Earthquake, Strike and Cebiche!

Sunday in Curahuasi was warm and lovely. Julie ended up not teaching her Relief Society lesson she had prepared because they had a meeting with everyone on a lesson from the Ensign. She was pretty relaxed as we moved into another room for Sacrament Meeting. She was preparing the electric keyboard to play the hymns for the meeting when the Branch President asked if she would give a 10 minute talk! She had an opening hymn and Sacrament hymn to panic through, her mind racing furiously, what to speak about in Spanish for 10 min?!! As the Sacrament hymn finished she remembered that she had her I Pad with her. As she quickly opened it, HALLEUJAH! There were some talks in Spanish! A HUGE THANK YOU TO OUR DAUGHTER MARIA AND HER SPANISH EXPERTISE! She had translated some of Julie’s talks into Spanish so another foreign language disaster was averted. We just have to always be prepared with a lesson, and now obviously, a talk, every time we attend a church meeting in Peru! Julie is hoping her sanity will survive the never ending unknown factor that occurs every Sunday.

A few weeks ago, we mentioned that Liliana Sullasi was going on a mission and we heard back from her. She is a young woman from Espinar whose mother named a baby after our two sons. So there is a young man today in Arequipa with the reasonably cumbersome name, even for Peru of, Glen William Sullasi Huisa… Anyway, Liliana is going to the Lima Norte mission. This is news more directly aimed at family who knew the Sullasi Huisa family.

We had a pretty calm week until Wednesday. Julie was at home working on the computer about 11:40am when she suddenly felt dizzy. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, but it passed quickly and then seconds later it happened again. She noticed the tall, red gladiolas swaying in the vase, and the clotheslines in the hallway swinging back and forth and realized …Earthquake! She jumped up ready to dash out the door when it stopped.  The 7.0 quake hit due west of Cusco, on the coast of Peru near a town called Acari. There was damage there and to some adobe homes in the Arequipa area. Fortunately, it appears that it wasn’t totally devastating.  It was felt as far north as Lima and south in to Chile. Rich was working in the basement of the government building and didn’t feel a thing! He felt left out of all the “excitement.”

On Thursday, a country-wide strike against the cost of living, the airport here in Cusco, the price of coca leaves, the weather….and anything else that was bothering people, stopped things up in Cusco. The schools were closed; there were no buses and just a few brave taxi drivers working. Most of the businesses were closed or semi-closed. The semi-closed businesses only had their little doorway open. You have to bend over to get inside. They had their big metal doors/gates shut in case things got nasty on the streets. There were some streets with big boulders and garbage strewn across them and the police had their big bus out ready to haul the riot police where ever needed. The government building where we work was semi-opened, so could continue our project. While we worked we could hear the drums pounding and people chanting as group after group marched past our building. It appears that things remained relatively calm this time. When we arrived here in July, the government building had broken windows, and dried egg had run down the windows that weren’t broken. The results of a strike that wasn’t so peaceful.  Just a few weeks ago they finally replaced the windows and cleaned up the mess. We ran across numerous little sales on the street including the ice cream vendors selling things at a reduced rate on account of the strike. Anything to make a few extra soles.

There must be some “strike rule” because at 3pm, the streets were filled with taxis again and life was back to normal more or less, with more drunks on the street than usual, and a complete party atmosphere in the air! On our way back to the office, after our lunch outing, we were accosted by drunk strikers. They shook our hands when we said New Mexico, “Ah, ya… Yo soy Mexico!” (Oh, yeah… I am Mexico… ) one of them slurred and then introduced himself as Garcia, we are not sure what he meant by any of this but, then, neither was he... They shook our hands and slapped our backs.

Many vehicles in Peru boast labels. We have included a photo of one such car that carries the mysterious slogan “Jo Fear…” Many of these carry dedications to saints “Guíame Señor de Chapi” etc. One day we saw a tiny car that bore the slogan emblazoned across its tiny rear window, “Veloz Como El Viento Y Poderoso Como El Mar!” (Fast As The Wind And Powerful As The Sea!) We could not help but smile.

