On October 11, 2012 we visited a wonderful small community 10,000 feet up in the Sierras called San Pedro de Casta and participated in their yearly water celebration. The community is built right into the side of the Andes mountains and has breathtaking views. We spent the day hiking farther up into hills to help shovel out sediment from the community water reservoirs. This is a four-day water festival that they celebrate every year, which includes the main task of shoveling out sediment and smoothing the bottom of the reservoirs, but lots of other activities as well: drinking, dancing, playing in the mud, and lots of food. It was an interesting festival!
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| Arrival in San Pedro de Casta |
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| Town square |
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| Lovely views |
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| Walking around San Pedro de Casta |
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| Wonderful paintings on the sides of houses |
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| My favorite mural |
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| Our guide hiking up to the water reservoirs |
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| Cleaning out the sediment from the Reservoir |
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| Ladies preparing lunch |
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| People watching as they turn the water back on in the reservoir |
End of week 4 (Oct. 12) we visited a primary school to practice teaching good hand washing techniques to the kids. We had a group of 2nd grade students and our session included a dirt-monster (my partner) that got killed by the soap-fairy (me), a hand washing song, and we made posters with painted hand prints of the kids as a reminder to wash their hands well. And afterwards they all got to practice washing their hands to get the paint off.
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| Explaining the proper steps for good hand washing |
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| Painting the kids hands for our posters |
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| Hands are all clean! |
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