Ayaviri, Kankacho capital and the Raya... The real Altiplano

Elderly woman asking the time

Elderly woman asking the time

Beggar

Waiting woman

Sicuani Hotel

Sicuani Hotel Restaurant with the  Harbertsons and the Assistants

Sicuani Hotel Restaurant with the missionary Assistants, Elders Bentzen and Samaniego 

The Kankacho lady

Ayaviri cathedral

What happened to your hair?

Members having lunch

Members having lunch

Members having lunch

Sister Harbertson with some of  the women in the branch

Julie with Sister Harbertson and a member woman

Not one day in the past four weeks has played out as we planned or anticipated that it would. What a busy, crazy time! Our photo taking has been somewhat impacted by Rich’s new calling, but we are trying our best to keep up and move along.

Tuesday night, one of the young men in our institute class was in a car accident. He was with his father in a taxi that was hit from behind by another car running a red light. Rich got the call Wednesday morning and went to give him a blessing. Alexander is the only member in his family, and he’s been a member of the church for about 2 years. Fortunately, with the blessing, he was able to return to work as a lawyer on Thursday. We are grateful that he is healing well.

Julie taught her English classes and Rich taught his Isaiah and Book of Mormon classes. Rich’s glasses finally broke and he had to go to a Peruvian ophthalmologist who was, to his surprise, very good. He will get his new glasses next week. They turn out to be about as expensive as anywhere else in the world…

We left Friday afternoon with President and Sister Harbertson to travel to Sicuani. We had a district conference on Saturday and Sunday in Ayaviri, another 2 ½ from Sicuani. We were so surprised at the wonderful hotel in Sicuani! When we lived here before and had to travel to Sicuani for conferences, it was always with dread because of the pestholes we had to stay in. The hostal was the “best” that Sicuani had at the time and it was AWFUL. It had broken windows, broken beds, was always dirty and so cold.  We were so stunned and happy this time because the hotel was GREAT. It is quite new, very clean and very comfortable, with a great restaurant. Sicuani will no longer make Julie shudder and cuss. 

From Sicuani we passed through La  Raya, a range of mountains well over 18,000 feet high. It is an austere and beautiful glacially carved terrain. No trees grow there at all and it spills you into the department of Puno, real altiplano stuff there. Aya means dead, as in a cadaver in Quechua but that may not actually be the reason of its name.There  is some confusion about it.

We left at 7am and drove to Ayaviri where we spent the morning. While the mission president was interviewing missionaries, Rich helped with training the Elders and Julie went with the sister missionaries and Sister Harbertson. It was a great morning and we really enjoyed getting better acquainted with the young missionaries. 

Ayiviri is famous for its Kankacho (slow roasted lamb) and it is delicious. They roast a whole lamb and then they hack off pieces and serve it with roasted potatoes. We got ours “to go” which they put in individual plastic bags. We had to hurry to Choquehuanca about 45 minutes away for the 2pm Priesthood Meeting and the 4pm adult meeting. We devoured our lamb in the car, and had a great time.  

The meetings went well; we were better prepared this time with materials for training and talks. After the adult session ended they served hot chocolate and bread. The bread is kind of a cross between flat bread and a big roll. The chocolate was spiced with cinnamon and cloves and was wonderful after sitting in cold rooms all day. We arrived back in Sicuani about 8:30pm, and had a delicious dinner of “lomo saltado.” This is a typical dish of strips of beef sautéed with red peppers and onions, served with rice and French fries. The meat was extremely tender, very rare for Peru! We were all exhausted so bed felt like heaven. 

On Sunday we drove to Ayiviri again for the 10am general district meeting. The chapel was filled and we had a wonderful two hours with the members there. The members are so humble and sweet and so appreciative that we come to visit them. This is one of the areas that Rich is assigned to oversee, so we’ll be making more trips. 

Rich interviewed young woman for a mission and a man for the Melchizedek priesthood. Later he visited with a woman saddened by her loss of a son who took his own life. These things are always a challenge but in the end he helped her to feel like there was hope for the boy. A surprising number of people end their own lives here. Because it is cheap, they often use rat poison and the death is excruciating. It was the second such discussion this week. There are no easy answers and nobody knows what someone is thinking when they do that. Rich told her that we don’t judge people in those circumstances. We recognize that they could not have been in their right mind and, while we grieve for them, it is not our place judge or criticize them. Only Christ can make that call.

On a much lighter note, before the meeting a little boy came up to Rich and said, “You don’t have any hair!” 

Rich said, “No, I don’t.”

Then the little boy asked, “Were you born that way?”

Rich laughed and just said, “No, it just all fell out.” That seemed to be enough.