hello all,
I just wanted to update everyone on the current happenings: on our last day in Lima and the country, our passports were left in a taxi by accident. That happened to be a sunday and so the embassy was closed, today (monday) is Peru´s independence day so today and tomorrow the embassy is closed as well. We are going on wednesday to get this all cleared up and we have new reservations to leave thursday night. None of us were inicially upset by this because we realize it´s a mistake that anyone could make, but it has become inconvenient for a few of my teammates. I personally don´t mind staying here, I love Peru and it´s kinda cool to see how they celebrate their independence day. My leader, who left the passports in the taxi, is really torned up about the whole situation, this whole trip has gone smoothly except for this incidence. I personally think that God has a funny sense of humor and had a hand in this, I´m honestly not upset at all.
Besides this, we´ve been up and down the coast and into the mountains in the past few weeks. A few days ago we hiked to a glacier lake in the Andes near Huaraz, which had the most brilliant blue color. The only problem was how very cold it was compared to the 95 degree jungle weather. We also went to Puerto Supe to meet up with a few missionaries, talk, tour, see a bunch of ruins, and hold a service. I gave my testimony, first time in front of people I think, Liz did too and we sang a few songs. The next day we painted a room in the cafe they run as part of their ministry. Unfortunately we put on a layer of paint and it began to chip so we had to scrap the whole room, we did an inicial scrap but i guess the underlying layer was bad, as soon as it got wet it would peal, bummer. We are now in Lima hanging out until thursday, we´ve seen batman and hancock, and we were able to go shopping in the Inca market. I guess that´s all for now, it´s kinda late, I just wanted to update everyone on why I´m still here.
I´m planning on hosting a quasi-party for whoever wants to experience Peruvian food, see pictures and hear all about the trip, I´m thinking it will be on a saturday or sunday in the next few weeks, contact me if you would like more information. Cuidate, Dios les bendiga ustedes
Monday, July 28, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
July 9, Jungle Flights
I meant to add all this earlier but didn´t have time/I forgot so I´m just gonna update now.
Since I´ve been studying aviation with the intent of taking it to the mission field, John and Minori arranged for me to take a flight with SAMair which is SAM´s mission aviation organization. Sierra, a modelesque navajo young woman, and I went with Craig, a 50 ish year old whose father started SAMair. We went from Queshibo to Sepoua (I need to check on the spellings for both of those) which is about 1hr 45min ride, to pick up two gringo missionaries and their peruvian friend (btw, gringo is not a harsh term, it just means white). When we picked them up, they told us that that same 2hr flight would be a two day boat trip followed by a two day truck trip. Let me tell you how incredibly long and probably uncomfortable that would be. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous here, there are little Shipibo villages sprinkled along various lakes and rivers. This area, unlike the Andes, is very very flat so the rivers flood the Shipibo villages every year. This is currently the dry season, so we took a wheel plane and landed on a very nice gravel runway. I really enjoyed the flight, Craig let me fly for an hour on the way back, how totally cool. This flying experience was several weeks ago actually but we also got to take the float plane up just the other day.
Everyone else from the team didn´t get to go with me that day to Sepoua and so this time they all got the opportunity to go up in the plane and fly around Pucallpa. David, the mid twenties pilot, took us up in the float plane and towards the end did some zero gravity pushes. Everyone´s stomach jumped except mine and David´s, i think, but it was really cool to see everyone´s glasses float up to their faces haha, never seen that before. A while ago, off the same lake we did this flight, John brought his boat and I got to go water skiing.
