Goose Grease Birth Control and Andean Tsunamis

Recycling, Cusco - style

Very chipper

Julie talking with Tania, Yahir's mom

Mechanic's at work in Wayruropata, one of the busiest streets in Cusco

 Tire changing in Wayruropata

 Tire changing in Wayruropata

Another busy week has flown by. We have had some terrible books to work with this week, they have been so frustrating! By way of explanation, we are charged with making the best possible photo of each page, flat and clear. If they bunch up and are not clear, the auditors can require us to retake them. 

These books are from Espinar where we used to live. For some reason every page has these little attachments glued in that have the same information as the main document page. The attachments have made the books very lopsided; pages stuck together and in general a disaster! We still have shelves of these to do so we are trying our best to be “cheerful and positive.”

 Monday morning we attended our zone meeting with the missionaries from Urubamba so we didn’t have to travel there Monday evening. That was nice. It is typically a 5 hour round trip with an hour meeting in the middle. 

Julie started teaching Orlando again, the 14 year old boy she has been teaching. They had a four month vacation and now they are back at it. He is a great young man and learns quickly. Julie also taught Marvid and Yahir at home and Marta at work. She is staying busy for sure. 

Julie learned some funny information from Marta. She is from the jungle and speaks Quechua, Spanish and a native language Machiguenga (mach-ee-gen-ga). She is always telling Julie about different beliefs and customs and here are the latest:

Julie was teaching Marta the difference between “goose” and “geese” and Marta said that “after a woman has given birth, when the uterus is “fresh,” she needs to eat a lot of “caldo de ganso or pato.”(Duck or goose broth) and eat plenty of the meat. This will prevent her from becoming pregnant again. Who knew?? But then, the goose grease stench, may contribute materially to pregnancy prevention by itself…

Marta made a spiced peach/ fruit drink that you put in a big bowl and let sit outside overnight under a full moon. It will make your brain work better and improve your memory. It’s sitting in our refrigerator and obviously we haven’t used it because we can’t remember if we wrote about the “cañazo,” "ever-clear," or, alternatively, "jet fuel" in English.

This is the drink that you take a tiny shot of after a meal that is “fatty” and will help with digestion.  Marta gave Julie a bottle of it and told her there was no alcohol in it. Julie took the lid off, sniffed it and with watering, burning eyes, told her “thank you.”  We’re not sure what “proof” it is but it’s sitting under the sink with the other cleaning supplies, we think we can use it as paint or rust remover or something!

Marta said the other day she hasn’t been sleeping well and she took a little nip of the cañazo and slept like a baby. Well….duh??? We have some good laughs over all of this.

Rich is progressing with his Quechua but is wondering if it is worth it and when he will ever use it again. This is the only place in the world where it is spoken.  “They” say that learning a foreign language will help keep your brain functioning, so that is a good reason we think. But  eating spiced peaches after a night under the moon does seem somewhat simpler…

Thursday afternoon Julie was planning on teaching Marvid, Yahir and Pablo when a ferocious rainstorm hit with incredible force. The streets were rivers and the thunder and lightning were deafening.  Tania called and said they wouldn’t be able to come since they couldn’t get out of their house because of the rain  and mud. Julie suspected this since so many homes are on the steep mountain sides with nothing but dirt paths to get up and down on. Every time it rains we fear for those living on the mountains, to say it is unsafe is a complete understatement. It cancelled Rich’s Quechua class as well.

Of course, this whole trend of rain late in the season is proof positive of global warming and they blame it all on El Niño. Add to that, about a 50% literacy rate and many, who can read, don’t. Combine that with, the fact that news sources are more likely to look like tabloids, hysterics over global climate change are pretty rampant here. Even many scientists here have been lulled into a daze by the piffle mongers in the non-third world. Further, rarely does one find an informed taxi driver. One of ours referred to the whole trend as “The Tsunami…” We think a Tsunami in the Andes is pretty good stuff for a Hollywood Apocalypse flick.

Rich traveled to Ayaviri on Saturday for an interview with the branch president there. He left the apartment at 4am and returned home about 4pm. It was a long grueling series of bus rides and he was pretty exhausted. Julie stayed home and cleaned, did laundry and tried to run errands only to find that Rich had put the bar across the inside of the door and it cannot be opened with the key from the inside. We didn’t know this. Julie was locked in!  Fortunately, she didn’t have anything too pressing to do and she didn’t really need to escape fires or earthquakes, but, lesson learned!

We attended church across the street on Sunday and had a quiet, relaxing Sabbath. Rich had a presidency meeting in the afternoon and we enjoyed a peaceful evening together. We love our mission, we love this gospel and “stand all amazed” at the bounteous blessings in our lives.