Like any country, Peru has a number of interesting quirks that characterize life here. Here are a few of my favorites, for your enjoyment and cultural enrichment:
1.) The garbage trucks play music. Every garbage truck here is equipped with between two and four megaphones, from which they play music at an extremely high level. Why? To let you know that they are coming. So when you hear ¨Under the Sea¨ blasting outside, you know that it´s time to run downstairs and put your trash out.
And by the way, the only two musical options are ¨Under the Sea¨ and some instrumental classical song.
2.) They love to use the letter ¨ch.¨ In Peru - as in other places in Latin America - the letter ¨ch¨ reigns. This is a letter that I hardly remember using in Spain. So whereas in Spain, a sports field is a ¨campo,¨ here it is a ¨cancha.¨ In Spain, corn is ¨maíz,¨ here it is ¨choclo.¨ There are many more examples of this - these are only two.
3.) Peruvians are exceedingly entrepreneurial. There are all sorts of jobs that I would never even think of in America, but I suppose necessity is the mother of invention in this case. For example, most people want to type their job applications, but not everybody has a computer. Solution? There are men who sit in the Plaza de Armas (like the town square) all day with their typewriters and who will type your application for you for about two soles ($0.50).
Another entrepreneurial profession: professional line waiter. Lines for SUNAT (the IRS equivalent) and REINAT (the Social Security equivalent) can go on for blocks and take hours in the hot sun. Solution? Pay someone to wait on line for you. I don´t know the going rate of these line waiters, but it seems pretty smart.
I´m not saying that these are good jobs, but they are creative.
4.) Pidgeons have it made here. Whereas we Americans think of pidgeons as disgusting, disease-carrying rats with wings, here, people feed them - en masse. In the Plaza de Armas, I would estimate that there are about 400-500 pidgeons who hang out there. As people pass through the plaza, they can pay 50 cents for birdseed to feed the pidgeons - and many people do. Hence the pidgeons stay there.
This is one thing that I do not like, because it has caused the pidgeons to become very uppity and bold in their relationships with people. One touched my leg the other day and it was. not. cool.
5.) There is a national obsession with ice cream. In Arequipa, if you walk 20 feet in one direction in the center of town, you will be sure to find some ice cream. The two main brands are D´Anafria (owned by Nestle) and Lamborgini. At almost every street corner, there are ice cream vendors hawking product from tiny little bicycle-powered carts. They are adorable - I will have to post some pictures. Anyways, the ice cream is awesome and cheap (as little as 20 cents US) and an excellent ¨on-the-go¨ food for busy Peruvians and Americans like us.
Danny and I are partial to Gloria ice cream, which is soft serve that you buy at the supermarket. We especially like the chocolate-vanilla swirl.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Chicken - Yeah, Dis How We Do
Faithful blog readers, today you have the privilege (the mouth-watering privilege) of seeing how we eat chicken Peruvian-BBQ style. It was delicious.
Monday and Tuesday of this week were feriados - holidays - so our young adults group planned an outing to a campground in Yura, a rural area about 40 minutes away from Arequipa. We left early on Tuesday morning and came back Tuesday night fully exhausted, but it was fun and a good time of fellowship for the group. Amongst the things we did were the following:
Danny climbed a mountain while Anne took pictures and read her book.
Anne tried really hard to convince Edgardo (Joel and his wife Jaky´s son) to take a smiling picture, but Edgardo was feeling sassy.
A lot of people went swimming in the thermal baths that they have at the campground, but after spending about 30 seconds in the suffocating, enclosed, sulfur-emanating pool room, Danny and I decided that we would pass.
Other than that, we´ve (I´ve) spent a lot of time this week getting ready for life back in the States. We found out earlier this week that Danny´s law school orientation has been pushed up to be Monday, August 16th instead of Thursday the 19th. Since we are moving to Charlottesville two days before that, I´ve been trying to organize as much as possible now.
Amongst the moving tasks, I have:
1.) Finally booked the UHaul to take our stuff to Cville.
2.) Created a month-long meal plan to get us through August.
3.) Wrote shopping lists to correspond to said meal plan.
4.) Finally figured out our health insurance situation.
5.) Re-wrote our monthly budget because of said health insurance (health care reform please kick in NOW).
I will also begin the following shortly:
1.) Investigating removable wall-paper (we´re not allowed to paint, but I don´t think I can stand an all-white place for too much longer).
2.) Exploring the city´s artisan markets to see what kind of decorations we can bring home (Life-sized stuffed alpaca? YES PLEASE).
