Back to the Jungle on Christmas Day, Operacion Sonrisa, and Peruvian Christmas Traditions

24 December 2017

Work marches on here in Peru with our humanitarian work. Even with the Christmas holidays upon us, we are still really busy. On Christmas day, we are flying into the jungle of Pucallpa to deliver eyeglasses to needy children. 

A Welcome Christmas Gift

We have been racing against a deadline to get a thousand eyeglasses to needy children in the jungle of Pucallpa before school gets out for the year on December 29. (We finished the exams in Pucallpa  just 2 weeks ago, and it has been a monumental job for our supplier to make the thousand eyeglasses and get them packaged and shipped).

Yesterday, our supplier confirmed they finished production of the thousand eyeglasses and got them sent by air cargo to Pucallpa. We were excited this actually happened just in time.

Air waybill confirmation of the shipment of the eyeglasses to the jungle.

Now, we get to travel to Pucallpa on Christmas day in order to pickup the air cargo shipment and get it to the local health leaders on December 26. That will give us all just enough time to complete the delivery formalities and finish the distribution before schools get out for the 3-month summer break.

What a relief to know we are close to the end of this project. It was started 3 years ago and has required lots of coordination for us, our Purchasing department, our contracted optometrists and manufacturer, and the regional health leaders in the jungle region of Ucayali/Pucallpa.

And, besides the joy of bringing this project to an end and helping so many kids, this will be a first for us - spending Christmas day in the jungle.  

Fixing Cleft Lips and Palettes - Operacion Sonrisa 

Every year we work with Operacion Sonrisa (better known as Operation Smile) on their surgical  campaigns around Peru. We just finished helping with one of their recent campaigns in Lima and high in the Andes Mountains of Puno to fix cleft lips and palettes for children and give them the chance for a normal life.

Operation Smile volunteer doctors and nurses - ready to fix cleft lips and palettes here in Peru. 

More than 160 volunteer doctors, nurses, and others work with this organization to correct cleft lips and cleft palettes for children. They give freely of their time to help. However, Operacion Sonrisa always needs donations of medical supplies and medicines in order to make these campaigns happen.

We ended up donating hundreds of supplies for this current campaign (anesthesia, antibiotics, surgical instruments, etc.) that are required for these kinds of surgeries. Church volunteers also showed up to help with the logistics of registering and moving families around on the days of the surgeries.

Photo from last year's campaign in Puno. Cleft surgeries give children a chance for a normal life.

It warms our hearts to work with partners like Operation Smile to change lives of those who would never be able to afford these surgeries on their own.

Intense Year of Service

Most nights we come home from the humanitarian office exhausted. We stagger home after work and say, "We survived another day!" Based on that, I made a "Certificate of Survival". Alex Principe, our area welfare specialist, saw the certificate and thought it was funny. He even signed the certificate and posed for the photo of the 'award ceremony'.

We have survived 11 months of very, very intense humanitarian work. Hurray!

Certificate of Survival. Translation: "For having endured with the patience of Job the daily trials of the Department of Welfare".

We like our mission, but the intensity of the work is often a challenge. However, I know we have enough strength to face the remaining 7 months!

Ready for Christmas

We are far from family and friends this year, but that hasn't dampened our Christmas spirits. We put up a tree (one of three we found in our apartment left behind by former missionaries), and we can contact our children and grandchildren whenever we want on the IPAD-Mini or on our cell-phone apps that let us easily stay in touch through the holidays.

Our Christmas Tree in the apartment in Peru. It may be hot outside, but it is Christmas inside our home.

Chatting with the grandkids via the IPAD-Mini during a pre-Christmas family get-together. Technology has made our separation much easier.

We have a bunch of other Americans around here (other volunteer senior missionaries) who love to get together to celebrate holidays. We got together with a group for food and Christmas caroling this past week as part of our monthly 'family home evening.'

About 20 other senior missionaries and us at the Christmas get-together family home evening.

Caroling on the streets of Lima after the family home evening with the other Americans.

(Note that other volunteer senior missionaries we work with serve in areas such as church legal affairs, area medical advisers, self-sufficiency leaders, and church and family history consultants.)

