Get thee back, Satan!

Forgive me Father, for I am dirty. It has been 7 days since my last shower. Ok, that was my weak stab at Catholic humor. But seriously, it has been. My hair will almost hold itself in a ponytail. Taking a shower here is such an ordeal. Our hostel boasts hot showers. Sure you can get a little hot water to come out of the shower head, but as soon as you finish washing one body part and move onto another, that clean part gets cold very quickly. Being clean is just too much trouble. It is much easier to just change clothes every now and then and use a little extra deodorant. The climate here in the Andes is cold and dry, so we never really sweat. Stench isn´t much of a problem, with us gringos anyway. However, I have smelled a few Peruvians who were in dire need of a shower. My father is one whose day isn´t complete without having had at least two showers. Sorry, Dad. I hope I haven´t broken your heart with my uncleanliness. I promise I´ll bathe before I come home.

Yesterday, we biked out to Moquegache to have our first adult Bible study. No one was there when we arrived, but since Peruvian time is different from American time, we weren´t worried. While we waited, we played frisbee, which I am terrible at. Finally some people started congregating near the road and we went over to talk to them. The president of Moquegache was there and he told us that no one was going to come to our Bible study today because they were all in Lampa, or at the Catholic church, or simply they couldn´t come because they were Catholics. Just excuses. It was very discouraging for me because several people had said they would come at the town meeting. But next Saturday is a mother´s club meeting, and if all else fails, we are going to crash that. Surely they will be willing to give us a few minutes. If not, I´m sure we can find a way to take a few.

On colonial point bridge, on out way back to the hostel, Wade tried to give a guy a tract. This sparked a huge discussion between us and him about the merits of Christianity, and what benefits it has in this life. The man told us that Christianity was a European and American religion, and had no benefit to him. He was more concerned about the current plight of his people, and asked us, why would he want to practice a religion of people that had persecuted his ancestors centuries before? It was a valid point. He also went on to criticize America and its foreign policies, especially the current situation in Iraq. I tried to tell him that, yes we were from the United States, but we didn´t agree with everything that our government did. He wouldn´t listen, and so finally we left him with the tract, thanked him for his time, and left. That is the first anti-American sentiment we have run into yet, and it made me very sad. Please pray for this man, and that we will have the oportunity to talk to him again.

Last night, we traveled to Juliaca to meet the Martinez family for dinner at our favorite little pizza place. They brought all the kids with them, as well as my new debit card that had somehow arrived at their house in Huancané by Fed-Ex. So now I have money! Wade treated me and Dave to dinner because he wanted to celebrate his future mother-in-law´s blessings over his and Amy´s marriage. I´m sure if you have checked Wade´s blog, you already know all about Amy. Anyway, it was good to see Rick and Kelly and the kids again. And the pizza was a welcome change from sopa, rice, potatoes, and alpaca meat. When we left, Kelly gave us some bread she had made. It is absolutely the best bread I have ever eaten. It smells like doughnuts too. I went to the ATM and withdrew my own money and finally paid Dave back for all he has lent me the past month. We took a motorcycle-taxi to the Lampa combi stop, and then climbed into the back seat of a 15-passenger combi that would eventually hold 22 people, with 2 others riding on top. Thankfully I was between Wade and Dave, and didn´t have to get all up next to the Peruvian man that Wade said kept trying to hold his hand. I really thought the combi was going to come apart. It kept cracking and popping everytime we hit a bump, but somehow we made it back to Lampa. The trip took 30 minutes longer than it usually does, but in the spirit of adventure, it was fun.

We showed up this morning at the church we attended last week at 9:00, like the pastor had told us. Again, we were the first ones there. The pastor finally came at around 10:00. I guess we must have misunderstood the time. We all waited around for 40 more minutes and finally one other lady appeared. We decided to go ahead and start church, just the five of us, and over the next hour, 4 more people trickled in. The pastor again asked Wade to bring a short message, and this time I got to participate. Wade preached in English, and I translated his words into Castellano. It was very cool, and Wade felt like he got his message across more effectively. He called it tag-team preaching. I hope we will get the chance to do that again. I think the people liked hearing English also. Three languages in one service: English, Spanish, and Quechua. I was in hog heaven.

