What? Seven Hours to Get to Church... A New Definition for The Middle of Nowhere

Rich had his birthday on Monday of this week and we went out for cuy (guinea pig), his choice, not Julie’s.  We spent time talking with our kids and generally spent a quiet day together. On Friday we also went out to lunch in a nice restaurant for Valentine’s Day. We took a cab but found our way blocked by a huge march of folks in traditional dance costumes. It celebrates a Catholic virgin designated Del Rosario. We did not know about it going in and had quite the challenge negotiating the whole thing. We enjoyed the fantastic display of dance costumes that we saw however.

 

We finished up our “easy” books and began a heap of much more difficult books to photograph. We still managed over 4000 pages this week.

 

On Saturday, we had promised to go to Espinar and attend the Sunday meetings with the members in the small family group at Tarucuyo. We took off at 1pm on Saturday and took the busses to Sicuani and then on up to Espinar. We made it in good order and with a minimum of interruption.

Our trip from Sicuani to Espinar was flavored with a soapbox type preacher called an evangelical minister. It was an interesting hellfire and damnation sort of address. He harangued for a good hour of the hour and a half trip.  It was a much less tolerant approach to the gospel than we take from the scriptures. We never quite know what to expect on the bus rides.

 

On Sunday, we had an invitation to a friends’ house for breakfast.  This was essentially a lamb soup with potatoes and chuño (freeze-dried potatoes). It is the traditional fare in this part of Peru and is quite flavorful. It was really sweet of them to open their home to us. We had to eat and run since we had the missionaries picking us up to go to our meetings.

 

The elders came for us and took us up to a part of the town called Siete Esquinas (seven corners) where collective buses pick up their passengers to take them out to various places. From one of the corners a bus, meant to hold a dozen or so people fills up. Of course, it does not stop with twelve. By the time we left we had a new appreciation for how sardines might actually feel. We counted nineteen people on the bus.

 

The bus made its way out of town along a mix of paved and dirt/ rocky roads. The ride was bumpy, dusty and hot. It took fifty minutes to get there.

 

We arrived and found the members waiting for us. They seemed genuinely happy that we had come. We were asked to give talks and Julie helped teach the primary, (children from 3 – 11). It truly took us back to our first experiences with the church here in Peru. We began in just such a group of people that we came to love and hold dear. The circumstances in that group were somewhat less primitive than Tarucuyo.

 

In Tarucuyo we met in the same adobe house and grounds around it that we met in before out there. The services are basic but the feeling is so warm that we truly felt at home with a group of people we hardly know.

 

After we spoke, the president of the group got up to speak. He explained that some of the members did not speak Spanish and so he recapped our talks in Quechua. We had really wonderful day.

 

On our way back through town, we had committed to visit Marco Matos and his wife Luz Marina Carrazco and, of course Marco’s mom. That put us leaving town along about 4:30pm. We wound up on a slower bus from Sicuani to Cusco and it took us to the regular bus terminal. We just walked home from there and got in about 10:00 pm. It made for a long but wonderful weekend!

Psycho Ride From Curahuasi 1

Psycho Ride From Curahuasi 2

Apurimac River-High Water

Julie at Rich's Birthday

Rich at Rich's Birthday with fried Guinea Pig

Virgen del Rosario Assembly

Dancers and Spectators

Virgen del Rosario Dancers

D

Bird Cages at Saturday Market

Massive Bags of "Chichasara," "Mana," etc. (large puffed corn with a sugary coating)

Bus Station, Sicuani, Peru

One of many buses

Our old "chapel" in Espinar, it was burned in a riot long after the new chapel was built.

Sunday morning lamb soup breakfast with Puri and family

19 people in van to Tarucuyo

Ladies soccer game

Breakfast crowd in Machu Puente

Restroom hike 

The "chapel" grounds

Sunny day in Tarucuyo

Tarucuyo chapel

Primary Opening Exercises

Youth Sunday School

Treats after primary

Looking out the front of the Tarucuyo chapel

Main drag in Tarucuyo

Soccer game

Soccer fans

Marco & Luz Marina

Newton's Laws of Motion

Elegant  Damsel

Photo Hawkers

School's Out for The  Summer!

