Ah, Lucuma, we will miss you along with so many other things!

 

 

Apurimac River - A lot of global warming or just the rainy season

Soggy rainy season doggy

Dog Island

 

 

 

Peruvian Gandalf

Star Wars in Cusco

Peruvian clown

Ahhh, street jell-o

Fighting cock for sale

Puppy mill

Egg stockpile

Frozen characters promoting the college of engineers

Baratillo

Papas y fruta

Herb market

The dried fruit and nut shop

Sly porker

Dancers on their way to perform

Random dance festival...

More dancers

Challhuahuachina

Watching the dance parade

Rich left early Monday morning with the Poulsens to travel to Andahuaylas. It was just the three of them and the driver so they were pretty comfortable on the trip. They were able to stop when they wanted and had a pleasant trip together. Once in Abancay, they caught the combi to Andahuaylas and arrived in time to have some lunch and rest a bit. Rich had a 6pm meeting with the district president and the Poulsens stayed for a couple of days to work with members there on their family history assignment. 

Tuesday morning Rich woke up to heavy rain, picked up some rolls and mandarin oranges for breakfast and caught the combi to travel back to Abancay.  Once there he walked to where the autos leave for Cusco, grabbed some snacks for the trip and arrived back in Cusco in a downpour about 3:45pm.

Rich has been pestered by what appears to be a tooth root in abscess. Given the lack of time left, he has opted to follow the great Hasler tradition of self-medication. He dipped into our stash of “over-the-counter,” antibiotics and has taken a full course in hopes of controlling the problem until he can get back to a dentist who can safely work on his aging dental infrastructure. More to come…

Julie stayed home and worked in the archives Monday and Tuesday and made good progress. We have six shelves of books to finish before our mission ends. We catch ourselves thinking of all the things and people we will miss here in Peru, yet, at the same time we are excited to be home for a while with friends and family there. 

Rich had a meeting at the mission office Wednesday morning and some errands to run so Julie took pictures in the morning and we went to lunch together. We arrived home in time for Julie’s little boys to come for their english class, but Maria, Marvid’s mom called and said they couldn’t make it since they had to get papers to Sicuani to register for school there. They were supposed to move this week, who knows….

We had a zone conference Thursday morning that was great. We love the young missionaries and spending time with them is always delightful. It is wonderful to see them mature and gain self confidence. We had errands to run after the conference and Julie did teach her english class in the afternoon. Marvid and Yahir can’t quite figure out that if they don’t come, there is no class. They are always worried that they might have missed something. It’s so cute and Julie is going to miss them terribly when we leave. 

Our friend Quique came to visit with his Ukrainian friend Irina.  She will be studying Spanish and wants to work in tourism as there are many Russians who come to visit Cusco, but not many tour guides who speak Ukrainian, Russian and Spanish. We hope it all works out for her. 

Saturday we walked to the Baratillo and enjoyed our time there, picking up some little gifts for the grandkids etc. We also went to the San Pedro market and bought some cashews from the nut and dried fruit vendor there. We have become friends with them, we have friends and acquaintances all over town, even dogs that we say “hi” to every morning. It will be hard to leave.

We went to Starbucks to connect our Nook readers. For some reason, they won’t connect in our apartment, but will in Starbucks. We’re certain it’s to lure us in to share a lucuma frappuccino!  Lucuma is a sub-tropical fruit and has a decadent caramel flavor to it. It is native to this part of the world, it is said lukma in Quechua. Needless to say, it’s scrumptious. 

We were going to meet Quique and Irina for lunch, but she wasn’t feeling well so we walked home and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. 

We had wonderful visits with our children and grandchildren through the week. We are so grateful for their strength, testimonies and examples to us. We are so blessed to have faithful children, in-laws and grandchildren. They bring such joy to our lives.

We attended stake conference Sunday morning and were enjoying the music and talks when we heard, “and we would like Elder and Hermana Hasler to share their testimonies.”  That always sends ones body into high gear! We were able to get through it without too much panic in our voices and were able to share our testimonies with the wonderful members in our Cusco stake.