We are still here in Curahuasi. The days don’t change much. I was thinking today that I may need to work it into my daily schedule to go out of the compound and take a walk every day. I’m feeling just a little stir crazy.
The first few days here, we were mostly to ourselves, but Walter’s have become much more comfortable with us. We have at least one boy or other with us pretty much at any given moment throughout the day. I found one of them in our shower today, stuffing his mouth with some candy Steph had purchased yesterday.
We’ve taken to bringing our family inside the kitchen and pulling the blinds and closing the door just to have a moment of quiet.
The children enjoy each other, but there are constant squabbles. Their boys play hard, kicking and punching and screaming–things our children are punished for. We pointed it out a few times to the parents, but they seem rather lost about what they should do. So, we give them their space. Or, maybe we make our own space.
Steph and China had the idea that our family should all go to town in the afternoon on Friday. We walked up and down the streets that were set up with market vendors. They close off a few streets every Friday to have market here.
We didn’t really need much, but we took our time enjoying being just us and seeing the people. We decided to count dogs in the market and ended with a count of sixty-eight or so before we made it home again. (And they all bark all night long!)
We had a late lunch in town, finding a place that sold fried chicken. We asked them to give us only two bowls of soup to share and five servings of chicken. It was still too much, so we took rice and soup home. Each lunch cost $1.35.
We made oven-fired pizzas with Walter’s for supper Friday night. That was enjoyable. The flavor was superb. Evita wanted us to try chopped peaches on them, which we did. We were skeptical, but it turned out to be delicious. Highly recommend.
It has rained several nights in a row fairly hard. Walter says it is incredibly strange to have this much rain at any time because it tends to be more moderate and almost arid here, but this time of the year is mostly dry. The rainy nights make for comforting night noises to cover up the sounds of the cacophonous pulsing music next door.
Steph has continued her daily walks. I didn’t get out yesterday or today because I was preparing and delivering the message. Walter’s joined us for our service. They didn’t have church because many in their congregation are currently sick with Covid.
I continued with the story of Jacob. I’ve been doing a series, moving through the main stories of Genesis. I have one of those stories about once a month. Today was about Jacob and Laban and the twenty years they spent in misery together. So sad!
Tomorrow, I have a list of things I need to do in the office. Some of them have a Tuesday deadline, some a Friday. That should keep me focused if I can figure out how to block out the noise of the children outside my window.
Juan David 