A Schreven's Peruvian Voyage

State Side

2010-06-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

Welp, as of about a week ago. I finished my journey to the states. Thus concluding my adventures in Peru. There is no longer a Schreven roaming the jungles of Peru. Instead Now I am back, and just as busy as ever. Even though I left Peru, my service has not ended. I look forward to many more years of serving my God.
CHAU!

2010-05-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

I have become more Peruvian tan I realized. During this past week everyone has been bustling about during the mornings and evenings all bundled up in long sleeves and pants. No longer is the sun beating down on us, scorching us before we even have a chance to get out of bed. Infact, the temperature has dropped enough that we are actually sleeping with blankets, instead of sweating all night. Normally there comes a slightly cold season during June; but unlike everything else in Peru, this cold weather was actually a little early. The first day this crazy weather hit we all grabbed our sweatshirts and huddled in a room with only one small window (glass on windows does not really exist here, if you are lucky you will have screens to keep the bugs out, therefore cold air can enter the house freely). There we were all bundled up, avoiding any moving air, thinking how odd it must be for Peru to have nearly freezing temperatures. Then we stumbled upon a thermometer…only to find out that the temperature was really 72 F.

2010-05-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

So turns out that we all had to go out and clear jungle land, so that we could plant some Palm trees for Palm oil. This is what I looked like at the end of the day. We had burned the area previously so we were working with ash. Working with a machete is great fun...even if it does give you blisters. As the say here in Peru - a machete is your best friend. :)

2010-05-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

Brittany and I taking a coco brake while we were working on the contruction site in Inahuaya.

2010-05-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

Now that we have officially entered dry season, leaving the rainy season in the dust, we have begun to have rain. Crazy. Normally with April showers come May flowers; but here with April showers come gripes (colds). So we found ourselves once again heading up another medical clinic. This time we were lucky to have a large group from Michigan and Texas help us. This was by far one of the busiest clinics we have had with attending 1500 patients in four and a half days. Thankfully we had 5 doctors. My main job this clinic was to work as a translator for some of the doctors. Kept me busy…and by the end of the week I had talked so much that my voice was completely alienated. My voice is still somewhere off in space, lost in translation.

2010-04-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

No matter where you go, you’ll find it. In whichever restaurant you dine, it will be there too, perched atop every table. You see, here in Peru every table not only has the standard red, white and yellow bottles half filled with ketchup, mustard or mayonnaise, but accompanying this triplet is the glorious green bottle. This magical green bottle is filled with an uber tasty aji sauce (a slightly spicy sauce usually made from yellow peppers). Any meal can always be dressed up with aji sauce. Sure the food is good without it, but drizzle a little aji on your food and the world is a better place.
Just the other day while happily chewing on the standard white rice, converted to the tasty side by aji, I was struck with an epiphany. Life can be a lot like food and God like the aji. We can live our life day to day and do alright. Our lives have a little bit of flavor, but then one day God comes along. All of the sudden our lives are bursting with flavor and spice. Looking back we can see that we were just living, but now, with aji, we are alive. Never again will we want to go back to plain old rice, we will be continuously seeking the aji. Once you’ve tasted life with God, you’ll be seeking him for the rest of your life. So drizzle on the aji and let your life come alive.

2010-04-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

Lauren, Josh and I chillin on a Pekipeki...cruzing around on the mighty Ucayali river.
We spent a month in Inahuaya, a little village on the Ucayali river, doing some clinics, health lessons, rebuilding a collapsing church, evagelistic meetings and socializing with the local villagers. It was a great month and a cool new eye opener to more of the peruvian culture of the jungle.

2010-04-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

We just may have gotten rained on during our travels in the Pekipekis...you are looking at the calm before the storm...

2010-04-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Thisis how we travel from village to village...in Pekipeki boats!!!
Standing beside the boat is Enya, our boat driver, and inside the boat is our mobile dental-medical team. (I´m on the back left)

2010-04-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

More triage in Santa Rosa... the lady in the yellow shirt leaning against the wall is sporting the typical Shipebo attire. Their clothes are always super bright and colorful.

2010-04-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Another clinic inside a school at Santa Rosa...me in Triage again...This was a really cool village, it was a Shipebo village, the local tribes of the area. I got very confused many times, becase they kept talking to me in Shipebo.

2010-04-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

Mobile Clinic in Barrasgueras...under the mango trees.

2010-04-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

This was the nurse squad plus our a local Peruvian doctor for our moblie clinics near Inahuaya. Each day we would split from the big boat and travel to a remote village and do a clinic. All of our supplies are strapped to Lauren and I´s backs. A clinic in two back packs...how exciting is that!

2010-04-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

These are the newly baptized members of the 17th of September Church.

2010-04-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Helping decipher doctor´s handwriting on a precription......my career as a nurse has begun

2010-04-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Calling out people for traige...my chance to slaughter some names (especally since everyone here has two last names...as if one isn´t bad enough)

2010-03-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

Mira!! They suprised me for my birthday. They made me a sign and taped it to the door. I didn´t even have a chance to make it out to the bathroom without a happy birthday wish. What great buddies I live with.

2010-03-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

TRIAGE!!! Over the last week I spent a good 46 or more hours in triage. We had a amazing clinic and attended over 1000 people.

2010-03-28T15:04:00.000-07:00

This is me in our pharmacy.

I just happen to be sitting on some of our boxes that we lugged to our clinic site in Km 8.

Sometimes we get a little bored...but I am sure you would never have guessed that from a picture like this. :)

2010-03-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

Helping out sith song service during JA (our Sabbath afternoon youth program)

Estamos cantando Tengo Paz como un Rio

2010-03-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

A family I spent of lot of my free time with.

2010-03-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

A few of my buddies and I infront of the church

2010-03-11T07:28:00.000-08:00

This is about what your feet look like all the time...very dirty
(My foot is the on the far right side with the black chacos)
I also have a pretty crazy chaco tan from wearing my chacos every single day

2010-03-11T07:25:00.000-08:00

Me with our neighbors who sell us water every day

2010-03-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

The entire month of February down here is a big fiesta called Carnaval. The whole point of this month long holiday is to soak people with waterballons. So here is me completely drenched (even if you can´t tell), I was just getting ready to go to our Sabbath afternoon youth program when I was attacked by all the neighbor kids. In the picture you can see that Roy is about to dump a dish of water on the kids head. Month long water fight...oh the fun of eternal summer.

