A mining town

Friends from one of the Abancay churches have been visiting the village of Piscoya every month or so.  Enrique, who is married to my friend Rocío, has distant family there.  He invited me to come along with him and Ana (Rocío's sister) as they have been asking questions about water.

Piscoya is in a mining area, and the houses were a very different style and reminded me of the Lake District slate mining villages.

There's no church, but one family who consistently offer hospitality and want to hear God's word.  We visited them and had a mini church service outside in the sun.

While we were there, two other ladies came along and asked if we could visit them also.  One, Elsa, stayed to hear what Enrique was saying.  The other, Paulina, arrived just as we were leaving to wait for the bus home.  But the bus didn't come and didn't come, and we were able to spend an hour with her in her home.  It was wonderful to be given the time to talk with her - she was having a very difficult time and really wanted to hear from God.

Graduation

Today was the final music class.

I gave my students a test (which in Peru always has to be out of 20) but I also made them a cake, so I think they've forgiven me.



It's been great to see how much they've learned over the past 3 months :)

Training #2 in Ancobamba

This time with photos, as promised!

First, was the Quechua teaching in the pre-school, and this time I helped!  The topic: parts of the body (complete with stickers) and I have extended my Head-Shoulders-Knees-and-Toes repertoire to three languages - it went down quite well!

We tend to walk round the village making sure the kids remember what day it is and come to the club - so some construction sights/sites along the way: adobe bricks out to dry, and the materials for improved stoves (with 2 rings and a stovepipe rather than open fires).

We had some spare time in the afternoon so I helped out the lady who always feeds us by digging out her drainage ditch.  Sadly I suspect the pigs will soon be wallowing in it again and it will be as bad as ever...

The evening was a strange mix of discouragement and elation... a classic course of events where I am tired and ill-prepared and God comes to the rescue.  We arranged to meet at 5 but of course I didn't expect anyone til about half past.  But when no-one was there at 6, I was feeling very discouraged.  It did mean lots of time for prayer though.

In the end, loads of people came and it was a really good teaching session.  One of the requested topics from the previous session was "Water and Health" so we talked about various ways that water is needed in our bodies, and then what can go wrong when we don't have enough of it.  I've been using the CHE teaching methods from my course in April - and this participatory approach seems to go down very well.

I was also very impressed at the end of the meeting - Vasilia, the nurse who is a huge help in setting up these meetings, has arranged for the water system to be disinfected.  She has even got PPE to distribute to the water board.

They discussed when to do the work, and just by "chance" fixed on the same day as Dina's next visit, when I am also available.

It is great to see that, just by virtue of meeting together every couple of weeks, the water board is becoming more active.  I feel like I'm helping as a catalyst but am not in charge of their decisions - which is as it should be.

An unusual (for me) holiday in Lima

I have astonished myself by having a holiday in a big city!  I'd never have believed it 3 years ago - my holidays usually involve lots of countryside and few people... but now that I live in a small town in the mountains, there are lots of things I miss in the city, and I've discovered it can even be relaxing.

I enjoyed a trip to the Larco museum, which has lots of ceramics from different Peruvian eras and I could see lots of what I've learned about the Quechua worldview coming out in much earlier periods.

The feline / the puma: the power of this world and the
Inca empire... so the invading Spanish decide that Peruvian pottery
will now incude a cat being carried off by a human

Various cities in Peru have a "chocomuseo" where you can learn about the history of chocolate and try samples.  They also do workshops, which I've been wanting to try ever since I arrived.  So fellow-missionaries Lindsay and Mae (who is chocolate-mad) and I learned how to make truffles.

My handiwork... messy in process but looked (and tasted) pretty good finished

And whenever I'm in Lima I try to catch up with Raquel and Percy.  This time the circus was in town, so I took them along - it was very impressive!

I first knew Percy as an undersized baby so now one of my
favourite things is watching him eat huge quantities of food

I did have a few jobs to do... A friend of mine regularly visits a British lady in the high security prison, but is currently away for a few months.  So I said I would visit in her absence.  It took a lot of advance arranging (linked to the passport renewal saga as I had to supply my new ID) but on the day was very easy - I walked straight through security and didn't even get any stamps on my arms.  She was touchingly pleased to see me despite us never havng met and I will probably go again next time I'm in Lima.

And then I went to the National Engineering University to follow up a contact and visit the national hydraulics laboratory.  Unthinkingly I had expected something similar to the basement lab at Southampton, but here's what I saw.  It was good to remember that engineering is often about huge projects as well as tiny ones.

This machine is for simulating rainfall on different soil surfaces
 - it's given me an idea for a training session, on a much smaller scale!

In the in-between times there was plenty of time for sitting around, watching TV, eating Indian / Chinese / Mexican / Arabic food, catching up with great friends and speaking lots of English.  And while I'm learning to appreciate the city as a place for holidays, the timing was just right - I'm an introvert after all and by the end of 10 days I was ready to go back to my mountains!

Family time in Santa Rosa

I have been intending to visit Santa Rosa regularly to spend time with a family there, learn more about the culture and practice speaking Quechua.  It hasn't happened very often!  But I did manage to go this week.  Here's Santa Rosa home:

I arrived just in time to have dinner and go to church, where I suspected I might be invited to preach.  Happily I was prepared, because that's what happened!  I gave the same message as in Vilcabamba, but without translation it was a lot shorter...

In the morning I helped out with various chores... I often feel lazy but I realise it's just because I don't know enough to automatically pitch in.  So I have told Fortunata and her husband they have to treat me like a lazy daughter and make me work.  This time they taught me how to de-grain corn.  Corn is a staple here, with many different varieties cooked in many different ways.  Today I was preparing corn for the chickens to eat...

I had some cute "helpers" - my favourite dog (i.e. the ne that actually seems to like me and not try to bite me) has had puppies.

 

And I am slowly making friendly overtures to the parrot "Polly" who tells guests to "lava tu plato" ("wash up your plate")!

AIDIA programme in Vilcabamba

Since June, AIDIA has been planning a big programme across all the different ministries, taking a large group to a rural community.  It has been postponed several times and the location has changed even more times... but it finally happened!

We were visited by a group from a Chinese church in Canada, many of whom have come before, and they came with us to Vilcabamba.  The village is reached via a mountain pass at about 4500m, where it's very wild and remote.  I stayed in Abancay to give my music class and joined them a day later, so travelled on my own - it's nice to be confident with the local buses now!

Vilcabamba itself is in a warmer valley - although not that warm as you can see from the photo in the church courtyard:

I went partly to help translate for our English-and-Chinese-speaking visitors, and partly to try out water-related teaching material with the children and adults.

My water-cycle story went down very well as always, and the kids enjoyed various water-y games.  By the end we had many expert water-carriers.

I talked to the adults on Sunday morning, about how physical thirst can help us understand our need for God's Spirit.  Luis, the AIDIA Director, translated into Quechua as we went along, which gave me time to see people's reactions and whether they got the point I was trying to make - they mostly seemed to.  I had good feedback from Luis too, which was very encouraging.
Here we are singing about how God gave water from the rock in the desert.