Nemesio again

The  Meat Market

Tamales

Beggar

Not all dogs are Curs, Her name is Sally

Julie Climbing the Amargura Steps

Our friend Yeny Yauli came to see us this week. She, her mom and sisters were some of the very early members of the church in Espinar. We’ve known her since we first came to Peru and she truly is like a daughter to us. She graduated from college a couple of years ago with her elementary teaching degree, but wasn’t real enthused to begin teaching.  Finally, she took the teachers exam, similar to the Praxis exams in the USA for all you teacher types, and received a great grade. She chose to work in an area about one hour east of Cusco in a town called Urcos. A teacher has little say in what school they would like to teach, the powers that be in the district of the teacher’s choosing decide that.  Yeny was assigned to a little village three hours walking from Urcos! There are no vehicles that go out there; everything is taken in by llama, donkey or foot. She was going to check it out and decide if she really wants to live that far from everything. The public schools are very poor, so basic necessities like desks, chairs, books, paper etc. are hard to come by and are usually very used.  It is amazing that there are still places like this in the world, but of course there are and Peru is full of them.  It will be interesting to hear of her adventure.

February is “Carnaval” time in Peru. It’s nothing like Carnaval in Rio de Janiero or New Orleans; here it is much tamer, includes clothing! Peru, however, does have its fair share of parades, feasting and fantastical floats. An interesting tradition involves dancing around the yunsa tree (known as the umisha in the jungle and cortamonte on the coast), a symbolic tree laden with gifts. In the Altiplano they bring in a eucalyptus tree that they stand up in the square with the presents hung in the branches. The yunsa activity involves a very large amount of beer or chicha (homemade beer). While dancing around the tree to monotonous music and between drinks, local couples take turns whacking the tree with a dull axe, chopping at it until the final blow sends it crashing to the ground, releasing the gifts to the eagerly waiting crowd who charge in piñata fashion to grab their gifts. Then, of course, there are the water fights. Throughout February, Peruvians love to throw water at each other – buckets, squirt bottles made from pop bottles, and balloons.  They also love to throw colored powder at anyone and everyone. In Lima they smear you with shoe polish if they get the chance. Though we have only seen one case  of young kids water  fighting so far, we still need to keep our guard up for sure!

We traveled in what felt like a rocket sled to and from Curahuasi toady. It had rained all night and we had crystal clear skies and the air smelled of everything green. We caught our taxi to Arcopata and there, somehow wound up taking a bus/van. In all, the bus carried fourteen people and a dog. We wound up in the back seat again and thought we had really gained a new appreciation for Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. However, what awaited us on our return trip, usually a two and a half hour trip, made under something less than two hours, was a revelation in physics. The driver seemed to think he was channeling Al Unser.

When faced with certain situations, we have developed several phrases that reflect that one never fully accepts the surreal effects of culture shock. These phrases include but are not limited to, “Wouldn’t you think...?” “Wouldn’t you try to…?” During today’s white-knuckle adventure these phrases came up most often on blind curves or hurtling into population centers with obvious pedestrians attempting to cross in front of the shock wave generated by this Toyota moving up to ninety miles/hour. We used them equally with reference to the driver himself and to the people attempting to cross.

 

When we first moved to Peru, we had chauffeurs to begin with and then the company allowed us to begin to drive/fend-for ourselves. That required us to obtain driver’s licenses. On Rich’s first pass through the exam he found himself conflicted over expectations of the Touring Club (Peruvian Department of Motor Vehicles) who administers these exams. The exams seemed to be translations of similar exams from the United States. The questions to be answered could have used any of the following: 1) what do I think the answer should be based upon my experience as a driver for thirty years? 2) What do I think the Touring Club expects? 3) What would I guess the answer to be based upon what I have witnessed to date in Peru? To our total surprise, the answers were all based upon U.S. rules of transit, yet these, in no way, reflect the reality of traffic in Peru.

We actually had a great set  of  meetings in Curahuasi and we  took over 6000 images this week. We felt good about all of that.

 

Random Tourists

Herbal Tea Street Vendor

 

Altiplano Summertime... Rain, Rain, Rain!

