Fireside under the Andean Sky-Rambling and Roaming

Cusco Breakfast Market near grade school

Traditional garb in the new Cusco Mall

Random dogs in Cusco

Breakfast Trout, Chuño, and potatoes Soup in Espinar

Hatun Mama, Angela Tunqui, Luis' mom with her grandaughters and  Luis' wife

Julie with the Hatun Mama, The matriarch of Tarucuyo

Tarucuyo Missionary Night #1

Tarucuyo Missionary Night #2

Tarucuyo Missionary Night #3

Our Reflections from our seats on one of the many busses this weekend...

Tarucuyo Missionary Night #4

 

We had a pretty mundane week though we thought we would have a visit with friends from the States. Sadly, the visit was interrupted by Peruvian bacteria, we suppose. They got sick in the jungle and we never actually met up.

 

On the weekend, the  mundane ended! We had decided to visit Espinar. While we traveled to Puno we received the very sad news that a friend of ours, Valderiano Laucata, a fine and humble man, from Espinar had died suddenly. He was only forty eight and has a son on a mission in La Paz Bolivia. It is nearly impossible to get to a funeral in Peru because the lack of morgues results in a law that, if the dead are not embalmed, they have to be buried within 24 hours. This rarely happens but it is usually close, for obvious reasons. Few people get embalmed here.

 

These are very close friends for whom we had been witnesses at their temple marriage. We went to see Damiana and the boys, Ever and Nestor who are at home. No one, who lives in a house, in the United States lives in the humble circumstances that are this family’s lot. We decided to go up on Friday and spend all day Saturday and see some other people as well while there. Also, we have wanted to visit a family group of the church that meets in the village of Tarucuyo, outside of Machu Puente. We contacted the bishop and stake president to tell them that we would be visiting Tarucuyo and to invite them along. Tarucuyo is fully a half hour from Espinar; this after everyone told us that it was fifteen minutes, no mas, from town.

 

These noche misionales (missionary nights) began when we lived in Peru the first time and the tiny group in Espinar held them and invited friends to learn about the church. We sometimes had upwards of one hundred people show up. We played games, had a spiritual message and some sort of refreshments. They call these Open Houses in the states and hold them every three months or so. In Espinar, we held them on Friday nights and now it Tarucuyo they do them on Saturday nights. They were/are a blast!

 

When we got out there, we discovered that the word had gotten out that we were going and about thirty people from Espinar went along, in a rented combi (a twelve person van) and two personal cars, all full to capacity. In terms of the van, they stuff in about seventeen to twenty people … We took an hour getting out there since the rivers have swollen; it is the rainy season now. We got into this little village at about dusk and they decided it would be more like a fireside if we went out behind the house they use for a chapel, built a bonfire, mostly dried dung and some wood and we sat around in a circle, sang songs, had a couple of messages, both Julie and Rich spoke, all under the Southern Cross.

 

We had an unusually clear night, for this time of year, the stars overhead, familiar after years in Tintaya were brilliant. The chill breeze, the smell of the fire and the warmth of our friends made for a remarkable evening. When it got too cold to sit outside any longer, we went back into the chapel. We had crackers and hot chicha (purple corn pudding) and just visited. We drove home in relative silence full of reflection. We got back to our hotel, exactly twelve hours after we had left it. We were pooped but pretty fulfilled…

 

On Sunday, we met with the bishopric and the Laucatas to discuss how to take care of Edgar’s mission. To his credit, the bishop suggested that he would call upon the ward to take care of it. He felt that if everyone put in a portion, it could all be handled. We felt humbled to see the strength and humility in that ward.

 

We began our trek home after church. Many people have asked if the bus passengers include chickens or pigs, ala Hollywood and we have always said, “No.” However, when we got onto our bus from Espinar to Sicuani, we were met by a crowing cock! We both looked at each other and started to laugh! The rooster was pretty raucous but finally settled down after we got out of town.

 

We had just started our trip when a young fellow stood up with a head-mounted microphone that ran to a speaker on his chest and he regaled us with the curative merits of marvelous Asian herbal remedies. We learned that our consumption of meat and fried foods were destroying our livers by cirrhosis and kidneys but that the ginseng, and some nasty tasting Asian mushrooms would clean it all out. He told how the Chinese are all skinny and that they smoke up to fifty cigarettes each day but that they clean out their systems by drinking these fantastic Asain herbs and so on, and so forth, ad nauseum.

 

When we changed busses in Sicuani to finish the trip to Cusco, a different fellow launched out of his seat and put on a head-mounted microphone that ran to a speaker on his belt. This time we frantically sought out our iPods and earphones to not be subjected to another rant. We got in  late and tired.