Monday, February 23, 2015

Let's Put A New Coat of Paint On This Lonesome Old Town/Rats of Nimh Rescue

New Coat of Paint  indeed!
Happy Birthday to Rich

Happy Birthday to Rich

Happy Valentines Day to Julie

Moving to the Lee of the Stone

Moving to the Lee of the Stone

Moving to the Lee of the Stone

Moving to the Lee of the Stone

Moving to the Lee of the Stone, stove mover

Moving to the Lee of the Stone, stove mover

Moving to the Lee of the Stone
The cringer

Only Rich loves this mangy dog

Gene pool
Watermelon boy

Watermelon boy

Good Sister




Nemesio peddling Mallow plants

Prickly pear vendor

Alfalfa vendor









Shoes


Avenida Ejercito on Saturday Morning

Saturday Protest
Rich traveled to Ayaviri on Sunday to attend meetings there. He did this to get some information for the president in order to make some decisions about this branch. It was a long day for him; he left at 4am and returned about 8pm.  Julie stayed behind, attended church in Cusco and finished what packing she could for our move Monday.  

Julie covered piano lessons at the church for Sister Rhoades Monday morning, While Rich finished the last bit of packing. It has been raining more and seems to hit every afternoon about two. We had coordinated for an earlier pick up to keep our belongings dry. Rich called Lalo, our move coordinator and asked, could we move it up?

While Rich packed, Lalo dropped by with more boxes for the move. Rich promptly left the house without his keys and had to borrow from the kindly neighbor, (not named Auntie Shrew), in order to take a key to the chapel where Julie taught to get her keys so he could get back into the apartment and finish packing before the moving truck arrived to take us to the lee of the stone. While this went on, Rich became obsessed with the thunderheads building up from the Amazon and began to pester Lalo who kept pushing the hour back… It seemed that Murphy’s Law had serious potential to get us!

The truck and two men showed up about 1 pm to load things up and drive 5 minutes down the road to unload everything. At about half way unloaded, we felt the first pats of rain drops and began a more harried unloading. Just while the last box came in, the heavens opened and a downpour commenced. We were blessed, and all of our stuff was dry.

Moving is such a pain. We were exhausted and compared to home, we had nothing to move! Our new apartment is about 2 years old and is right across the street from the Ttio Chapel. When we’re in town church will be close. Our apartment is on the second floor, down a walkway, off the main road so it is much quieter.  Six sister missionaries live above us, but they are quiet so far. Of course, they have not had a transfer when the number can increase to more than twenty in that apartment… Of course, there are the usual barking dogs and there is a parrot that lives behind us who likes to squawk when he is put outside. But, overall it’s a pretty calm spot.

This Tuesday, we’re supposed to be getting cupboards put in the kitchen. We’ll take some pictures when it’s all put together. We’re pretty happy that we have propane heated hot water in both showers, so we can actually take longer than a 3 minute shower.

On Wednesday, Rich went back to work and Julie worked Thursday and Friday while Rich took care of some of his many responsibilities pertaining to his calling in the mission presidency and waited for the landlord to make some additional adjustments in the apartment. It is great to be back in our routine and we’re enjoying seeing another part of Cusco as we walk to and from work each day.

We have a young friend named Vicki who was visiting the other day and expressed her complete conviction about things she had read in the “newspaper.” Apparently, according to her information, there is an Embassy in Lima for Aliens (extra-terrestrial type aliens that they call Omni’s.) Who knew? Also there are “some Peruvians who have signed up for a trip to Mars so that they can buy land that is for sale there.” “But the tickets are one way only.” Most “newspapers” here are the tabloid variety. We had a good chuckle over this new information.

Rich learned from his Quechua teacher who is also a biologist that cankers are caused by “warm food.”  Not warm in the sense of spiciness or temperature but foods that make your stomach “hot.” It sounds a bit like a balance thing but we have never figured it out. Anyway, if you have more than three cankers at a time, it isn’t from a “hot stomach” but it’s another problem, maybe a virus??? We are still trying to figure out which foods make your stomach “hot” and of course no one has given us a definitive answer.  Some candidate foods include chocolate, deep fried foods etc.

On Saturday we had lunch in a new “picanteria” that is up near the ruins of Sacsayhuaman. We had a wonderful view of Cusco below us and the food was delicious. We were above the Plaza de Armas and there was a staircase nearby so we decided to walk down the stairs to the Plaza. It was fun, but because there were hundreds, many hundreds of stairs, by the time we hit the bottom, our legs were pretty shaky. Julie’s front thigh muscles are still feeling the effects of our adventure. 

We attended the Cusco Stake Conference this Sunday and enjoyed a great meeting. The talks were wonderful and there was a sweet spirit there.  We always run in to people who knew us when we lived here before.  This time we met Wilson who was in Primary when we lived in Espinar, and his brother Abram who was in Young Men’s. They are grown up now and it was fun to reminisce with them.  Next week we travel to Sicuani for their Stake Conference. We have lots of friends there, so we’re looking forward to it. 