2010-03-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

A crazy cool sunset from the other night

2010-02-25T14:13:00.000-08:00

This week finds me in a new epoch of my Peruvian life. I believe that rainey season is finally upon us. It has drizzled on and off all week. One moment it is cool and drizzly and 4.5 seconds later the sun is out and its roasting hot. The weather is extremely moody. Wednesday afternoon we had a grand old strom. The rain was pounding down – it was crazy, a true tropical downpour. The bad thing was that I had to go out in the midst of it. I doned my rain jacket and chacos (because I don´t have rainboots) and splashed out in the rain. Turns out that my rainjacket is only suited for the slight drizzels of the homeland and not for torrential downpours, needless tos ay I was drenched within moments. Before entering each house I would wring out my skirt. During each visit I would dry out a little bit, just to get drenched once more. I was having a blast splashing around in the puddles and rivers. However, everyone thoguth I was crazy – absolutely crazy. Thanks to the rain a big river/lake appeared seperating me from the house of one of my studnets. But I wasn´t going to let that stop me, so I trudged a ways through wáter up to my knees. After my lesson I once again trudged back through the lake. Inspite of being drenched I was haveing great fun – I love the rain.
I just recently learned that the average raindrop falls at about 17 mph. As I was slogging through the rain, this thought crossed my mind. Then I began to think of all the many raindrops that were pelting me and how much their combined force equaled. If you think about how many riandrops fall during a terrential downpour and then multiply that by 17 mph, that´s enough to kill a person…

2010-02-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

Ptwang! Ptwong!

We had just finished our nightly evangelistic meeting and everyone was brushing their teeth and performing other pre-bed rituals. Everyone was tired after a long day, at least almost all of us were. However, since today was the birthday of a young man baptized last weekend a small group of us decided to go sing to him. Hence the ptwanging and the ptwonging – we were tuning the guitar to heighten the excitement. After the ptwanging morphed into a more cheerful noise, out little inconspicuous group of preuvians and gringos set off into the night. It was quite dark, but a few stars were peaking between the mango leaves above. We crept along the dark, dusty street trying not to cause a commotion in the sleeping village. A few poeple stumbled on some roots growing haphazardly in the middle of the street, but we managed to reach Bryon´s house without an deaths. As we scurried around to the door at the back of the house, someone yet again tripped, thus giving away our secrecy.

¨Who is it?¨ came a voice from inside the house.

We quietly huddled in the darkness hoping to fool Bryon into thinking the noise was only a stray dog. After a few agonizing moments we continued on our quest. With his mom in the lead we burst through the door with a rather spastic ¨¡Cumplianos Feliz!¨

Bryon´s startled look quickly turned into a beaming smile. After the birthday song we continued with many other traditional peruvian birthday songs. As the songs died down we joked about how it was now time to make a wish and blow out the birthday candles, even though there were none. But then, his mom grabbed their one candle that was iluminating the house and held it infront of Bryon´s face. After a brief moment, Bryon blew out the candle, thus leaving us in total darkness. But that didn´t faze us one bit. We broke out in a rather Mexican sounding song while his mother searched for some matches to light the candle once more. After the song died down we said our goodbyes then left the family in peace. Bryon thanked us profusely for such a nice suprise.

As we were walking back I thought of how we completely made Bryon´s day with our simple act of thoughtfulness. We could have all just gone to bed after our evening meeting or just chilled in our house. Instead we made the effort to brighten another´s day. So many times we as selfish humans are so caught up in our own lives that we don´t realice is that a simple act of kindness could really brighten somebody´s day. So put self aside and go suprise someone, make their day.

2010-02-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of our gang down here...look at us we are all matching...

2010-02-15T14:06:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, February 7 was Super Bowl Sunday. However, seeing as we do not have a TV down here, this day passed just like any other. But we, being a big group of Americans decided that we were not going to let anything stop us. So on Wednesday we decided to relive Super Bowl Sunday with our own Super Bowl party. After making a massive bowl of guacamole and making some chips in our oven we started watching the game. Unfortunately the copy of the Super Bowl that we acquired was lacking all the commercials, but that’s okay. We had the game to watch. Or at least we thought we had the game to watch, turns out that our version of the Super Bowl only went to the first couple minutes of the 3rd quarter. So we had great fun watching the first part of the Super Bowl only to be left hanging as to how the game ended. Thankfully someone knew the outcome, so at least I know who won. I just think it’s funny that we were able to pull off a Super Bowl Party, yet lacked the most important part – the ending. Hehehehehe….
Just in case any of you are wondering if all I do is things like watch the Super Bowl, it’s not true. This week I was just as busy as ever with visiting all my students, informing them about nutrition. Also our evangelistic meetings have been going really well. We now have more people coming each night than we have benches for…and we have a lot of benches. It is neat to see people get happier day by day as they learn more about our Savior.

2010-02-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

This is a small section of Los Jardines. I walk the street of this invasion and many other streets as I visit my students. It is pretty dry and dusty or soggy and muddy, but it is a pleasant little place. The women just string a net across the street in the evening and that´s where we play volleyball. If a motokar comes (you can see one about the middle of the picture) then we finish our volley and lift up the net for the motokar to pass.

2010-02-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

Just incase any of you think that I am crazy I really am not. Yes this is a picture of me and my toothbrush, but it isn´t just any toothbrush...you see my good toothbrush died, so I bought another one. But this toothbush was terrible and made me hate brushing my teeth, so I went on a quest for a good toothbrush, turns out that Lauren Kelley had a extra toothbrush from her dad who is a dentist and she lovingly shared this amazingly normal toothbrush with me. Made me happy...so here is a picture of happy mindy and her toothbrush.

2010-02-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

This is Martin (La Sierra University Student who is studying the bible with the folks of Los Jardines) and I after eating lunch at one of our students house. We had a delicious fried rice (not a food typical of Peru, but the wife likes asian food, do we had fried rice) wich chicken, cabbage salad and fried platanos (an incredibaly typical food of Peru - you can´t escape it...it is like a delicious black plague...)

2010-02-07T12:49:00.000-08:00

This is a new fruit called sapote (which is a that sounds very similar to the word for frog, hmmm...) it is pretty delicious. It resembles a sweet pumpkin...