Christmas away from family and friends is not always easy, but we have made the best that we can with the great support we have here in Peru.

Beautiful Christmas Tree at Jockey Plaza Mall, Lima - A reminder that it is really Christmas here in Peru, even without the snow and cold.

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Merry Christmas from Sandy and Marshall

Christmas Panetone in Lima

Top on the list of holiday food in Peru is Panetone. This is a big Italian fruit bread that everyone eats at Christmastime in Peru. You may be too poor to afford a turkey or a ham, but as long as you get your Panetone, life is good.

Every store has shelves stocked with up to a dozen different brands. The bread is big - about the size of a soccer ball. Some come in plastic bags; the fancier Panetone comes in a box. Prices start around $3/loaf and go up to about $8/loaf for the really good stuff that comes in the box.

Our giant 2-pound Christmas loaf of Panetone and hot chocolate mixed with cinnamon - the most traditional of Peruvian Christmas foods.

Guinea Pig - the Other Christmas Treat

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better than the Panetone, you stumble across the 'other' Peruvian tradition - enjoying a delicious roasted guinea pig (called 'Cuy') for Christmas dinner. Cuy has been eaten for centuries by people in the Andes all the way from Colombia to Chile, but they are especially popular in Peru. You can buy Cuy in restaurants, or buy them live to raise and eat, or get them prepackaged in a grocery store.

I had to snap a shot of these critters packaged in shrink wrap in a local grocery store. All their hair is removed and they are de-gutted. How convenient!

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Prepackaged guinea pig (cuy) for Christmas dinner.

Peruvians always ask me if I have eaten Cuy. I tell them yes, but that it was both the first and last time. When they ask me why, I tell them I just can't bring myself to eating any more rodents. I call them 'rats without tails', and most locals laughingly agree with me, but they still love eating them.

Star Wars - Los Ultimos Jedi

Saturday night, we went to see the latest Star Wars movie - "Los Ultimos Jedi".

Los Ultimos Jedi

This movie came in two versions: either totally dubbed into Spanish or the English version with Spanish subtitles. We luckily found a theater showing the latter version. Otherwise, we would have come out of the movie saying, "Que la fuerza este contigo!" (May the force be with you).

Movies are cheap here in Peru.  The Star Wars movie tickets cost $6.50 each, and the giant food deal with a big refillable bucket of popcorn, two drinks, and an order of nachos cost about $10. What a deal!

So much junk to eat that we skipped dinner!

White Christmas

Even through we fly into the jungle on Christmas day, we still have the chance to see a White Christmas. As we fly from the coast to the jungle, we fly high over the Andes Mountains with many peaks over 19,000 ft. This is the scene I saw on one of our last trips as I looked out the window.

High over the Andes Mountains, not far from the equator. It snows at high altitude, even at the equator.

I am glad the cockpit flight instruments help the pilots keep us above these snowy cliffs of the Andes, White Christmas or naught!


So, tomorrow is Christmas, a special day celebrated throughout the world. And the fact that we have to travel to Pucallpa on that day is not a bad thing - it is a good thing because children in need will now be able to see clearly. We are grateful we have this chance to serve here in Peru.

Santa Cruz Jungle School Project, the Ballet and Malls, and Llama in the Minibus

17 December 2017

Our journey this week took us out to a remote jungle region with our donations to an impoverished school on the fringe of civilization. Our goal in working with poor schools is to improve the educational environment in extremely poor regions. Located on the banks of the Marañón River in northern Peru, this school had been around for more than 30 years with no running water and very few supplies.

We had been asked to help by the Peruvian president's wife, Nancy Lange. This project was approved by the Area Welfare Committee for donations of humanitarian aid to include a water tank and pump, desks, tables, cooking equipment, and clothing for the children. By last week, most everything had been delivered, so our trip to the jungle included carrying in the last items and overseeing the delivery ceremony with the Peruvian president's wife.

No roads into the jungle, only the Marañón River. The Marañón is one of the two rivers (along with the Ucayali) that form the Amazon. Both rivers are each a half mile wide and they join together near Nauta to form the Amazon, which is then about a mile wide starting at that point. You feel small in this enormous Peruvian jungle.

