This past week, we had the opportunity to spend three days in the Indigenous community of Shukshuyaku. A half hour drive from our homebase at Sachamama, Shukshuyaku is in many ways (at least material ways) quite far from our American comfort zones—no electricity and outhouses for bathrooms (though I’d like to note very nice outhouses, complete with lovely pink toilet seats). Yet from the moment we arrived Sunday morning, Shukshu felt like home. The entire community welcomed us with the most open of arms, giving up their communal tambo for us to sleep in, inviting us into their chacra (field), teaching us the sacred rituals surrounding the spiritual side of planting certain crops, and constantly thanking us for our presence and interest in their community. I have never felt more welcomed by a host community—especially a community that, generally speaking, has every reason to resent us given the brutal colonial history and racist present of gringo-native relations.
During the opening and the closing ceremonies of our visit, the Apu, the communally elected leader, presented us with a very special request: “tell others back home about our community. Encourage them to come visit. Help them learn about us.” And so, in an effort to honor this profoundly important request, I’d like to tell you all a little bit about the people of Shukshuyaku, Or rather, a bit about the little people of Shukshu: the children.
The majority of my time in this lovely community was spent with people under four feet tall but whose energy shot up to the sky. The community has no electricity but they really don’t need it, these children’s smiles could light up any room. They are not raised on Barney, Disney, or fancy gadget-like toys that sing and light up. Rather they are reared on laughter, holding hands, and nature. They have no need for television or computers or any other modern devices aimed at simulating reality; they have blue skies, open fields, and endless imagination. Shyness is an entirely foreign concept to these children, who all eagerly embraced our presence, eager to play soccer or volleyball with the more athletic gringos, and take endless pictures and videos with me. Below I’ve uploaded only a couple (the internet connection severely limits the adorableness I can share at the moment) of the 150+ photos we took together—they were constantly fascinated and elated by the camera.
In our three short days together, the children brought me more joy and hope than words in the English language allow me to describe. Like many others around the world, in the days before we left for Shukshu, I had spent long hours glued to my computer screen, pouring over shocking news of the horror and tragedy befallen upon Norway. Reading about a hatred more profound than I like to believe is humanly possible. How, I wondered, can there be any hope for innocence or peace in the world when a country as seemingly peaceful and benevolent as Norway becomes the scene of a neo-Nazi’s murder spree? A massacre targeting young people no less. How could Anne Frank be correct in her assertion that “despite everything, people are really good at heart” when things like this happen to perfectly innocent people? How could the beauty of the Amazonian jungle mean anything when violence like this exists? What good is all of the spirituality and ecology and culture we’re studying and trying so vehemently to protect when hateful people will always be there to destroy all that is joyful and innocent in the world? In the face of such tragedy, how do you not lose all hope?
And then I went to Shukshuyaku. And met children who are the embodiment of kind innocence. Of loving joy. Children, who, despite Peru’s racist politics towards indigenous people, despite the food insecurity facing the kichwa, despite a million reasons American news sources find to frown and announce the ultimate doomsday, these children manage to smile. Despite it all, these children laugh and smile. They run and play and hug and hold hands and make hats of flowers. They braid each other’s hair and include every child in every game. They welcome strangers like family and sing songs because they can. These children are the ultimate embodiment of the kind of joy and innocence which the modern world so often lacks. They are unjaded and unabashed in their being. They simply are. Beautiful. Happy. Innocent.
I hope that the photos below can provide you all one small iota of the joy these boys and girls brought me. I hope that in their glistening eyes and shining smiles you can see the same hope that I saw. And with the gift of their smiles, I offer you a similar challenge to that presented to us by the Apu. Share their innocence with others. Make their smiles a part of your day. Tell your friends about children in a remote village of Peru called Shukshuyaku. Children who smile and play and laugh despite the world. And take inspiration from them to remember throughout your day, that perhaps people really are good at heart.
Above: Myself and Jane with some of the children of Shukshuyaku.
Above: Michael and Sonya, two of my best buddies in Shukshuyaku.