2010-02-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

Good day and welcome to hour 778 of the 17th of September. This has been a very odd day, with drastically changing weather and every tweleve hours the sun goes down and comes back up again as if days were changing. But each time I check I am still in the 17th of September.

But life is grand here in this non-expeditious day. At first the people were a little bit shy, but now that we have lived with them for a while they have opened up. The people who were once quiet during my lessons, now just can´t wait to chat and are usually anxious for another lesson. I am glad that I have now reached this level of friendship with my new students. The little kids that used to only stare at me now come running up to me and give me hugs.

We have started our nightly evangelistic meetings once again. This means that I am even more busy than ever. I spend all day running around to the houses of my 50 some students, then rush back to help cook supper. Then its off to set up for the meetings. During our meetings we have two of our Bible instructors, Matt Hartman from Southern and Josue from the Adventist University in Lima, who play the role of our MC´s. They are both very creative and are always entertaining. It puts everyone in a good mood for the meetings. Last night was the funniest thing yet. Matt being from America speaks English and Spanish, but Josue is Peruvian and only knows Spanish, however, they decided that they would try something new. So Matt did do the welcome in English and Josue translated it into Spanish. Matt started off…and Josue followed suite with his equivalent of the translation. Only for some odd reason, the two messages were nothing alike. Even though the Peruvians couldn´t understand the English and the horribly mistranslated message, they all thought this event was quite funny due to how strange english sounds to them the reactions of people like me who know both languages.

2010-01-31T13:53:00.000-08:00

Me and Dora´s grandkids.

2010-01-31T13:50:00.000-08:00

This is my friend Matt...
Matt is doing surgery on Mindy...
Mindy has a worm in her foot...
Matt is extracting the worm...
Mindy´s foot is now free of all the worm guts...
all that is left is a small divet...
where Mindy´s worm used to live...

2010-01-31T13:39:00.000-08:00

This week was far from normal for me. One could say that its events were earth shaking. However, inspite of all these crazy happenings I am still stuck in the 17th of September.
For starters I will ramble about the craziest happening thes week. Late in the afternoon of January 25, as I was preparing supper with a few of the other girls, I felt an odd sensation under my feet. It was as if the earth was quivering. A quick burst of excitment exploded into the air. ¨Was that an earthquake?¨We were all questioning this but then we felt the earth still moving around a bit. ¨Yup, it sure was...but its still going!¨Agter about a second more of gentle quivers the earth gave a bigger jolt then returned to its dormant lifeless state. But we had an earthquake...and I was lucky enough to feel it. Some of the others were walking around and missed the rattling experience. We had a pretty good little shake that lasted for several seconds. Nobody was hurt - nothing seems to have collapsed - it was great!! Later on we learned that it had been a 5.8 earthquake about with the epicenter about 12 miles away. Hooray for cool experiences.
Compared to the rest of the week, everything else just isn´t as exciting. I spent my week running around from house to house teacvhing my students about nutrition. I have about 50 students in all to visit one-on-one during the week - keeps me busy. After repeating each lesson about 50 times I have them quite memorized - these are some words in spanish that I know quite well. However, after my teaching there is usually a little time for some volleyball. - Quick little Culture Tidbit - South America may be famous for its soccer, but it is mainly the men who play. The women arte always to busy playing volleyball to even care about soccer. So every afternoon volleyball nets are set up across the streets, which are transformed into various volley courts.

2010-01-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

I have just come to realize that I have been here for a long time...more than 6 months now actually. But I did not come to this blatant realization by looking at a calender, reminiscing of times at home or anything else normal like that. Instead it was brown sugar that brought the dawning of this thought. You see, I am so accustomed to life down here that I really am starting to forget about the things of my home land (not my friends and family though – I still have vivid mind pictures of you all). It now seems normal to me to sweep my dirt floor and to often wash my clothes by hand (however it is quite a treat to go back to Km 38 and use a real washing machine...so quick, so effortless). Anyways enough of this rambling, back to the inspiration of my realization. One of my SM buddies received some food ingredients from home so that he could make a good old family tradition recipe. I happened to see some of these ingredients on the counter and was puzzled by one ingredient in a clear little baggy. “Self,” I questioned “What on earth is this light colored smooth brown mush?” Not having a good reply for myself I asked those around me. Dane starred at me for a brief moment, them replied slowly, “Well...its brown sugar.” All of the sudden all those many hours baking cookies came rushing back to me and I realized just how long I have been in Peru. You see we have brown sugar down here but it comes in large granules and is blondy in color - completely different. But all is well down here, because homesickness still hasn't set in.
Daily life has fallen back into its normal groove. I go house to house teaching my health classes and the like. One episode that was quite hilarious this week was the meeting of Dora. I just so happened to be at the house of a student, when this other lady off in the distance started waving frantically at me and pointing off to her right. “Ven a mi casa!” Ven a mi casa proxima, di? I heard her faintly calling. I waved to her, nodded and smiled, implying that yes I would come to her house next. So she smiled, turned around and continued on her way. With that matter settled, I continued teaching....but not for long. The lady repeated this crazy process, not once, but twice more before disappearing from my view. So I finished up my lesson real quick went to this lady's house next door. I approached the house a bit hesitantly, not sure of what awaited me. But soon I found myself in the presence of Dora, an incredibly happy, bubbly lady, with absolutely no fears at all. I was a bit taken aback by her openness, because most of my students are still quite shy and reserved...but not all. Dora probably would have dragged me to her house for a friendly little chat if I had not come on my own free will. Yeah for people who are excited about life.
I believe we may be starting rainy season (even though we still have had a lot of hot days). The reason I say this is because we had a torrential down pour on Friday, and I had the pleasure of being stuck in the middle of it. Horray! You see, since the Bible workers have not yet reached the Sabbath lesson in their Bible studies, we have not held a church service out at the new site. Instead we have been splitting up and going to little churches in the surrounding area, to help out with the worship services. This past weekend I decided to help at Hierbas Buenas, which is close to our mission base at Km 38. So I got to go back to base for the weekend. Lauren was going out to base too, so we left 17 de Septiembre on Friday afternoon. All started out well, the weather was dry and nice as we climbed in the Motokar to go to the Pista (main highway). But then it started to sprinkle...then pour. Lauren and I happily bounced along in our motokar, clean and dry – but not for long. Soon we got to the Pista, paid our moto driver and proceeded to stand on the side of the road and attempt to hail a taxi...in the pouring rain (and it was South American rain too, not just or piddly US rain). We were drenched in moments, but didn't care. We were laughing and joking the whole time...and everyone was laughing at us too. What were two white girls doing drenched on the side of the highway. Normally it doesn't take very long to get a taxi, but for some odd reason, that day it did. Nobody wanted to take us 34 kilometers away – that was just way too far. So we chilled in the rain for at least 20 minutes. Several motokars and taxis offered a ride but then looked at us like we were crazy upon learning our desired destination. Or they would try to charge us outlandish prices. Finally some nice chap gave us a lift, and when we got back to Km 38 we had some nice warm tea and all was well. Which is what is great about life, it always keeps going on, no matter what happens and no matter what attitude a person chooses. So why not have fun with it all, even if you are slightly cold and soaked, find something to laugh about, even if it is just laughing with those who are laughing at you.

