Christmas in Pucallpa Dec 08 to Jan 09

After meeting up with Andrew in Lima, we headed to Pucallpa on an evening flight. We were greeted in the pucallpa airport by a MASS of people, I think there were lik 15 people just waiting for me and Andrew. We headed to the Lucas' house to chill out and get settled in to our rooms where we would stay the rest of the month that we were there.


We went to BBC, a bible center for Shipibos, to give out gifts with the missionary kids to the shipibos.


Dick and I can be goofy on occasion... this was at Receka's house, I had the worst allergic reaction in my life to the dust in her house.


Amy and Kara were in their church's musical. I arrived late though..because Dick was in a major motorcycle accident.


Just before heading to Amy's play, we received a call from Solomon in the hospital telling us that Dick had been in a bad accident and had hit his head hard on the pavement. I called my friend Rebeka to go with me to the hospital to visit him and when we arrived, he was hardly conscious. He doesn't remember anything that happened that day but basically when I arrived they had already given him stitches, bandaged up his head and were about to give him an injection to help prevent infection. He had a really strong reaction to the medicine and was vomiting for quite some time and then finally could rest for a while. Rebeka and I headed to Amy's play but were late because we didn't want to leave Dick until he started to look better.

He's a little melodramatic about death... those who know him well know exactly what I'm talking about. One day, however, he was laying there just like in this picture with all of us around (it might've even been that day) and he was pretty quiet until his eyes sprung open and he hastily said "sorry, sorry, sorry!!" and whamm he ripped a big, loud fart and everyone laughed hysterically.

This is the emergency room entrance, the two christmas trees in the corners both had those lights that play christmas jingles but they were on different songs at the same time and it was really annoying while we waited to see Dick.

We went out to San Jose and he let me drive his 4wheeler a little bit. We didn't do much because we weren't wearing helmets or much of anything protective.

On Christmas day, John let me use his motorcycle and taught me how to drive it. It was pretty easy to learn because it was a light bike, like 250cc or something

We helped Monica and her husband move into their new house, those boys had fun loading all the stuff and climbing all over the truck

This is Monica with her baby in their new house, she actually just had a second baby girl. She is one of my favorite peruvian ladies, she is so understanding of my inability to say some things (especially during this trip my spanish wasn't really the best..)

Christmas day, our official Christmas day picture with the Lucas. They take this same picture every year and have a whole photo album dedicated to just this picture setup. Minori (the mom) has changed quite a bit over the years, she isn't in this picture however.

While Dick was in the hospital recovering for a week, we had fun swimming in Yarina lake with our buddies. This is Amy and Rebeka

Andrew got reallllly sunburnt. He needs to learn to wear sunscreen.

Gerardo then let me take out his 600cc motorcycle (wearing proper gear of course) and we hit up what I call the turtle pavilion in the nearby Shipibo village called San Fransisco

We, unfortunately, got REALLY stuck in the mud. This kind of mud is the kind that sticks like crazy and sucks your shoe right off of your foot. So just imagine the mud buildup on the tire.. we ended up having to call his friend to come pick us up and drive the 4 miles out of this mud. In his 4wheel drive truck it was a little bit iffy at times.

Some of these pictures are a little out of order.. this was actually Christmas eve, the day Dick got out of the hospital. In Peru, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th and visit each other all day. Then at night they have a nice dinner with friends and relatively, shoot off fireworks (the small ones that just make a lot of noise and let out a small flash). Then at midnight they all go out in the street and greet each other. If they exchange gifts, they do so at midnight. Most families don't have money to spend on gifts, like Dick and his brother didn't get a present and he didn't get anything for his parents or brother. He thought it would be funny to wear angel wings all night.. I dunno hehe. We danced a little bit too, but don't tell anyone cause it's strictly forbidden in their church. opps.

My favorite picture of me, Dick and Rebeka on Christmas

Raul and Andrew by the Christmas tree that they assembled on the 24th and take down on the 25th... why they have Christmas trees like this in the middle of the jungle is strange to me, it's also funny that they only put them up for about 24 hours.

New years eve everyone wears a ton of bright yellow. They have whole stands dedicated to yellow stuff, yellow underwear, hats, shirts, everything

I celebrated it with the missionaries. I'm pretty sunburnt in this picture... I spent too much time in a park without realizing how much sun I was getting.

We played with sparklers and Andrew had a setting on his camera to draw things with the light. it was pretty cool

John took us out in his boat through the thicker park of the stream, we had troubel getting into this section at first but persistence paid off. It was really neat back there. I think it would've been especially cool in a small kayak like the native's use.