Wade and Dave are now in the middle of a heated game of Monopolio that has so far lasted 3 hours. Neither one will give up. Wade had to make 1,000 dollar bills from the 1´s because he broke the bank. No telling what he´s up to now. Tomorrow we are leaving for our vacation time in Juliaca and Puno. We are going to get to the hotel early so we can take showers indoors!

Even though we have had a few setbacks these past two days, we can still feel God working with us and our people. I am confident that once we get them to realize that we are going to keep coming back and trying to hold Bible studies with them, they will comply and attend. Rick gave us a few techniques that we could use to get people to come. Hear that, you dirty old devil? You haven´t beaten us yet! Friends, please keep praying for our Bible study in Moquegache, and for all our efforts to bring the Lampans and surrounding people to Christ. Thanks to all for the prayers and thoughts. Chau!

The Gringos Went Over the Mountain

This internet is really starting to frustrate me. One second it works, and the next it has lost the email that I just spent 20 minutes typing. Sigh. But I must remember that any internet at all in the middle of the Andes Mountains is a blessing. Let me tell you about our week.

Sunday, we attended a new church that we found off the side of the road by chance. We got there at 9:00 and everyone was eating. We just knew that they were going to bring us bowls of food, and sure enough they did. Let me tell you, there´s nothing like rice and potatoes in the morning, eaten in a barn area surrounded by sheep poop. Sorry I always talk about poop, but there´s a lot of it around here. After we finished eating, we went inside their tiny church building. Since we are probably the only gringos to have ever visited their church, we got prime seating, right up front. After singing some songs in Quechua (they gave us a songbook to use), Wade brought a short message and an old preacher translated his Castellano into Quechua. It was a good service and we left feeling like we can really help this church out.

Ok, about the festival, taking up Monday and Tuesday. It was Lampa´s 180th birthday, and apparently everyone in Peru wanted to celebrate it by crowding into our little square and watching the parades of marching bands from the surrounding communities do their thing. The marching style of those not weilding an instrument was slightly Nazi-ish, and a little freaky. Away from the parade, vendors were set up selling everything imaginable, from food to clothing to little nick-nacks that no one has any use for. It was fun, and we ate some good barbeque chicken with potatoes for lunch both days. One night we had alpaca shish-kebobs from dinner. After eating off the street both days, and getting ice cream out of little grubby coolers for dessert, I am surprised we aren´t dead. But I guess God was with our stomachs. We passed out so many tracts these past two days. Almost everyone we handed them to was eager to recieve and read them. In the US, if we passed out that many tracts, we would find half of them on the ground later, but here in Lampa, we only found one. It was great, and Wade got to practice his street preaching.

A few little kids picked us out of the crowd and kept following us around, asking for money. It took all I had not to clock one in the nose, but eventually he went away. Getting stared at constantly started to get old after awhile too. I had the urge to yell, "Yeah, we´re white. So what?" several times, but what would that accomplish? More stares. It is something gringos have to get used to, I guess.

Thursday morning we biked out to Puca Cuesta again and tried to tell the story of the Ten Commandments to a restless bunch of kids, but they got bored quickly and wouldn´t pay attention. So we tried the time-proven remedy of song, and it actually worked. They sang another song of their country for us, and we sang the chorus of "I´m proud to be an American" for them. They clapped for us, but it was an awful rendition on our part.

