Sunday, March 21, 2010

Peru 2010 - Saturday

Hola everyone.
It's Sunday morning here in Peru. The group should be landing right about now in Buffalo. I trust all has gone well for them.
I hope that Patti will be able to share with us a blog entry about their trip home, and that Cindy can send me a couple of pictures via email so I can put that up on the blog as well. That might be about a week in coming though.
Chris is presently playing XBOX 360 and Pepe and I are working on our computers. Christian, who works on computers as a side job, was not able to save my hard drive, but he was able to reformat it and put windows back on. I was thankful for that. When I'm back home i'll have to see if I can get the hard drive loaded back with similar software, as this one had movie stuff on it. We'll have to see. I'm just happy I can now blog to you again and have internet access that is much faster.
I've re-read some sections of the blog, and man, was I tired. Some good spelling and grammar errors, but again, I don't apologize for them. I hope you grammar geeks can look past those errors and see the message within the text. : )
So, yesterday we became tourists. Below I will comment on the pictures without much text before hand. Enjoy.
This picture is a left over from Friday night. A picture of the bottles of Inca Cola Pepe bought.
After our time together commenting, everyone went to their rooms at about 11 pm. ONE room decided it was time to be hyper. I heard them for about 1/2 hour shushing each other and laughing loudly. I wasn't surprised to hear it was Patti's troup.
I have no idea what they were doing here, but maybe they will respond in this blog entry some time to explain themselves. ?
After breakfast on Friday morning, and packing and cleaning up, we gathered in the larger room for a short reflection time. I explained that in yesterdays entry (coherently I hope).
A nice picture of Patti and myself. Thanks Patti for all your help and support during this week.
A final picture of the bathroom. Great picture Cindy. : )
Here is a picture of our head cook, Carlos. The food was very good.
Getting all our suitcases organized.
This picture is out of order for some reason. This is Pepe at the market relaxing.
It was then time to board the busses and travel downtown to the capital building. Once there we took some time to take pictures of the fountain, etc. These soldiers were going around playing their trumpets.
Some of the group from Oakville.
Our group from Calvin. (I have one of Cornwall too, but can't seem to find it at the moment. sorry about that guys).
Hey, pictures with the army on horseback. Reminds me of Canada day in Ottawa with the RCMP.
We toured the Catacombs (no pictures or video allowed). I posted yesterday's blog during that time and met them at the exit. We then walked back to the pick up spot and roasted in the sun for about 10 minutes.
Lunch was next. We could pick from several different places to eat at. I chose TGI Friday's again. I ordered baby back ribs....delicious. Nancy offered to pay for Chris and I. What a nice gesture. Thanks Nancy.
Once again Chris ordered the cheeseburger. It was once again gigantic, as you can see.
After lunch, Leah and Hannah decided to arm wrestle.
Hmmm, another out of order picture. This is in the restaurant after the market where we ate chicken. Lots of fun in that restaurant.
Brenda taking a well deserved rest and enjoying a Starbuck coffee. I think she REALLY enjoyed it. Thanks for being our nurse Brenda. Though you didn't have much to do this time around, the sense of safety and security you offered was well worth it. I just hope it was also worth it for you coming along. You seemed to enjoy yourself and drink in many different things, especially from a health perspective. Carmen did the same thing when she came as a nurse.
Esther John and Patti hamming it up as usual.
After lunch it was off to the souvenier market. A small place jam packed with every kind of Peru trinket you can imagine. We spent 2.5 hours there, and that still wasn't enough for some people. An interesting discussion happened between me and a couple of others in the group about this trinket buying time. After doing this for 3 times now, I wonder about this portion of the trip. Yes, it's exciting to get stuff for our people back home, (I got your teapot dear, and Katrina you got your T-Shirt and other stuff, and Sarah you got your stamps and another surprise) and yes we even support the local economy, but I find that this is the beginning of our transition back into Canadian lifestyle, and we haven't even gotten to Canada yet. We bargain with the vendors, we buy all kinds of stuff, and we seem to put aside our memories of the past 5 days quite quickly.
Now I'm not trying to be a kill joy, but just processing how we are going along and doing what we are doing. I know that Frontline has stuff to sell that is made by those in Pachacutec and other places. Maybe it would be more justice oriented to simply purchase items from them and skip the market? Food for thought.
