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Picture of Occopata Community (Above)

All of the students in Virgen del Carmen live in the Occopata community (partly pictured above). Virgen del

Carmen, like all public “primaria” schools in the city, contains students from grades 1-6, although it’s

important to note that the age range is from 6 to 15 years old. In total, the school has between 70 and 80

students, therefore only necessitating 1 classroom per grade. Since there were six of us, USIL students, at

Virgen del Carmen, each of us were assigned to be present in one grade each time that we visited. In each

classroom, there is one teacher with no classroom aid aside from university students and volunteers that come

and go (so no “paraeducators” as they are called in the United States). All of the teachers live in Cusco, so

their commute each day is similar to yours and, furthermore, they get paid very little (less than teachers in the

United States). In Virgen del Carmen most of the students’ first languages are Quechua, an indigenous

language that is structurally very different from Spanish. Many of the students are also nearly fluent in

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