2010-01-17T13:25:00.001-08:00

So has closed another week. No more clinic, but still lots of people asking for medical attention. January is flying by and still the weather is the same. It seems that rainy season is not going to come. But now, since I am publishing this on the web, we will probably get solid downpours until April.(At least me hopes to trick the rain into coming). Surprisingly life is going quite well being stuck in the 17 of September (the settlement where I am living right now) each day is quite different…unlike Groundhog Day. Each day I am fortunate enough to escape into a settlement by the name of Los Jardines de Manantay or in English the gardens. The ironic thing is that there are hardly any plants or trees…quite ungarden like. This past week I spent cruising around in the dusty streets meeting people and acquiring them for my health classes. I have quite a handful of families, some 40 or so. It is nice now that my level of Spanish has improved enough that I can chat with the people without lots of pretending to understand. Not very many exciting things happened this week, life was pretty chill. Melanie and I lit a blazing inferno in front of the church (don’t worry Mom I practiced good fire techniques, nothing burned but the intended doomed branches). We were all the branches trimmed from a tree that were in the way of the newly built church. With the jungle heat and humidity added to the heat of the fire, the temperature was roasting. If we had had marshmallows they would have melted in the bag, before we even opened it. In fact the bag probably would have melted too…into one big gooey sticky yummy mess. Too bad marshmallows don’t exist down here. Any ways, that is the sum of me week, but here is an extra tidbit. My week was brightened by another new fruit – Sapote. A bright orange pumpkin-melon like fruit. I am still amazed at the crazy variety of odd fruits down here. Some are good…others are better left lost in the jungle…for the monkeys.

2010-01-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

The final day of clinic...with all our stuff from clinic piled on the truck, plus building tools from the church we are constructing, plus our medical team...plus some patients...plus some random kids.

2010-01-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

Delivery of meds through our little window

2010-01-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

Need Meds?

Our pharmacy at this last clinic...I am in the blue scrubs.

2010-01-10T15:28:00.000-08:00

Triage!!

2010-01-10T15:27:00.000-08:00

Here I am overlooking a quaint valley from one of the rock walls at Machu Picchu...the storm is just blowing in that completely soaked us.
:)

2010-01-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

A random bus stop...oh look I found my dad...

2010-01-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

Me and the crazy labies

(Our professional lab techs Matt and Kevin)

2010-01-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

The famous Machu Picchu

Behind it the monstrous WaynaPicchu that we hiked up...one stone stair after the other.

2010-01-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

Me and the VW in Machu Picchu

Clinic: Episode 3

2010-01-10T15:20:00.001-08:00

After returning to Pucallpa, we had one crazy day to pack up the whole pharmacy and travel out to Km 4 for our next medical clinic. The clinic was a pretty normal one, no extreme cases, but lots of people who needed help. In 5 days the medical team saw 811 people. Our clinic site was a small little building (quite a bit smaller than the size of an average living room)with a dirt floor. We were quite crammed – with 2 doctor rooms, two triage rooms, a registration area, pharmacy and a laboratory making it fun to perform clinic duties. Thankfully the dental team had a little house all to their own. It was fun to complete another clinic week. I love the chance to learn more medically and have the opportunity to come in contact with so many individuals and to help them. The new area is really dusty, so lots of people had respiratory problems and we ran into many who had crazy high blood pressures, one lady had shingles, one man had a huge bulge of blood vessels on his hand, some just wanted vitamins and worm meds; however, the most interesting case was a lady who had had a piece of wood stuck in her foot for over a year. Due to the dusty conditions, Doctor took her to his clinic to do the surgery, so I didn’t get to watch, but it was still a pretty crazy case. There are always interesting things that happen during clinic (including getting woken up each morning around 2 or 3 by the line forming outside waiting for medical attention) and lots of interesting people with crazy stories. But now another clinic has passed and Tuesday the travel team will be moving out to the new location. Funny thing is that our new home is named the 17 of September…so technically I can say that I will be living in the 17 of September for the next two months, it is going to be a very long eventful day…hehehehehe.