3.) Hounding Bryn Mawr and American for our immunization records so that UVa can rest assured that we will not contract measles or polio.
More posts to come soon...
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Picture Post
Danny is back in Ciudad de Dios today, but I am stuck at home, recuperating from our work day yesterday, where we spent about 6 hours in the (very strong) sun cleaning up the land that El Camino has bought to plant a church in Ciudad de Dios.
Yesterday confirmed that I am not cut out for manual labor (to my credit, I´m only on my fourth day of antibiotics). But Danny had a great time working with the other guys to clear massive stones out of the earth.
Most interestingly, since the land that the church bought used to be a slaughterhouse, as we were cleaning out the rocks, we would periodically find bones/packed manure/cow hair. Yum yum! I will be thinking about that next time we have hamburgers.
Here are some pictures from the great Father´s Day event that was hosted at Ciudad de Dios:
Judy and her dad - they were both very excited for this picture.
Ivana - my little helper, who accompanies me everywhere in Ciudad de Dios, always holding my hand, and likes to hog the prime spot of sitting on my lap.
Mr. Antonio - this gentleman came alone to our event and we adopted him as everyone´s grandfather. He took special care to have a very dignified picture taken of him, and I appreciate that.
Yesterday confirmed that I am not cut out for manual labor (to my credit, I´m only on my fourth day of antibiotics). But Danny had a great time working with the other guys to clear massive stones out of the earth.
Most interestingly, since the land that the church bought used to be a slaughterhouse, as we were cleaning out the rocks, we would periodically find bones/packed manure/cow hair. Yum yum! I will be thinking about that next time we have hamburgers.
Here are some pictures from the great Father´s Day event that was hosted at Ciudad de Dios:
Judy and her dad - they were both very excited for this picture.
Ivana - my little helper, who accompanies me everywhere in Ciudad de Dios, always holding my hand, and likes to hog the prime spot of sitting on my lap.
Mr. Antonio - this gentleman came alone to our event and we adopted him as everyone´s grandfather. He took special care to have a very dignified picture taken of him, and I appreciate that.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Into the Woods...
As I write this, Danny is currently trekking through the ¨Forest of Rocks,¨ which is a large volcanic structure outside of Arequipa, located at about 13,000 feet. Right about now, he and the group from Wisconsin should be sitting down to have a sandwich lunch. I´m at home nursing a sinus infection, so oh well. Danny´s taking pictures of beautiful rock formations; I´m cuddling a Neti Pot.
It has been a blessing to get to know and work alongside this group. They have done really well this week, especially for all of the culture shock, travel exhaustion, etc. I have been very impressed at the maturity of the teenagers on the trip and how it seems like they are really using this experience to think critically about missions and what it means to leave your country (family, culture, favorite foods, etc.) to go spread the Gospel to another people group.
On Sunday, we all headed to Ciudad de Dios to present the dads with a special Father´s Day event. One difference between (certain) lower-class cultures in the U.S. and in Peru is the presence of dads. For example, amongst my 130 students in inner-city DC, only two actually had their dads at home with them. Here, about half of the poorest children live with their fathers and about 25% more at least know who their fathers are and see them periodically.
Only about four dads showed up for the event, but we also had a number of moms come as well, which was encouraging. We started with prayer and a welcome to the dads and then, the children performed a song that I had taught them last week. The (very simple) lyrics are: ¨Children, obey your parents as unto the Lord, because this is right.¨If I were a parent, I would like that song.
After that, a number of the students from Wisconsin performed a mime to music. The mime centered around the story of a girl who originally loved God, but who was distracted and pulled away from Him by other things (each of these played by one student)- i.e. a boyfriend, money, drunkenness, physical beauty. At the end, death comes to try to convince her that she should convince suicide -and she almost does - but God breaks through and saves her from her sin and self-destruction.
I wasn´t sure how many of the kids in attendance would get the symbolism of the mime, but when we asked them what it meant, they were like, 100 percent dead-on - including the 5-year-olds and younger children. We are hoping that the mime will have a strong effect on the adults in attendance and convince them of their need to have Christ in their lives.
Finally, we played a game with the kids and then the children served juice to their parents as a ¨thank you¨ to them.
All in all, a very successful event, and as soon as Danny is back with the camera, pictures will be uploaded too!
It has been a blessing to get to know and work alongside this group. They have done really well this week, especially for all of the culture shock, travel exhaustion, etc. I have been very impressed at the maturity of the teenagers on the trip and how it seems like they are really using this experience to think critically about missions and what it means to leave your country (family, culture, favorite foods, etc.) to go spread the Gospel to another people group.