This whole trip has been full of totally amazing experiences but what´s more than those is the way my heart has been changing. The people here inspire me, especially the younger ones I mentioned earlier; they are some of the most talented, hardworking, amazing people I´ve ever met and it has slapped me across the face to think that I´ve had soooo mannny opportunities handed to me that I let breeze by and don´t take hold of as my own (in terms of education and work) while the people here have so little but are completely passionate and determined and good at the things they do. I came to Perú rather down with a lackluster perspective on a lot of things but I feel a change. When I return to the States, I hope I don´t give right back into complacency and comfort but that I would challenge myself to be like those Shipibos who were incredibly hospitable and kind, or that I would not settle for doing an okay half-hearted job at anything. I want to return to Perú in the winter and see these amazing people again, I have no idea how I will pay for it, but I´m sure it will work out. I wish that anyone and everyone reading this would have an experience that touches their hearts to want to be a better person, to live better and for the sake of loving others. When giving a testimony (which I did earlier this trip), it is very easy to carp on the old hurts or less than perfect experiences of childhood and adolescence and think that it defines our lives but our life comes from the joy of our hearts, from peace and deep love which manifests itself to others. Our life is that pulse in our chests which convicts us to do what is right, to care for one another, and walk humbly and peacefully with others. I´ve discovered it to be ironic that sometimes those who have gone through the least could be the harshest and most frustratable and that others find a life within themselves amoung hard circumstances. One guy, a hilarious, athletic, talented Peruvian fellow, has an alcoholic abusive father, drug addicted brothers, one brother in jail, he lives in poverty and has no money but he never ceases to smile and sing (song after song like a jukebox), somehow he is immune to it all. I have not gone through what he has but during the harder times of my life I have felt that same immunity or tolerance or endurance, probably endurance is the best word here. On this trip I have truly begun to grasp in my heart that God and I are buddies and He will be the only person,thing,being who will never leave me. He is that endurance and immunity for me, the reason to hum as I work and smile all the time. Over the last couple years, I let that goofy joyful person I used to be slip away for reasons I can explain to people who really want to know, but now, slowly but surely I am being refilled and trying to assist in refilling others. It is my prayer that people would find it within themselves to quit exasperating others.
Since I´ve been studying aviation with the intent of taking it to the mission field, John and Minori arranged for me to take a flight with SAMair which is SAM´s mission aviation organization. Sierra, a modelesque navajo young woman, and I went with Craig, a 50 ish year old whose father started SAMair. We went from Queshibo to Sepoua (I need to check on the spellings for both of those) which is about 1hr 45min ride, to pick up two gringo missionaries and their peruvian friend (btw, gringo is not a harsh term, it just means white). When we picked them up, they told us that that same 2hr flight would be a two day boat trip followed by a two day truck trip. Let me tell you how incredibly long and probably uncomfortable that would be. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous here, there are little Shipibo villages sprinkled along various lakes and rivers. This area, unlike the Andes, is very very flat so the rivers flood the Shipibo villages every year. This is currently the dry season, so we took a wheel plane and landed on a very nice gravel runway. I really enjoyed the flight, Craig let me fly for an hour on the way back, how totally cool. This flying experience was several weeks ago actually but we also got to take the float plane up just the other day.
Everyone else from the team didn´t get to go with me that day to Sepoua and so this time they all got the opportunity to go up in the plane and fly around Pucallpa. David, the mid twenties pilot, took us up in the float plane and towards the end did some zero gravity pushes. Everyone´s stomach jumped except mine and David´s, i think, but it was really cool to see everyone´s glasses float up to their faces haha, never seen that before. A while ago, off the same lake we did this flight, John brought his boat and I got to go water skiing.