Into the Jungle - Village and School of Santa Cruz

We flew into Iquitos in the northern jungle and then drove 2 hours the next day to reach the tiny city of Nauta. Once we got to Nauta, we had to take a small motorized riverboat to an even smaller jungle village on the Marañón River called Santa Cruz.

No easy way in - we flew to Iquitos in the jungle region and then drove 2 hours to get to Nauta, 

Everyone gets around in the jungle on these small riverboats. Once you leave Nauta, there are no more roads. There was no way into Santa Cruz from Nauta except on the riverboat.

We boarded the riverboat for the 10-minute fast shuttle to Santa Cruz, along with Guillermo Estrugo (left, Church Area Public Affairs director), Elder Cesar Villar (Church Area Seventy), and Walter Bobadilla (Church Public Affairs leader for Peru). They were coming with us for the delivery ceremony in Santa Cruz.

Our project was at the school in Santa Cruz that had been in existence for over 30 years. The desks, tables and chairs and kitchen equipment had never been replaced and were in bad shape. In Peru, all the children wear school uniforms to school, but the families of the children in this community were too poor to afford those, and most could only afford plastic sandals for their children. Also, the only water they had for the school was from a hole in the ground covered by a piece of rusty metal.

The only water supply for the school - a well half a block from the school covered with corrugated metal. Prior to our project, the school children or teachers would fetch buckets of water out of the well, carry it up a hill, and flush the toilets with water from the buckets.

The church humanitarian fund provided a pump and large water tank, which was plumbed into the bathroom. The children can now flush the toilets and wash with running water.

New water tank with pump that now connects to the well. We supplied the tank and pump, the school and parents built the pedestal to lift the tank to provide gravity flow. As a secondary source of water, the school also diverts rainwater from the roof of the school into the tank in case the pump ever fails. (Left to right - Wilfredo Lopez, School Director; Cesar Villar, church Area Seventy; and Marshall). 

We also provided new desks and chairs, tables and benches for the cafeteria, a cocina (a 3-burner stove hooked up to a propane tank to replace the open fire for the lunch ladies to cook on), acrylic whiteboards, bookcases, kitchen pots and pans, dishes, cutlery, school uniforms and new gym shoes that they can wear to play soccer with the new soccer balls we donated.

New student and teacher desks and chairs we donated. We contracted with a firm in Nauta to make these, then they delivered them earlier in the week by boat on the Marañón River (in the background).

School uniforms and shoes. We had all the clothes custom made and found really good deals - the shoes were only $8 a pair made by a man in Lima who makes them with his family in his home factory.

This was a challenging project since it was located in the middle of the jungle and not connected to any roads. Everything had to be boated in. We had a hard time 2 weeks ago getting our uniforms delivered from Lima (it took over a week), so we decided to fill up two of our largest suitcases with the 64 pairs of shoes that we were donating for the children and flew them out with us as checked baggage. That way we knew they would get delivered on time.

We brought all the shoes packed in the luggage shown here because we couldn't trust that it would make it to the school in time if we had shipped them. Here are two guys from the school who served as our 'sherpas' carrying the shoes from the dock up to the school.

Brand new cooking supplies and propane stoves for the cafeteria (they previously prepared lunches for the children on open campfires). 

The village was excited to have the Peruvian president's wife - First Lady of Peru Nancy Lange (an American from Wisconsin) - coming for the delivery ceremony. She had first been shown the need of the school 18 months ago and promised the people of Santa Cruz that she would find a way to improve the conditions of the school. She then contacted our office and we made it happen.

School kids waited patiently for hours for the arrival of the First Lady. (Everyone wore their best clothes and got new hats to wear for the arrival).

It was an incredibly hot and humid day. You cannot imagine how much I sweat. Within minutes my shirt was soaked through and within an hour, my pants were drenched with sweat all the way down to my toes. It looked like I had just swum out of the river, I was so soaked. I told Sandy to keep away from me as I was just too disgusting to touch. She had to agree with me, but it was such a day of celebration that even the weather and the sweating couldn't diminish the joy of the leaders of the school and the community and the children and their families as we made this delivery. 

