Martial law and General Conference

Dancers in the puna

Dancers in Cusco

Campesina with her telephone

Key maker

Interns from the archives

Our old street still under construction

"Please don't throw papers or spit on the floor"
"Don't be like me"
Pretty unfair to the pig if you ask me

Lake Titicaca from Juli

Massive trout

Cool old building in Juli

The Juli leadership

Presidente Albarracin and his wonderful family

They are getting ready to go to the temple

Changed our neighborhood while we were out...

Ploughing with an ox

No re-bar here... That is why stuff falls down in earthquakes in Peru

We just don't see many cats that survive the stew pot

 Bottle collector

A scraped up microwave is better than no microwave.

Blue eyes

Sacks full of live chickens

Torn up sewer

Rich's hair cut #2, Julie has a lot of guts!

 Last Sunday morning we flew to Lima with the Johnson’s. We ate great food, showed the Johnson’s around, visited the huge artisans market, and attended the temple. We were able to do some work for Sister Johnson’s family in the temple and then we all had dinner with our dear friends the Agüero’s. Sister Agüero is from Colombia and she prepared arepas (a type of corn tortilla but so much better!) and empanadas that were fantastic! We loved visiting with them and miss them!

We had a wonderful and relaxing time in Lima and arrived home Wednesday evening. Coming back up to the altitude in Cusco is always difficult but we managed to get to work on Thursday, do some laundry and get ready for our next trip.

Friday we traveled with the Harbertson’s to Puno, so we would be able to get to Juli by 8:00 am Saturday morning for meetings. The hotel we stay in while in Puno is just a few steps from the Plaza de Armas. Friday night a college was celebrating their anniversary with dancers and un-melodic bands that all seemed to play the same “tune.” The incessant drumming and horn playing kept up until 4:00am. Since no one slept well we were completely exhausted. 

We did make it to Juli in time for the Saturday morning meetings and and we had a great time there. For lunch all of the leaders went to a little restaurant that sits near the shore of Lake Titicaca. We had the most delicious trout, rice, potatoes and chuño. The trout here are enormous and delectable. There were 15 of us and all the meals with drinks cost S/185.00 (about $4.00/person.) We always enjoy our visit there and the views of the lake are spectacular.

We arrived back in Puno Saturday night to hear a really bad rock band blasting away in the plaza. We figured another night of no sleep but they actually quit before midnight. Hallelujah!

We had a great district conference with Juli and love the members there. We arrived back in Cusco about 6:00pm Sunday night. 

Rich attended a meeting with the Area leaders over emergency preparedness. The focus of the meeting was the need to prepare in view of the predictions of severe weather coming. This is supposed to be an especially bad year for the affects of El Niño. We lived here in 1998 and 1999 when there was massive flooding, landslides and this year is supposed to be worse. We have been advised to make committees and plans to prepare for these things. Even though most of our areas are high mountains, the affects also can include extreme cold. Children, elderly and animal deaths in the past have been attributed to these extreme temperatures. They are taking this stuff very seriously.

Rich went to work on Monday and Julie stayed home and took care of all kinds of loose ends. 

Rich left early Tuesday morning for Ayaviri, a 14 hour round trip, and had meetings with the branch presidents of the Ayaviri and Choquehuanca branches. Julie stayed and worked and taught her English class to Martha. 

On Thursday Rich got a call from the district president in Andahuaylas with a “What do we do?” tone. He explained that riots in the mine, Las Bambas had resulted in deaths and destruction of property. Las Bambas is very near to where Rich used to work. The events there prompted the nation’s president Ollanta Humala to declare martial law in the department of Apurimac and remote parts of the Cusco department for 30 days. This means suspension of civil rights, the army takes control, restrictions on travel and no large meetings. One can be arrested for going to a meeting of more than 20 participants. This came just before general conference and on Friday Andahuaylas had scheduled a young single adults dance…

Rich instructed the district president to approach the police and ask if they could get permission to hold these very peaceful meetings. When he spoke with the Police, the chief shrugged his shoulders and asked, “What’re we going to do? The army has all gone to Las Bambas, (a good ten hours away)… So go ahead, have your dance and your meetings!” We had to laugh, here we had all been fairly stressed about the event that quickly turned into a non-event. Sadly, in Las Bambas, five people had died by violence. 

The rest of the week was pretty calm and we worked and made good progress in the archives. We finished up watching conference in the apartment and we had missionary friends over for dinner. We had to double our invitees…doubling the beans sounds somehow innocent.