This whole trip has been full of totally amazing experiences but what´s more than those is the way my heart has been changing. The people here inspire me, especially the younger ones I mentioned earlier; they are some of the most talented, hardworking, amazing people I´ve ever met and it has slapped me across the face to think that I´ve had soooo mannny opportunities handed to me that I let breeze by and don´t take hold of as my own (in terms of education and work) while the people here have so little but are completely passionate and determined and good at the things they do. I came to Perú rather down with a lackluster perspective on a lot of things but I feel a change. When I return to the States, I hope I don´t give right back into complacency and comfort but that I would challenge myself to be like those Shipibos who were incredibly hospitable and kind, or that I would not settle for doing an okay half-hearted job at anything. I want to return to Perú in the winter and see these amazing people again, I have no idea how I will pay for it, but I´m sure it will work out. I wish that anyone and everyone reading this would have an experience that touches their hearts to want to be a better person, to live better and for the sake of loving others. When giving a testimony (which I did earlier this trip), it is very easy to carp on the old hurts or less than perfect experiences of childhood and adolescence and think that it defines our lives but our life comes from the joy of our hearts, from peace and deep love which manifests itself to others. Our life is that pulse in our chests which convicts us to do what is right, to care for one another, and walk humbly and peacefully with others. I´ve discovered it to be ironic that sometimes those who have gone through the least could be the harshest and most frustratable and that others find a life within themselves amoung hard circumstances. One guy, a hilarious, athletic, talented Peruvian fellow, has an alcoholic abusive father, drug addicted brothers, one brother in jail, he lives in poverty and has no money but he never ceases to smile and sing (song after song like a jukebox), somehow he is immune to it all. I have not gone through what he has but during the harder times of my life I have felt that same immunity or tolerance or endurance, probably endurance is the best word here. On this trip I have truly begun to grasp in my heart that God and I are buddies and He will be the only person,thing,being who will never leave me. He is that endurance and immunity for me, the reason to hum as I work and smile all the time. Over the last couple years, I let that goofy joyful person I used to be slip away for reasons I can explain to people who really want to know, but now, slowly but surely I am being refilled and trying to assist in refilling others. It is my prayer that people would find it within themselves to quit exasperating others.
Monday, July 7, 2008
July 7th, around pucallpa and the ucayali river
Wow, so much has happened since I last posted. We have been doing kids programs with skits and correography for the past couple weeks. We have a particularly hilarious clown skit in which we are trying to get to Heaven using a balloon, mattress and finally a superhero, me, ´superchica´which is really fun to act in. The kids, and their parents, laugh quite a bit at the skit. I really enjoy the opportunity to act in Spanish, it´s muy chevere. My Spanish was pretty bad at first because quite frankly I´m a lot worse at it than I thought but I can understand a lot more now which is really nice. I´m becoming very close to Victor and Dick, Victor even wrote me a little song haha. A few weeks ago, I learned to salsa dance a little, which has always been a goal of mine.
The highlight of this trip has been the river trip that I just returned from less than 4 hours ago. All the gringos (us white folk) took a boat trip to the Shipibo village of Caimito along the Ucayali river to do more programs and to get to know the indigenous people. The village is on Lake Imiria, named after a flower plant (like a lilypad) which grows in the lake. We headed for the boat at 2am, boarded two hours later at 4am, and didn´t leave the dock til 5:30 or so due to engine problems. The boat has no cushions and the benchs were not made for american-sized bums but there was no complaining by anyone. The boat ride lasted 22 hours. We took the Ucayali river south (which is upstream in the south hemisphere) stopping along the way at sand bars for potty breaks. The neatest sleeping experience of my life was resting in the hammocks which were strung from one side of the boat to the other, there is a lovely gentle swing and the breeze is peaceful. Unfortunately after the sunset it was very cold and the bugs were bad at the potty breaks. Poor Liz and Erin have so many bug bites they look like they have chicken pox. We arrived at the Shipibo village at 1:30am, cleaned two teranchulas out of our sleeping areas, setting up mosquito netting and finally got to rest of something not made of wood. The following 3 days we did programs every morning for the children, 130 of them, singing, doing skits, and playing games. As we left each morning, the kids would follow us back to our place and would watch whatever we were doing. Liz and Sarah and i think Erin too played with them quite a bit. The first night I played futbol with a bunch of guys, the only gringa girl around, and they laughed at me as I showed up because they didn´t think I knew how to play but I actually did pretty well, yay breaking down stereotypes. We bathed in the lake at night and all the kids would watch. After a candle lit dinner, we watched movies with the village and sang a few songs in Spanish with one verse in English. When we first arrived here, they were a little worried that we were just coming to the village to fulfill some type of requirement for school but then they really grew to like us. The Shipibo (at least the ones I´ve met) are more kind and friendly than any I´ve ever met. They picked fresh fruit every day for us and would help us make dinner and clean, anything that needed to be done. The last day, John, Amy, Kenji, Sarah and I all took a walk to find a path through the forest and on the way we found one of our friends who took us to his house for fruit. I bought some jewelry from his mother and then she gave us each extra jewelry for free cause she liked us. I think that that walk was one of the most pleasant experiences I´ve ever had; the weather was perfect, we ate fresh fruit with a local family who treated us like family, I can´t describe it, it just seems like the way people should treat each other. The river trip was hard to wrap my brain around, how on earth did I get to a remote indigeneous village in the Amazon basin? It still seems surreal to me. The last night before we left they presented each of us with hand made gifts such as wood carvings and jewelry. I´m blown away by their hospitality. Oh, and i got a sweet Shipibo skirt, sooooo cool. The trip ride back was fun, a little tiring but nice. The weather here is absolutely perfect, 80-90 degree weather every day, a gentle breeze, big puffy clouds, blue skies.