Of late we have been watching the construction of a six story apartment building. We walk by it every day. It is a pretty snappy looking apartment building and the men are working on the construction at the top. They have a uniquely terrifying system of lifting timbers and rebar to the top. They have a boom with a pulley and a cable connected to two heavy steel buckets, one on each end. When they want to haul the 5 meter (15 feet) long by about 1½” thick re-bars to the top, they tie them to the bottom bucket and let the top bucket drop. Then they grab the bars at the top and drag them to where they do their work. They haul up about five each time. They have no one preventing people from passing beneath the suspended loads. No worker uses a hard hat or a safety harness on this site. Many wear tennis shoes… Suspended loads are one of the most common ways that industrial workers end their careers violently, in the world.

One little neighborhood detail that we have neglected to mention is the fruit cart. A lady and a man make the rounds several times during the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. They have a very garbled speaker system through which they announce their passing. It pretty much defies identification of any recognizable words. We recognize the voices and in a certain Pavlovian way, have come to understand that that series of sounds means fruit.

Rich got into a taxi with a young fellow who started asking about us. We always talk with the taxi drivers about our family, time in Peru, our mission and activities here. Anyway, when he told this kid we have seven grandchildren, he said, “Well, how old are you?” Then, to Rich’s response of fifty-eight, he said, “Well, you are very well conserved.” That, oh so Peruvian phrase, always makes us feel a bit like a jar of Smuckers…

It hailed like crazy on Saturday afternoon and then it poured down rain. It looks as though the rains have started and our dog pack continues to be a source of entertainment.

Cebiche Chef for the school kids



Only tried to bite Rich once



Partial Pack Stalking the Fruit Cart

Sort of closed on account of the strike

"Just in case" police bus

Marching, chanting, whistle blowing, strikers

Clarification of "the" menu... NOT! 



"Jo Fear"

 

Proto Saya Dancers

Dangling Huge Re-bar

Fruit Cart

The Bus Terminal

Wheel Barrow Fruit Cart

Ice Cream Vendor

The  Flower  Market

Julie with her flowers in front of Q'ori Cancha

Mixed Seafood

Cebiche

Trash, Fails and Protests

 All of Peru had a stake conference broadcast last Sunday for the 100 stakes and all of the districts. It went off without a hitch. We heard from Elders Scott and Bednar, Sister Reeves, and Elder Godoy of the Seventy.  It was wonderful to hear from them, sadly as far as we can tell, none of the members from Izcuchaca or Curahuasi made the trip to a chapel where they could hear the broadcast. It is always a struggle here, but we are hopeful.

In the archives, we had a busy week and took 5062 images with some miserable books. As we looked over the shelves we realized that we have some really sad books coming up. They are a mess and will test our patience for sure!

Garbage pick-up is always an interesting event around here. The garbage truck comes every other day or every day, more or less and sometimes even on Sunday. We are sure there is a schedule, but it’s Peru and schedules are not always followed. (Understatement) We always know when the garbage truck is coming however, because a man runs ahead clanging an iron triangle, it’s extremely loud and that’s your warning to get you garbage out quick. They don’t have big cans that you roll out; people usually put their garbage in plastic grocery bags.

If you do get it out a little early, by the time the “triangle man” comes around it has been picked through by women looking for anything  that they can sell, i.e. Used glass and plastic bottles and bits of wire, etc. The dog packs are hot on the heels of the women and they spread the garbage out even more, attempting to wrest toothsome bits of rotting chicken flesh or bones...

The men on the garbage truck pick up what's left. They hang a big gunnysack on the back of the truck and load in crushable stuff. They then roll the truck tires over the sacks when full to compact bottles and cartons.  

Following behind them, a woman with a big plastic garbage can, broom and dustpan, sweeps up the bits of eggshells, bones, papers, fruit peels etc. spread around by the dogs and scavengers. It is quite the effort to keep the streets somewhat clean. By ten in the morning, it is all pretty clean. In all, there are about seven or eight people working per truck.

