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.



 



To Lima and Back

Lima Fruit Cart

Larco Mar, Comercial Center On the Coast, Lima

Larco Mar Renovation

Our Friends, La Familia Cisneros-Jimenez

The Haslers Out for Sushi in Jockey Plaza

Painting Competition 1

Painting Competition 1

Hard At work

Photo Hawkers by Ccoricancha

Sunday we spent the day in meetings in Cuarahuasi where Rich gave a talk, and Julie played the music. Then she taught Relief Society, it had the sense of a one man or in this case, two person band… It all went great and we drove home after another lunch in the Curahuasi bus station. We drove back through the town of Limatambo and noticed several restaurants and believe we will have to try that out on the next trip out there.

We neglected to mention that some friends of ours, the Lowes, a couple serving in Huancayo called last week. She was feeling poorly and had a bad reaction or failure to adapt to the altitude, ~11,000 feet. They had to return to Lima and won’t be going back to Huancayo. That can happen, though they had been there before, she just could not make the adjustment. Too bad, but it really could have been worse.

On Monday we attended a mission conference to which Elders Quentin Cook of the Twelve, Tad Callister, and Christopher Waddell and their wives addressed us. We did feel a bit like the grandparents with all the young Elders and Sisters.  Still, it was quite the session. Elder Cook pronounced an apostolic blessing on all of us and promised us “that everyone we love will be blessed because of our serving a mission.”

We talked about the way he said it later and could not help but marvel at the scope of his promise. We do not doubt him, and we could not help but think about how expansive that statement was. We really love a lot of people. It was a great and wonderful conference!

On Monday, we went to Lima to get our visas going. We had the pleasure of going to Interpol where they made dental records, photographed and fingerprinted us. They were amazingly fast and we were done in no time. A first for Peru! The rest of the time we ran errands, spent money, and ate Ceviche and Sushi since we were on the coast.

We visited our dear friends the Cisneros family and got reacquainted with our goddaughter Sofi and her brother Victor. Ceci, the mother, was at Tintaya when we lived there, she is a travel agent and handled all of the travel for the mine. It was a great reunion.

A trip to Lima serves as a great reminder, how blessed we are to be in Cusco. Lima was cloudy, gray, humid and very cold. When we returned to Cusco, the sun was shining, birds were singing, it felt like a weight was taken from our chest. Still, Lima has many things that we needed and we feel a step closer to having our visas.

Julie had some trouble getting adjusted again to the altitude but feels better and back on her game. On Friday, we finally got the internet installed at the archives! Due to our trip to Lima we didn’t get much work done but we now have an internet connection. Hooray!

On Saturday, we got rain in Cusco, probably some sort of juju for having complained about Lima. Seriously, we have likely headed into the first hints of the rainy season. The real rains begin in September or October normally and are impressive. In three or four months all of the major rainfall that charges the Amazon River for the next year drops on the East side of the Andes. The display would bring a tear to Al Gore’s eye and we have arrived just in time to witness it! The good news, aside from saving the planet, it swishes out all of the urine, vomit and other refuse that accumulates in the months prior and leaves Cusco smelling and looking great! The hills will soon look like Scotland and well, paradise.

In the plaza that we walk through on the way to work, we have been walking past a sort of artistic competition where various artists do their best painting in a couple of different genres. It is pretty fascinating. Much of it is copy type work but still there are some interesting draftsmen. It will run until Thursday of next week.

We spent a quiet Saturday walking to the Plaza de Armas, popped into Starbucks to download some new books on our Nooks and escape the rain for a bit and did laundry.  It’s the little things that make life great!

Meetings, Meat and More...

We attended the Izcuchaca Family Group on Sunday. The branch president greeted us and said “you’re my saviors!” I need you each to talk about 7 minutes in Sacrament Meeting! That’s what we did. Julie told about the family, living in Peru before, and a little about what we are doing on our mission. Rich explained more about our work here and our experience with the family group in Espinar. Thank goodness they were warm and welcoming because the building they met in was FREEZING!! It was miserably cold as it doesn’t get any sunshine.  We’ll for sure dress more warmly next time.  They have handbooks and manuals and seem very organized so that was a great thing to see. There are four Elders in the area and they are keeping busy, it was a fun day.

We had a good week at work, lots of interruptions to measure cable for the internet, which we still don’t have! Even with all the disruption we were able to take 3,736 images. On Thursday we decided to split our time at the archives. Rich goes to work from 8-12, and Julie is there from 12-4. We really don’t need both of us there at the same time so we’re able to get other things done.  Julie has been studying Spanish and will probably start a Spanish class in September.  