Tomorrow Pucallpa is going on strike, for what exactly i´m not sure, but all the transportation will be shutting down for 2-3 days. We´ll be safe, i promise. Hopefully we´ll go water skiing again. oh, totally forgot to add that last time (maybe?), I went water skiing in Peru. Also I took a plane ride, that was another sweet experience but I am out of internet time now.
The highlight of this trip has been the river trip that I just returned from less than 4 hours ago. All the gringos (us white folk) took a boat trip to the Shipibo village of Caimito along the Ucayali river to do more programs and to get to know the indigenous people. The village is on Lake Imiria, named after a flower plant (like a lilypad) which grows in the lake. We headed for the boat at 2am, boarded two hours later at 4am, and didn´t leave the dock til 5:30 or so due to engine problems. The boat has no cushions and the benchs were not made for american-sized bums but there was no complaining by anyone. The boat ride lasted 22 hours. We took the Ucayali river south (which is upstream in the south hemisphere) stopping along the way at sand bars for potty breaks. The neatest sleeping experience of my life was resting in the hammocks which were strung from one side of the boat to the other, there is a lovely gentle swing and the breeze is peaceful. Unfortunately after the sunset it was very cold and the bugs were bad at the potty breaks. Poor Liz and Erin have so many bug bites they look like they have chicken pox. We arrived at the Shipibo village at 1:30am, cleaned two teranchulas out of our sleeping areas, setting up mosquito netting and finally got to rest of something not made of wood. The following 3 days we did programs every morning for the children, 130 of them, singing, doing skits, and playing games. As we left each morning, the kids would follow us back to our place and would watch whatever we were doing. Liz and Sarah and i think Erin too played with them quite a bit. The first night I played futbol with a bunch of guys, the only gringa girl around, and they laughed at me as I showed up because they didn´t think I knew how to play but I actually did pretty well, yay breaking down stereotypes. We bathed in the lake at night and all the kids would watch. After a candle lit dinner, we watched movies with the village and sang a few songs in Spanish with one verse in English. When we first arrived here, they were a little worried that we were just coming to the village to fulfill some type of requirement for school but then they really grew to like us. The Shipibo (at least the ones I´ve met) are more kind and friendly than any I´ve ever met. They picked fresh fruit every day for us and would help us make dinner and clean, anything that needed to be done. The last day, John, Amy, Kenji, Sarah and I all took a walk to find a path through the forest and on the way we found one of our friends who took us to his house for fruit. I bought some jewelry from his mother and then she gave us each extra jewelry for free cause she liked us. I think that that walk was one of the most pleasant experiences I´ve ever had; the weather was perfect, we ate fresh fruit with a local family who treated us like family, I can´t describe it, it just seems like the way people should treat each other. The river trip was hard to wrap my brain around, how on earth did I get to a remote indigeneous village in the Amazon basin? It still seems surreal to me. The last night before we left they presented each of us with hand made gifts such as wood carvings and jewelry. I´m blown away by their hospitality. Oh, and i got a sweet Shipibo skirt, sooooo cool. The trip ride back was fun, a little tiring but nice. The weather here is absolutely perfect, 80-90 degree weather every day, a gentle breeze, big puffy clouds, blue skies.
Tomorrow Pucallpa is going on strike, for what exactly i´m not sure, but all the transportation will be shutting down for 2-3 days. We´ll be safe, i promise. Hopefully we´ll go water skiing again. oh, totally forgot to add that last time (maybe?), I went water skiing in Peru. Also I took a plane ride, that was another sweet experience but I am out of internet time now.
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