Peru Expedition - July 2007
by Marcus Kernohan
In November of 2005, shortly after she started teaching at Portree High School, Mrs Fuge decided to repeat a project she had undertaken at previous schools and put together a team of students to venture six and a half thousand miles across the world to Peru. The goal of this expedition, organised and supported by ‘World Challenge Expeditions Ltd.’, a multinational London based company specialising in youth expeditions of this type, was to send a group of Skye teenagers to South America for four weeks in June/July of 2007.
Since that time, the number of pupils taking part has, unfortunately, decreased. Initially, the team consisted of seventeen Portree pupils, but with a few early withdrawals the team now consists of fourteen brave souls, along with four teachers from the school; although the numbers have fallen, the team’s momentum has only increased.
The expedition involves a lengthy trek, along with a week or so of ‘project-work’ in a small village somewhere in Southern Peru. While this is likely to prove an incredible experience, which will most likely whet the team members’ appetites for adventure, the process of preparation for the expedition, as well as the travel itself, was intended to teach the team a great deal, particularly about how to work as a team. Moreover, the process of raising the funds – both individually, and as a group – has proven to be something of an odyssey in itself.
We have undertaken a litany of fundraising events in the last eighteen months – you may well have come across us packing your bags in the Broadford or Portree Co-op; you may have attended the hugely successful ceilidh we staged in late 2005; or you may have come along to the Peruvian themed night at Café Arriba.
Individual members have also staged events themselves: for example Andrew Banes-Wade who cycled around Skye, a round trip of approximately 160 miles; Rebecca Nice and I staged a concert in Portree community centre featuring the acclaimed ‘Injuns’.
The fundraising has proved to be a difficult obstacle to surmount, but one of the more practical sorts will be the high altitudes of Peru (much of the country lies over 3000m above sea level), and as such, fitness is a key concern. On several occasions the team has been found traipsing up hill and down dale over the Scottish Highlands. These activities included spending a memorable weekend spent in a field somewhere in the vicinity of Pitlochry, and the perishing cold night spent a mile south of Staffin in mid February.
We (the team) would like to take this opportunity to give a massive THANK YOU to the community of Skye and Lochalsh, for all your kind words and contributions over the last year and a half. Now that part of this expedition (the preparation) is nearing its end, and the date of departure (25th of June) draws ever closer, the team will no doubt be thinking of the beginning of the greatest experience if their lives.
Marcus Kernohan, Feb 2007
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