Taquile Island, homestay family

Homestay and their baby sheep

Celso Huatta, Juana Machaca and their kid Wilfredo who is 6. They live in Comunidad Quinuapata on the island and are our homestay family. Celso works with his brother to build houses on the island. Juana takes care of the family and their livestocks and makes textile works. They have a kid Wilfredo who goes to school just down the road every day. They are young and energetic yet quiet and peaceful.

Provided by Allen

Celso sits down with us at the dinner table waiting for dinner, talking about their hat culture, his family, the plants and the livestocks. He asks of our stories and families. When we could not understand each other, he picks up the thin English learning book on the floor. Flipping through it quickly, he searches for the word that would help him communicate with us. Together, we draw on paper, use numbers and physical actions to make sense of each other. Their life is simple, as it seems, though the tourists are slowly changing the life of this island. There are, though still rare, mobile phones, generators, television and even internet. The young people of the island leave for bigger cities in hopes for prosperity.

Wilfredo and I played soccer in the cold evening in the garden. He seems to be very familiar with the darkness and the cold air, it does't bother him at all. Yelling, shouting and laughing while passing the ball to each other. Allen stands by the side setting up his camera for the starry night to come. I tickled Wilfredo when I catch him and taught him turtle origami while we waited for dinner. He is an amazing child, eyes of the future.

Provided by Allen

The entire family sat down and had the meal together. Wildfredo fell deep asleep in his father warms without finishing his meal. They bid their good nights early. Allen and I went to the garden to see the infamous night sky. The sky is clear as ever, the stars are magical. My horoscope, scorpion, was clearly visible, the curve of stars lined up shining down on us, twisting its tails over the nigh sky.

The island was very very VERY cold. 4000m above altitude, with only a fleece jacket and merino cardigan. I went to bed, burying myself in 10cm thick worth of wool blankets.

Breakfast, Mana tea and perfected made pancakes.

The next day, we woke up to a lovely meal. Drinking Mana, the herbal tea Celso picked, and two pancakes sprinkled with sugar. I wrote my daily journal while Allen poked around, taking photos and cleaning up. He slowly came to me and said "Juana was crying in the kitchen." We don't know why she cried, what was bothering her or what happened. We'll never know.