Visit to a Family Farm

I finally went with my friend, Naibet, to her mom's house, a farm near Urubamba, about two hours by bus from Cuzco. Although we left much earlier in the morning than I personally would've planned, we had a wonderful day right from the start. She lives in a small town on a beautiful farm where they grow EVERYthing. They have fruit trees, corn, potatoes, quinoa and a million other things growing and tons of animals (chickens, ducks and guinea pigs, among others) to eat. We went outside and picked fruit from their trees and then started off on a hike up the mountain near their house.

Instead of cutting down Christmas trees to decorate in their houses, it is a tradition in Peru to build nativity scenes in their houses with plants and flowers that they gather from outside to build the stable and then they put the figurines inside (most families also have a doll that they use for their Jesus and they make or buy new outfits for it over the years). Apparently there are certain plants that people usually use to do this so Naibet and I went on a long walk and she gathered the plants along the way. I mostly walked behind her, not helping but every once in a while falling into the mud like an idiot (I blamed my sleepiness but I don't know if that can really count as an excuse) and requiring her to help me get out of it. Plenty of other people were up in the mountains looking for plants for the same reason. Something that struck me as really interesting was that about half of the people we passed were somehow related to Naibet -- some sort of distant cousin, aunt or uncle...and we passed a lot of people!

I also got to meet her sister and adorable little nephew. When we got back from our hike, the girls provided me with a delicious lunch and we had a nice time eating together. After that we went out to the farm again to pick different kinds of grasses to feed their guinea pigs...but obviously not for the same reasons that we would feed guinea pigs in the U.S. The guinea pigs at Naibet's house (there are about 30 of them) live wherever they want, running around in the house, and continue reproducing so the family always has that meat when they they're hungry for some cuy.

It was an awesome experience getting to go to a family's house and learn about how they live and their different traditions for Christmas. I'm grateful to Naibet for inviting me!!