Oley Oley Oley Oley!

I went to a futbol game last week. Baseball and football (american) are unheard of in this country. Basically, if you want to be a sports fanatic, you're choices are limited. Imagine if you didn't have basketball, football, or baseball to get excited over. You only had soccer. You're energy level would be so much higher going to the only sports game there is with every one of your friends who all obviously are fans about the same sport as you. Now you can imagine what it was like to go to this Cienciano (team name) soccer game. I went with all of the teachers that I work with, along with Hannah and Jeremiah Shultz and Jeremiah's friend who's actually our neighbor. Their family is from western Canada, working with Wycliff. We sat behind a really huge group of fans who wouldn't stop jumping, wouldn't stop singing, and wouldn't stop playing their instruments. Their drums had the Cienciano logo on it, but no, they were no official Cienciano band. On the other side of the field there's a huge fan club called Red Fury that is always there playing music, jumping, throwing confetti and lighting red flares at every game. Needless to say, I think I watched maybe 10 minutes total of the game and the rest of the time, just took in all the excitement, and of course, did 'the wave'.

Last Saturday morning, I went and bought a guitar. It only cost $100 and it was handmade. I started taking classical guitar lessons about a month ago. I'm enjoying it so far and it's teaching me self-discipline, having to practice everyday. On my way to the Kreider's afterwards, I decided to run there along side of the main road but without sidewalks, I ran on the dirt. This dirt is like any dirt you find when you go on a hike. It has lots of pointy rocks sticking out. Can you guess what happened next? I tripped, skinned my knee, and sprained my ankle. I just sat there in the dirt, trying to pretend for the cars passing by that I enjoyed sitting in the dirt, listening to my Ipod. Crazy gringos... When the pain subsided, I tried running again but to my dismay, the pain started up again. I ended up taking a taxi to the Kreider's and as the day went on, there was more swelling and pain. Thank the Lord because by Tuesday my ankle was almost totally better, no limping. But no sprained ankle would prevent me from going to a baptism the next day, Sunday. The Brubakers took us in their car to this remote field where we had our church service. Afterward, we walked along the rocky creek until we found a deep enough spot for people to be baptized. In Peru, they're not too worried about working on things ahead of time to find and set up this spot but of course, no one cared or complained and soon enough they had found a spot, taken the rocks from under the water, and made a dam so that the area was deeper and the water would be blocked by the rocks and the blue tarp. Seven people were baptized that day. I didn't know any of them, but in the picture, you can see the pastor and my friend Illari in the water baptizing.

When there are baptisms, people bring their dogs so I was able to meet Marga's new puppy. Her other puppy, Nacho, died in a 'freak accident' that includes poison that was meant for a different dog who had a contagious sore and needed to be put down. This new dog's name is Escrappy, just like Scooby-Doo's little cousin, minus the 'e' of course. I jokingly asked Marga if her family was willing to share the puppy with me since I couldn't buy one or pet all the ones in the street. She actually told her kids and they said that they would be glad to share Escrappy with me so I needed to come up with its second name since everyone here has a second name. In the states, we have a second name as well, but we call it a middle name and rarely use it. Here, it's very common to write out all 4 of your names (first, second, dad's last name, mom's last name). Well, I decided to add a 'Doo' in there, so I now half-own a puppy named Escrappy-Doo. He's in the picture with Kiersten, one of the Kreiders.

This past week we celebrated birthdays. Bethany's birthday was on Wednesday and she turned 25. Carrie, who's full of random fun facts has a friend from somewhere in Europe who said on your 25th birthday, if you're single, you need to wear a really crazy hat. So, Carrie made a nice balloon hat. Then on Friday, we had our team birthday party. Six people have birthdays in April so we had quite a bit of food, cake, ice cream and toppings to go along. In the picture, most of the Kreider's are missing and so am I.

Praises:

~I've been feeling closer to God lately.

~My Spanish continues to improve.

~Our chickens are almost full grown and we still have all 7 seven.

Prayers:

~That I would continue to learn self-discipline because that's always been one of my weak points and I feel that is what God is really trying to teach me at this point.

~That God would help direct me to know if I should be helping at an orphanage nearby.

~That my Spanish would improve. It's still difficult to hold a real conversation, therefore I haven't been trying that often lately.

Thanks so much for all the prayers and support. I can definitely feel and see God at work in my life. It seems it's a bit too sutle at this point to really share anything but I know that God is faithful and if He's sent me here, He has great plans for me.

