Italian Delights 3
This Saturday, we walked out of our house to encounter, rush-hour traffic on our little street. Peru was not in the world cup, but soccer lives on… We live just below the Cusco stadium, a thing we have been aware of but not affected by until now.
Construction crews have been “working” on rebuilding it for some time, indeed, about three years. It has become a subject of pretty hot political debate since no one wants to play Cusco on their own ground because the only “local” functioning stadium is five hours away, in Espinar and for teams from Lima, Arequipa, Trujillo etc.; that means playing at 14,000 feet above sea level, a definite home team advantage. Anyway, the “progressing” stadium has all of the beauty and charm of a mutant-home in a Will Smith, post apocalypse movie. However, apparently, they got it far enough along on the inside to hold a game.
There is no real parking for the facility so, everyone has to walk a long way or stubbornly try to find a spot on the street… Our street… This made for a good 6 to 7 hours of pretty heavy traffic and a bunch of police activity.
Speaking of soccer/futbol, and while not big soccer fans, and even though Peru did not qualify, we have been pretty well entertained by the emotion of the World Cup here in South America.
Following the Genealogy fair the week before, we had a very hard time getting on the road to Pitumarca on Sunday. We dragged up and barely made it in time for the normal meeting schedule. We had a great meeting though. A couple of ancient campesino men attended, and one of them who was lacking an eye provided fascinating studies for some of Rich’s photography…
The Primary kids were great as usual and a couple of elderly women who suffered from various maladies asked Rich for a blessing. The cool thing was that he understood their explanations in Quecha though he could not give them the blessings in their language yet. Julie had brought a huge bag of suckers for the Primary kids but after the meeting, she started handing out the rest to the adults but there were so many of them that she ran out before Rich finished the blessings. The two older women were fairly put out that they did not get their suckers. We will have to take two bags next time…
After church, we went to Hermenegilda’s house and she gave us a bag of potatoes and some parching corn. She is a doll and her house gives humble a new meaning. We felt pretty blessed to receive these things from her.
On Monday we attended our missionary zone meeting. They are run by the young missionaries and we attend to be supportive more than anything. It is great to see their enthusiasm. Then, on Tuesday we traveled to Lima where Rich got his 3-D, very Stanley Kubrick, mouth x-ray and we went to see our old dentist, Wendy Johnson. She is a great dentist and a good friend.
On Wednesday we did a fair amount of running around and then went to see the oral surgeon. He told Rich what he thought he could do and then what he thought might be a problem. Rich has lost a lower left molar and, recently an upper right one. It all sounded quite fun…
On Thursday we attended the temple and then went to the offices of the church, near there.
While at the genealogy fair, we met and visited with one of the area authority seventy of Peru, Elder Alarcon. He expressed a general concern that these family groups we visit are likely, not authorized and told Rich that they could be quite easily. When Rich called Presidente Rios in Sicuani, he discovered that he knew full-well that Pitumarca and Tarcuyoc were not authorized and that he had even presented papers for Pitumarca to be formed into a branch, nearly a year ago and no news. He asked us to look into it for him.
Presidente Rios was the district president when we formed Espinar into a branch and we have a lot of time for him. He never does things by half and has always tried to go by the book. We promised to look into it. Once in Lima, we met again with Elder Alarcon and a fellow named Guido Cristobal and he told us that there was nothing in the records about any of these groups. Blow me down!
We got him to investigate and discovered that Izcuchaca is indeed a group but dependent upon the mission and not on a stake, the reason why he did not find it in the system. Then we looked at the situations of Pitumarca and Tarcuyoc and they just were nowhere to be found. Pres. Rios had told us that nothing had been submitted on Tarcuyoc, so we did not expect that one to have anything. However, the paperwork for branch formation, verges on American tax forms in complexity so we imagined that there might be some glitch afoot. In the end, either, the paperwork got lost or for some missing element, it got filed or round-filed. We won’t ever know but we came away with file folders with papers in them and we can help them fix it, we are sure of that.
We have mentioned the Peruvian chef Gaston Acurio whom we follow quite a bit. He has a TV show and programs are on YouTube and we had seen something about a sandwich shop in central Lima. It is a rundown section of Lima but we got José Luis, our driver to take us there. It is a small place that sells huge roasts of pork and turkey. You go in and order a pork sandwich, or turkey or beef. We got the fried pork and it comes on Italian ciabatta rolls with slices of fried sweet potato and pickled, sliced onion and hot peppers you add to your taste. We were pretty sure that we had never tasted anything so wonderful. We joked that it was Rich’s last supper.
That evening, Rich went back to Dr. Abugattas’ place where the good doctor pulled out the broken tooth and ratcheted in the implant on the other side. This was all kind of fascinating since he had to cut back tissue on both sides and then really did use a little tiny drill and ratchet to seat the implant into the jawbone on the bottom. It has not been near as painful as Rich thought it might.
We had been obliged to stay an extra day so that we could see what might need to be done should any of the surgery go South. It did not and we wandered around Lima on Friday. We ate Sushi and went to the Tratoria di Membrino for wonderful Italian food. We went back for another sandwich at El Chinito all before checking out and heading home.
Julie got a dose of a cough and is now home and bedridden with another cough. She is feeling pretty miserable and depressed at the moment. Still, overall, the trip was well worth it. Despite mouth surgery, Rich is feeling pretty great!
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I never went to the dentist in Peru, but I always imagined it would be quite the experience. Maybe I was wrong. Glad your surgery was successful!
ReplyDeleteWell, Lima is the key. We could not find a single qualified dentist on the Embassy's list in Cusco. Our dentists are all North American educated and use very sophisticated equipment. It is far from the rule, Bryce...
DeleteWishes for quick healing, Julie! So glad you got your dental work done, Rich! In spite of all that, you managed photos, a drawing, and this post. Wow. Penny
ReplyDeleteI had a crown tooth reconstruction and a crown put on in Lima for less than US $200.
ReplyDeleteGreat dentist
I had a crown tooth reconstruction and a crown put on in Lima for less than US $200.
ReplyDeleteGreat dentist
So sorry mom is feeling bad! It seems like maybe she is bearing all the dental surgery pain? haha. Get well soon!
ReplyDeleteI loved hearing about all of your culinary adventures in Lima. Curious - is the Trattoria the one we used to go to or is this a new place? I still remember having the best gnocchi of my life in Lima. Who knew!?
For me, it is one of the great Italian restaurants where I have eaten in the world!
DeleteAll the food! Help! I'm hungry and am waiting for stuff to come out of the oven. That's what happens when I wait until Tuesday to read your blog. BUT IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!! I had a funeral yesterday and a trip to the hospital today.
ReplyDeleteAs always, the pictures are all fascinating. I always wonder how old is considered 'older'. Always a shock to me to be there.
Oh, dear, I hope you are well. Hospitals are not my favorite, no matter what country.
Delete"Older" is a funny thing here. Whenever we tell people that we are sixty-ish, they pretty uniformly say something like, "Wow, you are really well conserved..." That always gives us a chuckle and elicits a variety of quips that include, with a name like Smuckers, etc. Still having said that, a woman living here in very primitive conditions, by US standards just made the news for hitting her 116th birthday. Still people do look older, just for the hard life and the degree to which war, tragedy, poverty, weather, etc. has impacted them.