On Sunday, we all headed to Ciudad de Dios to present the dads with a special Father´s Day event. One difference between (certain) lower-class cultures in the U.S. and in Peru is the presence of dads. For example, amongst my 130 students in inner-city DC, only two actually had their dads at home with them. Here, about half of the poorest children live with their fathers and about 25% more at least know who their fathers are and see them periodically.
Only about four dads showed up for the event, but we also had a number of moms come as well, which was encouraging. We started with prayer and a welcome to the dads and then, the children performed a song that I had taught them last week. The (very simple) lyrics are: ¨Children, obey your parents as unto the Lord, because this is right.¨If I were a parent, I would like that song.
After that, a number of the students from Wisconsin performed a mime to music. The mime centered around the story of a girl who originally loved God, but who was distracted and pulled away from Him by other things (each of these played by one student)- i.e. a boyfriend, money, drunkenness, physical beauty. At the end, death comes to try to convince her that she should convince suicide -and she almost does - but God breaks through and saves her from her sin and self-destruction.
I wasn´t sure how many of the kids in attendance would get the symbolism of the mime, but when we asked them what it meant, they were like, 100 percent dead-on - including the 5-year-olds and younger children. We are hoping that the mime will have a strong effect on the adults in attendance and convince them of their need to have Christ in their lives.
Finally, we played a game with the kids and then the children served juice to their parents as a ¨thank you¨ to them.
All in all, a very successful event, and as soon as Danny is back with the camera, pictures will be uploaded too!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Strike!
The south of Peru is on strike today to protest the country's policy of exporting gas to other countries. The exports make gas in this region more expensive, so naturally, people are mad.
All schools are closed, many businesses are closed, and some streets and bridges are also blocked off (by protesters). This, however, is not the strongest type of¨paro¨ (strike) that exists - when paros are really serious, people don´t even go out in the street. And - we have heard - if they do, they will have stones thrown at them.
Don´t worry, I went to buy laundry detergent today and nobody threw any stones at me (and our local bodega was open, which tells me this is a strike for wussies).
Anyways, in honor of said strike, let´s look at some pictures of the adorable children we have been working with in Ciudad de Dios:
Here is a picture of our friend Luis drawing. Luis is 6 years old and is very proud to be in first grade. He is very mischievous and always has something funny to say.
The day that I took this picture, we were learning about God´s protection and as a part of that, he had to draw something that he was afraid of (but from which God protected him). Problem is, Luis isn´t afraid of anything. We tried to help him think - (¨How about when your mom gets mad? How about sharks?¨) - but to no avail. Finally, a few minutes after we´d given up, he called me over and said, ¨Actually, I am afraid of spiders. Tell me what they look like so I can draw one.¨I guess Luis is more ¨theoretically¨ afraid of spiders.
Here you also see Judy (covering her face with her picture!) - another big personality in the kid´s club and also six years old. I taught her how to say ¨hello¨ and then told her, ¨Look, now you speak English!¨ She looked at me and said, ¨Don´t be silly, that´s just one word.¨
Ahhh, children. :-)
All schools are closed, many businesses are closed, and some streets and bridges are also blocked off (by protesters). This, however, is not the strongest type of¨paro¨ (strike) that exists - when paros are really serious, people don´t even go out in the street. And - we have heard - if they do, they will have stones thrown at them.
Don´t worry, I went to buy laundry detergent today and nobody threw any stones at me (and our local bodega was open, which tells me this is a strike for wussies).
Anyways, in honor of said strike, let´s look at some pictures of the adorable children we have been working with in Ciudad de Dios:
Here is a picture of our friend Luis drawing. Luis is 6 years old and is very proud to be in first grade. He is very mischievous and always has something funny to say.
The day that I took this picture, we were learning about God´s protection and as a part of that, he had to draw something that he was afraid of (but from which God protected him). Problem is, Luis isn´t afraid of anything. We tried to help him think - (¨How about when your mom gets mad? How about sharks?¨) - but to no avail. Finally, a few minutes after we´d given up, he called me over and said, ¨Actually, I am afraid of spiders. Tell me what they look like so I can draw one.¨I guess Luis is more ¨theoretically¨ afraid of spiders.
Here you also see Judy (covering her face with her picture!) - another big personality in the kid´s club and also six years old. I taught her how to say ¨hello¨ and then told her, ¨Look, now you speak English!¨ She looked at me and said, ¨Don´t be silly, that´s just one word.¨
Ahhh, children. :-)
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Earthshudder
Arequipa is known as a very "seismically-active" zone, and last night we received our official welcome into that zone.