Mister Esteve

One of the difficult things for Spanish speakers is to say is a word beginning with an s and a consonant afterward. There are no words in the Spanish dictionary that begin with s and a consonant unless it is an 'h' because they always put an e in the beginning. So, in order to say the words 'slow' or 'stop' or 'Steve', the kids really need to work hard at practicing the word without putting an 'e' before the word. It became a cute nickname Steve had here, Mister Esteve, even said by Bethany, the Shultz's youngest who can definitely say it correctly.
While Steve was here, we did a lot of touristy things. It was great considering I hadn't done anything touristy up to that point. We tried to go ride horses after school one day around some Incan ruins but we got there too late and ended up wandering around until we found "Cristo Blanco" which is this big white statue of Jesus that's lit up at night so that the city of Cusco sees this white Christ glowing on the hills. It gave us a really good view of things as well. Later that next week, my first graders put on their 'show' that we have each Wednesday-one grade a week. They sang If I Were a Butterfly in Spanish and I can't tell you how many times I caught myself singing that song for the past few weeks.

Well, we ended up going back to ride horses and this time it worked. We had a nice tour of some ruins called Sacsaywaman, which yes, sounds like a couple words in English. Our guide that walked around as we rode showed us hidden caves used by the Incans and some places where they made shelters and whatnot. It was only a short ride but very beautiful and educational.

After our horseback ride, we went on a hike, the muddy hike that we went on a month ago. Only this time, without the mud, we were able to travel what seemed to be a third of the time, maybe just half, but it was quick and of course just as beautiful. Exhausted and knowing we had to get up early, I went to bed at 8.

On the left, notice the doorway is in the shape of a llama head. Next to that picture, we climbed out of a cave with only a little light from the whole to get out. It was only this bright because of the flash.

I woke up at 2am, quickly got ready, and Steve and I were in a taxi for Machu Picchu by 2:15. We had to then get into a different taxi which is made for a long ride to a town called Ollantaytambo where we would get on our train. Our taxi had 8 people in a one station wagon and it was a bit difficult to take a nap because the whole ride was going over a windy (as in it winds a lot) mountain. We got to Ollantaytambo early and had an hour to hang out at a little place where we had hot chocolate. Finally at 5:30 we were ready to board the train. I'm considered a resident here as I mentioned in one of my first blogs so I was in the 'local' train and Steve was in the 'backpacker' train. I definitely got looks and all of the men working on the train thought I was confused and asked for my ticket and ID, then they'd apologize. Steve met a girl named Claire, with an English accent of course, on his train and she was traveling by herself so we hung out with her all day. Hanging out with British people makes you want to talk like them. It's just too fun. When we got off the train, we then needed a bus to get up to Macchu Picchu. It was only 7 something when we finally arrived and it was very foggy. We thought we'd wait it out with breakfast but it was still pretty thick fog and we decided to wander. We walked up to one part that was pretty high and that's where we got a really good view of the lost city. The place was absolutely beautiful but after eating a snack, I got really tired and stopped appreciating the beauty. We went and had lunch and then took a nap right there in Machu Picchu and thank goodness no one yelled at us. After we were energized, we just wandered a bit more and then headed back to the city with the train and bought some last minute souvenirs. Claire and Steve's train was an hour before me so I hung out at a restaurant and had dinner by myself. Very relaxing. I didn't get home until 11:00pm though. Moral of story: Don't buy the earliest train to Machu Picchu and latest train to Cusco because it's really not worth it. After 2 weeks, Steve just left today and I was finally able stop taking pictures but start sharing them. Cusco is beautiful.

In the top left picture, its to show how cloudy it was when you were high up. We were engulfed in clouds. In the picture directly above of some sort of statue that you can't tell what it is, we hung around for maybe 10 minutes waiting for tour groups to come around so we could know what it was for. We figured sacrificing. It looked perfect for it. Turns out in the airport today Steve read a book that said it just was some sort of sun dial for the times of the year. Below, the statue of the man, he's the Incan sun king. On the right of that, Clair in the city where we got our train.

Pascua

Sorry that I'm updating Easter 3 weeks later. My friend, Steve, has been here for the past 2 weeks and I've been too busy taking pictures rather than showing them to everyone.
So some of you may have guessed, Pascua means Easter. It also means Passover which makes it a bit more difficult to explain the difference between the two when discussing it with the children. We had off Holy Thursday and Good Friday that weekend and I woke up Friday feeling so ill that I only got off the couch to eat or dye a few eggs. Our friend Luz, the 3rd grade teacher, came over and helped us. She'd never experienced this sort of craziness before. Why would you decorate eggs and what does it have to do with Easter? It really did start with good intentions, eggs signify new life which in turn means Jesus. It wasn't until it turned into a Hallmark Holiday that the Easter bunny started laying those eggs, at least in the States that is.

So here's Easter. After church, we all went to the Kreider's, had a huge dinner with the whole team (minus Derick who was in Lima), had an Easter egg hunt, and sang some songs. It really was a very nice Easter and if I had to spend it away from my family, this was the way to do it. It was a great bonding experience.

Here's a picture of some of the kids plus the Kreider's dog who's flea free and very friendly.
The picture of the whole group is the egg hunt towards the end when we're all together trying to figure out how many were left. We had a total of 113 eggs for 9 kids. All sent from the States. They don't sell them here.

I just liked the picture of the 4 youngest kids on our team 'flying'.

I'm sorry this is sideways, but it shows how much fun we had.