There was a live band of traditional jungle instruments and women and girls dressed up in traditional jungle clothing dancing and singing to welcome the First Lady and provide entertainment for all of us.

The local band from the village played traditional music for about 2 hours while we waited in the heat for the First Lady to arrive. (Note that the flute, a traditional Peruvian Kena flute, was handmade out of PVC plastic tubing. They are typically made out of wood or bamboo, but those decay quickly in the jungle, so they prefer plastic.)

Sandy seemed to maintain her cool amidst the steamy hot conditions. She did much better than me.

The First Lady finally arrived. Her boat came from Iquitos and took 3 hours to arrive. (I'm glad we drove to Nauta and then took the 10-minute fast boat to arrive in Santa Cruz).

The First Lady finally arrived in Santa Cruz amid the army, police, and press. 

First Lady Nancy Lange and kids from the school performing at the ceremony.

Following the actual ceremony, Nancy Lange toured the school to see the new desks and other equipment from the donation.

This place looks more like a school now that they have nice desks.

After the ceremony and tour, everyone gathered in the pre-school next door for what they call a 'chocolatada' - hot chocolate and panetone. All the kids were excited about that - in scorching temperatures with high humidity, hot chocolate was the last thing any of the adults wanted.

'Chocolatada' celebration with the First Lady - hot chocolate and panetone in the jungle.

In all, the celebration was lots of fun, except for all the sweating. (I just stood outside the cabin of the boat on the ride back to Nauta to dry off in the breeze. I was less disgusting by the time we reached Nauta).

Around the Jungle

Living in the jungle around Nauta, Iquitos, and Santa Cruz is a miserably hot experience, although locals have learned to cope in various ways.

Most Peruvian jungle communities pop up when they slash and burn the jungle to make way for houses. The roof is critical since it rains almost every day. Most use corrugated metal.

Most of the jungle homes are built on stilts to keep the houses dry from the rains that come almost every day. Stilts also keep critters from making permanent homes under your floor boards.

Stilt house in the jungle, complete with satellite dish. Being on stilts gives you a place to hang out in the shade, and you can still dry clothes on a rainy day beneath the house.

Windows let in bugs. Poor people in the jungle prefer no windows just to cut down on the insects. The downside is lack of ventilation.

Some windows may exist, but you cover them up with wood in the evening when the bugs get bad. Sometimes there is ventilation at the roof line. 

Although corrugated metal roofs are the most durable, jungle thatched roofs are a cheaper homemade alternative.

The local store - the 'Circle-K' of the jungle. We bought cold water and soda at this store. You either order at the window, or just walk in like we did to get out of the sun. The owner lives inside but brings in ice each day from nearby Nauta. His store is in one room, he sleeps in another, and people hang out in the shade of his entry room while they eat what they bought.

On really hot days, you can go out on the wide Marañón River. Even when it is sweltering hot on land in the jungle, the river provides relief, especially if you can go fast enough to dry off.

Traveling on the Marañón River is a good chance to dry off. 

Jungle towns themselves are not the prettiest places, especially the docks. Because the river height fluctuates so much between wet and dry season, most of the dock areas are just dirt that allows you to pull a boat up to the shore.

Dock area in Nauta. The yellow building is a floating gas station.

Main dock in Nauta. You really feel like you are at the edge of civilization when you leave this town and head into the jungle.

We had to be immunized for yellow fever before this mission, primarily to protect us in jungle areas like these. Malaria, Dengue Fever and Zika are big concerns here, also, and we have met several people out here who have suffered with these diseases. And, although Sandy put on lots of bug repellent, she still ended up with three bites - but no symptoms yet!

Even as difficult as it is to be in the jungle, the food there is always good. We like everything we have eaten in the jungle on our various trips (except for the grubs I tried a few years back in the jungle in Ecuador - I won't be doing those again).

Sandwich of grilled marinated chicken breast with a tropical mango and rocoto salsa and cheese. We got this at a restaurant called "Dawn on the Amazon" in Iquitos. Jungle food is always good, for some reason.

By the time we returned to Iquitos for our flight home, we were surprised that, by comparison, Iquitos felt cooler. I will never complain about the heat in Iquitos again after all the sweating I did in the jungle of Santa Cruz.

