Just a Spoiled North American

Coming back from a month abroad can have several effects on me.  Sometimes I return aware that I miss being abroad and I am disappointed by how fast the time went by.  Sometimes I feel so blessed by the amenities we have here.  This time, though, I came back so very conscious of how spoiled I really am.  There are so many things that I have come to expect after living a life of relative comfort here in the United States.  Being abroad this time was a reminder to me that the rest of the world often has relatively few of the things that I think are normal.


As a North American, I often do not even think about what great blessings these things are.    

• Safe drinking water flowing out of the tap.  We purchased bottled water the whole time we were gone.  Even though many of the places had safe water, we knew there were places where the safest thing for us was to buy bottled water.
• Water that flows into our home 24-hours a day instead of having just a half hour to fill your buckets so that you have water for the rest of the day. Although this was the case in only one location in Peru, it was a reminder to me that this is a reality for many people in the world.
• Hot water in the shower.  On a hot day, I do not mind a cold shower or even a cold bucket bath; but on colder days, I really appreciate the reliability of hot water flowing from the shower head.
• A washing machine that does a good job of getting my clothes clean rather than having to wash them by hand on the rocks.
• A dryer that quickly dries our clothes, even the towels and jeans, on rainy days and adds softness to them.  We do not have to wait days for things to dry on rainy days.
• A car rather than having to rely on public transportation.  I appreciate the lower prices of public transportation, however.
• Public transportation that runs on a schedule instead of "when the seats are full."  A trip that could happen in two hours might take all day since you never know when departure will happen.
• Refrigerators that allow you to purchase more than a one or two-day supply of fresh food at a time.  Daily trips to market allow for fresh food, but they certainly take time.
• Ice in our drinks.  We would have avoided asking for ice anyway, but it is nice to be able to put ice in my beverage if I want some.
• All-day electricity.  In the jungle town, we had electricity from 6:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m.  We charged our cell phones and computers during this time.  During the hottest part of the day, however, there was no availability for anything that might cool you, not even an electric fan.



Charlie enjoying a frozen Passion Fruit drink on our last day.

• Fresh vegetables that can be eaten raw without pre-soaking in anti-bacterial vegetable wash.  I came back craving salads.  Fresh fruit, on the other hand, was something we had in abundance.  Now I find I miss the variety of fresh fruit juices that were available there.
• Screens on our windows and doors.  I walked into our hotel room, and one of the first things I noticed was the screens.  How grateful I was for them as we saw that most of the homes did not have them.
• A variety in our breakfasts.  This may have been the first time in my life when I said that I had enough white rice for a while. Every morning we had the same thing - white rice, white beans, plantain, and eggs.  It was tasty and I was grateful for it, but it is nice to have some variety.
  
• Covers on my bed.  It was warm enough in the jungle that we did not need covers, but I missed having a top sheet.  Yet I was grateful for what we had.  I am not sure how well I would have fared in a hammock instead.
• Septic systems that allow you to flush your toilet paper and the availability of toilet paper in public rest rooms.

There are other things I could likely mention, but that is enough for now.  I am willing and ready to give up any of those things for a short time.  I could also learn to live without them, but I find it is not as easy as it used to be.  I really have become a spoiled North American.  Maybe it's time to shed some of these comforts and learn to appreciatethe advantages of living without them.

Children of the Amazon

We wandered through the streets of the town, marveling at the beauty of dark thatched roofs against clear blue skies.  Flowers abounded and palm trees swayed elegantly in the warm breeze.  It was, from what we could gather, a typical Sunday afternoon here.

Children scattered down the road in front of us, laughing as they chased each other between the houses and back on to the street.  As we walked further, we heard laughter coming from the river's edge.  There children splashed each other in the shallows.  One boy dived into the murky water and emerged a few seconds later within inches of his friend, startling him.  They both squealed in delight.

We walked on.  The front yard had been converted into a soccer field.  At first I thought it was sand, but on closer inspection I realized they had made good use of the sawdust from the nearby lumber mill.  

