My name is Laurel Thompson, and I am a travel professional; one aspect of my job involves interfacing with customers to design programs specific to their desires for travel to Peru and South America. I have worked with Kuoda Tours for a year now, and can say that it has been a fascinating experience, ¨more than just a job,¨ thanks in part to our dynamic, empowering director, Mery Calderon.

When Mery and I first met, we began a conversation that would prove to be ongoing about how to create a travel company that would empower its employees, its suppliers and local communities. We both felt that it was important to consider the impact tourism has on the people and the environment of the destinations visited. We wanted success, not at the expense of the local communities, but hand in hand with them. And thus Kuoda was born.

Last May, Lynne Deshler contacted me for my assistance in planning a trip to Peru for her and her husband, Tom, and we commenced a long conversation and many emails about an idea that excited them: that they would visit a village of shepherds in Peru and have an authentic encounter with those who were living this agrarian lifestyle. Lynne and Tom live in Oregon, and they themselves raise and show sheep: therefore, Lynne thought it would be interesting if she and Tom were to visit and stay in a community that were also involved with sheep in Peru.

From this idea, Mery and I began to seek options for Lynne. Mery visited a weaving village located in the Sacred Valley about an hour from our home office´s location in Cusco, called Umasbamba. We wanted to find a family that we could help to empower for our clients´ first homestay experience in this village; and also; we were aware that the villagers´ accommodations might need to be modified to some extent to account for the tastes of customers who had spent their lives using bathrooms with actual flush toilets. The mayordomo of the village recommended a family to us, the Quispes. We provided them with the materials necessary to build a bathroom that Westerners would feel comfortable using.

Meanwhile, as Lynne and Tom´s journey to Peru came closer, Lynne asked if there was any way in which she and Tom could help the village and the family they were to visit. She thought perhaps she could collect a bit of money from friends and relatives to assist in some small way with the needs of the villagers. Mery asked the leaders in Umasbamba what was needed there, and he told us that the school for the younger children of 4 to 6 years of age had very few classroon materials. Lynne and Tom also expressed an interest in helping agricultural workers in the village to buy tools.

The project was a smashing success! Lynne had expected to raise perhaps $500 from among her family and friends to buy school supplies and farming tools; she ended up raising several thousand dollars, to her and our surprise and was able to purchase all new furniture, blackboards and supplies for the Umasbamba Kindergarten, in addition to 60 sets of badly needed farming tools. This amount of money can make a huge difference in a region that is as poor as this one. When the villagers were told of the efforts Lynne and Tom had made on their behalf, they were so moved that they threw a huge party to greet them when they arrived; a party which the entire village turned out for. Back later in the US, Lynne recently emailed me  with this comment, ¨¨I hope you know that Tom and I left a piece of our heart there in Chinchero and Umasbamba and we are simply assuming that we will be returning next August.¨

The warmth of their reception and the manner in which they were treated, moved our clients deeply; and us as well. We feel we have, if only in a small way, begun to manifest what we had imagined during our first conversation: creating a tourism that contributes to the health, wealth and happiness of both the visitors and the visited.