Churocpata

The Kausay Wasi Clinic has developed a really unique way to care for some of Peru's poorest people through a program called Adopt a Family. For $200 you can provide an indigenous Peruvian family with all their health care needs for one year. I'm working with the rurul nurse at the clinic to search the remote mountain villages for the poorest families who are most in need. These villages are spectacular because they are unlike any place I've ever visited, but also terribly poor. These photos are from a village called Churocpata. We traveled in a taxi from Calca for 45 minutes to Machacancha and then walked up into the mountains for four hours. It's a small community of eight families dedicated to subsistence agriculture. The people speak almost entirely Quechua and only the few males who attended school for several years can understand Spanish. There is obviously no running water or electricity and the villagers suffer from malnutrition and the effects of the cold climate. The males spend the day tending their potato and bean plots while the females take care of the children and the home. Because of the constant rain, the people and their home are consistently dirty and covered in mud. Amilcar, the rural nurse, and I handed out vitamins and informed the people of the services available at the Kausay Wasi Clinic. Several of the families were also inscriped in the Adopt a Family program. The family pictured with me is posing with their Adopt a Family certificates. Several days after we visited they came down to the clinic and all received basic check-ups and medications free of charge.