"Goal!" one small boy shouted.  He spun, his fist beating the air, and his friend slapped him on the back.  Another chased the wayward ball down the narrow street.  When he returned, they took their positions again and the game resumed.  We walked on, careful to not get hit by a stray ball.

There certainly was no lack in the number of children here, I thought.  They seemed to be everywhere:  children carried wood home in small bundles for cooking fires; others played happily at their mothers' feet while they tended the small stores in front of their houses.  I smiled at the joy and blessing they were bringing their families.

The next day we visited Pastor M.'s family. His eldest daughter was staying with them after the birth of her baby who slept peacefully in the tattered hammock in the kitchen.

"What is her name?" I asked.

"She doesn't have one yet," her mother told me.

"How old is she?"

"Ten days old."

Ten days old and not yet named.  How different things are here, I thought.  Is it because you do not want to name a child that might not survive?  I decided I would leave that question for another time, but here was another example of a beautiful child in this beautiful town.

On Tuesday I wandered into the market.  A round-faced girl with shining eyes, no more than four years old, ran up to me and grabbed my hand in her little one.

"Why are your legs so white?" she asked me.  Reaching down with her other hand, she stroked my leg from ankle to calf.

"God made them that way," I told her.  I smiled at her.

She happily chatted on, tugging at my hand the entire time.  Eventually she asked, "May I go to your house?"

"I don't live here," I told her.  "My house is very far away."

"Oh," she said. "I really wanted to go to your house."  Eventually, she let go of my hand and ran off to play again.

The next day when I headed out for a walk, a makeshift barricade prevented moto-taxis from using that road.  I carefully stepped around the barricade, wondering why it was there.  A few moments later, I got my answer.  Outside the school, dozens of children stood in groups with their teachers, lining up in neat lines.  Independence day was coming, and they were rehearsing for their part in the parade.

"Now let's march," called the teacher.  "Left, right, left, right."  The children followed their teacher, marching down the road.  Some looked my way as they passed, smiling for my camera.

Later that evening the seven of us sat in a restaurant, discussing the events of the day.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw four teenagers walking quickly down the street carrying something between them.  It was a stretcher with someone on it.  The figure under the sheet was quite small.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It looks like they are carrying someone to the hospital," one of the men said.

"But his face is covered," I said.  "Is he dead?"

By this time the restaurant owner had joined us. 

"A ten-year-old boy died this morning,"  he said.  "You should have heard the father wail."

"Who was it?" Pastor M. asked.

When the owner told him, a look of deep sadness spread across the pastor's face.

"I know the family," he said.  "The children occasionally come to special children's events.  I talked to that boy about his need of a savior, but I do not think he ever made a decision to follow Christ."

"That's the second child to die this week," the owner elaborated.  "The first one, also a ten-year-old boy, drowned on Monday."

My heart sank.  Two children dead in this short span of time while we were here.  Thousands of children in this town who need a Savior, yet so little gospel witness here.  Who will tell them?

"Lord," I prayed.  "Help Pastor M. to reach these children.  Raise up more workers who will reach these precious souls before it is too late."
 

A Day in Iquitos, Peru

We arrived last night at 6:00 p.m.  The sun had just set, but the air was clear.  We picked up our luggage and headed out to the parking lot to find the expected shuttle to the hotel.  Instantly we were swarmed by taxi drivers wanting our fare.  The shuttle was late, but we assured them we would wait for it.  Behind me, a person was so anxious to get to her car that she ran into me with her luggage cart, pushing my feet out from under me so that I landed on her suitcases.  Thankfully, I was not hurt.

We waited for about a half an hour for our ride.  The hotel van eventually drove in, but the driver was unaware that we were waiting, so he pulled into the departures section of the airport rather than the arrivals.  We took our luggage to him and we pulled out into traffic a few minutes later.

On all sides we were surrounded by motorcycles and motorcycle-cabs.   Palm trees lined the main road.  We passed a plaza, and I thought we might be getting close since our hotel is near the plaza.  However, it was only the first of four plazas that we passed on our way to the hotel.