We had a fun Thursday night date. We went to Gaston Acurio’s restaurant “Chicha.” Gaston is a famous chef in South America; he has restaurants in Peru, Chile, Colombia, New York, Chicago, etc. https://www.facebook.com/gastonacurio.  The food is divine!  Julie ordered “Lomo Saltado” a Peruvian dish with beef, potatoes etc. The waiter asked how she would like her meat cooked, and she, not thinking said, “medio raro.” “Medio raro” is an idiomatic expression meaning “kind of strange!” What she should have said was, “termino medio,” meaning medium. We all had a good laugh, and the waiter, being very gracious, didn’t start laughing until we did.  Ahh, foreign languages!

Friday brought us a city wide transportation strike. It didn’t affect our work, but it did make getting to the office much more pleasant.  It was quiet and calm in the streets. Our office is about a mile from our apartment so we walk to and from work every day.  By law, pedestrians have the right-of-way, however, no one obeys that law here and you literally take your life in your hands every time you cross a street. If you don’t quite make it across, the taxis and busses honk at you as though you had no idea they were near, and some come within inches of you before they stop! So today was like a walk in heaven!

We arrived late to Curahuasi because of the strike, combined with road work on Saturday. We went there for the training meeting we had scheduled in the branch. By the time we arrived, an hour late we were already tired. Despite that, we had a good meeting with the branch leaders, taught them about branch councils and internet access to the church website. They convinced us to have a look at a hotel in Curahuasi rather than drive into Abancay, an hour and a half away over one of the world’s windiest roads. We found the local hotel to be absolutely acceptable and we took rooms there. We were forced to eat anticuchos, Peruvian shishkabobs off the street. They are a mix of beef heart, beef, chicken, hot dogs and all served with a spicy/cream sauce. Julie cringed and then ate three of them! We were starved and exhausted.

Before leaving town on Saturday, Rich went out early to take photos around Cusco. He met a street vendor named Juan who offered musical instruments. Not having what Rich was looking for, for friends at home, he asked if he knew a place that sold quenas (a Peruvian flute/recorder). Juan told Rich that he did and that he would take him the short four or five blocks that separated them. After about ten blocks they had arrived in the bowels of Cusco where they raise chickens and sell food in bulk to restaurants and visiting mountain people. Rich had the sinking recollection that he was heading into the very area where the last attempt at robbing him occurred. Sure enough, when they entered the “Baratillo,” Juan said, keep an eye on your wallet and your camera; this is not a safe place… Snaking their way in among the teaming masses of merchants and patrons he became more and more nervous, but Juan kept looking back and was very attentive. Rich bought the quenas for half the cost that they ran in the local Indian market. In the end, he made it out with his wallet, camera and body parts intact. Juan turned out to be a great find.

This is a "Keep Wanchaq" (our neighborhood) clean sign... Note, the dog eating from the garbage bags just under the sign.

Just another creative use of a station wagon. That is a heap of beef carcasses awaiting the opening of the supermarket.

One of our books with Julie's hands for scale

Our Apartment; The  third floor.

Computer Fury and Frustration!

We left for Curahuasi, Abancay at 7am Sunday morning in John Inca’s truck with Fernando Agüero.  We drove due west and as we dropped out of the mountains of Cusco the temperature warmed up and there were trees with huge green papayas and bananas everywhere. It was a beautiful drive and we were so happy to be warm!  We arrived at the little branch meeting house just after 10am, after waiting on the road for 30 minutes for a minor accident and a toll booth. The members were happy to see us and warmly welcomed us. We have some work to do with the branch; they have no manuals or handbooks, nothing! The Relief Society president asked Julie to take some time with her the next time we visit to tell her how to be a president, she has no idea what she should be doing. The branch is outside of the nearest district in Abancay, and is technically part of the Cusco Mission but it seems as if they’ve been largely forgotten, hence our assignment. We’ll do what we can to help them.  After our meetings we had a lunch of “lomo saltado” (strips of tough beef sautéed with onions and tomatoes, served with French fries and rice.) It was actually pretty good and we didn’t get sick from it. We were a little worried since the restaurant was part of the Curahuasi bus station! The drive home was nice and we even had some rain on the way. The road was paved most of the way and full of curves but the views of the snowcapped Andean Nevados (snowcapped peaks) were breathtaking.  We arrived home at 6pm, tired and ready for bed.

