By Hunter Haskett, Editor-in-Chief

A four-hour hike, one canceled motivational speech, a trip to Machu Picchu and eating
guinea pig were all packed into senior Hannah Hughes’ recent trip abroad.

Oh, and she watched a guy get crucified.

Don’t worry, it was a Holy Week reenactment.

As they say, ‘When in Peru, do as the Peruvians do’ – and that she did. The trip was definitely not the typical resort-style vacation, but Hughes sure did learn a lot.

“We performed shaman rituals, we performed all of the processions, I attended every church,” Hughes said. “I did everything Peru had to offer, every food, every whatever, I was like ‘yes, yes, I’ll do it.’ ”

Hughes traveled throughout Peru for two weeks with recent First Flight alumna Brianna Curi, who was born in Peru. After graduating early, Curi decided to go back to her hometown, Ayacucho, and live there from January to April.

“It was very different because where I’m from, not many tourists go there, not like Machu Picchu where there are a bunch of people from other countries,” Curi said. “So it was nice showing her (Hughes) the food, the culture, the people, the language – she was very excited about the language.”

For Hughes, this trip to Peru was a year in the making and her first major travel experience, not to mention the perfect opportunity to put her Spanish skills to the test (she says she will be fluent by the end of this year).

“This was my first time leaving the country. I went by myself, and I had never been on an airplane,” Hughes said. “I had no idea what I was doing, trying to figure how to get places, what to do – not a single person in Peru spoke English.”

Luckily, Hughes had Spanish teacher Nitzia Gale to help her learn important vocabulary like airport words, how to navigate baggage claim, and bartering words.

Once she met up with Curi, the vacation experience could begin. But it wasn’t all fun and games.
Hughes and Curi were in Ayacucho for Holy Week, or Semana Santa, where there are processions, parties and activities – like a fake crucifixion – every day.

“Ayacucho is known to be the Rome of South America because they do a big celebration for Holy Week,” Curi said. “They know it as you go to church in the mornings and then you party at night, so she was there for that celebration that whole week.”

Part of the traditional weekly festivities is taking part in a fake crucifixion. A male volunteer plays the part of Jesus, and one day this year it was a friend of Curi’s.

“They make a guy pretend to be Jesus and they actually whip him, they beat him while carrying a huge cross that weighs the same amount that Jesus’ did,” Curi said. “He hikes up a huge mountain and then at the top, they actually crucify him – well, pretend.”

Curi and Hughes joined the townspeople in the hike to the top of the mountain. But with high altitude and rocky, slippery terrain, the girls didn’t make it all the way up to the top, but made it halfway to the Christ statue.

“It’s about a four-hour hike,” Curi said. “It’s steep and some parts you actually have to use your hands and climb with no safety.”

Next stop on the Holy Week adventure was Pascatorro, a huge festival with traditional Peruvian music and live bulls running the streets. It’s believed that if you’re impaled by a bull, your sins are carried away.
Thankfully, neither Curi nor Hughes got hit by a bull.

“I really liked Pascatorro. It’s just this humongous party in the street and we went to Sagrado there,” Hughes said. “All sorts of stuff was going on: There was this fake bull running through the crowd with sparks coming off of it and it burned you. You had to actually hide from it.”

In between all of the processions and festivals and immersing themselves in the culture of Peru, the girls weren’t the only ones learning on this trip. Hughes and Curi taught English classes at a local high school and university.

“I had been doing them (classes) since early March for community service since I’m in National Honor Society,” Curi said. “I just loved doing it and the students, it was great helping them because their curriculum, some of their English that was being taught wasn’t correct. So finding their mistakes and just helping them better understand, it was nice working with them.”

Although teaching on a trip where she was doing most of the learning wasn’t what Hughes expected to happen, she really liked the opportunity and wants to continue to help the students of Huanta.

“I agreed with the mayor of Huanta that I would correct their textbooks and they would send me the names of certain English grammatical textbooks and I would fix them or tell them if they were good or bad before they would order them,” Hughes said.

Going to the university and teaching these basic classes made Hughes aware of the impact that such a large lack of resources has on students.

“I would like to instate English programs at other universities and other places where they just don’t have the resources, they don’t have internet. You walk into a classroom and they have a chalkboard,” Hughes said.

But in the meantime, while she is studying at N.C. State and the University of Madrid to earn a double major in International Business and Spanish, Hughes will keep in contact with all of her students from Peru, helping them to perfect their English the best she can.

“I added all the students, I gave them all of my contact information on WhatsApp, and they text me and I text them in English,” Hughes said. “They genuinely want to learn English and they just can’t. They don’t have the resources.”

While they still correspond over text, before Hughes left everyone wanted a picture with the tall, blonde American.

“The fact that I’m blonde really freaked a lot of people out. They would interview me, take pictures with me – they would line up on the streets to take pictures with me,” Hughes said.

Curi can attest: Hughes was “like a celebrity,” she said with a laugh.

Although Hughes met a lot of great new people on her trip, not everyone was so welcoming.

“Either they treated me really nice and gave me stuff or I got in free to places because I was American, or they would treat me like dirt – like worse than dirt,” Hughes said.

But that didn’t stop her from climbing to the top of Machu Picchu and completely immersing herself into the traditional culture of Peru for two weeks.

“I wrote down every single slang word I learned, all the food I ate,” Hughes said. “I made a journal of every single day of exactly what I did, where I ate, when I went to bed – I wrote down everything.”

The trip was an eye-opening experience for both girls: The first time Curi got to take part in Peru’s Semana Santa festivities as an adult with her family and friends, and a chance for Hughes to perfect her Spanish and soak up all the culture Peru had to offer.

“I definitely believe that anyone who wants to learn a foreign language has to go to the country. You cannot learn only by sitting an hour in Mrs. Gale’s class five days a week. You can’t,” Hughes said.

Senior Hunter Haskett can be reached at [email protected].