Frankie Ginnett volunteered with Threads of Peru from September 2011 to February of this year as a Project Assistant and Volunteer Coordinator. She recommends volunteering with Threads to others.
I finished my volunteering time at Threads of Peru in February 2012 and have been trying to write my final blog entry ever since. It seems so hard to sum up six months of experience, then I thought how easily it would be to sum up a six month period in my own country; Family, friends, rain, and work.
The truth is that it would be impossible to sum this experience up so glibly and that’s what made it so worthwhile. How can you describe the excitement at learning about a wholly different culture surviving so high up that almost nothing grows, the encounters with women whose lives have been so different from my own and that can create bright & beautiful weavings using only the materials around them, the eeriness of hiking through an unknown landscape shrouded in fog with the rain beating down on you and llamas looking at you curiously, the colonial majesty of Cusco and the breathlessness that follows you everywhere, the noise of the food markets and the combinations you never thought to eat (pumpkin and aloe juice anyone?) and the constant presence of the grassy mountains encircling the city protectively. Impossible. After having some time to consider it though I believe that’s what made my experience with Threads of Peru so valuable, its nothing I can put into words but the change I feel within myself after seeing so many new and strange things, my own horizons have expanded and I look at the world through different eyes.
Throughout these new experiences I was also working in the Threads Office, working for and with people who were actually passionate about what they were doing, open to new ideas and always encouraging if things didn’t work out as planned.
The support from my co-workers really helped in the times when home seemed very far away and Cusco almost overwhelming, which is why I would like to thank them now. So thanks to Amanda, Ariana, Adam & Angie both for accepting me as a volunteer (despite some shaky interview timings!) and for making my volunteer period so rewarding.