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.