We settled into the second floor of the hotel.  Our room overlooks the main road, so traffic noise is fairly constant.  We could not see much in the darkness, so we decided to head out and find some supper.  Our colleagues at IPM had suggested a restaurant, and it did not take long for us to find it.  Obviously a popular place, it was filled with customers.  Judging from their appearance, almost all were tourists.

Charlie ordered roasted garlic chicken with a side of plantain chips.  I ordered a burger with a side of french fries.  I love the freshly squeezed lemonade they have here, so I ordered that to go with my meal.

When we were finishing our meal, I noticed that one of my earrings was missing.  Oh well.  It had fallen off once before, so it was to be expected that I would eventually lose it. Then Charlie noticed a little girl trying to reach something under my chair.  It was the missing earring.

We thanked her in Spanish.  Then her parents spoke up.

"Where are you from?" they asked in English accented with German flair. 

"The U.S." we replied.

"We were trying to guess," they replied, "and we both guessed wrong.  He thought you might be German and I thought you might be French or maybe French Canadian."

On our way back to the hotel, we walked through the central plaza.  Children played.  Couples held hands and talked softly.  Tourists gawked and took pictures of the fountains.  I think I could get used to living here, I thought.

This morning we woke to cloudy skies, but I could see the water of the Amazon River from our room.  We have to get out there, I thought.  A few minutes later, the phone rang.  Aladino, was one of the men who will be in the classes next week was here to greet us.  Charlie went down to meet him.  They walked down the road a while, taking in the view of the bustling city - the boardwalk along the river, the fish market, and people hurrying off to do their business of the day.  Later they returned, and we told him we would meet around 11:00 andto take a walk through town.

At breakfast, there were four choices of juice - papaya, cocona, camu-camu, and chirimoya.  I knew what papaya was, so I tried a couple of the others.  A buffet of scrambled eggs, fresh bread, various meats such as sausage and bacon, and fresh fruit gave me plenty of food to choose.  I savored the excellent coffee.  We may be in a coffee producing country, but often instant coffee is served, so I really appreciated the brewed, flavorful coffee.

At 11:00, we headed out together.  We continued our walk down the boardwalk in the opposite direction from which Charlie had gone that morning.  I stopped to take a few pictures of the river.  Eventually we found the main market.  Teeming with people and produce, I was glad that we had a guide to maneuver through the stalls.  I saw fruits I had never seen before.  Aladino gave us the names of those we had not seen before.

Charlie also needed a hat to keep the sun off his bald head.  We found one that could work in a small department store, but the price was higher than he wanted to pay, so we kept looking.  A few blocks later, on a stand at the side of the intersection, a woman had a rack full of men's hats.  He asked her price.  Satisfied with her prices, he began to look.  A little while later, he had his hat.  He offered five soles less than she requested.  She accepted his offer, and he walked away with a new hat.

"May we take you to lunch?" we asked Aladino.  "Perhaps you know of a place nearby?"

We walked some more and eventually came to the place he had in mind.   We ordered a plate of fried chicken with rice and beans, and a side of fresh fruit.  The meal came with a drink.  One of the drinks was "Cebada" which we had not had before, so we ordered that.  We were unsure what it was when we tasted it.  Later we found out that it was a drink made from roasted barley with added lemon and sugar.  Tasty!

When we finally returned to the hotel, we said goodbye to Aladino.  "We'll see you tomorrow," we told him.  I headed upstairs for a nap.  After the busy weeks we have had, I needed some rest.  Today was a day for rest.  Tomorrow the work starts.

The 26-Hour Day

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet.  Ecclesiastes 5:12

At 2:45 a.m. I heard it - an alarm going off in another room.  We lay in bed, waiting for it to stop, but its owner did not respond.  After about ten minutes, it finally stopped.  Now we were fully awake, on about three hours of sleep.  Five minutes later our alarm sounded.    

At 3:45 a.m., we climbed into the back row of the 12-passenger van. The pastor’s family climbed in after us.   Four-year-old Abigail slept through the transfer from her bed to the van.  Junior, the pastor’s only son, drove to the first stop where we picked up a mother and her seven-year-old son.  They joined us in the back row.  After several more stops, the van was stuffed with twelve adults, two children, and miscellaneous bags at people’s feet.  Another car, also filled with passengers, started to follow us.  At the gas station, Junior filled the van’s tank as well as a five-gallon jerry can.  One of the men climbed to the roof to tie the jerry can up there with some other luggage.  Now it was 4:45 a.m., and we were finally on our way out of the city.