It was an earthshudder. Not an earthquake, because it wasn't that serious. More like a hiccup. We were about to fall asleep when it hit, and our basic response was, "Hmm, that was interesting, okay, let's go to bed."
The radio reports that it was 3.9 on the Richter Scale.
It was an earthshudder. Not an earthquake, because it wasn't that serious. More like a hiccup. We were about to fall asleep when it hit, and our basic response was, "Hmm, that was interesting, okay, let's go to bed."
The radio reports that it was 3.9 on the Richter Scale.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
La venganza de la lechuga
In other words,"Revenge of the Lettuce."
Thank you for your patience as we took a short break to allow me to recover from some wicked food poisoning. A few days after arriving in Arequipa, I decided to make myself a nice, leafy salad. Turns out that was a bad idea, as the lettuce grown in Arequipa is especially prone to a particular kind of parasite. Nearly every Arequipan that I have talked to - who knew that I was sick - has been like, "Oh yeah, we don´t eat the lettuce here..." Lesson learned.
Down with health-consciousness! More empanadas, please.
In the meantime, we have settled nicely into our work here. Here´s what our days look like:
7 AM - Wake-up, try not to feel hatred towards insane rooster or barking dogs
8 AM - Danny leaves house for Spanish lessons
8 AM - 12 PM Danny studies Spanish; Anne cleans the house, cooks and reads about missions
1 PM Eat really big lunch (as in Spain, lunch is the primary meal of the day here)
Afternoon Work on church projects
7 - 9 PM Attend ministries of the church (young adults group, a discipleship class, etc.)
On Sunday afternoons, we will be spending our time in Ciudad de Dios, where the church is working on a church plant. We went to Ciudad de Dios for the first time last week and really loved it. Here is a little bit of background on the place itself: Ciudad de Dios is an underdeveloped "suburb" of Arequipa. Many of the city´s manual laborers and domestic workers live there, and although large in size, Ciudad de Dios is comprised mostly of small, one-room houses made out of sillar (a type of volcanic rock). There is no running water in most (if not all) of the houses, and electricity is also seemingly a luxury. There are a few little stores throughout the development - including small restaurants and convenience stores - but not much else.
The church has been working in Ciudad de Dios for years, and has had particular success with its children´s club, which brings about 40 children each week to a small gathering place that the church has built (which is actually attached to the home of the woman who first encouraged the church to come to Ciudad de Dios). It has also expanded to include an adult class and a group for teenagers. Each week, a team of five from the church goes to Ciudad de Dios to run these programs. Our job last week was to help with this children´s club.
As soon as our car drove up to the children´s club site, about 7 children came running out of the room to bang on the windows of the car and greet us. Three stray dogs soon followed (more on that later). I was encouraged by how excited the children were to see the team arrive. We played with them for a little while and then started the day´s activity, which included singing some worship songs with them, helping them memorize a verse from the Bible (1 Samuel 16:7) and telling them the story of David´s election as the king of Israel. We ended the day with a coloring activity. By the way, there is nothing like watching a group of 4-year-olds memorize a Bible verse (in 5 minutes) to convict you that you need to do better at memorizing Scripture.
Cute anecdote about the children - i.e. "kids say the darnest things no matter what country you´re in" : As we were getting ready to start the lesson, a little girl in a red Polartec hat (it´s winter here) ran into the classroom. She was about three years old, possibly a bit younger. So I said hi to her and asked her how she was and she looks up at me with her gigantic eyes and her cute little hat and says, grinning, "I´m fine. My mom just gave me a shot!"
Not-so-cute anecdote about dogs: Although our offical job was to help with the children, my unofficial role at Ciudad de Dios became that of the Dog Whisperer. There are a lot of stray dogs in Peru and especially in Ciudad de Dios. They are surprisingly obedient (even the real street dogs who have no owners), but on Sunday, one dog took it upon himself to interrupt our meeting and incite the other neighborhood dogs (who were perched on surrounding rooftops) to go absolutely crazy. We finally got him out of the children´s club, but he kept trying to open the door and sneak back in. So I summonned all of my dog whispering knowledge and was able to put an end to his mischief with a series of calm, assertive looks and "Shhhts."
This weekend, we´ll be at a marriage retreat, but after that, we´ll be going to Ciudad de Dios on a weekly basis to support the church´s teams there. We are especially looking forward to our work in that community.
