Rice

Rice in Peru is available in a variety of qualities. You can buy a kilo for 1s, 1.20s, 1.40s, all the way up to 2 or 3 soles. We usually buy the cheapest kind and bear the consequences to save money.

The cheap rice has an added ingredient: bugs. Every time we want to cook up a pot of rice we have to sort through it first. Beans, oatmeal, pasta, and sugar often come with bugs, too. Sometimes they are dead, sometimes they are crawling around.

Alex and Karen are very particular when they sort. I’m more impatient. When Ansley sorts the rice, that bonus protein often slips through.

Oh well. The sun sets around 6:00 and hardly anyone can see their food when we eat supper, anyway.

Melted

After packing up for the weekend back in Pucallpa, I decided to join Jenni on a trek to town (Campo Verde) to buy some groceries before the Sabbath. The rest of the team was collecting supplies from the jungle and would pick us up on their way out.

The walk to town takes about an hour. We had only been walking for about 10 minutes when a guy on a motorbike stopped beside us.

Do you want a ride? he asked us. (They don’t have quotation marks on these Peruvian keyboards--sorry).

No! thought Ansley.

Sure! said Jenni.

We climbed on. Jenni told me to sit in the middle. I was quite uncomfortable holding on to a strange guy on his motorbike and flying over the bumps and potholes, but it was kind of exciting.

Town came up quickly. Jenni got off on one side of the bike, and I took the other side, trying not to throw the bike guy off balance. As I jumped off, my leg knocked up against the exhaust pipe, causing me to jump in pain and nearly fall over. The pipe melted a patch of my skin which turned into a lovely fat yellow blister. I followed Jenni around the market, biting my lip.

I will remember to dismount the correct side of the motorbike next time.

August 28, 2006

Never has the world had a greater need for love than in our day. People are hungry for love. We don’t have time to stop and smile at each other. We are all in such a hurry! Pray. Ask for the necessary grace. Pray to be able to understand how much Jesus loved us, so that you can love others.

Mother Teresa

Work

There is nothing like a week of manual labor to make you appreciate Sabbath rest! From top to bottom: Osvaldo and I in the septic pit we dug; Karen and I measuring boards for our house, washing dishes at the caretaker's house; Cousin John and I in the pit.

Aves

The chickens aren’t too bad. I go to the edge of the jungle to brush my teeth and they follow me, form a circle around me, and crane their necks. Then when I spit they peck at the foamy toothpaste puddles, expectant. Chickens are always hopeful.

The turkeys, however, make me nervous. I’m actually quite afraid of them. There is a large herd of turkeys that belongs to the caretaker of Km 38 and sometimes they all run together down the dirt lane, squawking and fluffing up their feathers. The sight of turkeys running is at once scary and hilarious.

Often the turkeys stand in their devious herd right outside of the house. You have to walk through them to take scraps to the compost pile. I usually skip the walking part and throw the scraps as hard as I can from the porch.

The roosters in Peru are confused. Their perky crowing wakes us up at 11:00 at night, followed by repeat performances at 2:00 am, 4:00 am, 5:00 am, and anywhere in between. Good thing I brought my ear plugs. Too bad I can’t find them.

Tarantula at large

Yesterday Jackson and Anthony caught a brown hairy tarantula while they were cutting boards for our house in the jungle. They carried him back to Km 38 in Jackson’s nalgene, then transferred him to a plastic bottle with a funnel placed on top so he could breathe.

We all sat around the table, looking at him. That was a big spider, as big as my hand, just beastly. And he was mad, too, rearing up against the plastic, trying to bite. I got the heebie jeebies just from watching him watch me.

At night time we left him on the kitchen table, so we could take pictures and then free him in the morning.

At breakfast, he was gone. The bottle was empty. Jose, the caretaker, told us a rat had knocked the bottle over at night, letting the spider loose. The family had gotten up and killed the rat, but couldn´t find the spider anywhere.

Jose was not pleased. Tarantulas have a nasty, poisonous bite, and no one wants to be surprised by a tarantula in their workboot.

We found the dead rat in the yard, but for all of our looking and moving stuff, we still don´t know where the spider is.

Hometown

Little annoying girl

A little girl named Chantal has been living in a house less than four feet away from us for the last few days.

She screeches when she is upset, which is quite often. She comes knocking on our door all the time, looking for Jenni´s poor tomrented cat. She also throws things on me when I´m trying to sleep.

I think she´s about three. I've tried to make friends, but it´s hard. She gets on everyone´s last nerve.