The van sped up when it arrived at the highway.  I settled into my seat, leaning against Charlie, hoping for some more sleep.  After about five minutes on the open highway, we turned off and started the ascent up the mountain on a gravel road.   Twists, turns, and bumps in the road kept sleep away, but eventually I dozed a little.  

A couple hours later, at the entrance to a tunnel through part of the mountain, we stopped to wait for the other vehicle that had fallen behind.

“Can we get out?” I asked.  Charlie’s knees were bumping up against the seat in front of us, and my legs were longing for a stretch.  They let us all out, and the men made a beeline for the bushes.  “If you need it,” I was told, “the tunnel up ahead will provide privacy.”  

Around us, the sun continued to rise, casting shadows on the mountains, slowly reaching into the valleys.  Misti, the volcano that guards Arequipa, was showing off his beauty, and the passengers’ cell phone cameras were capturing the scene.  

Before too long, the other car caught up with us, and we reloaded into the vehicle.  

“Is it possible for Charlie to sit somewhere else?” I asked.  His legs were really too long for the back row.  This time they let Charlie and me sit up in the row behind the driver.  The change in seating turned out to be a greater blessing than I realized at the time.

A couple hours later, Charlie asked them to stop.  The twists and turns of the mountain roads had finally caught up with him, and he was sick to his stomach.  Junior quickly stopped and yanked open Charlie’s door.  He got out just in time.  Sonia, the pastor’s wife, prepared some tea with hot water from a thermos and gave it to him.  It helped settle his stomach, and we were once again on our way.  On and on we traveled, bumping and turning.  Eventually I dozed again. 

By 8:30 my stomach was growling, and I wondered if there would be a stop for breakfast.  But we kept going.  On and on we rode, winding our way up to the 16,000-foot mountain pass, high above the tree line.  

“Look!” someone shouted pointing to one of the volcanoes in the distance.  Volcano Ubinas had just burped.  A cloud formed above and grew larger and larger as steam and ash rose into the sky.

Bumping over the gravel and feeling my stomach lurch, we continued in a descent over the other side of this mountain pass.  Trees, birds, and insects reappeared.  Mile after mile of terraced farming hugged the sides of the mountains.  Our van hugged the mountain, avoiding getting to close to the side where it dropped off into deep canyons.

I kept thinking we must soon be arriving at our final destination.  After almost six hours of travel, we rounded a bend.  A crowd of people stood on the side of the road with large bags of goods.  They were members of the church in that town.  Junior stopped to greet them and began to talk to them about how to get them to our ultimate destination.

“Junior,” Sonia called out to her son.  “Why don’t some of us get out and they can ride?  They have been waiting a long time for you.  Some of us can wait here for you to get back.”

I welcomed the idea of putting my feet on the ground to allow my stomach to settle.  We got out.  They got in.  After they left, the eight of us started walking down the road at a leisurely pace along the river gorge.  I stopped frequently to take pictures of the blue skies, desert hills, and the green valley below us where the grey river sparkled in the sunlight.  After about an hour of walking, we saw the van approach.  Junior turned around and picked us up, and we drove on for another half hour to the village of Cadagua.    

“Breakfast is waiting,” we were told when we arrived.  It was now 1:00 p.m.  

We followed our hosts to the back of the house.  A corrugated metal roof and a small tarp provided shade.  There people sat on benches, boxes, and a few chairs.  Steaming plates of noodles and a red sauce with mystery meat came out of the kitchen.  Since we were surrounded by guinea pig cages, it was no surprise when we later discovered that most of the meat in the sauce was guinea pig.  I should have known when I discovered the small head in the sauce.  I did not eat much.  My stomach was still turning after all the hairpin turns, so one of the young men in our group finished my plate for me.

Evidently, both Charlie and I looked a little green.  One of the women from the Arequipa church came over.  