Ben bought a pillow and put it on his head. Amazingly enough, he started to look JUST like Corinne. (tee, hee).
Gerry, oh how I love Gerry. I have a story about this lovely man. Before we fanned out in the market, Pepe and I tried to make it quite clear that no one was to go off by themselves. Apparently Gerry didn't get the memo. At 7 pm, when we had to leave, Gerry was nowhere to be found. I went looking for him (the place isn't that big) and saw him way down a laneway, but then he peeled left and I lost him. We looked for him for 15 minutes and I was starting to get worried.
I soon found out he was on the bus already. Here's how his side of the story plays out. He was shopping with his lovely wife Marsha, and apparently she is a pro shopper. Trying to maximize time, she made Gerry pay for something while she went off to find something else. Well, Gerry lost her, and got lost himself. He happened to find the busses, so he simply went on the bus.
Now, I love Gerry, but he broke a cardinal rule of the group, so I did lovingly reprimand him....He got the message, AND he tried, in true carnal fashion to place the blame squarely on Marsha. Ah, Gerry, it takes two to tango, as they say. : )
Just another reminder about safety and staying together, AND that often times it's the adults we need to be more worried about, not the YP on these trips. Interesting eh!!!! : )
I do still love you Gerry FYI.
Roger showed up at the restaurant we were ate. He's the man I met 7 years ago, on a bus for 5 minutes. He convinced me of Frontline, and his words have rung true for years. Oh, and Roger is definitely a Type A personality. I think Jackie and he would get along just fine. I should have introduced the two of them to each other...........
This is the meal of chicken and french fries we had that night.
It was, no, it IS Tori's Birthday today or tomorrow. The restaurant gave her a special dessert and we all sang her happy Bday.
Relaxing on our way to the airport.
Checking in at the airport.
This is the next morning, looking out the window of Erin and Pepe's condo on the 9th floor.
Their Kitchen.
Another angle of the kitchen.
Pepe's "baby"
Their balcony. Notice their outdoor "garden" as Erin likes to call it.
The guest room where we slept. I slept ok last night, but still unwinding from the trip. I bet the rest of the group didn't sleep as well as me though.
One of the THREE Bathrooms in their Condo.
The living room with me trying to download a picture compression program so your downloading won't take forever.
Pepe getting ready to cook us breakfast. It was delicious.
So ends the picture diary for yesterday and today. Chris will probably try para sailing today. We'll go out for dinner, and then just hang out and relax. I am feeling quite tired today, not surprising really, so don't want to do too much and overdue things.
I really like Erin and Pepe's place. A retreat away from all the work they do. I asked them how they felt about the constant contrasts they experience doing this work. Working in a place like Pachacutec, and then going home to comforts that we have in N.A. He said that at times he does feel guilty about the contrasts, but if you constantly live like that you can't function. I think he's right about that too. I know Erin and Pepe's heart and I know that they love to entertain guests. They told me that most of the stuff they have, they have received as gifts from their wedding. Neat.
Well, it's time to get on with relaxing here and as we visit our compassion child tomorrow, and we begin to travel home, I'll be writing another blog entry or two with some reflective thoughts on our week, and the future for those who have been blessed here in Peru. So keep coming back to this site for updates in the days and months to come. Thanks for being part of our trip as well. I hope this helped you catch a glimpse of our trip, and that your son/daughter, or if you were a prayer partner to one of the group or are a friend, will share with you their experiences and how they are processing things.
Oh, and if all has gone well, Ottawa people should be back in Ottawa between 9 - 11 pm.
Talk to you soon.

1 comment:

Rose W. said...

What a terrific blessing that everyone is back in Canada safely. Most of the Oakville people are home safe with us (except Pattie and Ellie who stayed behind at a hotel in Fort Erie because Pattie became ill - Hopefully Pattie will be home in her bed recovering soon). A few more hours and Cornwall and Ottawa will be home, too - what a long trip. Samantha can't stop talking about this wonderful experience. Daniel is trying but has lost his voice. We can't wait to hear his stories, too. All the stinky clothes are in the process of being washed. I expect Sam and Dan to crash soon and have a good sleep. Thank you Ron, Frontline Peru and everyone else who had so much to do with the organization of this trip. And special thanks to God for all his blessings!!!