What a fabulous, amazing, incredible, fantastic week it has been with Tandana! It was packed and chill at the same time. On the first day we got to the community, we went on a beautiful hike down the valley to the river. We had a nice little dunk and just watched it for a while. Then on our hike back up we made a pit stop to make sugar cane juice! Coolest contraption ever! Spun a trunk around and crushed the sugar cane. Epic. Then we hiked back up! We finished out the day with dinner and went to bed.

The next day, we painted much of the school in the morning until we had a delicious lunch. FANESCA! Those bread rolls were to die for, wow! That afternoon, we learned how to crochet! We started making our own hats! It was so fun. There was also lots of hanging out and playing with the kids of course.

The next day was also incredible, obviously. We painted the school all morning again until lunch and played with our new little friends. We learned a super fun version of freeze tag. Lenny (6 year old beast) has a piece of cloth he would whack you with and if you got caught, someone would unfreeze you by running through your legs. So many laughs and teamwork.

Another amazing fabulous day. In the morning we painted the school, then had a delicious lunch. Ohh! Also, yesterday we milked a cow and made queso fresco with it! So cool! Okay back to today, we made more bread than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Live, love, bread. Made so many fun loaves, including a bunch of regular ones. We made sponge bob characters and many other fun shapes. We also ate so much fresh warm bread. So much, so delicious, worth the stomach aches! We also finished crocheting our hats. We love them!

We woke up to our final morning 🙁 we had another delicious breakfast, packed, and practiced our dance to present to the community. Super fun time. We chilled all morning until we had a delicious pot luck style lunch. We had chicken, various beans, peas, rice and french fries all on the table. We dug in with our hands. It was so much fun and appreciated. We are going to miss that place and the people a lot! We also did a circle solstice dance with them. Then we hopped on a bus back to Otavalo and that was it. We had an amazing week and are heading to the Galapagos for our final week soon!

Sending love to you all,

SAM (written by Tess)