow’s big hike.
-Maggie Quick
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