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