Monday was a FRUSTRATING day! The men from the church who were supposed to show up at 8am “en punto” (on the dot) to fix the electricity never came.  An electrician who works for the Government finally showed up and we now have electricity! The heater works and we don’t have to run our extension cord out into the hall. We have no idea what happened to the church member who was supposed to fix things! But it works, so we’re happy. 

On a side note, the electrician who did come had delayed his coming because the Government had failed to pay him for the work he had done before. He was presented as the engineer responsible for installing it all. So, when he came he got right in, knew where things were, undid all of the plugs, turned on the power and demonstrated that it all worked. Then he told Rich that he needed to stuff the plugs back into the wall until they got back with better outlets. So, rather than turn off the breaker, he delicately covered the life wires with electrical tape and explained how dangerous this all was and that he could blow the whole system if he crossed wires etc…. Julie was sick and Rich was there all alone with the man and just hoping he would not have to provide CPR.

Rich tried all morning to get the computer to read the program on the hard drive we received Saturday morning. We have to download our images onto this hard drive called a “shuttle” so we can mail it to Lima and then to SLC. It didn’t work and Rich was on the phone with our supervisor in Lima, David Tirado, for hours. We wanted to pull our hair out! Well… Julie wanted to pull her hair out!

Tuesday was another day of trying to make the computer program work the way it should. Julie stayed home Monday and Tuesday with a nasty cold. Since we don’t have an internet connection yet in the office, Rich spent the day running back and forth between our apartment where we do have the internet, (if you time it just right) and the office. What a day!

On Wednesday, everything finally worked after uninstalling and installing the program four times, we were able to download our images to the “shuttle” and Rich left to package them up and get them on the bus for Lima. Julie stayed in the office and finished the “monster book” and we made good progress all day. In the end, we learned a lot about our program, perhaps more than we ever wanted to know...

Many years ago, one of our boys complained about an eventful trip to the jungle in which our daughters barfed on both of our sons. He pronounced his irritation and refused to accompany us on any more trips. Rich told him, “If you go on a trip, and no one robs you, you don’t get sick, girls don’t barf on you; what stories do you have?” Life is all about stories.

Rich caught the cold from Julie by Thursday but went to work anyway. He slept in a chair while Julie “slaved away” at the camera! We had a visit from Ms Quispe, the Cusco equivalent of Smith or Jones, who works in the archives office at the university, and she is working on getting us our internet. We didn’t see her again, but she came back Friday morning to tell Rich that there were meetings all day and she couldn’t talk to the IT guy. It will wait until Monday. Rich and Julie were both sick so we took the rest of Friday off, bundled up, drank lots of “hierba luisa” (lemon grass herbal tea) watched some silly American TV shows, napped, and watched the cats that live on the roofs outside. We felt somewhat better in the evening, so we went to Starbucks in the Plaza de Armas to download some books on our Nooks; they have a reliable wireless connection there. We also enjoyed a hot chocolate and then had pollo a la brasa for dinner.


Roof Cats

By Saturday, we both felt much better. Rich ran out early in the morning to take pictures of Cusco before it teams with tourists. He picked the first day when the sun never showed but got some good photos for B&W and put a few on the Flickr page. We got some shopping done and saw charqui (salted and dried alpaca used in cooking), did the laundry and we even went to dinner with the mission president and his wife and a couple of their Peruvian friends. We had a wonderful, relaxed evening and got better acquainted with them.

Charqui hanging in the grocery store



Stuff you just don't see at home...

We were told that there are over 180 festivals in Cusco and pretty much half of the days of the year you can hear fireworks or get snagged in some sort of a procession. A lot of these are in neighborhoods named for a given saint. Julie took a picture of one such parade from our apartment windows.

The Famous Twelve Angle Stone



Neighborhood Festival

Fiestas Patrias to August Pachamama and Finally, To Work!

Rich spoke in church on Sunday and was soon joined by a very blond “gringa” who also spoke. She introduced herself as Nicole from Rexburg, ID.  The meeting began so there wasn’t much opportunity to find out more.  After Sacrament meeting we learned that Nicole, her sister April and their cousin Eric are Kevin's cousins. Kevin is married to Rich’s niece!  So in a roundabout way we’re related! They have been here for six weeks or so working in some orphanages in Peru. They have about a week left before they head home. We had them over for dinner on Monday and had a great time. They were so happy to eat something besides rice and had a hard time leaving the space heater! It’s truly amazing to come all the way to Peru and meet extended family!

