Father Ryan Students Experience Peru

On Sunday, May 26, eight students, one administrator, and one teacher from Father Ryan High School left for eleven days in Peru. The primary purpose of this trip was for the travelers to understand the different Peruvian cultures. The Father Ryan students had five days to experience the life of students at Colegio María Alvarado in Lima, Peru.

Students also spent two days interacting with children at an orphanage 1½ hours north of Lima. The orphanage is in Ventanilla, which has been described as an industrial slum. Over 1,000 children in the area attend the school built within the orphanage's confines. Finally, the group toured Cusco, Machu Picchu, and the Sacred Valley, where they were introduced to historic and current indigenous Amerindian cultures.

The students who went on this trip included four rising seniors (Kennedy Cockerham, Eliza Darling, Maggie McRae, and Elle Ravin), as well as four rising sophomores (Gray Janovitz, Danielle Meyer, Rosemary Numnum, and Katelyn Rehse). Mr. Andrew Reducha, Father Ryan's Associate Academic Dean, served as chaperone. As a former Spanish teacher, his fluency in Spanish was a tremendous asset for the travelers. Dr. Carrie Thornthwaite (Dr. T.), mathematics teacher, also traveled with the group as she had previously traveled to Peru seven times. She had been the impetus for this trip due to the relationships she had previously established with the school and the orphanage, in addition to experiences visiting the various touring sites.

The Peruvian school, Colegio María Alvarado, was founded by American missionaries in 1906, initially as a boarding school for girls. Today, it is no longer a boarding school and is co-educational. The school allowed the Father Ryan group to stay in rooms originally designated dorm rooms. 
After unpacking, there was a Programa de Bienvenida (Welcome Ceremony). Entertainment was provided with performances by both a student chorale group and a band. Those student performances were followed by a dozen young students performing traditional Peruvian dancing. Next on the program, they asked Dr. T. to show a presentation that she had prepared about each of the Father Ryan students. Towards the end of the program, they introduced each Father Ryan student to a Peruvian student who would serve as their "brother" or "sister" while at the school.

Over the week, the Father Ryan students had plenty of time to contribute to teaching English to a wide variety of the school's classes. Father Ryan students in the older grades helped students at various grade levels improve their ability to speak English. Then, starting Thursday, the Father Ryan students began teaching in elementary classrooms. Colegio María Alvarado begins teaching English in their PK class, so no matter the grade level, Father Ryan's students had no problems communicating with the students in English, reading books, and asking questions--from PK classes through the second grade. 

The group's chaperones, Mr. Reducha, and Dr. Thornthwaite, also had opportunities to teach at the school. Mr. Reducha worked in English classrooms, while Dr. T. worked in several Nature Science classrooms. 

In addition to the opportunity to teach, our students were provided with art, music, and dance classes. 

While in Lima, the group also had the opportunity to visit multiple popular tourist sites. The school took students to the Larco Museum, a famous museum with more than 45,000 objects from the pre-Columbian era. Incredibly, all these ancient items were gathered from 1933 to 1941 by one man, Rafael Larco Hoyle. Next, the group visited la Plaza Major, also known as la Plaza de Armas. In 1535, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro designated the site for the plaza. Then, just a couple blocks from the plaza, the famous Basílica y Convento de San Francisco is known for its underground catacombs with creative displays of bones from the colonial period.

The following day, the group visited Locomar, a three-story mall built into a steep slope of land that rises above the Pacific Ocean to the plateau where the Spaniards originally built the city of Lima, which today has expanded to over 310 square miles. The mall is in a district of Lima called Miraflores, where the expensive hotels are built and where the wealthier families of Lima usually dwell. The travelers walked to the mall from Parque del Amor, a park that overlooks the ocean and has a colossal statue that artistically represents two lovers. This park and the mall's top are about 263 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

Thursday, the students enjoyed a visit to an area of Lima called the Circuito Mágico. The park holds multiple creative fountains. One of the favorites was an arched fountain that people could walk under, with only a few drops of water falling here and there. The highlight of the evening was a laser show in a long fountain. Crowds would gather to see a wide variety of shapes and Peruvian figures appear in the sprays of the fountain.