Scavenger and rubbish pile

Part of the pack, somewhat distracted from the garbage leavings by one of the more attractive pack members.

Part of the trash crew

The archives where we work are right across the street from a huge school. There are hundreds of students dressed in light blue uniforms that hit the streets when school is out about 1pm. The sidewalks are lined with dozens of food vendors selling everything from chocolate covered bananas, mashed potatoes shaped around a hard-boiled egg then deep fried, candy, ice cream, sandwiches, quail eggs and even ceviche. It is quite the sight and you really don’t want to be out on the sidewalk at this time as it is nearly impossible to maneuver through the starving, adolescent throngs!

We went to a Picanteria, a popular Peruvian style restaurant and Rich had roasted cuy, (guinea pig) and Julie roast pork. There are photos from the restaurant that actually caters to Peruvian tourists. The menu turned out to be well translated but, shall we say, interesting? Read it carefully.

While Rich was working this week, he heard whistles and banging drums in the street. Upon investigating, he saw that the mass was a large demonstration. Some of the folks from the government building had gathered and he asked them what it was all about.

“These are people who live under the take-off area of the airport and they are protesting the flights departing after 8pm,” responds the transportation director.

“Oh, I thought that you were planning on building a new airport up near Chincheros. Won’t that take care of the noise problem?” Rich asked.

The transportation director said, “Oh, no! They are protesting that as well. They don’t want us to build a new, better equipped airport up there because it would be too far away… “Too far, remains un-quantified and unexplained.

It would be very interesting to know how much the time spent in planning and organizing strikes, might actually improve things if it were directed to some productive activity. There were two protests/strikes this week alone. The other one was the coca growers protesting the government’s failure to jack their prices up…

We travelled to Curahuasi on Saturday to make a presentation to the leaders there. When we arrived, the wind had been howling and rain had begun to fall. We fairly despaired.We went to the chapel though and the weather cleared up and the lights came back on. We held the meeting and it went well. But, since only the branch presidency showed up, Julie did not get to make her presentation. She was deflated – NOT!

We went to find our local hotel room, only to be disappointed by the fact that the parking garage was full and we would have to leave the car we had rented on the street. We asked how far to Abancay, our driver told us, an hour. It took us an hour and a half. There we found a room but it was not as good as the one we would have had in Curahuasi. We were so wiped out, that we did not care.

We found a few more fails so peruse the photos carefully.


Picanteria Menu

Gunea pig, potatoes and Chuñu (freeze dried potatoes)

Flirtatious dancer

 

"Safety Ladder" fail, see if you can guess

A $20US box of KitKat bars, don't worry, we didn't buy it...

Product name fail...

Artsy B/W photo

Artsy photo 2

Sweaty Suck and Stretchers...

Sunday we went to Curahuasi with President and Sister Harbertson. We had a great trip and enjoyed visiting and getting better acquainted with them. The members were thrilled to have us there and we had good meetings and a great Sunday. Julie was sitting calmly, visiting with Sister Harbertson and waiting for Relief Society to start when she was asked to give the lesson. Fortunately, she had her I Pad with her with the church lesson manuals in Spanish so she hopped up and taught a 40 minute lesson in Spanish without preparation!  The gift of tongues is real!

Monday, Julie started her week long Spanish Class with a school that teaches German to Peruvians and Spanish and Quechua to Germans.  It went from 9am-1pm daily. It was an interesting experience as the German women spoke some English but most of the conversation had to be in Spanish. Trying to decipher Spanish with a German accent was difficult at times.