Floating dock in Iquitos. The rainy season has started and the Itapa River shown here is on the rise. Crops were being grown beyond the building shown here just 2 months ago.

We are always glad when our little jungle adventures come to an end and we can return to Lima with its grey skies, fog, and cooler temperatures (at least for right now before summer cranks up).

Back into Lima - at the Ballet!

We bought tickets to see the ballet 'Romeo y Julieta' with other senior missionary couples, and we returned back to Lima in time for the performance on Friday night. I cannot describe how strange it is to be sweating in the jungle under primitive conditions one day and then return to Lima to see top-quality culture in the Gran Teatro Nacional a day or two later. The contrast is really bizarre!

The Ballet Nacional taking final bows at the production of 'Romeo y Julieta'.

Mall, Maul, Mal, or Mole?

The scramble is on in Peru to build malls. Most mid- to large-sized cities seem to gauge their progress by having at least one mall. There are several malls within a few miles of our house here in Lima.

Mall Aventura (Adventure Mall) is one of several malls around us here in Lima.

Notice that they write the word as "Mall". However, Peruvians pronounce it as "Mole" (like the animal that lives in the ground). They never pronounce it like "Maul" in the way we do. If they pronounced it as "Maul", they would write as "Mal", which means "bad". How crazy!

Malls in Peru look just like USA malls. They brightly light up the malls at Christmas, just like up north, and they wrap the lights around palm trees.

Malls in Peru carry high-priced clothing, home furnishings and other goods typical of malls across the USA. Prices in Peruvian malls are the same as in USA malls (since most of the goods are imported). But, it is cool to buy things at the mall here, so even though salaries are significantly less than in the USA, many people sacrifice for the prestige of buying at the mall.

And what mall would be complete at Christmas time without lights and lots of decorations? And of course, in Peru, you need the chance for a photo-op next to a Christmas tree and snowman in a country where 99% of the population has never experienced snow first hand!

Get your Christmas photo next to the tree and snowman. This is part of the Christmas tradition, even in countries with virtually no snow!

Only in Peru - Riding the Minibus with a Llama

We observe strange things in Peru from time to time. But this one got our attention - a llama riding in a minibus. I found this shot on the internet, taken recently by a guy here in Lima who was driving on the freeway while taking video with his cell phone. The minibus 'combi' passed by while he recorded the scene. Several local television stations picked it up and ran it on the news recently. Even by Peruvian standards, this was hilariously strange.

A llama on a minibus while driving down the freeway.

We often ride the minibuses here, but we were glad we weren't on that one. I don't know what would have been worse to be riding next to the llama - the spitting end or the other end!

Like a local told us: "Anything is possible in Peru!"

So, we return to the office for a week to catch up on all the projects we are managing. Unfortunately, all our many projects take a back seat while we are traveling. Our next trip will be back to the jungle of Pucallpa the week after Christmas to deliver the 1,000 glasses to children on the vision campaign. And so we plan to catch our breath while we can this week.

Jungle Vision Trip to Pucallpa and Getting Ready for Christmas in Lima

10 December 2017

We traveled into the hot and steamy jungle of Pucallpa this week to complete a vision project that was started 3 years ago. This project should have been completed long ago, but life in the jungle proceeds at a different pace. We are just happy that more than 1,000 children will be able to see better now with the donation of exams and glasses that we are making.

More about the vision project later, but first . . .

Jungle City of Pucallpa

Pucallpa sits on the banks of the Ucayali River, one of the two rivers that form the Amazon. At this point, the river is over half a mile wide. A few hundred miles north, it meets up with the Marañón River and then the name changes to the Amazon River. The next major city on the river, Iquitos, is 4 days away by boat.

The Ucayali River is at the heart of Pucallpa, and jungle completely surrounds the city. The river is so wide at this point that there are no bridges - everything happens on the river itself. 

Pucallpa is fairly isolated. Although we were only 70 miles from the border with Brazil, there are no roads to get to Brazil. It would take weeks with a jungle guide and machetes to hack your way through to Brazil.