When we left the school, we went to meet Señor Valeriano to have a Bible study, but he wasn´t home. So me and Dave decided we wanted to climb a mountain. We scanned the range for the highest one we could see and headed that way. Wade really didn´t want to come with us, and even after our persuasions he stopped at the bottom and decided to return to Lampa alone. It was kinda sad, but we knew he would have died on the way up, and we would have had to drag his body back down, so I guess it all worked out for the best. The peak we chose seemed to get farther away the higher we climbed, but finally, after an hour of hard work, we made it. What a view. We saw what we thought might be Lake Titicaca in the distance, but we weren´t sure. Could see for a really long way though. Miles and miles. It was great and coming back down was much easier. It was good to get to talk and I really enjoyed the afternoon. Hopefully we will be able to do it again.

Today is Friday, and when we woke up this morning, Wade informed us that he wasn´t feeling too well, and his stomach was messed up. He really didn´t feel like biking out to Moquegache, so me and Dave decided that we could handle it by ourselves, and headed out. The ride out there was the best so far, and we didn´t stop for any breaks until we were almost to the community. I was kinda nervous about having to teach the class without Wade, but me and Dave taught them a new song and then we did the creation story. The kids were really attentive and even asked when we were coming back after we finished. We walked out of there feeling very good, and we think that Moquegache is our favorite community so far.

Tomorrow we are returning to Moquegache for a Bible study with the adults. We told the kids to tell their parents, and so we hope that people will show up. Please pray that this Bible study will really take off. Also, pray for our Spanish. It is much different speaking to kids than speaking to parents. And pray that Wade is feeling well enough to go with us. I can handle kids, but I don´t know about adults. We need all our forces healthy and ready.

I can´t believe that one month has already passed with us here. Time passes both quickly and slowly in Peru, and you never can tell how a day is going to go. Our Bible studies with Señor Mendez are going well. He always has a lot of difficult questions, testing both our Spanish and our theology. Hard stuff, but we enjoy it.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

Cold but Happy

What a week. My muscles have really been objecting to all the biking that we have been doing lately, but I am going to be hard-body Ginny when I get back to the States, so yay! We have visited several villages this week, and have really established a good connection with one in particular, Moquegache. We taught some songs in the school there last Wednesday, like "Yo Tengo Un Amigo Que Me Ama," a song that I learned while doing Hispanic VBS last summer. It definitely went over better than my bad translation of "Jesus Loves Me". The bike ride out to this village is only 6 km and pretty flat, so it´s not too bad. The scenery is amazing. Everytime I look around, I think, "Wow, I´m in the Andes Mountains, in South America!" It is an incredible feeling, and I finally feel the distance. One of the teachers in Moquegache invited us to come back for the town meeting which was held today. They gave a Catholic prayer before the meeting started, and I thought, well, at least they are religious. We were invited to speak and we proposed a weekly Bible study to be held in the community center every Saturday. We made sure they knew that we were evangelicos and not Catholics. They seemed open to us coming. Now the real test is whether anyone will show up next Saturday to study.

Everyone is getting ready for the great Lampa celebration, to be held on Monday and Tuesday of next week. All the Lampans feel the need to re-paint their houses this weekend in preparation. Their methods of painting are a little different from ours in the US, though. All they need is a bucket of watery pigment and something, such as a bowl or a rag, to splash it onto the walls with. I would imagine that Jackson Pollack would paint his house like this. It is a messy messy technique, and random bits of pink paint wind up everywhere. Yes, all their houses are pink. It is really a funny thing to watch, and they don´t seem to care that their lovely blue and green doors also get covered in pink paint.

Yesterday we biked out to Tusini Gande (all 9 km) to see if we could set up a time to come back to the school next week, but when we got there, we discovered that none of the teachers were there. All the kids were lined up in formation and clutching wooden guns and flags. The director beat his drum to keep time, and we sat there and watched the kids march all over the field, practicing for the parade that we suppose will take place during the celebration. We decided to leave because we didn´t want to disturb their practicing and as we got on our bikes to head back to Lampa, the director yelled "Otro dia!" at us over his shoulder. We hope we will be able to talk to him Monday or Tuesday at the celebration.