Thursday we had another good work day and were able to get more books finished. We had a member of the church who is an electrician come to check out the plug problem in our work office. Hooray! Maybe we’ll get something done.  Our new “nieces and nephew” took us to a pizza place for dinner. It was actually good! Pizza has really improved in Peru, when we lived here before it was AWFUL! Undercooked with hotdogs, catsup, no spices, you get the idea. We had a fun time and we didn’t need to cook.

The Pizzeria With April, Eric, Nicole on the left, and a couple of their friends.

Confetti Payment to The Earth

On our way to work, August 1st, we noticed yellow confetti littering the sidewalks. Then we met a woman scattering it around her yard (yellow things are a symbol of good luck here). She explained that this was a traditional citified “payment to the earth”/Pachamama. They do it during the first days of August. In the highlands around here, the indigenous people offer the Pachamama with the ritual slaughter of an allpaca, llama, or a sheep. They return the blood, heart and other gifts to the earth as part of the fertility rites of these people.

 

Once in Rich’s time working here, a lightning strike killed a young man just where the company was about to drill. Expecting superstition to impede their plans, the company decided to ask what the community thought about the accidental death. The community president said in matter of fact way, “Why, you are going to be very successful!” When the company leaders looked puzzled, he continued, “There is no better payment to the earth than a human life!” It was one of those, “Not In Kansas Anymore Toto,” moments!
 

Monday and Tuesday were holidays so we were unable to work. On Monday we relaxed, watched some movies, did some running around and had a nice day. On Tuesday we went for a ride with Brother Agüero and his family. We drove up out of Cusco and down into the Sacred Valley. It was beautiful and fun to get out of the city. We stopped at an animal rescue facility where they rehabilitate rare animals that have been seized from the horrible black market trade. It was wonderful to see these beautiful animals being cared for. They have all been mistreated in terrible ways. We watched a Quechua woman weaving with alpaca yarn colored with all natural pigments. Her work is truly incredible and all the sales there benefit the animals so I now have a beautiful hand woven table runner!  We had a great lunch of pollo a la brasa in Urubamba and then made our way home out the other end of the valley.  We had a lovely day.




Weaver Using Belt Loom

Traditionally Dressed Elderly Carver



Condors -  Animal Rescue Zoo

Wednesday was our first complete day of work. We had no problems with electricity and were able to work about 10 hours.  The archives we are working on run from about 1908 to 1997 when Peru abandoned hand written documentation.  The documents are in pretty bad shape since anyone who needs to look at a birth, marriage or death certificate gets the whole book handed to them and they thumb through the book looking for their information, each one licking his/her thumb to turn a page!  They have definitely been abused.  It’s a very particular, exacting process to take the pictures but we have completed 11 books so far and we’re hoping and praying that when the auditors see them in SLC that everything is in focus! We came home pretty exhausted and cold!

The best news that came to us was that our new granddaughter, Vivian Dorothy Hasler arrived just after midnight on July 31st! Mother and baby are doing well, and we’re trying to not feel too sorry for ourselves that we won’t be able to hold her for some time. We are thrilled for our son William and his little family!

Friday we worked until 11:30am, took a taxi to pick up the new curtains Julie ordered on Wednesday and hung them so now we have some privacy and possibly a little more warmth! They look great. Julie stayed home and did some housekeeping, bookkeeping things that needed to be done.  Another long day but we accomplished a lot. 

We are working on a monster of a book; it has 900 pages, is tightly bound and is really hard to deal with. It’s about 24inches x 20 inches and weighs a ton! Rich returned to take some more images of the “monster book” and to wait for the electrician to show up. If all goes well, we won’t have to run an extension cord out into the hall and we’ll have heat.

 

Extension Cord From the Hallway

An OSHA Nightmare

Unorganized Files



Our Workspace

Peruvian Labeling Fail #1:
 Ritz rip off crackers – Kraps (Pronounced Craps, it just paints the cracker in a subtly different light than Ritz…



Peruvian Labeling Fail #2:
At first blush this appears to be a n’er do well Veterinarian until one realizes that the Z in Spanish is pronounced like an S in English, hence this is really a vet that has implemented the legendary dog’s name.



Peruvian ingenuity, and one of many options for a station wagon...
 

Dog inspecting the military band.