John's boat in route to the lake which feeds into the stream. It's so gorgeous in Caimito

Just hanging out with at Dick's house with his cousin, neighbor and brother.

We went on an excursion to Dick's grandparent's house out in the more remote area. His grandpa is an 'ecological engineer' and does a lot with the forest and so forth. This is Andrew with Cucu hehe, cucu (real name is kenneth) is like Andrew's favorite

This is Dick with his little grandfather. Dick and I are the same height so you can only imagine how tall his gpa is. He's so used to mosquitos that they would land all over him and it wouldn't even phase him.

Andrew turned 21 so we had a big surprise party for him, everyone had to dress up as a superhero. I think that Dick is a flintstone's character (not a real superhero) and Kyle is like the math wizard or something (also not a real superhero). It was mroe of a costume party anyway

Even Dick's parents came, this is me and Andrew with Berita and Raul. Raul never looks at the camera...

They smashed Andrew's face into the cake. This is such a cute little picture of drewdrewbear

Andrew with Miss America and Miss Peru (both raised in Pucallpa their whole lives).

We got him a spiderman pinata. There's a funny video of him trying to knock it down and failing

Saying goodbye... we had to leave Pucallpa but we knew we would go back again someday

Divine Redeemer Scholarship Fund

As many of you know, I have safely arrived back to the States, just a few days late. We all recieved emergency passports and shortened our debriefing in Charlotte, NC with the staff members from SAM.

Upon returning to the United States, I was overwhelmed by how much I pay for college compared to my new Peruvian friends and their peers, and just the degree to which they struggle to find the means to pay for education. My culture shock prompted me to form the Divine Redeemer Scholarship Fund (DRSF) to address the need for financial aid among Divine Redeemer Church’s college aged students. The goal of the fund is to provide opportunities for Peruvians to attend universities and trade schools while minimizing the stress of tuition costs. The organization is based at the Divine Redeemer Church which I attended this summer on the trip. Finances also extend to individuals at their several sister churches and others in the community.

It has been an amazing few months developing this organization. Here in the US, I am in charge of raising money. I have spoken with several churches about donating, many of which have expressed interest in providing support. My home church, Christ United Methodist Church, has been overwhelmingly willing to help in any way they can. The money heads to a bank account in Miami which has branches in Pucallpa and then a committee of 5 Divino Redentor members are in charge of making decisions concerning how much and to whom the scholarship are given. The 5 members include John and Minori Lucas (the missionary couple who took care of us this summer), Pastor Abel, Noemi the youth leader, and the church's treasurer. With the help of a very large check cut this week, the organization now has $2000 to give out in scholarships. Though that does not seem to be very much in the context of our culture, tuition in Pucallpa averages only $300 per semester.

The people of Pucallpa really won me over while I was there and it only took about 2 weeks to decide that I wanted to go back over December break. I will be leaving December 13th, spending Christmas and New Years there, and returning January 13th. Due to recently reaching our financial target for the scholarship fund, the DRSF committee members and I will meet in Pucallpa within the first week of the trip and decide on how to divvy out the fund's first scholarships. On the rest of the trip, I will be spending time teaching English with Minori, going to Oansa (the equivolent of our "Awana") to spend time with the youth of the church, and a variety of other things.

The past few days have been an absolute fiasco and at the same time, amazing. I looked at the ticket confirmation for my tickets to Peru, which I thought I had purchased for Sat Dec 13th but apparently I had bought them for Wed Dec 03, which is off by just ONE DIGIT! So I immediately called the hotline for American Airlines, they determined it was my fault and said it would cost $700 to correct this error. The woman I spoke with had an accent and was hard to understand, so I thought that we were miscommunicating and that it wouldn't be that much. But, I called back a second time and spoke with a different woman who said there would be a hefty fee. Instead of dealing with it that way, I went to the Pittsburgh airport to settle this knowing that they are always nicer and more willing to help in person. When I got there, absolutely no one was in line and I walked up to a really nice young lady. I said "I bought my tickets for what I thought was the 13th but on my confirmation it says the 3rd" and she's like "ok no problem, let me see." So I showed her, she did a bunch of typing, and then said "is an overnight flight from miami to lima on the 13th ok?" And I'm like "yeah that's perfect." She printed out my tickets and said "ok, you are all set" and I paid NOTHING. I thought I would have to pay a ridiculous amount but it all worked out, amazingly.

This will be the first year that I will not be home for Christmas, which is a really strange feeling but it will be really neat to spend Christmas and New Years in another country. I'm really looking forward to the trip, I just have to finish all my projects and tests this week. I will be posting here like I did this summer, feel free to follow along :)