As we were almost back into Lampa today, returning from the Moquegache meeting, Wade stopped to talk to a man on a motorcycle, and Dave and I spotted an evangelical church that we had never seen before. We went over to talk to some men who were...can you guess?...painting the building, and they invited us inside where they were also having some sort of community meeting. Wade came over to join us, and was asked to speak a message from the Bible. He preached a very basic gospel message using John 3:16 in Spanish, while another man translated into Quechua. It was so cool, and they were so excited for us to be there. We are going to attend their service at 9:00 tomorrow morning. We really feel like God established a connection there, and we want to focus on helping that church out.

Tonight we are heading to Juliaca in search of big greasy cheeseburgers, and to get some groceries at El Tigre, the supermarket. I have really been craving some barbeque lately. Too bad you can´t ship barbeque to Peru. The charm of the ever-present soup and rice dishes has worn off, and variety, whatever it may be, is always welcome. The restaurant with the mean lady offers a quarter-chicken with fries, but it costs twice what a regular dinner costs. Every now and then, we suck it up and shell out the whole $1.50 for the chicken, but only when we are really tired of sopa.

It is getting colder. Rick and Kelly Martinez let me and Wade borrow sleeping bags, and that has really helped us at night, but the temperature is still dropping. If anyone who is coming is July is reading this, let me advise you to pack lots of warm clothes and a sleeping bag. 5 or 6 alpaca blankets piled on top of you just doesn´t cut it. Also, some soft tissues will come in handy when your nose runs and you are tired of rubbing it raw with the cheap one-ply toilet paper they sell around here.

Thanks to everyone who is sending care packages. They will be recieved with much joy and gratitude. Also, thank you for your prayers. Keep praying for our studies with señor Mendez and also for the new ministry we have started in Moquegache. The comments you leave are wonderful. Keep em coming!

Talk about a weak stomach...

GROSS-OUT ALERT: This post contains some descriptions that may not be suitable for people with weak stomachs or kids with active imaginations. Parental discretion is advised.

What a good weekend we have had. We left Friday morning to journey to Huancané and visit the Martinez family, Rick and Kelly, and their three kids, Elijah, Olivia, and the baby Gabriela. They are a missionaries to the people around their town, and to the Aymara-speaking people who live at the foot of the mountains. So here´s what happened:

We took a taxi to Juliaca and spent a little while there. We shopped and ate pizza for lunch, which was a little different, but still American enough for us. Then we hopped aboard a combi and headed toward Huancané, 45 minutes from Juliaca. When we got there, we asked where the gringos lived and one guy and his daughter finally took us to the Martinez house. Rick was only semi-expecting us because I failed to send him an email saying that we were definitely coming. He and Kelly recieved us warmly, though, and made us feel immediately at home. The guys went with Rick after a little while to their local church for some sort of choir practice while I stayed and took a shower. I cannot even begin to describe the shower. It was hot and actually had pressure and was completely wonderful. The greatest pleasure of my life. And I take back what I said about not having seen any tacos in Peru, because Kelly made tacos for dinner that night. Delicioso! We watched a movie after the kids went to bed. I had some stupid fever that night, which was the beginning of my so-called sickness for the weekend.

Saturday morning we got up and had pancakes for breakfast (Hooray for Americana!) Then we all piled into their truck (literally-Olivia sat on my lap) and headed to the church for their worship service. The church building is really the local community building, used for everything. It is small and dirty and very primitive. The service was mostly in Aymara and since I wasn´t feeling great anyway, I didn´t pay much attention. After the service, we had "dinner on the ground" which consisted of bread, chuño (foot potatoes), and habas, which are like fat lima beans that you peel and eat. I know you are all thinking "foot potatoes?" Well, let me explain...The people here eat so many potatoes that I guess they needed a way to spice things up a bit. So, they take some of their potatoes and mash them up and then set them out to freeze at night. In the morning, they take their shoes off and mash them around with their feet and roll them into balls. Since the potatoes are frozen, sometimes they cut their feet and they bleed on the potatoes, but when they cook them, apparently it´s ok to eat. Since we found out what that stuff was, we haven´t been so gung-ho about trying new things. Anyway, after "lunch" we all piled back into the car and headed toward Puno for a real meal. I got my first glimpse of Lake Titicaca! Oh, wow. I can´t wait to go back there on our R&R weekend. We ate dinner at a very gringo-cized restaurant (I had a burger and fries) and then we headed back to Huancané.