Christmas …minus the Christmas Atmosphere

2010-01-10T15:19:00.000-08:00

Times have been flying by….the seasons should have changed, but they have not. Christmas time came and left, yet the blistering jungle heat and humidity is still the same. It was hard to get in the Christmas spirit without the cold and the snow. But the great thing about the coming of Christmas was some free time. Lucky me got the chance to travel down south with none other than my brother, dad, mom and Andrew Vizcarra. We had a crazy fun time. The first episode of our trip was eating fresh granadilla (slimy fish egg looking fruit, that is uber delicious) from my very own back yard jungle here in Pucallpa. Then we boarded a bus and headed for the colder regions of Peru. We had some crazy bus experiences, including a few pointless bus rides and ended up flying down south, rather than taking 4 days to travel there by bus. But the experiences were all dandy. My family got to see Cusco, Machu Picchu, Arequipa, and lots of random country in between. Cusco was a classic historic city with a delicious restaurant named Jack’s. Machu Picchu was better than it is hyped up to be. When we first arrived it was completely fogged over. Needless to say we were a bit bummed. But then the fog lifted and the architecture of ages past was revealed - green grassy fields, stone remains of stone houses, llamas…and tourists. We stayed in Machu Picchu all day, walking among the ruins, chasing llamas, climbing up WaynaPicchu (the big tall mountain behind Machu Picchu) for an amazing view of Peru’s most famous tourist trap. It was absolutely amazing to be seeing, touching and smelling one of the 7 wonders of the world. Andrew, Jonathan and I had a crazy adventure trying to get to Bolivia so that I could renew my visa (My parents camped out in Cusco for an extra day) To make a long story short, we crossed the border illegally at least 5 times in the process of just trying to exit Peru and enter Bolivia. Then to add to the excitement, after successfully exciting Peru and entering Bolivia, we walked back into Peru and stayed the night there, returning to Bolivia the next day to leave the country officially. Then since it was Christmas day we decided to seek out a decent Christmas meal. So we found a local street vendor. I had some sort of warm tea (it was quite cold down south), not sure what kind, but quite delicious. Some sort of tasty tea, was my Christmas dinner, which I drank while staying illegally in Peru. What a Christmas! All too soon Christmas break was over and it was time to go back to Pucallpa. Traveling around was an epic experience. I made friends with people from Spain and Argentina and other random places in the world. It was amazing to be able to talk to people in Spanish.
One of the crazy things we did during break was go to the local market and buy bread, cheese, basil and avocado and sit and eat it in the main plaza in Arequipa. Take note that this is not something that anybody does…especially not tourists. We had some people that stared at us the entire time we were eating; others who would walk by and look, only to turn around and look again and again then proceed to laugh at us. We were definitely the most entertaining thing in the square. Nobody could figure out what on earth Americans were doing sitting on the ground, eating avocado and bread. Try it sometime…it is more fun than you think…and quite delicious. (Uncle John…next time you visit a foreign country I want to see a picture of you testing this out…)

2009-12-14T12:01:00.001-08:00

PS...don´t miss the pictures to follow

2009-12-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Plenty of crazy things have been a foot as of recently. Sadly I have not been able to inform any of my great experiences with my faithful followers. But alas, I have emerged from the depths of the jungle and have come out to battle the city of Pucallpa once more to bring you news from the chacra. To explain a little further, after finishing the campaign at km 8, my travel team and I took off to a new location - Tupac Amaru. A quaint little village way back in the jungle (the place where we had the medical clinic oh so long ago). Due to its semi-remoteness, we did not get to town very often (which is fine by me, I absolutely love the jungle). As I write to you now, we have just finished our campaign here in Tupac and are getting ready for Christmas break. (So it could be a good long while before you have from me again – but do not worry, I am thriving on my rice, beans and aguaje).

Almost 10 years ago, Tupac had a Adventist Church. Sadly the leaders all moved away and the church crumbled. There a man that has been keeping up the land of the church, even though there is no longer a standing church – just posts. This man has been praying for years that someone would come to revive the church. He was starting to get discouraged that God was not hearing his prayers, because nobody was coming to help. The crazy thing is that it is a law here in Peru that if nothing happens with a piece of land for 10 years, the land is up for grabs. When we came, the man was super excited because it was just 2 more weeks until the land would be up for grabs. God worked wonders and lead us here just in time to start building a church, before someone else stole the land. Over the past weeks we had our evangelistic campain (and tried hard to not get eaten alive by mosquitoes). Just last weekend we had many baptisms in the nearby river. My daily focus of this campaign was the same as last. To visit house to house teaching people about nutrition and the like. I have many great students here who are anxious to learn and now that my castellano is a bit better I can teach a little more and understand more.

I will have to admit that my experience here in Tupac has been way better than life in Km 8. Tupac is a little village deep in the jungle, meaning lots of trees, a river and lots of cool stuff. Km was the outskirts of Pucallpa, full of people, dust and motokars. Here in Tupac, my friends have taught me all kinds of things about the jungle (Jungle life is uber- duber exciting). There is one family that I have gotten to know especially well. Recently I have learned how to properly cut a coconut with a machete, without cutting of my fingers. Bloody coconut juice just is not the same. I have also learned a little better how use a machete in general. Machetes are the most practical tool in the world – my new years revolution will be to never be found without a machete.

And now for something completely different - I have learned how to fish with a net. This may sound easy, but is actually a little complicated - especially when all of the words used to describe this process are new to you. I did lots of nodding and pretending to understand, when in reality I did not really have a clue. When it came time to trough the net I practically lost my balance and almost fell in the river. But alas all was well and I did not fall in. It was a great fishing trip – I paddled the long dugout canoe up the muddy river. Upon returning back to dry land, we fried up the fish and my little stomach feasted for the first time on fishy goodness. That same day we also went out to the chakra (field) and feasted on all kinds of fruits – the best part of which was that I ate nearly 15 guabas – a true feast of fuzzy white goodness. Another day this same family invited me over and fed me rice, potatoes and …piranha. I was actually surprised how good this all was. Needless to say I have fallen in love with jungle life. Every day brings something new, exciting and unexpected. Each day there is something more to learn. It is great to wake up each morning, with the expectation of something great happening, but not know what.

2009-12-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

Walla Walla University representatives here in Peru!!

2009-12-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Me and one of my study buddies

2009-12-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving!

There weren´t enough plates and silverware for all, so I ate out of a tupperware like container with my fingers, the food has never tasted so good.

2009-12-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

Taken during our grand pineapple spree.

We were eating at least three pineapples each meal, three meals a day for quite some time. Sadly, the pineapple season has come to a close and hunting season will not open up agian until next November...

2009-12-14T11:20:00.000-08:00

LOOK...LOOK!!!

A PINE tree!!!

I was overjoyed to find this little glimpse of the northwest behind my Tupac home. Who knows how this pine tree got here, but it made me happy everytime I looked at it. The only thing it is missing is snow...

2009-12-14T11:16:00.001-08:00

A snap shot of the travel group soon after nearly tipping over 50 bazillion times in the tipsy dug out canoe

2009-11-08T05:55:00.000-08:00

Welp here we go...anther week has passed. Turns out that with November showers comes pineapple season and the gang at Km 38 harvested 150 pineapples in just under 4 hours, the crazy thing is that they only harvested about a fourth of our field. Oh the great wonders of living in the jungle. Also, I have gleaned pictures of clinic from the Canon cameras in the wild jungles of Peru... so look and don´t get stuck...

2009-11-08T05:52:00.000-08:00

Another part of clinic, after collecting kids height and weight, we check this little chart to see if they are malnourished.