Rich worked extra-long hours since Julie was in class every morning. Things were moving along great all week until Thursday; Rich was 900 pages into a 1000 page book when the computer program went all “Obama Administration” on him! It refused to work, take any more pictures and even our supervisor couldn’t help! Rich contacted the IT engineers in Salt Lake City and spent all day Friday with them. They had never encountered our problem and were working hard to try and fix it. Apparently, at the same time, someone in Papua New Guinea encountered the same issue, so it wasn’t something we did to break it! Or at least we broke it with the same creativity as the folks in P.N.G... We left the computer on all night Friday night so Salt Lake City could get in it and look around and find the problem, which they did! Technology is amazing! When it’s working!

Despite our problems we managed 5440 images this week! We were happy about that. We received our first audits back on our images and the work we did in the first 3 weeks was flawless! However, the week that our supervisor was here, 2 of the 13 books we did that week had an error a piece. We’re not blaming him….but he did take a lot of pictures un- chaperoned!  Just sayin…

While Rich was suffering with the computer on Thursday, Julie went gallivanting with her Spanish class companions. They went to some beautiful Inca ruins about 45 minutes out of Cusco.  The place is called Tipon and is a beautiful example of Inca terraces and watering systems. At one time a study was done of these terraces and the scientists were able to identify about 50 different micro climates in this area. The Inca were specialists at farming and climate manipulation.

The Inca overlords divvied out plots to people and experimented with crops at differing elevations, developing new strains and the whole gamut. They were very autocratic, demanded results and got them. The famous Inca law stated: “El ama sua, ama llulla, el ama quella,” (Don’t rob, don’t lie and don’t be lazy).  If the workers on the farm plots didn’t work, they killed them… When you go to Machu Picchu, they show you the “prison”. If they killed you for lying being lazy or simply robbing, just why do you suppose they put you in prison?

Saturday we were supposed to go back to Curahuasi for some more leadership training but our driver was stuck coming from Quillabamba. We have had rain here too and a big landslide blocked the road. So we attended Stake Conference Meetings here in Cusco Saturday afternoon and evening.

At that conference we made the acquaintance of the Inti Raymi Stake president. He is a young doctor named Carrasco. It turns out that he spent time with his family in Sicuani towards the end of our time in Espinar where we had served for many years. He remembered us from that time and went on and on about our impact in Espinar, thanking us and so on. It made us feel pretty good that he recognized all that we did there, back then. The conference was great and part of a Peru wide broadcast conference the next day.

We had a couple of visits from old friends this week and are including photos of them with us. Then, on Saturday, we went out for Cebiche. We thought the previous fails were funny but this one beat them all. For some reason they thought we should have the English menu. We knew the menu from previous visits and you will see from the Babylon translation used to develop the English menu, that prior knowledge would be essential in ordering…We photographed the English menu for your perusal. Please don’t ask us what any of this means, we don’t actually know, we have a few guesses.

Restaurant Fail, More than a dozen reasons for NOT using Babylon-type Translators...

Lina Abrill and her mother Justa Taipe

Tipon Bakery - Julie's boondoggle

Tipon Bakery

Tipon Ruins

Julie at Tipon

 Random School Dance Celebration

Random School Dance Celebration 2

Marti Contreras and Julie


 

 

Communication Mix Ups

A close friend reminded me of the Hunter S. Thompson quote, "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely, in a pretty and well-preserved body.  Rather, you should skid in broadside in a cloud of blue smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming:  'Wow! What a ride!!'" We try.
There were some communication issues this week! Our ride to Curahuasi didn’t show on Sunday and we finally found out that he had misplaced his phone. He had to work out of town and couldn’t let us know. We attended the Ttio Ward here instead and had a great Sunday without the 6 hours of travel so that was nice. We are going with President and Sister Harbertson next Sunday to Curahuasi so we will be with the branch again.
We had planned leadership training in Izcuchaca for this Saturday. But, last Saturday the group leader told us that we could not hold the training that day because of stake conference and would be postponed. However, there was no stake conference. That is next week. Nevertheless, he did not call us to tell us that they would expect us this week after all. As a result, at 4:25 we got an, “Are you coming or not?” call from the elders there. Great! We stood them up and it wasn’t even our fault.

