18/01/2026
High in the Peruvian Andes, at nearly 4500 meters above sea level, lives Maria with her lovely family. This is a place where the air is thin, the nights are cold, and the weather can change within minutes.
I spent quite a while with this family and shot a documentary for the NGO Hagar Semillas de Jesús and Kuskalla e.V. who support the families up there, so the children can access education, hope, and a future beyond survival.
For lunch we always had potatoes and coca tea, which helps with the altitude. I felt madly in love with their pet alpaca Christina as you might have seen in my story :)
When Maria goes to school to Urubamba, she has to walk for several hours, crossing mountains that most of us would only see on postcards.
The family lives at this extreme altitude for a reason:
They raise alpacas, who can only survive up here, where the grass they prefer grows in between 4000 and 4500 meters.
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Thanks to .ev for this great opportunity.