2009-11-08T05:49:00.000-08:00

The village center...the local futbol field...aka my new front yard (my little house is just of to the right outside the pictrue margin...see look, there´s me waving)

2009-11-08T05:48:00.000-08:00

More stitches!

2009-11-08T05:47:00.000-08:00

Tara, Melanie, Me, Lauren and Doctor in our quaint little pharmacy

2009-11-08T05:46:00.000-08:00

Sopla!

2009-11-08T05:44:00.000-08:00

In the early morning hours of clinic...taking blood pressures to make sure people don´t keel over dead before we can help them.

2009-11-08T05:41:00.000-08:00

Me stiching up a ladies foot after Doctor removed a golfball sized tumor.

2009-11-08T05:36:00.000-08:00

The blue building in the back is where we held our clinic, this is the kind neighbor lady that cooked for us each day. Here is a typical meal of rice, beans, chicha morada and boiled platanos.

2009-11-08T05:29:00.001-08:00

Our little well, that we haul all our water from...you just have to be careful to not fall in...

2009-11-08T05:23:00.000-08:00

Triage!!! This is my friend Teresa, notice that I am about to prick her with a needle to get her blood glucose reading...yet she is still kinda smiling.

2009-11-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

Our temperary pharmacy out at Tupac.

2009-11-01T10:28:00.000-08:00

One night after clinic we decided to play King Elephant. So here is a group of us with all our little animal mimicks. We had everything from racoon (me) to walrus, rock fish, frog, tiger, rabbit and elephant. hehehehe....

2009-11-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Just in case any of you at home are freezing right now, don´t worry. It is still roasting hot here. As I am writing this there is sweat pouring off me (and all I am doing is typing at a computer, only my brain and my fingers are working, I shouldn´t be sweating so much. Ah, but so is life in humid lands). It seems weird to me that the weather has changed back in the states, but yet here it is still the same roasty-toastyness. (Just today I thought of frying an egg on the pavement, but there wasn´t any nearby, so I just left the egg all by its lonesome and ate mangoes instead). But no worries, soon rainey season will be here and then the temp will drop a little bit.
To wrap up out campaign at Km 8 we had a mass wedding, more baptisms and final goodbyes. But early Sabbath morning I had one of my best experiences yet here in Peru. There is a family here in Nuevo Amazonia that I have become quite good friends with. It is a young couple, Jhon and Fresia and their little two year old daughter Carlita. As we were chatting it came up that the weather was and and that it would be sooooo nice to go swimming. Then they discovered how much I love to swim, so they declared they needed to take me to their favorite swimming hole. Bad news was that I was to leave the next night. But no worries, we decided that we would go out to the lake at Yarina Cocha early in the morning and get back in time for church. So that´s what we did. They came at 6 Sabbath morning and picked me up and their motorbike. The 4 of us spent the next twenty five minutes on their little motorbike journing out to the lake. As we got closer we passed a bunch of mango trees , so we stopped and picked a big bag of mangos. Upon arrival at the lake we feasted on our harvest and devored the whole big back of mangoes (I think I ate 4). Mango was the main course for breakfast, but Fresia had also brought some Arroz con Leche, so we packed out tummies with that. Then due to the sticky factor of our fingers and faces we splashed into the murkey wáter for a fun swim and a good rinse off. We spent the next hour chillin at the lake and then headed off to the mango trees once again to collect more to take home. Going back we had four people on the motorbike, plus a back pack and a big bag of mangos, what great fun. In spite of all the fun we had, we still got back a good half hour before church started at 9.30.
Saturday night at about 10.30 we packed up all of our possesions, stufffed them in the back of the truck and took off for Tupac Amaru (the location of our next campaign). It ended up being a late night, but all was well and we got up early the next morning to set up for our medical clinic which started at 8. I was absolutely stocked for clinic week. This clinic wasn´t quite as busy as last clinic seeing as our location was at a small villaje deep in the jungle, but we still kept busy during the day. I did lots of triage, which is lots of fun. People have all kinds of crazy stories to tell. The greatest of which is the wacky internal fever that people get when they work out in the sun and don´t drink any wáter.
We only had two surgeries this week and I was the lucky nurse that got to assist in both. The first patient had a grape sized cyst on his upper thigh. The second was removing a golf ball sized tumor from the top of a ladies foot. It was great to have these random surgical interruptions in the midst of all the triage, taking blood pressures, giving out medicines from our pharmacy and all the other randomness of clinic week. Thursday night I stayed up half the night watching over a young 20 yr guy that was super sick. We had him hooked up to an IV and kept watch on him throughout the entire night. The good news was that by the next afternoon we were able to send him home. Friday afternoon we packed up the pharmacy and all our medical stuff and sent it all back in the truck to our base at km 38. Thus terminated my second clinic and began my second campaign. The nurse squad will be living in the quaint little jungle village of Tupac until the middle of December.
That is the 90 sec wrap up of my most recent Peruvian life. I haven´t been eaten alive my mosquitos yet or poised by jumping tarantulas so all is well. Chau for now!
(If the photo gods and computer gods smile upon me I should have pictures next time I update my blog)
=)

2009-10-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

My friend Rosa and a few of her kids. She, without fail always has a smile on her face and is just someone who is genunely happy about life.

2009-10-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

This was part of my breakfast this morning! PAPAYA!!

I just have to say that I love living in a tropical country, this morning for breakfast I had a bunch of guaba, watermelon, papaya and 3 big mangos, plus a little potatoes and eggs. Normally we do not get this much fresh fruit, but since it is practically the end of the campaign all of our friends are bringing us tokens of gratitud. So right now we have tons of free fresh fruit and I am absolutely loving life!

2009-10-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

This is Dora. I would have to say that she is one of my best friends here in Nuevo Amazonia. She was baptized two Sabbaths ago. She owns a little store and we buy much of our food from her. She is the one who taugh us how to make empanadas and also loves to share her Chichamorada (a delicious drink make from purple corn)

2009-10-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Lauren and I with a young girl from the community

2009-10-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

A few of my friends who shared a big watermelon with me!

2009-10-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Aqui esta mi estudiante Jovana y su hijos. These kids have come to every night to the meetings for the past 3 1/2 weeks. They have tons of energy and just have a truley happy look at life.

2009-10-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

One of our friends sewed these shirts for Lauren and I on a little foot peddle powered sewing machine.