We were supposed to head back to Lampa Sunday morning, but I didn´t really feel like moving much. The fever somehow changed to nausea, and I learned that I could reduce it by staying still and horizontal. I ate almost nothing (no sense in antagonizing my stomach) and tried to sleep the day away. The guys went to the Sunday market and saw all sorts of strange things. They said that there were piles of llama fetuses the people use for some sort of magical purposes. Too bad I missed that. Also, as they were passing out tracts, some man came up to the guys and called them "basura de los Estados Unidos" or trash of the United States. That´s the first anti-Christian thing we´ve heard yet. That night we watched a few more movies and I started to feel better.

By the next morning, I was ok to go, and so Rick and Kelly drove us back to Juliaca. I got my first taste of "Chifa" or Peruvian Chinese food, which was good but I didn´t eat much. We put the leftovers in bags and gave them to a little girl selling toilet paper and to a shoe-shine boy. We walked through Tupac Amaru, the everything market, and I bought a hair-dryer. Yay for modern conveniences! We looked in some DVD stores, and they don´t make any effort to hide the pornography for sale. It is disgusting and sad, and I wonder if they just don´t care that it´s in plain view of little kids. After we said goodbye to Rick and Kelly, we headed off to find a taxi for Lampa. We wound up crunched in the back again, but were glad to get back to the hostel. David had bought a box of 50 games and we played a few of them last night before we went to bed, like Bingo (so boring that it was almost funny) and Snakes and Ladders. He also bought a Spanish rip-off of Monopoly called "Monopolio." It was definitely not made by Parker Brothers, but is kind of funny as well in it´s lack of quality. We might start that game tonight, after Señor Mendez comes up for his Bible study. We bought him a study Bible in Spanish this weekend and we hope that he uses it to come up with more questions to stump us with.

One last gross-out: At lunch today, at the restaurant with the mean lady, we found what looked very much like turds in our soup. I thought that they might be playing a joke on us or something, but then we decided that it was just more foot potatoes. It just goes to show how much we don´t care anymore. Turd soup would not go over very well in the US, but we ate around them. Dave took a picture and we might post it soon.

For those of you who have already found the picture link, check it again because we´ve changed it and now you can access more pictures. We will keep adding more as we go, so keep checking. Thanks for all your prayers.

The language of the heart...

