Qué curioso....

I hear that so often here! "How curious...", the Peruvians say. It's one of many of their little expressions here. Here are some of my other favorites:

"blah blah blah, ¿di?" - Used like the Canadian "eh?" at the end of a sentence, kind of like a passive-aggressive confirmation of the truth in one's sentece. It is literally the imperative form of "to say".

"¿Qué se llama?" - "What are you called?" Haha instead of the more common "How are you called?"

It's also always so interesting to see the different names used for tools, fruits, and other things. You would think that fruits would have the same name in Ecuador and Peru. It would be like someone in Indiana saying "banana" to someone in Tennessee, and they reply "Banana? Naw that's a big-finger fruit!"

But, my favorite is definitely "Qué curioso...", so I'd like to share a few of the things I've seen recently that I find to be "curious".

This is a protest poster being put up in every town within Cajamarca's district. There's a mine being expanded in the city that is supposed to bring like a thousand or more jobs to the area, and make Peru rich as snot. It's a gold mine. But, evidently, it will draw power off the river, and the locals believe it will contaminate the entire water supply for every town downriver of Cajamarca. So, at the moment, there are passive demonstrations and protests in the city, and the National Police have established a semi-permanent presence in the case of any violence.

The funny thing about this poster? Is that the kid they pulled off the internet is popular within Internet-based humor and has been dubbed "Success Kid". (As seen at this link). But this time? He's evidently angry about his future. Nevermind the fact that his parents urinate in, throw trash in, and dump old cooking remains into the same river they've sworn to protect.

Get a load of my dude Adriel! Haha he's the funniest (and largest) 3-year-old I've ever known. After eating lunch with a large group of brothers that came to support our meeting, his mom leads him off from the group. Someone asks him "Adriel, what are you going to do?" to which he responds "IMA BE DRINKIN' MAH MIIIIILLLLLKKKKKK" in this super-awesome voice. And that's exactly what he did. Dude drank his milk. Haha check out this link to see the conversation I had with him. Adriel the Milk Boss

If you look closely, you can see that this dog was so focused on the chicken bone being held in front of him that he allowed me to balance a balled-up napkin on his head without moving.

One of the craziest phenomena here is the appearance of the moon every day between 3-6pm in broad daylight! It's impossible to get a clear photo of it with my poor equipment, but we've had about a week lately of full-on, visible white moon in a sun-lit afternoon sky! The skies here are also 100% clear almost every day, and the mountain valley gets the most direct sunlight I've ever felt. It's all... quite curious. Lol

This little gem is one of my favorites! It's actually a bottle opener on the other side. I found it in the dirt while I was walking to a Bible Study. It worked out great in two ways; I needed a bottle opener, and I flipped it over to see Richar Bacon on the other side! Hahaha evidently he was running for mayor of Cajamarca. But seriously! Re-elect Mister Bacon! I have faith in... well whatever the heck he wants to say; I don't care! Bacon! Plus, he's got this noble Indian Chief way about him. A very trustworthy face. And his name... I mean.. come on!

It's been quite entertaining the last month or so, I must say. There is NO shortage of interesting things to experience and joys to be had in Jehovah's service. I don't look forward to having to leave this place, but I do look forward to the good things the future can bring. Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for more little experiences and such. Until then, Saludos! from the Magdalena group, both original members as well as visiting support from our sponsoring congregation in Cajamarca!

Mountains and stuff!

So, recently we as a group with some help from Cajamarca set out to preach in a village called El Guayabo, about 2 hours' hike up from Magdalena. It was quite a nice experience, and a great day enjoying some new stuff! Here are some pictures:

Our valient group (save Mikaela, who took the picture).

The Treacherous Bridge of Unnecessary Passage (courageously being held open by an immensely strong young knight to allow the dames' passage). They could have just walked across the giant concrete bridge beside it, but who would do that when you can play Indiana Jones?

Preaching en route to any passerby.

View of Magdalena from the trail, about halfway up.

View from the top.

The bustling metropolis of El Guayabo and its immense soccer arena!