The Peruvian beaches are filled with summer vacationers and here in Cusco summertime means rain and that it is almost as cold as it is in the dry wintertime. The children are out of regular school, but most kids attend “vacaciones de utiles,”  “useful classes” such as English, computers, swimming, dancing, chess, public speaking, storytelling, hula-hooping, etc.  The classes start early in the day and the kids seem excited to attend. They don’t have to wear uniforms, so the hordes of students are really colorful.  Many have breakfast on the street, a cheese or avocado sandwich and some warm quinoa apple drink, or “papas ala huancaina” sliced boiled potatoes with a sliced boiled egg and a yummy pea nutty chili sauce all over the top. The corners of every street are nearly impossible to negotiate because of the “breakfast clubs.”

Of course not everyone attends summer school (it is not free) so many parents have their kids with them while they sell in the markets or on the streets or drive their taxis around.  We walk through a market every day and it’s so fun to see the kids’ creativity, playing while their parents work. Pieces of cardboard for a shield and empty water bottles with a hole poked in the lid to squirt water through seem to keep them happy for hours, the plots and scenarios change, but kids are kids the world over and we love their enthusiasm and joy.

We’re always finding new names that make us smile. The little store where we buy our latex gloves and masks for work is called simply, “Melvyn.”  Rich worked with a man several years ago named “Praxides Choquetico.” Choquetico is of Quechua origin, so when Rich got the nerve to ask him where his parents got the name Praxides, Praxides told Rich was, “he’s a character from the Peloponnesian Wars.” Neither of us remembers that name from reading the Peloponnesian Wars, but Praxides said his parents were big fans of the story.  Go figure!

Some names we came across this past week caught our interest, Dick Rogier, Alfonso Esprayndert, Lissbeet Sthepani, Ivosk’a Ingrid, Step Angel, and Miluvska Jhakelinne. These make Praxides sound positively pedestrian! In spite of taking time to marvel at the names we see, we were able to take nearly 7000 images. The names keep our work interesting.

We have been working on a body of death records. Julie came home and announced that she was no longer reading the records but just taking pictures. This was during the winter in the 60s and the records were filled with infant mortality after infant mortality. They all seemed to have died of bronchial pneumonia. Some adults even died of it. It gets a little overwhelming and it really is not necessary for us to read them. We take all of them regardless.

We attended the Inti Raymi Stake Conference Saturday and Sunday and heard wonderful talks. The choir sang one of our church hymns “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet,” in Quechua, it was awesome, and they did a great job. We were actually home by 1pm, that hasn’t happened in months because we are usually coming back from Curahuasi or Izcuchaca.

Because of the rains, there has been more flooding. President Harbertson told us that two little branches of the church have been completely flooded and lost in Puerto Maldonado because the Madre de Dios River has over run its banks. People living there said that this type of flooding typically occurred about 3 times every 100 years, however, this has happened 3 times now, in the last 5 years. The government gave them high-ground land and money to rebuild the last time this happened. They did this for everyone on the river but most of them opted to sell the free land and stay down by the water.

We continue to enjoy our mission and we keep very busy with a lot of different activities. We cannot imagine much that we would rather be doing just now. Of course we miss our family but feel greatly supported by them and we visit with them every week.

 

Heavily laden

Colorful tourist market #1

Colorful tourist market #2

Woman from Chincheros in typical dress

A woman selling her habas (roasted fava beans)

Nuns coming from Mass

Bread sellers under the window of the telephone company

Random man

Woman preparing a tuna (cactus fruit) for us

 

Habas seller

Street vendor outside our work



Tuna Vendor

A cool Lliqlla (backpack, but not really)

Elderly blind woman we pass often

 

 

Little sisters sharing  an ice  cream cone

The gang

Little girls playing in the market

The roof cat

Random dog #1

 



Random dogs #2 &3

Random dog #4

Random dog #5 (He works at the gas station)

Random dogs #6 &7

Random dog #8

Random dog #9 (Rolling in the  garbage)

Random dog # 10 &11 (The little dog refuses to play with the bald dog, Rich really felt for the bald dog's rejection...)

Union meeting