Our supervisor David Tirado was with us again for an hour or so Monday morning. We are apparently doing well and we are getting faster and better with our images. We are trying to step things up and average about 900+ images a day.  The week was pretty uneventful except that our 4 gallon water heater went out on Tuesday! That is always fun… We managed OK until it was fixed on Friday night. It was taking about 1 ½ hours to heat up, now it’s 10 min. We are so happy! We have hot water!
On Tuesday night, we got invited to some neighbor's house, the Fernandez family. Julie taught them to make brownies. We had a fun evening  and told them all about our family and the states. They are very nice young folks.

On Wednesday, we were walking back from a restaurant to the archives and among the teaming hoards of Cusquenos, a woman walked up and said, “Hermana Julie!” We did not recognize her at first but she had been one of the last baptisms before we left Espinar ten years ago. We remembered her and she told Julie that her son Ivan Huaylla Benavente is now on a mission in Trujillo. She told us that Edgar Laucata is also on a mission and a total of about seven young men and women are currently serving missions from the Espinar ward.

So, an interesting side story is that when we lived in Espinar and Rich served as branch president, Julie had this little Ivan and Edgar in her primary classes. Maria, William and Glenn served missions from there. We faithfully put our North American amount into the mission fund, but at that time, the missions could only draw out 4/10 of the money we put in there. Rich talked with leaders on all levels in Peru to rectify the problem and then went to the church mission department. He laid out the problem that the branch had this burgeoning missionary fund that was not being correctly depleted. The man in the missionary department said, “Well, brother, you are the bishop. You decide what to do with those funds!”

The next Sunday, Rich went to the eligible young men and asked, “Who wants to go on a mission?” They then started paperwork for five missionaries and with some help from outside Peru and the funds that had accumulated, about nineteen missionaries went out from that branch.  Ivan’s mom told us that there are routinely about that many missionaries out from Espinar. She also told us about the family group that is meeting and nearly up to branch strength in Tarcuyo, out towards Machu Puente for those familiar with the area.

Then about a day ago, we saw that Liliana Sullasi Huisa, has her mission call and leaves in 70 days. We’re not sure where she is heading. Still, it is exciting to hear that the tradition is continuing in Espinar.

Yesterday, we needed to buy some jeans for Rich since we work pretty exclusively in dungarees in the archives. We walked down to an open air market called the “Baratillo”. This is a sort of a pick-up market that materializes out of the nether every Saturday sort of like the market in Neil Gaiman’s, Neverwhere. It resembles a Goodwill or Deseret Industries and they sell EVERYTHING including sheep skins, used clothing, old bottles, text books, tools and hardware, fishing nets, touristy trinkets, electronics, furniture, quail eggs, fried food and all the stuff we missed!  It is a pretty surreal experience with people jostling and jouncing you at every step. It fills up streets for about seven city blocks. When we mentioned our design in going there it was met with enough awe that we quit mentioning it and just went. This was a tactic we used years ago when we decided to go to Colombia on vacation despite the State Department’s warning. In the  end, we did not get robbed in the pick-pocket sense, Rich paid about twenty-five dollars for three pairs of jeans, one of which was brand new Lee Ryder knock-offs and some stuff we just found there. It was an adventure. Afterwards, we went out for ceviche and had a nap!



David Tirado in our archive office.



The Fernandez family

Cultural Insights # ...

Rich went to the Izcuchaca Family Group last Sunday without Julie since she was still a bit under the weather. Rich had a wonderful and valuable insight into cultural diversity. The man who takes us to church in our far-flung assignments gave a talk on Sunday that fascinated Rich. He began by explaining that he is a successful head of a construction company and that he had gotten down to the wire for a bid. He needed s/.80,000 (~$29,000US) in earnest money and had come  up short, s./18,000. He was fretting about it since this was the last day that he could present.

 His wife asked him if he had prayed about it to ask the Lord’s help. He said that he had not and went off to pray. Then he called everyone he knew to ask for the loan. Everyone he could think of was tapped out.

