"The Hills Are Alive..."

 

"Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp kids...

 

Dogs who love us



Dogs who love us

Dogs who don't care if we live or die

Dogs who don't care if we live or die

Dogs who don't care if we live or die

The Street Monitor on HIS corner

Dogs who don't care if we live or die

Dogs who don't care if we live or die

Dogs who don't care if we live or die

Dogs who don't care if we live or die

 

The Sicuani Bus Station

Seat Belts Obligatory

How many kids can you put on a console with no seatbelts?

A really full bus...

Watch out Dan Blocker

Espinar Bus Terminal

Waiting for the bus to Tarcuyoc

 

 

Admiring the lamb

Getting to the Market

Cock a doodle do

Langui Lake



People not getting anything done because of a protest

Same as above, statue of Tupac Amaru II

Instead of learning to drive, taxi drivers hang saints from their windshields

From the main plaza

School roof progress

Buddies

Random Parade

 

 

On Sunday we made our early, 4am trek to Tarcuyoc. Our blankets and hand warmers kept us toasty and we slept pretty well until Sicuani, where we froze while getting our tickets for the next bus to Espinar. Once on the bus we thought we might have to wait but in less than fifteen minutes it filled all 28 seats. Then, a massive group of children with a few mothers and maybe school teachers came up to the bus. They began to pile in and before we pulled out of the gate, more than 45 people had boarded the bus. We had a good laugh at the sign over the door indicating that seatbelts were obligatory…

The sun finally came out and thawed us and the bus out.  We arrived in Tarcuyoc, where we had good Sunday meetings. They had low attendance because of winter break; lots of families were out of town. However, there were plenty of children for primary and they had fun singing, coloring and playing in the sunshine. It is hard to believe that inside the adobe “capilla” we needed our coats and sweaters and outside, it was almost too hot. 

The Hatun Mama prepared soup, rice, fried eggs and beet salad for lunch. It tasted great and we had a fun visit with her.

 

Our return trip was pretty uneventful. The bus from Espinar to Sicuani is always a roll of the dice. We never know what we will be traveling on. The ticket girl said we would need the two seats behind the driver because the bus was small. We bought our tickets and climbed on only to find that there was no foot space whatsoever. The space was filled with suitcases and bags. Rich went back to the ticket girl to change our seats and she was completely stunned that we told her, “Yes, we could sit comfortably with our legs under the other seats.” We think she thought that we were Amazons with our incredibly long, gangly gringo legs! We arrived home exhausted at 9pm.

While Julie was home Tuesday morning she heard continuous honking horns outside. She looked out the window to see a huge Greyhound type bus trying to go down the narrow one-way street in front. It had traffic backed up as far as she could see, and Peruvian drivers are not known for their patience. They honk at any time and thing, like they are late for a pressing appointment. This really makes us laugh because Peruvians are notoriously late for everything! The funny thing about the bus however, was the man hanging out the window lifting up the cables that cross the road so the bus top wouldn’t snag them. He’d yell “stop, stop,” and then wriggle out through a window as far as he could reach, to move the menacing cable, then dash back a few more windows and start it all over again. It was hilarious watching all this to the cacophony of horns.

Institute stared again on Thursday. Rich is teaching the second half of the Book of Mormon and this semester, Julie will help teach too. She will teach a chapter or concept each class. On Thursday she taught Alma 32 on comparing faith to a seed. She did a great job! Rich will also begin teaching a class on Isaiah on Tuesday nights. We are keeping busy.

We try to walk every morning and have yet to walk our circuit with completely dry streets. This is not due to rain as it is still the dry season. This has to do with breaking/clogged/whoknowswhy sewer/water pipes. There is always some place with running water in the street and we do everything we can to avoid it because, water running in the streets is never a good thing and the source is not always very clear. We see a lot of unwary tourists in flip flops, Tevas, Chacos, Birkenstocks etc… Taxis and busses go flying through it so we have to time our steps and distance just right to avoid getting sprayed. The water is just another obstacle in the “obstacle course” of walking anywhere in Peru. We have to watch out for holes and craters in the sidewalks, telephone poles cemented in the middle of sidewalks, waste from humans, dogs, cats, alpacas, donkeys, and garbage. If we want to look up and admire the incredible architecture of Peru, we have to step over into a “safe place” and look, otherwise we’re asking for trouble.

Rich had his Quechua classes during the week. His teacher, Charo, teaches biology during the day, in a private/Catholic middle school here. Almost all of Peru comes back to school after their winter break on August 11th. Charo’s school had planned from the beginning that they would begin on August 4th, a week earlier than all the rest. They told all of the teachers this at the beginning of the year. The head nun is very strict. However, they failed to notify all of the students and parents of this variation from the public schools, so on August 4th, 22 out of 44 students showed up for Charo’s biology class.  Half of the student body was missing in the whole  school. On Friday they had a meeting to try to figure out what to do next!

We are still without the internet at work, but we’re making good progress.  We took over 13,000 images this week. We’re trying to get a little ahead because our daughter Leah and her friend Kayla from university are coming to visit next week. Leah has been getting stuff to bring to us. Things like non-waterproof mascara to flaked coconut to oil paint medium. Things we just can’t get in Peru. We haven’t seen Leah for a year and a half, to say we’re excited is beyond an understatement!