We made our second trip to Puca Cuesta today. Señor Mendez bought a new chain for Wade´s bike and, praise God, it held together the entire way. As we putt-putted on our lowely bikes toward the school, we were passed by the teachers on their motorcycles. We have been joking around about buying a motorcycle for two of us to ride and pulling one of the bikes behind for the other person to ride, but don´t worry Dad. It´s just a joke. Anyway, when we got to the school, the teachers put their classes together so we would have a full hour, instead of 30 minutes for each class. We were only prepared for 30 minutes, and so when the creation story was over, we had to wing it for another half-hour. We decided to teach the kids "Jesus Loves Me" in Spanish. I had to translate the main part of the song myself, because I only remember the chorus in Spanish. Needless to say, it didn´t rhyme and the timing and beat was all off, but the kids enjoyed it. We even taught them the sign language for the chorus. They made us sing it 5 times so they would remember the melody. Also, all the kids wrote the words down in their notebooks. It was cool. After the hour was up, we said chau to the kids and went flying down the hill on our bikes to the community center where we met the Moms´ club. We passed out gospels of John in Spanish and tried to tell the story of the Samaritan woman, but mine and Wade´s Spanish finally failed us. Between the two of us, I hope the women got the gist of it, but even if they didn´t understand completely, I think we made it understood why we were there. Although our Spanish wasn´t up to par today, we used the language of the heart (as Wade likes to call it) to connect with the women. Señor Valderiano, the former president of Puca Cuesta, was there because his wife is the president of the Moms´ club. He told us that the women learn best visually, and asked us to bring a video for them to watch. I have no idea how he plans to run power to a TV out in the middle of nowhere, but if he can get it done, we can do our part too. We think that there is a Christian bookstore in Juliaca that may sell videos, and so we´ll check it out tomorrow. We may need your help. Can someone send us a copy of the Jesus video or some other video like that in Spanish if we don´t find anything? If possible, it would be good to have a copy that the community could keep and use again later on if they wanted. Let me know if you can help. Another "Praise God!": Señor Mendez has been coming up to our little apartment almost every night to do a Bible study. He is very excited about learning, and this makes us excited too. Please keep praying for our efforts to have an impact. Muchas gracias y hasta luego!

Uphill Both Ways

Total body exhaustion. It has been a while since I have felt that feeling. Today we pedaled out to Puca Cuesta to do a little visiting and see if we could help out in the school there. There are only 5 kilometers between Lampa and Puca Cuesta, but I swear that it was uphill both ways. When we got to the school, the teacher wanted us to come in and teach a little English to her kids. First, they sang their national anthem for us in Quechua, which was a scene right out of GlobeTrekker (for those unfamiliar, that is my favorite travel show). Then we sang our national anthem for them, a little off-key, but I betcha they didn’t notice. It was culture exchange right before our eyes. Very cool. After the singing, we taught the English alphabet to the kids, and it was funny to hear them trying to pronounce the G, J, and Z, because they don’t really have equivalent sounds in either Quechua or Spanish. We had our turn though, as we tried to pronounce the Quechua alphabet. Not too easy. The whole teaching thing was a lot of fun, and I really hope we get to that a lot more. After we taught the other class of littler kids too, we said “chau” and “hasta luego” and then headed back toward Lampa. We must have been feeling a little too pleased with ourselves, because 3 kilometers down the road, Wades chain broke again. Oh boy, I wish I could post the pictures of what resulted from a desperate situation and a little improvisation. Dave and Wade put their belts together and tied one end to the back of Daves bike while Wade held onto the other end. Dave pulled Wade behind him for a good km, until the road decided to go uphill again. When we finally made it back to our hostel, we could barely walk up the stairs. That sounds kinda wimpy on my part, since I did none of the pulling or hanging-on, but believe me; the road was against us today. I think Dave might still be sleeping it off. Oh yeah, we had our first gringo sighting today. A whole group of them came in last night and were very loud in the room underneath mine, so I had a little trouble falling asleep, partly on account of the excitement of hearing English, and partly because I was irritated that they wouldn’t shut up. Also, there was a drunken fight in the street outside my window, and I couldn’t help but watch. Who could sleep with all that going on? This morning we got to talk to one of the gringos, a guy from Ireland. It was great. Yay for the Irish! Ok, time to go eat another 60 cent dinner. Adios!

I´m a missionary!