A bit of well-earned lunch and shoe removal before covering the actual village in house-to-house.

It really was a nice experience! The people in Guayabo rarely receive a witness, save for the random times we might catch them at the market on Sundays in Magdalena, or on the road between return visits if they've come down to do business. It's more third-world and modest then I had seen before. Yet, what a great level of contentment and simplicity these people maintain! And how receptive they are to the truth! I would never live in a house like theirs, but I definitely admire their attitude, and it was a great privilege to visit their homes and give them the good news!

¡Lléguense!

Havin' a merry ol'time now, are we?! Here are some recent pictures from our adventures and ministry. Lately, we have been preaching in a small town about 15 minutes to the East of Magdalena called La Viña. A few of the friends from Cajamarca come out every two weeks and help us. There is usually a good response out there, so recently we decided to hold a meeting there at the Common House. We spent all day this Monday preaching and inviting everyone to attend, and we ended up having 14 visitors plus our 6 in attendance! Isn't that great? You can see a few pictures of La Viña here, and I will be able to get the rest soon from Jérémie.

One of the more interesting elements of La Viña is the return. Normally, we try to catch a taxi for one Sol, but that entails piling 6 or 7 deep into it (even more if you're willing to ride in the back). In this case, Jérémie was fortunate to get the last seat in the back.

I struggled to decide if I would stay behind or try to squeeze in, but thankfully a helpful stranger gave me a recommendation.

Lately, I've been trying to be more responsible in my habits. I live by myself now, so it's entirely up to me to maintain things in order. That also includes trying to eat better and cook for myself. (And Amy didn't think I was paying attention all those years.......)

New digs, eh! I actually bought a table to eat at! And I try to have things around the house to eat that grow on trees and bushes instead of wrappers and boxes. Lol

One of the greatest things about living here in Peru is the vast assortment of extremely fresh, extremely high-quality produce that is sometimes ridiculously cheap. The avocadoes here are literally as big as a human head sometimes, and guacamole has become a staple. You can always throw in some toasted corn, pasta, vegetables, and sheep head. Wait what?

Just kidding.

This is the Sunday market here in Magdalena. People come down from the higher villages in the mountains to sell everything they literally just picked out of their field. No pesticides, no chemicals. They haven't even washed the dirt off of it yet. And this market? Haha it's literally 20 feet from where I sleep.

One of my favorite new natural foods is this: It's called Yacón. It's technically a tubor, I think, so very similar to a potato. But it's eaten raw. On the outside, it looks like any other potato, but inside it's orange like a carrot, and actually tastes like a sweet carrot. But, it's full of water! It's like a sweet carrot mixed with a water chesnut. I think there was an article in the Awake! about it in earlier years. Watch the transformation:

Stage One: "That's just a potato!"

Stage Two: "Hey that's different"

Stage 3: (chewing noises)

Our group is doing great! Here are the sisters (second from the left had to go back to Lima sadly).

And here's little Adriel. His grandmother is also a sister in our group. Poor little trooper had a rough night... fell asleep during the meeting and fell and smacked his head (like a little Euticus), and somewhere in between managed to pee himself.

The ministry continues to be nice, with basically everyone inviting you to take a seat inside or outside (usually outside) and have a conversation. Currently, we're trying hard to get the people to realize that it's important to come to the meetings. Everyone has a dozen studies, and 44 people attended the Memorial, but they just don't seem to think it's desperately important to come to the meeting. With Jehovah's help and time, hopefully this will change.

We have little opposition here. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church has been the major religion here for decades, but the pastors don't even seem to mention the Witnesses, and all of their members will have open conversation about the Bible. The majority will even tell us that Witnesses have the truth.

You'll always have one opposer, though. Like this character here.... tried to chase us away in the territory the other day.

You never know what you'll run into down here. Sometimes it's a gang of back-alley turkeys (dirty vagabonds, gamblin' in the streets and scarin' our children)....

Or sometimes it's a lovely skyline over the manicured plaza in the center of town as you walk to the store...

Or sometimes you go cruise over and look at the kittens in your "shed" in the back yard....