 Frustrated, he agreed to run his wife to the fabric store where she said she would only take five minutes but took twenty. This added to his frustration and he grumbled about her taking so long, not to her, just internal growling, he said. When she got in the car, she said she needed him to take her over to a friend’s house, making him grumpier than before.

 He pulled out of his parking spot and made a U-turn, essentially illegal in all of Peru and he did it right in front of a motorcycle policeman. The cop pulled him over and in his frame of mind, he argued with the policeman. Then, he said, “Look, just write me the ticket and let me get on my way, I am in a hurry.” This, of course, never plays well with law enforcement types in any country.

 When he dropped his wife off, he looked at the ticket and it had the letter “G” written on it and he had never seen this before. He called a policeman friend and asked, “What does the letter ‘G’ mean on a ticket.”

 The friend explained that it stood for, “Grave” and that means serious regardless of the pronunciation. The policeman friend said, “But, listen, I can take care of that for you. My friend is the Colonel and he will fix the ticket. Just meet me down on the Avenida Del Sol,” the, “Main Drag,” in Cusco.

 When they met to get the ticket fixed, the policeman friend said, “Listen, I’ve come into some money and don’t want to put it in the bank where the SUNNAT (Peruvian IRS) will see it. So, I have been wondering if I could invest it in your company for a while. It is $8,000US dollars. This amounted to about s./23,000.

 He concluded by saying that his prayer was answered because, had he not taken his wife and made the illegal U-turn, resulting in a serious ticket and sought out his friend’s advice and agreed to have him fix the ticket, he would have never gotten the money from his friend seeking to hide if from the tax authorities…

Our supervisor David Tirado came from Lima and spent Tuesday with us, to make sure we were doing things correctly. On Wednesday it poured rain all day and it was so cold. We had another mission conference with Elder C. Scott Grow of the Area Presidency all day Wednesday. It was great and we learned a lot.  Julie’s cousin wrote me an email Tuesday night and said that his nephew Elder Lindblom was in Peru and he thought he was serving in Cusco. At the conference on Wednesday we were told that there would be two new missionaries serving in Curahuasi where we go every other Sunday. Julie walked over to meet them and there was Elder Lindblom! Julie asked if he knew her cousin Dea Montague and he said “yes, he’s my uncle!” and Julie said “I know, he’s my cousin!”  It will be fun to work with him in Curahuasi. The world is small inside the church.

Thursday was a good work day, but with some terrible books! They were really hard to lay flat and capture good images. It was frustrating but we managed to get about 780 images taken. Our supervisor told us that there are couples that get about 1500 images a day! We do wonder what kind of records they are capturing. The books that are all the same size and open easily are called “celestial books” in this business. I’m not sure our books would even be considered “telestial!” They are difficult! Nevertheless, we will try to step up our game.

We had fun walking by the art competition on our way to work this week. The artists were painting “Imitations of the Classic Cusco style religious art” or “free style.” There is some amazing talent here in Cusco.

Friday we had an unexpected holiday, “Santa Rosa de Lima.” She is the patron saint for the military and police in Peru so there were parades of all sorts.  We met our friend Yeny Yauli from Espinar. She and her mother were some of the early baptisms that we attended when we moved to Tintaya. She has served a mission in Trujillo, Peru; her younger sisters are on their missions in Argentina and Colombia.  A truly remarkable family! We had a wonderful visit with her and can’t wait to get up to Espinar to see all of our friends.

Another In The Series Of Creative Station Wagon Applications (Immense Squash Called Zapallo (Said "Sap-ayl-yo))

Our Meeting With Elder Lindblom

Our Blanket That Covers Our Bed Is Reversible # 1 The Tiger

# 2 Chinese Rose/Carnation Hybrid???

Big Art Competition Photo 1

Big Art Competition  Photo 2

Big Art Competition  Photo 3

Santa Rosa De  Lima Parade (Little  Kid Style)

Yeni Yauli With Us In The Main Plaza

Older Woman In Chincheros Garb.