Written by guest contributor Scott Strand

Good morning. You were dreaming in Spanish. You’re waking up in Peru – in the high plains, the altiplano, in the cold crisp July morning air. Your wrists and ankles itch, again. There’s the evidence: three or four little red dots, all in a row, right down the crease in your wrist. Bedbugs.

You silently count the days until your home stay is over, but don’t say anything to your bunkmate. The only thing worse than waking up with bedbug bites is tossing and turning in pools of sweat all night because you know you’re being suckled by parasites. Better to never know. You’ll itch either way.

Open the window, friend. The air rushes in, cool and gray, tumbling down the titanic verdant green mountain behind your house. The mountain is sighing at the sight of its four billionth day, just as beautiful as the last. The rooster’s crowing. You can hear three wheels rolling down the rocky road out front.

With the wind comes memory. You’re a teacher to thirty kids in a school in the town’s market. Glance at the desk clock: it’s 8:00. If you’re not there, they don’t learn math and English. If you’re not there, they spend the day with their parents, who have to take care of them instead of buying, selling, and trading. If you’re not there, thirty families are a few soles poorer that day. Thirty families with a little less meat, and the women of the family go a little hungrier. It’s 8:01 and the market is an hour away.

No time, friend! Sigue, sigue, no pare! The kids are waiting! You stumble into the shower, crank it on, and GOD SO COLD SO COLD. Icy mountain water cascades over you. Okay, jump out. You turn on the “water heater”: an electrified hot plate that sits in front of the shower nozzle. Two exposed wires wrap around the pipe. Grit your teeth and sack up. Gas water heaters are so Western-bougie.

Before you know it you’re in and you’re done, with just a few mild shocks to the testicles. Invigorating!

Tshirt, travel pants, boots on, pocket stuffed full of soles, a $50 under the sole of the left boot. Sigue, sigue! Sit down for a quick breakfast with Dina the housekeeper. She’s lovely. She’s the daughter of a farming family, and comes in two hours each way to cook and clean for the family you’re staying with, a pair of high school teachers with two babies. She’s kind and curious about your lanky Western self, with dark Andean Quechua features and a bit of a weight problem. Her 2-year-old daughter, Tica, comes with her every day. This morning Tica wants to play handslaps and she is tired of waiting on your bullshit. You play handslaps, she giggles. Life is good.

Distracted. Argh. Didn’t I tell you there was somewhere you needed to be? If you’re not there in time, the families will take their kids back. Better to shoulder them on their own than leave them with an unreliable Yanqui. Sigue, Sigue!

First things first though. Can’t teach on an empty stomach. Dina made Tacu Tacu: eggs, garlic, diced tomatoes, and spicy peppers, scrambled with last night’s rice and beans. It’s delicious – the pepper sparkles on the tongue while the rice and beans satisfy in that ancient carnal, animal way. She promises rocoto relleno for lunch, an indigenous pepper stuffed with diced potatoes, beef, eggs, and spices. You wonder briefly about Peruvian marriage customs.

You want things to be easier for Dina and her daughter, but aren’t sure what to do. Her family’s been living here for thousands of years – literally, since the Incas ruled, growing the same potatoes on the same plot of land. She’s likely an Incan princess, great^30 granddaughter of Pacha Ducicela, a mistress of Machu Picchu, now housekeeping for the sons and daughters of one of Pizarro’s diseased, ragged foot soldiers. Such is history. I guess.

Out the door, you have a short walk up the dirt road to the paved road. Your fleece protects you against the summer morning chill. Here comes the colectivo, a 10 year old kid leaning out the open door as it speeds up at 50mph, screaming: “Subesubesubesubesube NO PARE, GRINGO, subesube!” The colectivo is called “Batman” and painted with cartoon bats. You hop in, shoulder to shoulder with skinny men carrying dusty packages of goods, and bounce to the Mercado, where your school is and where the kids are waiting. Hopefully.

El Mercado: a huge square of pavement, packed tight inch-to-inch with local farmers and artisans selling their goods. Speed walk through the stalls, spilling over with shoes to be repaired, cow heads and hooves left unrefrigerated for days waiting to be made into soup, past towering piles of richly green, orange, and red produce. Past the sashaying women of the Andean highlands, in their waist-enhancing iridescent purple, pink and blue gowns. Past row after row of sturdy blue tarp lashed to metal frames, sheltering fast-talking merchant-farmers and their goods for sale. Straight to the dusty, torn, paint-splattered plastic “door” in the back – the most important one in the Mercado – La Escuela.

The kids run up to you, hands outstretched, shouting: Buenos dias, Profe!

You pick them up, as many as you can in each arm! Good morning! Good morning, niños! Good morning!