In all cases, life is as sweet as you let it be. May the hard times never outweigh the good, and may your words never all be misunderstood. I miss you all! Thanks for reading. :) All my other pictures, again, can be found here!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Magdalamania!

So I've finally made it the town where I'll be serving for the next few months. It's a small town in the mountains called Magdalena. There's about 3500 people here, and we have a few villages around us in the mountains and up the road with another thousand or two people. The main plaza here is very nice and well-maintained.

Our group is a total of 8 including me. Jeremie and Johanie are the couple from Quebec that I came in contact with, and there are 4 other local sisters and a Peruvian brother from Lima serving here. We meet in the front room of Jeremie's house, which has been officially converted into a nice little Kingdom Hall. We even have a sign! I'll snap a picture or two tonight at the meeting.

It was a little difficult arriving here, in all honesty. I arrived at about 5AM last Monday on the bus from Lima, and went to sleep a couple hours at Jeremie's place before going preaching. We left the house and saw the landlord for the place next door I would be renting, and introduced me as the new renter. She says "It's already been rented out to two policemen! They already signed a contract and gave me an advance payment."

This town is smaller than small, and there is really nothing else that would even be available that would be close to comfortable. Plus, if I can't get internet, I don't have a job, and there is nowhere else that can install internet. They literally have to run a LAN-type cable hundreds of meters from the center of town to the site of installation. Not like Ecuador where you have a wireless receiver from a satellite. So my only option was to rent the outside kitchen of the apartment, since the policemen would only eat in restaurants. I could run the internet cable from Jeremie's place and use it as my office if I could get my computer fixed. I could then sleep at another house with the other single brother that's serving here.

After preaching a long, long day that day, I arrived back at Jeremie's place to find out that my computer was broken. Wouldn't turn on. I was certain I would lose my job. Honestly, the first few days here, I reached a peak level of stress that almost put me over the edge. I knew deep down that things would work out, but I had a feeling that Jehovah was telling me exactly how far he would let me be tested. I wondered if it was His will that I continue serving here with sub-par living space and the loss of a job. I was very, very disconcerted. Almost discouraged. But, Jeremie and Johanie were INCREDIBLY hospitable. They let me sleep on their sofa for a few days. They cooked for me. They helped me look for a new place to live. They shared encouraging words, and even took me outside of town to a trail down to the mountain river, and it really helped me to calm down and spend some quality time alone in prayer, begging Jehovah to help me see the good in my situation and that he give me what I needed to be successful.

He answered that prayer. Long story short; the policemen backed out of their contract. I got the apartment. A Bible student fixed my computer. And now life is really quite enjoyable. The ministry is so nice, and the people are truly delightful. There is TONS of work to be done here in the congregation/group. I had the privilege of giving my first public talk over the weekend (twice) in two different groups. First to a group of about 5, then to a group of about 20 or so.

My place is pretty sweet! I live in a little courtyard with a garden in front of my door. It's one large room with a kitchen and bathroom shared by the apartment next-door, outside in a separate little wing. I have privacy, peacefulness, Internet access, and a coffee tree in my front yard! Nice, huh?! I also have neighborly access to Jeremie and Johanie (and the Kingdom Hall), and they seem to think I'm dying a slow death of painful hunger, being a single guy. I'd tell them that I know how to and enjoy cooking for myself, but their food tastes so good! Haha.

The front little courtyard and shared kitchen and bathroom.

My only flat-mates for the time being. Lol

We have a lot planned to do here! Jeremie and his wife leave for Canada in less than a month, and we want to get out to the isolated territories hours into the mountains to do some preaching and hold a meeting. It will be so awesome.

Thanks for your continued support! Come visit us and enjoy the literally perfect "70 and sunny" every day weather! Come preach to some smiling people! Or don't, if you can't. Haha. Either way, may life be good for you in service to Jehovah.

Free tarantulas (dead or alive) with every visit!!

Speak soon! Remember to check out the rest of my pictures at this link!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Dessert Before Dinner?

Well, it's about time, right?! The last week or so has been a bit intense, and it's just now that I even have a place to sit and share some more pictures and experiences.