Thank you to everyone who has sent us e-mails and even video messages while we´ve been here in Peru! We are so grateful for your friendship and your prayers. Please join with us in praising the Lord for giving us such an amazing opportunity to serve the church in Peru - we have been so blessed here by our new experiences and continue each day in thankfulness for how God is growing us in our faith and especially in our love for missionaries and other evangelists.
Thank you for your patience as we took a short break to allow me to recover from some wicked food poisoning. A few days after arriving in Arequipa, I decided to make myself a nice, leafy salad. Turns out that was a bad idea, as the lettuce grown in Arequipa is especially prone to a particular kind of parasite. Nearly every Arequipan that I have talked to - who knew that I was sick - has been like, "Oh yeah, we don´t eat the lettuce here..." Lesson learned.
Down with health-consciousness! More empanadas, please.
In the meantime, we have settled nicely into our work here. Here´s what our days look like:
7 AM - Wake-up, try not to feel hatred towards insane rooster or barking dogs
8 AM - Danny leaves house for Spanish lessons
8 AM - 12 PM Danny studies Spanish; Anne cleans the house, cooks and reads about missions
1 PM Eat really big lunch (as in Spain, lunch is the primary meal of the day here)
Afternoon Work on church projects
7 - 9 PM Attend ministries of the church (young adults group, a discipleship class, etc.)
On Sunday afternoons, we will be spending our time in Ciudad de Dios, where the church is working on a church plant. We went to Ciudad de Dios for the first time last week and really loved it. Here is a little bit of background on the place itself: Ciudad de Dios is an underdeveloped "suburb" of Arequipa. Many of the city´s manual laborers and domestic workers live there, and although large in size, Ciudad de Dios is comprised mostly of small, one-room houses made out of sillar (a type of volcanic rock). There is no running water in most (if not all) of the houses, and electricity is also seemingly a luxury. There are a few little stores throughout the development - including small restaurants and convenience stores - but not much else.
The church has been working in Ciudad de Dios for years, and has had particular success with its children´s club, which brings about 40 children each week to a small gathering place that the church has built (which is actually attached to the home of the woman who first encouraged the church to come to Ciudad de Dios). It has also expanded to include an adult class and a group for teenagers. Each week, a team of five from the church goes to Ciudad de Dios to run these programs. Our job last week was to help with this children´s club.
As soon as our car drove up to the children´s club site, about 7 children came running out of the room to bang on the windows of the car and greet us. Three stray dogs soon followed (more on that later). I was encouraged by how excited the children were to see the team arrive. We played with them for a little while and then started the day´s activity, which included singing some worship songs with them, helping them memorize a verse from the Bible (1 Samuel 16:7) and telling them the story of David´s election as the king of Israel. We ended the day with a coloring activity. By the way, there is nothing like watching a group of 4-year-olds memorize a Bible verse (in 5 minutes) to convict you that you need to do better at memorizing Scripture.
Cute anecdote about the children - i.e. "kids say the darnest things no matter what country you´re in" : As we were getting ready to start the lesson, a little girl in a red Polartec hat (it´s winter here) ran into the classroom. She was about three years old, possibly a bit younger. So I said hi to her and asked her how she was and she looks up at me with her gigantic eyes and her cute little hat and says, grinning, "I´m fine. My mom just gave me a shot!"
Not-so-cute anecdote about dogs: Although our offical job was to help with the children, my unofficial role at Ciudad de Dios became that of the Dog Whisperer. There are a lot of stray dogs in Peru and especially in Ciudad de Dios. They are surprisingly obedient (even the real street dogs who have no owners), but on Sunday, one dog took it upon himself to interrupt our meeting and incite the other neighborhood dogs (who were perched on surrounding rooftops) to go absolutely crazy. We finally got him out of the children´s club, but he kept trying to open the door and sneak back in. So I summonned all of my dog whispering knowledge and was able to put an end to his mischief with a series of calm, assertive looks and "Shhhts."
This weekend, we´ll be at a marriage retreat, but after that, we´ll be going to Ciudad de Dios on a weekly basis to support the church´s teams there. We are especially looking forward to our work in that community.
Thank you to everyone who has sent us e-mails and even video messages while we´ve been here in Peru! We are so grateful for your friendship and your prayers. Please join with us in praising the Lord for giving us such an amazing opportunity to serve the church in Peru - we have been so blessed here by our new experiences and continue each day in thankfulness for how God is growing us in our faith and especially in our love for missionaries and other evangelists.
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