Half of  Peru is covered in jungle, but only 5 percent of the population lives in the jungle. Lack of roads and bridges makes travel impossible through the jungle except by boat. In Pucallpa, we were closer to Brazil than Lima, but the jungle would make it nearly impossible to get there. 

Long and narrow powered canoes with sun shade are the preferred ways of getting around in the Peruvian jungle.

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Fleets of larger boats haul in the produce from the jungle or provide ferry service all the way into Brazil.

Peru built a road to Pucallpa in 1945, but it is a very long drive from Lima over the Andes Mountains and through the jungle to get there. (Thank goodness we just flew in from Lima).

We strolled along the riverside one day after work. It is an interesting place, given all the action from fruit sellers and the cargo coming in and going out.

Much of the action in Pucallpa takes place at the riverside, where people setup shop and sell just about anything.

We were a little nervous down at the riverside area. There were lots of people down there that looked like they had spent a little too much time out in the jungle. We tried to stay away from characters like the guy below, especially ones carrying long sticks.

This wild-looking guy was roaming the streets just a block from the river with a look on his face like he had just stepped out of the jungle!

Because Pucallpa is in the rain forest, it rains almost every day. Further in from the river, houses and businesses all seemed to have corrugated metal roofs to deal with all the rain. Here is a view of the city from the top of our hotel.

Corrugated metal roofs cover the city of Pucallpa. It is the preferred roofing material in the jungle.

At the docks of Pucallpa there was a constant buzz of business as boatloads of bananas and other jungle fruits were brought ashore. We only dared to go to the docks during daylight hours given the rough nature of the people there. Even then, we felt uneasy given the stares we were getting. During the three days we spent in Pucallpa, we were the only white people we ever saw.

Flow of goods at the docks of Pucallpa.

We'd never seen so many bananas in one place, all fresh right out of the jungle.

A pedestrian-only street not far from the docks made us feel like we were back in familiar territory. The city had done a nice job of building up the street and shopping zone, complete with a clear stream down the middle to signify the Ucayali River that gives the city a reason to exist.

Shopping zone near the Ucayali River - complete with its own 'river' running down the middle.

Pucallpa has a few modern shopping malls and city buildings, but you never forget that you are surrounded by the jungle when you are in the city.

Welcome sign in front of the National Theatre and Pucallpa Municipal Government buildings.

Vision Project in Pucallpa

The vision project in Pucallpa was started in 2014 with the donation of surgical equipment and a training visit of a US ophthalmologist. The final part of the project was the donation of exams and glasses for children, but this part got put on hold for several years. After many phone calls and much coordination, the government leaders finally organized the vision campaign and we moved forward this week.

Children were pre-screened (mostly) and those with vision problems were brought in from around the region. Note that about 10,000 children were pre-screened to come up those that actually needed glasses (about 10 percent of those screened needed glasses).

The campaign lasted 5 days and 1,050 children were examined. The company we hired is making the glasses now and they will be delivered in the next two weeks.

The company we hired in Lima brought the optometrists, opticians, and all their equipment out here to the jungle. The campaign got underway and each day up to 250 children were given their exams.

A team of three optometrists we hired in Lima could handle up to 40 children per hour.

The refractometer shown here provided a close approximation of the prescription needed for each eye.

After the refractometer, each child was given a detailed exam to confirm the prescription. This team was really good at dealing with large numbers of children in this campaign.

We had planned on only performing 950 exams, based on the pre-screening, but teachers identified another 100 kids who couldn't see the board or computer screens. When we did their detailed exams, we found that many of this additional number who had never been pre-screened had really bad vision. At the end of the 5-day campaign, the number of kids had grown to 1,050 total.

Hundreds of children needing glasses were brought in for the exams. Here is the line of kids picking out their frames.

When kids can pick out their own frames they are more likely to wear their glasses.

While the kids waited in line for their turn, we had time to chat with them. I think we were the first foreigners that they had ever spoken with and maybe the first white people, also. We did not see any other white people during our time there.

A group of kids would gather around us and just chat rapid fire, so excited to have this chance to speak with foreigners. Sandy sat on a chair and was surrounded by excited kids for several hours, all speaking in Spanish. After 3 hours of this, Sandy got up and had to move. With both hands on the sides of her head, keeping it from exploding, she said, "My brain is really tired of speaking Spanish!"