On Friday afternoon and Saturday, the group visited an orphanage called La Comunidad de Niños,  –  Sagrada Familia. The director, Miguel Rodríguez, says the children chose that name when he founded the facility in 1989.

On Friday, the group from Father Ryan went to hear Miguel tell his story and tour the facility, which is currently reported to have about 250 residents. The facility also provides education in a school located within it. Including the orphanage's residents and other children from the local community, nearly 1,000 children attend the school, which has classes from PK-11. 

In Peru, children graduate after the 11th grade. Miguel talked to the group about his experiences and why he started the orphanage. He was inspired to do this after the loss of his infant son. He began by feeding street children. However, he grew to sell all he had and buy the land in Ventanilla to start the orphanage.

On Saturday, the Father Ryan students returned to play soccer and volleyball with the children. Soccer is an essential sport in Peru, so it was unsurprising that the Peruvian students defeated Father Ryan. 

The group loved their time at the orphanage. When they returned to the school, they received countless hugs from the orphanage residents and the area children.

On Sunday, June 2, the alarms were set at 3 a.m. to grab breakfast and take the school van to the airport for a 6:40 a.m. flight to Cusco. At 11,152 feet, Cusco is over twice the altitude of Denver in the U.S. Cusco is considered the Cultural Capital of Peru and was historically the capital of the Inca Empire from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The city was discovered by the Spanish in 1533. Then, in 1534, Francisco Pizarro claimed it for Spain.

After attending Mass at the Cathedral of Cusco, the students visited the Qorikancah Temple. This temple has some exciting features, showing remnants of when it was initially built as an Inca temple. When the Spanish came, they demolished most buildings but used the foundation to build the Convent of Santo Domingo.  

Then, the group went to Saqsayhuamán. The Incas built the site in the 15th century. The stonework here has securely fitted rocks up to 16 ½ ft. high and eight ft. wide, weighing between 90 and 125 tons. No one has yet determined how the Incas could move those rocks and have them fit together so well. The site overlooks the city of Cusco. Because the type of rock in this area is limestone, there are many natural holes and caves. The Incas took advantage of them to create underground passages. There are many legends concerning this topic. There are still two passages in Saqsayhuamán. One was closed to avoid overuse problems, but most miniature tunnels remain open. 

Then, on Monday evening, half of the group went to the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo, where dancers performed various Peruvian dances. All the performers wore beautiful costumes. Behind the dancers was a band that played music from the indigenous culture of Peru.

On Monday, the group started by driving through the Sacred Valley to Ollantaytambo, a massive Inca village built on a hillside with large stones like those seen in Sacsayhuamán.  
From Ollantaytambo, the group traveled by train alongside the Urubamba River to Machu Picchu, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and often called "The Lost City of the Incas."  The Spaniards never visited this site, and it remained a secret to all but the locals. Then, in 1911, Yale professor Hiram Bingham was led to the site by a local villager. That opened up the site to the world, and today, it is Peru's most visited site.

At the site's base is the village of Machupicchu, also known as Aguas Calientes (hot waters), due to the warm springs that still flow from the mountain's base today. The name Machupicchu, in the indigenous language of Quechua, means old mountain.  

The site tour took a couple of hours, during which the tour guide explained the structures and living conditions of more than 750 people who were thought to have lived at Machu Picchu. The tour also included explanations of the residents' religious beliefs, including human sacrifices.

From Machu Picchu, the group went by train and then van to the village of Chinchero, where most of the residents are indigenous of Quechua descent, still primarily speaking Quechua. This town is famous for its textile weavers. The group was treated to a tour of a facility where indigenous people were seen weaving beautiful Peruvian materials. Indeed, one of the trip's highlights was the students being allowed to feed the llamas outside this facility. Llamas were kept there as their wool is dyed and used in many of the woven articles made in Chinchero.  

On June 5, as the Father Ryan group left for Nashville, the plane flew over the Andes Mountains in northern Peru.

Arriving back in Nashville after midnight on June 6, everyone in the group was exhausted, hoping for some time to rest in the days ahead. However, regardless of their fatigue, each member of the group was immensely grateful for all the beautiful memories that they had created during their time in Peru, including the love shown by the school, the hugs given them at the orphanage, and all the unique tours in entirely different cultures from that of home.
 

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