Flood Disasters, Trip into the Andes, and More

19 March 2017

Surviving our first national crisis - Flooding and Landslides throughout Peru

Incredible rains throughout the country have led to floods and landslides of Biblical proportions. Mud filled a water treatment plant here in Lima, leaving 10 million residents without water for days so far (and the outage continues into the foreseeable future). While we are surviving with water we had stockpiled to drink, we are running our dehumidifier to get enough water to flush our toilets!

Thirsty crowds line up, hoping to get water from a water truck. 

Some people resort to getting their water out of public fountains.

Our apartment had been bone dry since Friday, so our landlady ordered a big truck of water to come fill up the cistern this morning (most buildings use cisterns in cement vaults under the building to stockpile water for emergencies like this).  As soon as the truck arrived, a line of thirsty neighbors (with buckets and bottles) formed for a half block running down the street in hopes of filling up.  But after the truck emptied its contents into our cistern, it left and the crowds let out a groan and then dispersed. It seems like things may be approaching panic state. No one knows when the water will come back on.

Water truck filling up our apartment underground water cistern. Crowds lined up, hoping to get water, but after the truck finished loading our water, it drove off, and the crowd dispersed with a groan. 

Our colleagues in the Area Office have shipped lots of food, water, and emergency supplies all over Peru to help in the current flooding and landslide crisis.

Last week, emergency supplies were sent by the church to northern Peru for all people involved in this crisis. These supplies filled the cargo hold of a C-130 military transport for shipment to the scene by air. Moroni Torres, our Area Welfare Manager, 3rd from the right, flew with the supplies. Local youth from the church were on scene to help with distribution.

In addition, our office has been buying lots of food at local stores for distribution to people here in Lima who have been affected by this crisis.

 Welfare Specialist Alex Principe (R) and Bishop's Storehouse Manager Oscar Sanchez (L) buying all sorts of rice, beans, and canned tuna to provide to disaster victims here in Lima. When we saw them making these purchases, we teased them about being extra hungry.

Follow this link <Peruvian Flood and Landslide Disaster> for more on the state of emergency throughout Peru. There are some incredible videos here.

Into the Andes - High-Altitude Journey

We traveled from the heat of Lima high into the icy-cold Andes (14,400 feet) to the city of Cerro de Pasco. Our trip was to assess needy schools and health centers for possible donations of desks and medical equipment. Cerro de Pasco is one of the highest cities in the world, and we had to take altitude sickness medication (which hardly worked) and drink coca tea (which made us all feel much better).

Cerro de Pasco is only 105 miles from Lima (as the crow flies if it could fly that high). But the road is so precarious that driving over the Andes to get there takes 6 hours by car. We chose to fly to Huanuco, a city just 70 miles away from Cerro de Pasco, but that drive took us 2 hours through winding mountain roads. 

Google Earth shot of Cerro de Pasco, At 14,000 feet, it is one of the highest cities in the world. A gigantic open pit mine sits right in the middle of town.

Open pit mining is the life blood of Cerro de Pasco. We felt the extreme effects of altitude the entire time we were here.

Maternal & Newborn Health

We visited five health centers (Centro de Salud) in remote Andean villages like the one shown here. They look nice on the outside, but have virtually no equipment inside, including no fetal monitors or ultrasound equipment.  In these health centers over the past 4 years they have lost about 50 babies, and 12 mothers have died in child birth.  We hope to help reverse this with donations of critical medical equipment.

Health Center in village of Huariaca. The center director, obstetricians, and us lined up for a photo. We hope we can help their situation through donations of key medical equipment.

Schools High in the Andes

We also assessed schools needs as part of this journey into Cerro de Pasco.  We have donated school equipment in the past to help impoverished schools improve their standards, and this trip was to make that assessment. Note that everyone wears coats here, year-round, indoors, because it is so cold at this altitude - and it is currently summer here in the Southern Hemisphere!

The first school we assessed - Lorenzo Rockovich in Cerro de Pasco. Note that the kids wear coats indoors year-round due to the high altitudes and cold temperatures. It was 30 degrees F when we arrived - and this is summer.  Winter up here is even colder.

Some of the school furniture was in pretty bad shape, but most of the schools had taken good care of their limited resources.

Most of the grade schools were surrounded by huge walls and gates, designed to keep the kids safe (but they also felt a little like a jail). 

The school in this mountain village had 12 modern computers in their lab and a robotics classroom. Amazing! We also visited a very tiny school that only had ten students, but they still had a computer and a 32" flat screen TV. The classrooms were child-friendly and happy places to learn. 

We were really impressed with the teachers' love and desire to help their students. We probably won't be doing a project for these schools since they were all doing so well (which was disappointing for some of the teachers and staff).

We met in the town hall in Cerro de Pasco with the Mayor's chief assistant, Elmer Gomez, who took us to all the schools and health centers.  Right after this meeting with him, we walked outside the town hall and immediately had an interview (with microphones in our face) with the local press who were interested to learn about our visit. That was a first for us! I guess we will be famous now in Cerro de Pasco!

Llamas and Alpacas - Peruvian Traffic Jam

Farmers high in the Andes often raise llamas and alpacas (both are raised for their meat, alpacas are raised for their fur). We saw thousands of these animals during this trip to the highlands.

Cars had to stop while this herd of llamas / alpacas crossed the highway.  We laughingly called this a "Peruvian Traffic Jam in the Andes".

After seeing these pictures, our granddaughter Ella told her mom that the alpacas looked like sheep with long necks (she's right).  If the babies had shorter necks, they would actually be cute little lambs.

A farmer and his wife gathered their herd (mostly alpacas with a few llamas mixed in). Their little doggie came along for the fun. This was the middle of the summer, but temperatures at 14,000 feet were right at freezing.

Getting back down from Cerro de Pasco proved interesting. All along the route there were rockslides that shut down traffic in several places - a daily event here in the Andes.

The Andes Mountains - Many places looked like Switzerland. Note the terraces (called chacras) high on the mountain slope. Farmers still plant and harvest crops in these chacras, some of which date back to Inca times. Imagine hiking up these mountains to work on your fields, and then struggling to bring down back the harvest (much of which are potatoes). 

Back to Lima - Folkloric Espectacular in the Teatro Nacional

We made it back by Saturday to Lima to see the Folkloric Espectacular at the Teatro Nacional. About 20 other senior missionaries joined us for the night out.  It was an amazing 2-hour performance with dancers in native costumes and fabulous music in an amazing performance hall.

Teatro Nacional in Lima, the most beautiful building in Peru

Incredible musicians performed all music for the show, including all the traditional Andean instruments like Kena flutes and Charango mandolins.

Dancers in traditional costumes

As part of the final number, the audience was invited to join in the fun.  

And so another busy week comes to an end.  This coming week starts our wheelchair evaluator and maintainer courses here in Lima, then we fly out in the Amazon jungle on Friday to continue the training and to hand over part of the 1,100 wheelchair donation we are making this year in Peru.