Back in Kusi

My latest trip to Kusi was by far my best week in Peru, and certainly one of the best weeks of my life. But before I dive in, I have to link you to some videos taken by my buddy Neal during my second week in Peru, in the Amazon. I haven't watched them all yet, but there's definitely one of me, looking like Jesus and chopping down the jungle. There's also another of John Hinshaw eating a live grub. I ate a deliciously dead one, but this one was squirming.

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=butkus777+peru

On to Kusi.

I know there's no way I can capture my experience in this blog, but I'll give it a shot and tell some of the stories behind the photos. I think what I'm really going to have to do is convince each and every one of you to come back to Kusi next year... or earlier if possible...

The week started with meeting the team from Fredericksburg, Virginia at the airport. Amazingly, these folks live only an hour from my previous home in Arlington, and one actually attends the same church as me in VA. These folks from New Life in Christ Church were a wonderful blessing. We had a Bible study every night and met with small groups every morning. It was a wonderful thing to study the Bible in English for the first time in months. The group also has a special relationship with the folks at Kusi, because they've been coming for 5 years, since Kusi was a barren piece of land.

Our first stop was actually in Caraz.

Caraz is a beautiful little town. The highlight of Caraz for me was getting to play some 4 on 4 basketball. It had been sooo long since I'd played basketball against anyone who knew the rules...

When we got to Kusi, I remember having a conversation with someone about how everything in the distance looks like a scenic movie backdrop. Everything over a couple miles away looks almost fake... photoshopped in...

Work in Kusi was rough at first. Most of what I did all week was move giant adobe bricks on my shoulder. The first day I felt like I was going to die, but the work got increasingly easier as I got accustomed to it. Here are the bricks and the house we were working on. The house will be a hotel for tourists and mountain climbers looking to take on Huascarán, the second highest peak in South America.
Here's an awesomely creepy picture of Huascarán.

Mid-week we took a trip into old Yungay, which is where the town of Yungay used to be before an avalanche destroyed the entire town in 1970, killing over 20,000 people. The only part of the town that was not destroyed was the cemetary, shown in the next picture. I was told that 90 people survived the disaster on the top of the cemetary, where the Jesús Blanco statue sits.
And a closer shot of the statue.

Here's a shot of Huascarán from the top of the cemetary. You can actually make out Kusi, the tiny cluster of white houses in the middle, about an inch from the left of the picture.

Here are all the guys at the top of the cemetary.

And now that I'm realizing just how much I want to share about the people at Kusi, I'm going to break up this post into two. In my next post I'll throw up some photos of the boys and workers and tell a bit about them.