Kids surrounded Sandy, just like the pied piper of little children. They stared at her and said things like, "We like your blue eyes," "We like your hair," "How long do people live in your country", etc., etc., etc. It was a fun time for the kids.

The kids kept asking me where I was from. I asked them to guess, and almost no one said USA. They were all guessing things like France, Germany, and Brazil.

I was sweating like crazy while we visited with the kids. For them, it was a cool day. I showed the kids and their teachers this winter picture we took in Utah back in January before coming here. Everyone was amazed. No one had ever been in snow before.

All were amazed by this picture in the snow. None had ever seen snow in person.

And so this long-delayed campaign to get glasses is finally moving to completion. More than a thousand kids in the jungle (many from very poor families) will now be able to see.

Cute Peruvian kids who will now be able to see the blackboard or read a book with our donation of glasses.

Christmas in Lima

It is a little strange having Christmas in a place with no snow. In fact, this is getting to be the hottest part of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. They say Santa changes into shorts when he gets south of the equator. We got to walk around downtown Lima on Saturday with friends and enjoy the Christmas lights.

Michael Trejo (who we work with) and his wife Nadia joined us for a dinner of 'anticuchos' in Central Lima before seeing the Christmas lights. We just sat in a plaza and ate our street food, enjoying the nice weather. 

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'Anticuchos' are beef hearts, a real Peruvian specialty. We were afraid to try these when we first came here, but they are incredibly delicious and packed with flavor. They always come skewered on sticks like this no matter whether you get them on the street or in fancy restaurants. 

After our dinner of anticuchos, we roamed the historic downtown and Plaza de Armas while enjoying a glimpse of what Christmas is like in Peru.

Christmas lights around the water fountains - it never freezes here so the fountains run year round.

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Santa's sleigh (actually a wagon because there is no snow) setup in front of the main cathedral.

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Central Lima - lit up with Christmas lights.

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Quartet of mechanized Santas. They look a little warm for this time of year in South America - It is time to change into shorts, Santa!

Peruvians know who Santa Claus is, but the name they usually use here is 'Papa Noel' which means something like 'Father Christmas'.

A swirl of lights made us almost feel like we were back home.

Christmas Office Celebrations

Our Area Church Office had a Christmas party this week with a catered lunch and program (in which we participated). Our part of the program consisted in a hilarious sketch in front of about 200 Peruvians where we played the new ditsy Americans. Everyone in the audience howled as I used my absolute worst Spanish asking about all the 'Huaycos' taking place, not knowing what the word meant. Huayco is actually a Quechua Indian word (not Spanish) for flash floods.

Crazy sketch at the Christmas party. Everyone was howling with laughter at the newby Americans speaking awful Spanish.

As the sketch progressed, I put on my worst American accent while asking if a Huayco was the 'rat without tail' that they eat here (which is guinea pig), or if it was a giant hole in the ground, or why it wasn't in my Google Translate. Given the laughter and rounds of applause, I think we were a hit. We followed up with a Christmas tune I played on my Irish pennywhistle, The Little Drummer Boy, and a short devotional talk Sandy gave in Spanish.

Michael Trejo on guitar, me on Irish Pennywhistle, and Sandy giving a short Christmas devotional talk in Spanish.

The party and dinner were a nice chance to unwind. Even without the snow, it helped get us into the Christmas spirit.

The Area Church Office Christmas Party

Michael Trejo and Lily Davalos joined us for the dinner.

Our Welfare and Humanitarian Services team at the Christmas Party.

If there is a consolation to the dry and warm winter here, it is that we can see snow when we fly from Lima to the jungle over the Andes Mountains. Last week we flew over the Cordillera Blanca range in the Andes and saw snow-capped 19,000 ft. mountain tops peeking out of the clouds to show us that there is snow somewhere in Peru.

Mountain peaks at over 19,000 ft. elevation poking through the clouds - it will be a White Christmas somewhere in Peru this year.

And so we finished another week and now pack our bags again for another trip to the jungle. This week we head up north for a delivery of humanitarian aid in a poor school in Nauta near Iquitos on the Amazon River. Hold on for another adventure!