2009-10-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

Your eyes are fortunare enough to be looking at a marvelous sight. This wierd long delicacy is in fact the wonderful fuzzy cocoon like Guaba. The white part is the only edible part and must be chewed off the little black seed. Nothing like a fuzzy butterfly snack in the midst of organizing the pharmacy.

2009-10-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

The medical abyss...at the beginnig...

2009-10-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Me and my buddy Elvis at one of the evening evangelistic meetings.

2009-10-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

It has been many a day since I have been in town, my deepest apologies to all of my devote blog followers. I have miserably failed you all in consistently updating my blog. But get used to it, because we have now practically finished our campaign at Km 8 and in about a week will be moving out into the jungle to start our next campaign. But anyways enough of these announcements and now for a recap of my life… or as it is said – and now for the rest of the story…
My team has helped build up quite the church group at Km 8. We baptized close to 40 people over the past two Sabbaths in a little dolphin swimming pool and will be baptizing many more after a mass wedding on the 22 of October. Last Saturday night, the nurse squad moved back to Km 38 for a week. Thus began our crazy quest of organization. We worked like mad to turn a messy room that liked to think of as the medical abyss, into a neatly organized pharmacy. We spent many an hour in our little medical cubby hole, but after sweating enough to mop the floor, we finally are about done and now I feel comfortable calling our abyss a pharmacy. (We are doing all this prep because soon we will be starting our next campaign which will begin with a weeklong medical clinic.) I have also spent lots of time translating Bible stories into Castellano for our kids meetings during the next campaign. It has also been a blast to be back at Km 38 because we have an oven here…which means that I can bake cookies and other delicious munchies each and every day. Another great thing about baking goodies is that they have to be eaten quickly or else they will be devoured by ants. What a crisis.
Actually the ants have now moved up several inches on my hate list. I have been rationing out my beloved ABC almonds lovingly sent to me by my father (Almonds cannot be found down here…sad thing it is) Bad news is that the ants chewed their way into all of my almonds - the nasty little critters. Not too big of a deal though, I simply roasted my almonds in the oven to kill all the little buggers. Then I carefully hung them up in a safe place and sprayed the surrounding area with bug spray (which kills the ants instantly and prevents them from returning), but then to my horrible discovery this afternoon, the ants had braved all odds and had fought their way through the clouds of bug spray (with 49% deet) and were again munching happily on my almonds. Thus war began and I roasted them once more. Now I get to enjoy my twice baked ants and almonds in one big smorgasbord.

2009-10-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Lots of craziness this past week. We are in the heat of our Evangelistic campaign and many have already decided to be baptized. It is so amazing to think that just 8 weeks ago my team was a complete group of strangers to the invasion, but then over though a few weeks of studying the Bible with people, visiting them in their homes for health lessons and just being their friends and now we have a booming church of about 100 (50 adults and 50 kids). It has been a pretty cool transformation. We have two more nights of the evangelistic campaign and then just next week of teaching health classes, then that is it for our mission here at Km 8 and we will be off to a new location.
Last Sunday, Lauren and I were invited by a lady to learn how to make yucca empanadas (yucca relleno) in her house. We willingly abliged. The first task was to peel the yucca. So we grabbed some big knives, kinda like small machetes, and started literally hacking away at the outer peeling of the yucca. They taught us that if you hack at it just right the peel quickly slips off rather that slowly peeling it around and around like you would a cucumber. Then we boiled the yucca until it was squishy. Over the next hour and a half, we joked around as we make our little yucca pockets and filled them with purple olives, garlic, little peppers and a few other native vegetables. After sealing up this little pocket of yumminess we fried them in a little pan over a fire. Then came the best part - we actually got to eat warm-freshly-made-Peruvian-yucca-empanadas! I must say they are quite delicous. We also learned how to make Chichimorada (a purple corn drink, that is very typical of this region of Peru) and Cocona Juice (a drink of a yet another wierd orange-tomatoe looking fruit) It was a crazy cool experience to be in a little house, with our Peruvian friends, learning how to make Peruvian food, joking around and also cooking over a little fire. An even better part is that she invited us back next week to learn how to make potatoe empanadas! Mmmm....Our chef, Dora, has become a great friend of Lauren and I. She always greats of with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, we visit her often becuase she owns a little store where we like to buy our food from. Eduardo has also been studying the Bible with her and she has decided to get baptised this Saturday! Yet again it is amazing to see how God as worked in this community over the past 8 weeks.

2009-09-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Me, Andrew, Melanie and Kevin checking out our jungle backyard

2009-09-25T12:17:00.001-07:00

Lauren and I in the wilds of the Peruvian Jungle

2009-09-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

Manzanitas! These mini bananas are packed with all the flavor of a normal banana, but yet are bite-size for your convenience.

2009-09-25T12:14:00.001-07:00

Just outside the fence at my home at Km 8

2009-09-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

In the United States, Canada and many other places in the world are found pine trees. On these luscious evergreen trees one can find little brown pricklies called pine cones, which are typically not edible unless you are a squirrel or chipmunk. However, here in Peru there is a lack of pine trees and therefore no pinecones. But the good news is that in this far away land, one can find abundant Aguaje. This odd fruit highly resembles a pinecone in its appearance - it has the same shape and color. This fruit is definitely not my favorite due to its lack in flavor. This fruit consists of a large seed with a little bit of flavorless yellow paste. Very odd. If Pluto were still a planet, I would say that this fruit was from Pluto.
This past Saturday night I experienced my first Peruvian Social. These Socials are very common down here in the Southern Hemisphere. These events usually last for about 3 hours and are full of laughs, fun, and exercise all centered around completely pointless games fueled by equally pointless music. If any of you have ever taken part in a South American social you will know what I am talking about, if you haven’t you just need to experience one. They are quite unique and can only best be described at crazy confusion and lots of running around in circles.
As September presses on my team and I are nearing the end of our campaign here at Km 8. To end with a big shebang, we are doing a two week long evangelistic series of nightly meetings. Each meeting is about 2 hours long and full of singing and talking about different bible topics. My main task is to keep the kids occupied during the adult meetings. We do fun songs, tell a Bible story, learn and memory verse and then let the kids color a picture relating to the Bible story. Each kid gets two crayons to color with and may exchange their crayons in the crayon bag for different colors. It is a fun task to color with about 50 kids who are all jabbering in Castellano, wanting this obscure color or that. I only know the basic - colors in Castellano- red, green, blue, black…and it is oh so confusing with 50 kids requesting weird little shades of light rays. Needless to say the meetings are going well. The funniest part about the meetings and any meeting or church service down here in Peru is that it is not unusual to sing the same song three or four times during one program. In one song service we might 9 songs, but only have 3 or 4 different songs. Yet everyone seems to love this odd repetition. It doesn’t seem to matter that we sing one song, then another, only to return to the first song again, and then maybe again. With doing these meeting nightly I have many songs stuck in my head and am constantly humming them.
Welp, thanks for tuning into the Mindy sometimes-weekly-news-flash. Things are busy here with teaching my classes in the homes and for the community, planning classes, cooking meals, cleaning, eating Papaya, doing a evangelistic series, drinking water to keep from melting in the heat, learning Castellano and much more. Life is great as a Peruvian!
You know you are Peruvian when…
Your skin is darker than that of those who live here.
You prefer to ride in the back of a truck because it has more air-conditioning (the wind).
You prefer to use a hole in the ground for a bathroom, rather than use a toilet.
Your sleeping schedule resembles that of the sun rising and setting.
You get sad if you do not eat lentils and rice every single day.
However, you know you are not Peruvian when you see a parade in town, but everyone (including the parade participants) is more focused on the group of white people (me and my friends) as that is walking down the sidewalk.