Today was our hardest day so far. We got up this morning and headed out to Tusini Grande on our bikes. We definitely didn´t realize how far away it was, but as the kilometer markers kept passing, we began to realize what we were in for. All together, one way from Lampa to Tusini Grande is 9 kilometers, or over 5 miles. At around 6 km away from Lampa, Wade´s chain broke on his bicycle again. As we were trying to walk it on into Tusini Grande, a man stopped to try to help us and rigged the chain using my camera strap. Unfortunately, about 50 feet down the road, it came undone and so Wade had to walk it the rest of the way. When we got to the village, we told the teachers of the school what had happened, and also that we wanted to tell a Bible story to the kids if they would allow us to. One teacher called all his kids in and let me and Wade have at it, while they tried to fix Wade´s bike. David stayed outside with the other kids and played soccer and basketball with them. I read the creation story in Spanish to the kids in the classroom, and Wade talked to them about the story and asked them questions. The kids laughed at us a lot, especially when Wade tried to pronounce all their names. I think it went well though, for our first time, and in the middle of the story I was thinking, ´Wow, we are doing what we came here to do. We are being missonaries.´ It was a crazy but very cool feeling. when the story was over, we taught the kids a few words in English (hello and goodbye) and then went outside to play. All the other kids were crowded around David, laughing as he read from his Spanish phrasebook. Then the boys started playing soccer and I went to play volleyball with the girls. After being out of shape and pedaling 9 kilometers and having less oxygen to breathe because of the altitude, I was a little worse then usual. Those little Peruvian girls sure can play though. I mean, 7-10 year olds kicking my butt. It was sad. After Wade´s bike was fixed, we said goodbye and promised to return. On the way back to Lampa, we stopped for lunch (crackers and water), and then with only 3 km left toward Lampa, Wade´s chain broke again, and so we ended up walking our bikes back into town. We were exhausted when we finally got back to the hostel. I collapsed into bed, raising a big poof of dust from my jeans as I did so, and took a good nap. I got up a little while later and took my 2nd shower in Lampa. After dinner we came back to the hostel to chill out and reflect on today. David and Wade played a little on the guitar, and I learned two chords: D and G. I figure I can learn to play at least a little in two months.
To anwer some previous questions: I haven´t seen a taco yet, and Quechua is the language of the ancient Incas, still spoken widely around here.

Chicken feet and other wonders

Today was our day on the town. Woowee, and craziness ensued. We got up this morning, ate a cup of oatmeal (good ole Quaker Oats), and set out in search of a taxi that would take us to Juliaca. There is a saying here in Peru: How many people can you fit into a taxi? The answer? One more! We wound up three of nine people squeezed into a five passenger car. It was actually kinda fun. On the road to Juliaca, the driver had to steer off the road several times to avoid hitting the gigantic rocks and shards of broken glass remaining from the Paro several days earlier. The Paro was a protest on the price of gas, and people blocked off the roads the best ways they could to keep people from driving. So, anyway, we got to Juliaca ok, and paid the driver our fare of less than 50 cents apiece. He let us off in the food-market part of town, and just cause we were curious, we walked through the Mercado Central, an indoor bazaar (or bizarre) full of every kind of food that a Peruvian could want. We three gringos, however, did all we could to keep from holding our noses. We saw all kinds of animal parts laid out everywhere that I had no idea people even ate, like piles of chicken feet, pig heads with hollow eyes (creepy), and oh my, the fish. It was a good three hours later till we were ready for lunch. After emerging gasping into the sunshine at the other end of the market, we headed off to change money at the bank and go the the clothing market to buy warmer clothes. Things are so stinkin cheap around here. I got everything I needed for a very good price. Its funny how the Peruvian women talk to us when they are trying to get us to buy something. They take an almost whining tone, like...Señoreeeeeta, es muy baraaaaato...which means: Miss, its very cheap. It is a little annoying sometimes, but most of them think since we are Americans, we are rich. Compared to them, we are, money-wise anyway, and so I dont let it bother me that much. Well, after we finished shopping (Dave bought a guitar!), we ate lunch at a really nice restaurant and had steak. It was great. Then we found a taxi heading back to Lampa, and we squeezed in the back. It was cramped but we got some funny pictures out of it. Tonight we are going to chill out and play some music, Dave on the guitar, me on my harmonica, and Wade with his shaker. Tomorrow we are heading out to visit Tusini Grande, our first village visit by ourselves! Pray...hard...