After meetings, Rich had more meetings with the mission presidency. In recent days, both secretaries and now, the first counselor have been transferred or obligated to move for work! He came away with a lot more to do than in prior meetings. Previously, he had been charged with the membership audits and now he just has audits… This all happens as we plan for a district president’s seminar at the end of March! Good grief!

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Not Quite Bolivia... "You know, it could be worse. You get a lot more for your money in Bolivia, I checked on it." Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy

Street Rooster

Street Rooster #2




Older couple bashing rocks...

Vet clinic


A whole lot o' garlic

Puno Carnaval

Puno Carnaval

Puno Carnaval

Yunguyo Plaza

Yunguyo Plaza

Yunguyo Plaza

Home sling shot production in Yunguyo

Home sling shot production in Yunguyo


Snoozing elderly man

Family visit in Ilave


Family visit in Ilave

Family visit in Ilave

More Puno Carnaval

More Puno Carnaval

More Puno Carnaval

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

Missionaries Intra-Zone Carnaval water-fight

A happy dog




What a wild week we have had! We have lived here long enough to warn everyone we know not to travel to Puno in February during the celebration of the Virgin of Candelaria, patron saint of the city. It is one of the largest festivals of culture, music and dancing in Peru and is the third largest celebration in all of South America. Naturally, on a mission assignment, we traveled and stayed in Puno Friday, Saturday and returned home on Sunday.

Before we left though, we got the thrilling news of our eighth grandbaby's birth, her name is Norah Aliyah Hasler, born to Glenn and Jenae. We were thrilled to get the news but due to our being incommunicado we did not see her until we got home from Puno. What a beautiful baby girl! We are so blessed though we do miss home just now.
Norah chillin' with Athena in the New Mexico Sun...
We were also amazed to get a package from our kids in Austin. We did not truly believe that one could arrive. We were excited to get a care package complete with grandchildren's artwork and photos, and candies! :) It took two months to arrive, in any event, not an easy thing. We were very  grateful!

So, back to our Puno/Near-Bolivia experience. We were very fortunate to get a hotel room and when Rich bought the bus tickets the price had gone up from S/40.00/per person to S/70.00/per person. The price was going up to S/80.00/per person the next day. The bus we traveled on was very comfortable and the scenery was breathtaking as usual, but we were glad to get off the bus after the seven hour ride.

We made our way to the hotel which is just off the main plaza. The plaza was jammed with bands, dancers and hawkers selling everything from balloons to cotton candy.  It was a noisy happy party. The music, beating drums and fireworks stopped about two am. We slept like babies after that.
On Saturday, we travelled to Yunguyo, about two hours from Puno. Yunguyo sits on the Peru/Bolivia border. Many years ago, we traveled through Yunguyo on our way to La Paz, turning an hour long trip into five… Long story for another day.

In Yunguyo we visited with a man from Mexico who has moved to Peru with his wife and child. She is from Yunguyo so when he married her and took her to Mexico, it was with the understanding that one day they would return to Yunguyo. He is a mover! He has inspired a total rebirth in this small town that has gone from an attendance at church in the thirties to seventy last week! He is quite a guy. 

We visited the home of a widow who, in her most humble home, manufactures sling shots for sale in Bolivia. She lives with her children who are leaders in the Primary of the branch. They are hardworking and inspirational women. Her only son is eighteen and having the typical struggles of a late-teenage boy. She wept telling us of her woes but these are amazing, strong women.

Peru, and Bolivia for that matter, are awash in women who have been abandoned by men. In this case, her husband died. In most cases, the men just walk off and leave the women. It is a terrible social trend and has to do with alcohol and a lack of regard for laws and rules. This all plays along with machismo that leads to infidelity. However, the ghastly thing is, that often, mothers and even wives excuse their son’s and husband’s bad behavior as something that cannot be helped. Men are just that way, you see… It is pretty disgraceful. There are good and faithful men who stand up and support their families, they are rare, but they do exist.

In Ilave, we met the branch president and his lovely young wife, who have been married for about four months. We went to visit her parents and discovered where her most agreeable disposition comes from. Her dad is a wonderful guy with quite a wit and desire to help others.

We loved our trip South along Lake Titicaca. The fields are green and it rained some on us. We saw healthy potato fields, quinoa, qiwicha, qañiwa, tarwi (Lupin’s big brother, it looks just like it, only produces edible lentil-like beans). It was quite the festival of plant life. There were fields of habas, fava beans, we think. The agricultural vistas along the lake would make Van Gogh green with envy and are truly inspirational. 

The lake itself, the highest navigable lake in the world, is just plain huge, about twice the size of The Great Salt Lake. The waters are deep and normally pretty tranquil. We have been along it many times and yet, it still mesmerizes us. Storms came and went during our travels due to the time of year and so, it provided a constantly varying view. It was very beautiful, and we took not one picture because we saw it all from a bouncing bus...

When we got back into Puno, it was full-on fiesta. We had to elbow our way through crowds of onlookers, and even squinch and squeeze past gyrating dancers and weave our way through swaying horn and drum bands, just to get to our hotel. We tried to go out to eat dinner but wound up just buying water and bagging the whole scene. We ended up having a delicious dinner in the quiet hotel.