AYP: Partnerships and Celebrations

May 1, 2013: 

Happy Spring to those in the northern hemisphere! As Cusco experiences the onset of cold nights, Mosqoy is continuing on with everyone wearing a few more layers in the house. 

Lovely country by Qenqo

Mosqoy 3 students have officially begun their final course before they get their certifications! Students have only four months of night classes until they exit the program and move on to their professional careers, most are currently on the job hunt and expect to find employment in their respective fields. We continue to support all of our students in their studies - Mosqoy 4 and 5 are well into their semesters now and continue to shine in their courses.

Mosqoy Peru is pleased to announce a partnership with Visionaria (previously Peruvian Promise in Action) - an NGO based out of the US focused on gender equality and cultural preservation in sustainable development. Over the past few weeks we have had the opportunity to host a team from Visionaria at our home, where they were able to meet most of our students, share a meal, and tour the house. We all enjoyed a great presentation by Marilyn and Cristian about their community, Tancacc, and Mosqoy itself. We were able to arrange a meeting with the graduating Mosqoy girls who were keen on this new program opportunity. Mosqoy Peru is impressed by the work done by Visionaria in the Sacred Valley, and is quite excited for our girls to participate their leadership and sustainable community development program after exiting their studies.

Zooey and Genna engaged in the presentation on
Tanccac by Cristian and Marilyn

The volunteers with Qente and Mosqoy Peru are in the process of rejuvenating the Kallpa K’oj projects with weaving communities. A current focus are workshops on residential tourism (including workshops from our tourism and cooking students), and the Qenqo Library project. We are looking forward to moving on in these projects, and engaging our students with our weaving communities. Alex accompanied Maggie on a  monthly trip to the Mapacho River Valley to act as a translator and impart knowledge about different properties of native plants, and Eurelesis and Luzmila assisted in the Cancha Cancha monthly meeting as translators. We are also pleased to announce our bi-weekly intercultural exchange program with the San Blas Spanish school, which is restarting on May 7. On Tuesday nights, Mosqoy House will host travellers and exchange students for a night of cultural and language interaction. We have had the pleasure of hosting some travellers over the past few weeks, and we enjoyed each other’s company so much they came out to celebrate a birthday! Raul of Mosqoy 5 turned 18 a few weeks ago - Happy birthday, Raul!

Raul and Jose Luis with delicious birthday cake!

We have unfortunately experienced some health issues with some of our students and volunteers over the past few weeks - but everyone is recovering well. For the new volunteers in Peru, navigating the Peruvian health system was an adventure and exercise in patience! For example, patients must buy their own medical supplies (including gloves and syringes) from the pharmacy for any procedures and the hospital laboratories are closed on public holidays. We were able to find private labs open to complete tests, however, and everyone managed to receive the treatment they required. Everyone is recovering well!

The team in Peru are busy planning workshops for the students, though they are focused mostly on the graduation for Mosqoy 3! Annually, Mosqoy offers a graduation ceremony of its own for all graduating students. Families of the students all gather in Ollantaytambo for a day of feast, speeches, and of course celebrating the success of the graduating students. We are working like busy bees to arrange everything, and look forward to sharing our special day with everyone!