“Would you like a cup of tea and some soda crackers?” she asked kindly.  

That sounded like just the right thing for our upset stomachs.  We leaned back into the wooden bench and waited while she found cups and prepared us some tea.  As we sat quietly drinking our tea, the women   One man stood next to a table and sawed his way through the bones of an animal, adding the chunks of meat to the pots as well. Children played, swinging from the rafters of the corrugated awning and teasing the guinea pigs.

swirled around us, cutting up vegetables, and adding them to the large pots on the fire.

“It’s time to start the program,” Junior called to everyone.

We joined him in front of the house.  There to one side of this town’s Main Street sat a truck-tire  tub overflowing with water.  Junior began the service, leading the group in singing with his guitar.  “He decidido seguir a Cristo.”  (I have decided to follow Jesus.)  Our voices filled the mountain air.  A few people emerged from neighboring houses to join us to see what was going on.

After singing several songs, Pastor Daniel Araujo stepped forward.  Carefully, he explained what baptism was and why this teenage girl had decided to be baptized.  

 

 “Please share with this group why you have decided to obey the Lord in baptism today,” he instructed her.  Joy flowed from her while she reverently shared her faith in Jesus Christ.  Then she stepped into the frigid water, sat down in the tub, and was baptized in its confined space.  When she arose shivering, we sang again.

When the baptism service ended, Junior once again shouted out instructions. “If everyone would head to the community center, we will be showing a Christian movie,” he announced.   

He drove the van over to the community center and began to set up the computer projection system for the movie.  Men hung a white sheet on one wall of the community building.  People rearranged chairs to face the “screen”.  Soon we were all watching “Facing the Giants” in Spanish.  I went to see if I could find a place to sleep in the van, but someone else had already thought of that idea, and I was afraid to wake them by opening a door.  So Charlie and I sat against the back wall, and I dozed for a while, my head on his lap.

By the time the movie was over, the huge pots of stew we had seen over at the house had been carried to the community center kitchen.  We dragged our chairs from one side of the center to where tables had been set up on the other side.  

Apparently we were the honored guests because our table was served first.  Charlie and I insisted on sharing a bowl since we knew we were both still too queasy to each much.  Several varieties of potatoes, huge pieces of squash, sweet carrots, and alpaca meat were served us.  Delicious.

The conversation in the room lulled as people began to enjoy their food.  An alpaca feast is a rare and welcome event, and the whole community had been invited.  When the last plate of food had been served, those of us who had received food first were done.  Women went into the kitchen to wash up metal plates.  Men washed down wooden table tops, folded their metal bases and stored them in the corner.  They quickly stacked the blue and white plastic chairs in another corner.  When the work was done, the last event of the day was announced – a church service.  Everyone moved back to the other side of the room to enjoy that event together.  

Singing and testimonies were shared as the various churches represented took turns to give testimony to God’s blessings in their lives. This gathering of believers represented people from five of the surrounding villages as well as those of us who had come from Arequipa.  In addition, many of the people from town had come for the feast and to see what else was happening.  Charlie was invited to preach, and our nephew, Jeremy, translated for him.

When it was all over, it was 9:00 at night, and I was anxious to go home, but there were still people who needed to go home before we could leave.  Junior loaded the people from the nearby villages in the van and left.  Charlie stretched out on the floor to get some sleep before the long arduous journey home.

“I can’t drive,” Junior said, when he returned almost two hours later.  “I’m dead on my feet.”  Roberts, one of the men from the church, took over and we left.  

Away from the city and few lights, the full moon shone almost as day.  Stars seemed close enough to reach out and touch.  This time the bumps, twists, and turns did not keep me awake, but they did for Charlie.  He was sick to his stomach the whole way home, and trying to sleep only made it worse.  

When we finally got home, it was 5:00 a.m.  I crawled into bed, grateful  to be able to stretch out and glad that the ground under me was solid.  I cannot remember the last time that I have been so glad to get to bed.  If I felt that way, I am sure that Charlie felt the relief even more than I.  How grateful I am that God gives us the gift of sleep.