This past summer, my family and I travelled to Peru, exploring Lima, Cusco, and Arequipa over the course of two weeks. One of the most meaningful experiences of the trip was visiting the Sol y Luna Foundation school in Urubamba, a small town cocooned between the jagged, tooth-like peaks of the Sacred Valley, some 30 miles north of Cusco, with mountains unfurling towards Machu Picchu and the jungle regions beyond. Throughout the course of the trip, I underwent the unprecedented and illuminating experience of seeing a side of humanity that I never knew could exist, shaped in contrast to the self-protected and often superficial nature of what interaction means in the US. Peru’s culture is founded on a tension between ancestral memory and centuries of displacement and conquest. Yet despite the strong presence of such historical weight, there persists a pride and abundance in the way in which people inhabit one another's lives: a fullness and intimacy undiminished by scarcity.
This immediacy revealed itself most profoundly in the bonds I formed with the children I met at the Sol y Luna school. Although many of them were coming from extreme poverty, abusive households, or struggling with various mental and physical disabilities, they all possessed the gift of being uncommonly kind and open. Visiting classes across grade levels, I learned about a science experiment on photosynthesis that was being conducted, practiced elementary level arithmetic, followed the steps to a few Coco Melon dances, and helped several autistic students create imaginary pizzas out of play-dough. Leaving a class of five and six-year-olds after a particularly rowdy game of La Culebra (The Snake), two girls approached me with gifts: one with a small and remarkably impressive clay sculpture of a snail in a circular garden, the other a folded piece of paper scribbled with blue marker. She told me to put it in water and see what happened.
Acts of generosity such as these truly allowed me to understand the profundity of deep human connections and how much they can illuminate the world. In an environment whose foundation is often shaped by confusion, suffering, and death, we leave very little room in our lives for true empathy. However, in holding tight to the belief that we are capable of goodness, my hope for the world is that the strength of human kindness will permeate the structures that seek to constrict our interdependence, which, after all, is perhaps the most fundamental relationship that exists in nature.