I’m sitting outside the posta in Conchacalla, waiting on Steph to have her checkup. Tomorrow marks a week since the baby was born. She is doing well and growing nicely, having gained beyond her birth weight in the first few days. Willow slept three hours straight last night, which is the longest bout of sleep she’s had. Steph and I both feel tired with the interrupted nights, but we know it doesn’t last long.
We came home last Friday. Did I tell you that? I can’t remember. We wanted to leave mid-morning, but there were various delays. The most notable delay was that when I took a load of stuff down, down, down the hill to the truck parked on a lower street, a rather drunken man decided he wanted to be friends with me.
He told me all he had was a piece of bread and his hat, which he held out to me imploringly. I gave him a little bit of money, and that sent him over the moon. He just knew when he saw me that I had a good heart, a great heart, a heart as grand as the heavens!
He was so thankful that he broke his bread with me. “It’s kind of like Communion!” he said, “But all we have is bread. There is no wine for the blood!” I assured him that was quite alright.
He then tried selling me a house on the hill near Walter’s. If I would just give him the money, he’d get me the title and keys to the place. I wondered why he didn’t stay in his house instead of on the streets, but I thanked him and told him we’d go back to Cusco where we live.
He hugged me tightly and laid his filthy head on my shoulder. “Oh, viejo Rey David! Oh, old King David! Please remember the loco borracho (crazy drunk) from Curahuasi when you return to your home. I’ve never had such a good friend as you.”
I stayed with the truck and suitcases while the children slowly brought the rest of the things down bit by bit. “Maybe I could just take one backpack or one little suitcase since you have so many,” he wondered aloud. I told him that probably wasn’t a good idea as none of them were meant for him. Eventually, he wandered off, singing my praises to the skies.
At home, China mopped the floors while the rest of us unpacked. Percy’s had been using the kitchen to handle the milking stuff while we were gone and had tracked in a good bit of the barn with them. However, we were very blessed to find the upper cabinets installed! Then we went to sleep.
Saturday, I had an unpleasant cold all day. A bunch of the others had had colds the first of the week, but I wanted to wait until I got home. I tried studying for a sermon, but my head bothered me too much, so partway through the afternoon, I decided I simply was not going to.
The others did a bit of the normal Saturday cleaning, and then took long naps. Everyone was either tuckered out or just happy to be in their own beds again.
Sunday morning, we lay or sat out in the front lawn in the sunshine to both absorb vitamin D and listen to the message from Virginia. It was a sunny and deliciously warm morning.
I wrote up a short meditation on fathers and shared that with the WhatsApp group that I normally share the message with. I then made a peach cobbler for lunch, and it was incredible.
Monday was spent in Cusco. Steph and I left at 7:00 to go try to get Willow’s paperwork started. We left Cusco at 2:30, having accomplished nothing. I was fairly discouraged to run into one roadblock after another, but I chose to thank God for learning what we did. Everything is somewhat upside-down still due to the Covid situation.
We arrived home tired after stopping in Izcuchaca for fruit. One of our pigs had gotten stuck in her watering trough and after a few hours, died from too much ingested water. This is why I drink coffee. Percy offered to help me butcher it, bless his heart. I’m sharing half of it with them though it’s pretty small.
That brings us to this afternoon. Steph and I went to the municipio where we were supposed to find a person who can help us do Willow’s paperwork. We arrived at 2:05, five minutes after they closed. They close early due to Covid. Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either.
With the baby here, we are dreaming of a trip to the States. However, we cannot buy tickets until we have her US passport. We cannot get her US passport until we have her birth certificate. We cannot get her birth certificate until we have her DNI. And we cannot get that until we find a government official willing to do the process; with the local offices closed–yep, due to Covid–the municipio will have to apply by mail for us.
Maybe we’ll see y’all next year!
To relieve stress, China and I reorganized the kitchen and dining room, moving the milk fridge out to the mud room. I love the greater openness to breath! I also rearranged some cupboards, but Steph isn’t so sure she approves of my choices. She can fix it later when she’s up to full steam.
Juan David 