Leaks of Cusco and another strike...

Strike announcement

Empty strike streets

Car attack

Tourists walking to airport

Remnants of burned tire

This won't stop much traffic

Road block

Tourist shops closed up

Bored tourists

Rocks on road

Strike placards

Slow day for the Inka imitators

Even ugly, bald dogs get loved...

Abancay

Abancay bus station mural 

Abancay bus station department map

Roadside chicken mongers

Chicken foot soup 

Reluctant

  

Pooches for Pauline

Bus stop beggar

We just can’t keep up with this blog lately! We attended the zone conference in Puerto and had a wonderful district conference in Puerto Maldonado and visited a serpent farm for our grandkids. We held a boa and Julie even put one around her neck just for her grandsons. We”ll do anything to make our grandchildren happy!

We had a good district meeting Monday night, we always enjoy our time with the young missionaries. Tuesday night we were surprised by a visit from several sister missionaries who who were locked out from the apartment upstairs.  They were here for a zone conference and we were able to visit with several hermana’s who had served here before. 

The week before last Rich traveled to Andahuaylas on Thursday for meetings and Julie stayed and worked on our photography. She traveled with the Harbertson’s on Friday and met Rich in Abancay where we participated in another great district conference. We have been to these districts enough now that we know people and love visiting with them again. Who would have guessed that we would have friends in such far-flung places. The gospel is such a huge blessing in our lives. 

During the meeting, Rich did his first ever interview in Quechua. It was not pretty but they are pretty forgiving when someone makes the effort. The woman is elderly and completely illiterate. It was a challenge and he discovered that an illiterate Quechua speaker knows a lot more vocabulary than he, “dreamed of Horatio.” 

Our work is progressing and we were looking forward to a full week at work this week. Yet, we learned in Abancay that there was going to be a two day strike in Cusco, no one seemed to know exactly which days or what the strike was about. We finally learned that it would be Wednesday and Thursday. 

On Tuesday, Rich was coming up to work at noon and Julie was going to teach her English class to Martha. Rich ran into a huge group of protesters and hustled to the office where Julie was working and told her to shut everything done and get out. As we came out to the front of the building where we work we saw the huge group across the street. The guard unlocked the gate and we slipped out. We had walked about five steps when the protesters (about 600 of them) surged across the street and came right up to the gate, shouting, chanting and beating a big drum. Thank goodness we got out when we did, we don’t know how long they protesters were there but it’s never a comfortable situation when people are angry and frustrated. We just went home.

We took our usual morning walk on Wednesday and because there was no transportation, no busses, taxis, cars etc. we saw dozens of tourists walking to and from the airport dragging their suitcases. It’s about a 45 minute walk from our apartment and about 1 1/2 hours to the center. There were hundreds of people out marching and chanting. Those foolish enough to try and drive cars or motorcycles had rocks thrown at them, we saw several vehicles hit and bashed by people with rebar and some threw permanent ink at the cars. We saw lots of broken glass and burning tires in the streets. 

In the end we lost two full days of work and learned that the protest is because the Peruvian government wants to privatize management of Machu Picchu, Saqsaywaman and all the ruins around Cusco. All of these ruins are under regional management and the people don’t want the national government taking over. It seems a reasonably lame idea and it is hard to blame them. Still, strikes are just such a hassle and a waste of time.

Tomorrow, we are off to Puno!

 

When water comes out from underground in Cusco, it is not a spring... regardless of its smell.