However, last night I decided to put her to work. I was on my little thermarest on the floor, writing. Chantal kept coming over, bending down, and peering into my face. Then she would yell something comepletely incomprehensible in my ear.

I picked up my pen, held it in front of her face.

What do you call this? I asked her in Spanish.

She told me. I repeated. I pointed to all the items that I could see in the room, slowly learning the Spanish names.

Finally, she got tired and wandered off. She ended up being a good teacher. I hope she taught me the right words.

Naked guy, chicken toe

On Friday morning Jenni left us to go to the land and pick up “the kitchen,” our gas stove, pots, and dishes. The remaining six of us student missionaries decided to head in to town and pick up some breakfast.

We had neared the gate of the compound when I looked up and saw a man, stark naked, walking down the street. He held some bunched up fabric in his hand. Since it was raining, I wondered if this was a traditional custom, a way to keep clothes dry. The guy was only about 30 feet away from us. I was a little shocked.

“Jackson!” I exclaimed, “What is going on?”

Jackson was as surprised as me; he hadn’t seen such a sight in Pucallpa during the last few months. We turned the other direction, and everyone shared a nervous laugh.

Later Jenni told me that this particular bare gentleman is a common town sighting, he’s apparently a little crazy and no one knows what to do with him. Welcome to Pucallpa, I guess.

Last week the team was eating at a menu, a traditional Peruvian dinner place, and Jackson found an entire chicken toe in his plate of chicken, toenail and all. We all reeled back a little. All of us, that is, except for Jenni. She wasn’t surprised.

I wish I had taken a picture of it, the little yellow toe with its layers of translucent skin. Actually, ewww, I’m glad I didn’t.

Notebook

Peru is on Central Time. I could call Chicago and we’d be reading the same numbers on the clock. However, when my friends in the states experience Daylight Savings Time, we’ll be on Eastern Time; they don’t change over here.

The currency is called a sole. One US dollar is worth about 3 soles. We can eat here for less than one dollar per person per day.

It takes about two days for anything to dry here in the jungle. My hair rarely dries out between showerings. It’s nice to have more than one towel; towels are always damp.

We are currently staying in a teeny tiny two room apartment on the SDA mission compound, seven people and more than 20 huge pieces of luggage. When we eat we sit on the floor, or on boxes or suitcases, and we’re all bumping into each other. It’s a challenge to bathe or change your clothes because you have to move or rearrange so much stuff to get to your stuff.

It’s the most crammed living situation I’ve ever experienced. I like it. We share everything. Dishes, bedding, shoes, soap, whatever.

Yesterday I was at the market with Jenni and we saw a baby anteater! He was just wandering around eating scraps, like a pig. Cute, but not friendly. I watched him for a while and then he kind of charged me. I was spooked and left him alone.

Suds

Karen, Jackson, John and I spent over an hour this morning washing our laundry. We used a large blue plastic tub for the soapy scrub, an ancient utility sink that sort of trickles for rinsing, then wrung out as much water as we could before hanging up the clothes on wire lines to dry.

It was exhausting! I was thankful for the company of the other student missionaries. We talked and talked and told stories. We worked up a good system where we would rotate washing, rinsing, and hanging up. I enjoyed creating agitation in the washtub the best; the soapsuds were fun.

The Teamsters

I’m thankful that I’m not here in Peru by myself! As fun as that would be, I’m happy to join a team of five other student missionaries, along with our fearless leader Jenni, who is between college and medical school.

John is my cousin from Maine who came to do construction at Km 38 and also work on any other various projects that come up. John plays tunes on a recorder during worships and entertains us with his large vocabulary.

Karen is a Filipino who is studying Communications at Andrews. She has sold Cutco knives for four summers and informs us that glass dulls a knife 22 times faster than other cutting surfaces. I’m so glad she’s here; we’ve shared a lot of bonding moments already! Karen will be involved in child evangelism and childcare for the Peruvian doctor’s three kids.

Alex is also here to do construction, along with maintenance and bee keeping. Alex is studying engineering at Andrews and has already become irreplaceable-- he can fix anything! Alex is happiest when there is a copious amount of garlic in the beans, or soup, or whatever.

Jackson hails from Tennessee where he’s a premed student at Southern. Jackson and I will be doing a lot of traveling with our mobile clinic, over the rivers and through the woods. He has actually been here in Peru for two months now and has been a patient tour guide for the rest of us newbies.

Anthony is from New Jersey and also goes to Southern. He’s a theology major who will be doing Bible work and evangelism with some of the local pastors. Anthony is usually the last one to get up in the morning.