2009-09-25T12:08:00.001-07:00

This is how I shower every morning. I use maybe 5-7 cup fulls. Its fun, try it sometime!

2009-09-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

Life in an internet cafe!

2009-09-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

One of the newest, biggest, greatest changes to my past few days was the arrival of 3 friendly people from They are ere for about a week to host an eye clinic for all my new Peruvian buddies. I was fortunate enough to assist with this new element of my Peruvian life in the midst of visiting all my families and teaching all my classes. The mission of this clinic was simple – just to fit people with glasses. When ever I had free time I found myself rushing over to the refracting area to help out. With this job I would start out by greeting the people with a harty-cheerful Buenas Dias! Then would explain to them that I needed to look at their eyes with a spiffy little flashlight. After this quick observation I would explain if tey had cataracts or pterygium and what this meant. Then the fun part began. People could choose between either glasses for reading or glasses for distance. Depending on their desires I would hold up prescription refraction lenses to their faces until we discovered the perfect prescription for them. The joy of it was that people got so excited at the first bit of improvement. Then their joy would increase ten fold as I increased the magnification in 50 sector increments. In no time at all we would find the perfect refraction and they would receive their new glasses. I was instantly rewarded with beaming faces. It was amazing to see people come in tired, groggy (not quite sure if this is the right spelling for this word, but it rhymes with froggy, so it should be spelled similar, eh?) then see people walking away with overpowering smiles. For the first time in a long while they could see once again. They best part was that a great percentage wanted glasses so they could read their Bibles. In all we were able to give 857 people glasses. The funniest part of clinic was when I accidentally switched up some words when talking to one lady. Instead of asking if she wanted lentes (glasses) for reading I said lentejas (lentils). After a quick look of confusion, a little laugh and a quick refraction we got this lady her spiffy reading lentils. What could be better?Great experience of my week volume 2 was a quick snipet of my life during rainey season. The other day it poured all night and all day, which is great, I love rain. However, the tricky part is that our little bucket shower area is completely exposed to the heavens. We have to roof, meaning when it is raining (pouring in all actuality) there is no possible way to keep a towel dry. But alas I wanted my cold refreshing shower, so I donned my swimsuit and fearlessly entered the land of pelting raindrops. In spite of the cold I quite enjoyed myself as I showered in the rain with collected free rain water. When finished I slipped across the muddy clay to the wonderfulness of a dry towel. (So, Uncle John Schreven I have a fun task for you. Next time it rains collect about a liter and a half of rain water, then put on some colorful swimshorts, go outside early in the morning with your little soap bottle and take a shower. Aunt Kim, this is where your job comes in… you get the fun taking a picture to show to me at some point in the future).
Highlight #3. We are entering Papaya and mango season. How could life not be grand? Some of the papayas are Basketball sized and oh so wonderfully delicious. If chocolate were a fruit it just might be a giant ripe papaya.
Smile breaking activity #4 was a grand jungle adventure trek excursion journey quest ma-bober. The nurse squad was fortunate enough to return to Km 38 the other night. A few of us took this great opportunity to trek into the back 40. To me it was the most wonderful thing ever to be out and active again, to be clomping along a little jungle trail. Sadly we didn’t see any monkeys, but I heard birds and was attacked by an evil thorny bush. But after a quick battle with a machete the little bush quickly lost his life. And we rudely left its corpse to wilt in the jungle heat. With only a few battle scars and some bug bites to match I would call this trek a successful venture.
New Activity #5. We put on our first church service on Sabbath. We had a fairly good attendance – around 100 in all. My task was to lead out with Sabbath school for about 50 kids. It was difficult work, but people enjoyed it and are excited for next weeks service. To make it a perfect Sabbath our little crew splurged on haystacks. (We thankfully found little corn chip like things down here after an arduous search) We had great fun introducing this Adventist American food oddity to our Peruvian team members.
As far as my pictures go, I decided it would be a good neck excercise for all of you to twist your head sideways as you observe first hand a bit my life here. Hehehehe....or maybe I am just trying to help the masouse (people who rub backs...not sure how to spell this word) industry. Have fun!

2009-09-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

This is a fun picture from when we were practicing IV´s. Notice the big needle in the front of my elbow...

2009-09-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

YEAH!!! Free water....what could be better...noticve the grand size of the rain drops...a bit similar to the lemons, ya?

2009-09-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

Welp...this is us practicing our grand firday night ritual of goruging on Popcorn and fruit.

2009-09-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

A close up of our group after church on Sabbath. The three Peruvians are the bible workers on our team.

2009-09-16T14:25:00.001-07:00

Our Km 8 group eating haystacks for Sabbath lunch. YEAH!!!!
Peoples up the left side and down the right side - Brittany, Melanie, Edward, Puma, Josue, Me, Lauren and Matthew)

2009-09-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

Working at the refraction table...helping eyes see better (or worse if it is the wrong refraction) 2 eyeballs at a time.

2009-09-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

Repair time on some glasses during the eye clinic