Macchu Picchu! Vacation was truly incredible, and I'm very happy that I was able to have some time with some great friends to get a feel for Peru before I went on to the town where I'm serving. This is such an IMMENSE country, and the landscapes are absolutely breathtaking.

SO! After paying to have my flight changed to make it to Cusco on time, I arrived there the next morning and met up with the group at a nice little hotel above the Plaza de Armas, a gigantic Colonial-style cobblestone square with an enormous center park and fountain, entirely surrounded by 17th century cathedrals. It's truly a nice place.

We took the opportunity of having the whole day free to take a horse tour of some surrounding country outside the city. Our guide took us through his family's property, showing us old ruins and secret caves that the Inca used to hide from the invading Spanish.

The next day we set out early on the train to Aguas Calientes, which is the town just outside of Machu Picchu. It's a bit of a tourist trap, but we were able to find a decently priced hotel and plenty of things to do. I bought a big brown hat made of alpaca leather!

Then yet another super early day brought us to the actual Machu Picchu part. The rest of the group was settled on taking the 25-minute bus up the mountain to the park entrance. I, on the other hand, felt wholly obligated to make the climb on foot. So, I set out at 4:30 to make it to the trail gate at 5, hoping to get an early start........ only to find a crowd of about 35 people when I got there. Lol.... tourists. The climb was very, very hard. We're talking about an hour of pure ascent, pure stairs. But it was TOTALLY worth it to be able to get there 10 minutes before their bus and be able to wait in line again. Hahaha. Tourists.

The ruins of Machu Picchu truly are impressive. Thankfully, we hired a very knowledgable guide that we would actually have to kind of prod a bit to move on to the next part. He taught us tons about the ancient Incan culture, religion, and life in the actual city of Machu Picchu. It was really interesting to see all the different elements of their religion that pre-date Christendom but yet still have the same elements. Most interesting of all was their system of construction, labor, and trade.

Huayna Picchu (Meaning Young Mountain in Quechwa) is the giant mountain that overlooks the ruins of the city. The Inca would use its high altitude as a place to refrigerate and preserve food, as well as a place of religious ceremonies. It was about 2 hours of more pure uphill hiking to reach the summit (to be greeted yet again by about 50 tourists scattered about the rocks), but the view is indescribable. Huayna Picchu is situated on the border of the Andes Mountains and the Amazon Basin, so you can literally look to one side and see highland,br terrain Andes mountains, then turn to your other side and see pure jungle mountains, towering cascades, and thundering rivers.

On the train back from Machu Picchu, we made a bit of an impromptu decision to just go ahead and take an extra 6-hour bus to Puno. Puno is the town on the west bank of Lake Titicaca, the largest and highest navegable lake in the world, sharing the border of Southeast Peru and Northern Bolivia. There is a native population that actually live ON the lake. Believe it! For centuries, they have built islands out of reeds, in which they build their homes and literally live their lives. They use the reeds to build everything from beds to boats. Our guide took us out to an island group, and we were schooled up on their construction methods, culture, religion, etc. It really was all very interesting, but it was quite sad to see how much tourism had infiltrated their thinking there. Everything was for sale, and they were almost indignant at us for not wanting to buy their crafts that were steeped in...well...demonism...haha. Sorry guys. PachaMama will have to forgive us, because she doesn't really exist....

The end of this vacation was truly bittersweet. Eden, Sarah, Sarah St. Onge, Luis, Courtney, and Maxine I've come to realize are some of my absolute best friends, and it was great to be able to meet Bianca and share some good tunes and good times. The sad part is that I didn't get a chance to actually say goodbye, as we got separated in the airport. But all as well, I have a feeling we'll be seeing each other soon enough. There was no better group that could have been formed for the trip. If you guys are reading, I love you very much, and I'm so happy we got to do all this.

For all you back home, I hope you enjoy the pictures and story! I'll be uploading the remainder of my pictures at this link. There's much to tell about here in Magdalena, and be very assured that Jehovah is blessing both the work as well as those who participate in it here. Soon to come!

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