Day 11 - Nuestras Canastas

Today, we had a classic Peruvian breakfast with our homestay families before moving on to today’s big activity: basket weaving! For the past week, our wonderful coordinator Pancho has been preparing the sticks for baskets for us to make today. The process involves hiking for hours into the Andes to retrieve the special kind of reeds needed to make our baskets. The technique, handed down in Pancho’s family for generations ends up with us Groton students. How lucky! After many splinters and a couple of difficult hours of following Pancho’s clear instructions, we created our own beautiful baskets to offer our American families. Our homestays taught us that these baskets are often used for bread and fruit. After, we returned home to show off our creations and enjoy lunch before heading back out to host our own workshops with the students. As usual, the kids were fun to work with, though tiring. A new workshop today, basketball, was a hit! Tomorrow, we will embark on a new adventure: cooking! ¡Nos vemos pronto!
– Jack Dalton and Maria Te