So I just thought I'd write a little bit about our Cuzco (Cusco in Spanish) experience. On Thursday night, Heather and I caught an overnight bus down to Lima. It was about an 8 hour bus-ride. Before we left Utah, we had an orientation meeting where they talked to us about taking local buses, how more Americans get killed in bus accidents abroad than any other way when they're traveling, and about being super careful. We decided with our girlfriends from Africa that buses were the international symbol of death...but when it came down to it, $15 for a bus ride was much better than $100 for a plane ticket. So we took a bus to Lima. We arrived in Lima around 7:15 or 7:30 and had to head immediately to the airport to catch a flight to Cuzco (we couldn't afford to fly both legs, but we got HUGE discounts on the Lima-Cuzco leg).
Once we got off the plane in Cuzco, I immediately felt happy just breathing the air. Cuzco is in the mountains and the air feels like the air in Utah or Germany. Cuzco reminded me a lot of both places with mountains, crisp air, etc. Trujillo and Lima are both on the coast, so the air is heavier because of the humidity.
Cuzco was absolutely beautiful. From the plane we could see all these green mountains and when we landed, it was much more picturesque than either Lima or Trujillo. As we drove through the town from the airport to our hotel, we could tell we were in a third world country, but at the same time I kept thinking, "This is not Peru." The standard of living is so much higher because of tourism.
Heather and I got to our hotel courtesy of Cesar Rodriguez. He is the owner of a travel agency, Lamanita Travel. Our friend Alberto hooked us up with him and Cesar got us such amazing deals on our flights, hotel, visit to Machu Picchu, etc. He was soooo helpful. We were at our hotel for about an hour or so when we decided to go to the Plaza de Armas to look around and then head over to the Eagle Condor office to meet up with Dan and Clint (the other BYU students in our pictures with us).
We got to the Plaza de Armas and Heather wasn't feeling well. By this time we'd probably been in Cuzco about two hours. She wanted something to eat immediately, but when we tried to pick a place, she was just tired and couldn't think of where she wanted to eat. Meanwhile all these Cusqueños kept trying to tell us to eat at their restaurants. Heather just wanted to throw up, so we walked around trying to find a public bathroom. We walked about two blocks in the direction of a bathroom, but Heather couldn't go any further, so she laid on a bench while I ran around trying to find drugs, buying some sprite, stuff like that.
When I got back, we gathered up our stuff and went to the Eagle Condor office there in Cuzco. After talking for a long time with the guys about what we were going to do for the day, we finally decided to take Heather back to the hotel. We went back to the hotel and called a local doctor who is a bishop and who had seen Clint a few days early for something completely different. He came to the hotel and diagnosed Heather with altitude sickness. He gave her some oxygen and prescribed her some pills. She immediately felt better breathing the oxygen. He left and Clint and I ran to get the pills.
When we got back, she was doing really poorly again. We gave her the pills and she thought she would be okay within the half hour. The three of us had found a "guide" (really just someone's nephew who is from Cuzco), so we went out to look around and get some food. When we got back a few hours later, the doctor was back and Heather was again breathing oxygen. It was sad. She'd been so bad while we were gone, that she had called the doctor. The boys gave her a blessing and then went home. The doctor gave Heather more oxygen, another pill, he waited for a while and then gave her more oxygen. Then he left. This was around 10:30.
Heather was still horrible, so we changed rooms to a room where she could take a hot bath (our other room just had a shower), we called Heather's best friend Mallorie (our U.S. doctor since Mallorie is in med school), and the hotel brought us their oxygen tank. Mallorie gave us a little advice on oxygen, Heather took a little more and finally around 12:30 at night, she fell asleep. It was a horrible day and night for Heather, but in the morning, she was finally feeling a little better. Well enough to go to Machu Picchu. We were really grateful both that she was better and that we could all make the trip.
The altitude of Cuzco is about double that of Provo and roughly the same as the top of Mt. Timpanogos. Heather had hiked Timp this past year and had experienced similar altitude problems at the top, so basically we've decided that Heather doesn't do very well around 11,000 feet. After this experience, the case that we studied this year about Mt. Everest and all the problems the hikers had makes even more sense.
We'll try to share more about our experiences a little later. Right now we're trying to get ready to give a presentation tonight, so we have a ton to do!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Return to Trujillo
Heather and I just got back from a weekend in Cusco. So much happened, but we didn't have frequent access to the internet so we didn't post. We'll have to get everyone caught up and post some pictures. It was really a busy weekend from overnight bus rides, Heather getting really sick, two house calls from a doctor, Machu Picchu, bartering for jewelry, taxistas trying to rip us off, scary parts of town...so more postings to come. :)
Thursday, May 10, 2007
El dia de vacaciones
Today was sort of like a vacation day for us. It wasn't supposed to be. It started off as a normal day. We went and visited the church's offices where they have the Employment Office and the Mission Home. After that Jenry went back to our office and Heather and I continued with Miguel to do visits...but we had to go to the supermarket first to get some water (it's on the 1st floor and the church offices are on the 2nd floor of the same building)...while we were there we thought it'd be nice to buy a little treat for Flor since we were going to be doing visits in Miguel and Flor's neighborhood and Miguel needed to stop to get his cell phone...we decided to get an ice cream treat (like the Viennetta ice cream rolls or whatever they are), take it to the house (which is close to 20 minutes away) eat it first and then go do visits. While we were at Miguel's finishing our ice cream, Jenry called and said we needed to come back earlier than usual for lunch, so we ended up doing one visit in the morning before having to head back to our neighborhood.
In the afternoon, we were going to return to Miguel's neighborhood, but our friend Alberto had called us earlier really concerned that we were in third world Trujillo suffering great depravation. So he hooked us up with a girl from Trujillo whose father is the manager of an important bank and he wanted us to spend the afternoon with her seeing a different side of Trujillo. At the end of the afternoon, we returned home to have dinner with our family who wanted to take us out, so...not a super productive day, but after dinner, we did come back to the office and have been working for about three hours.
A few things:
We are huge fans of Miguel and Flor. We love them. They are the couple that just got married last week and they are one of the purest, sweetest couples. Miguel has talked to us a couple of times about his feelings regarding the church, God's plan, his faith, what it's like being married to
Flor...he's amazing. He's so good and so kind and so full of faith. You don't find many people like him anywhere in the world, especially in the United States. Flor is the same way--so humble and so sweet. They are starting really with nothing. They laugh about it. Until last night they were eating on the floor of their kitchen because they didn't have a table, but Flor's mom just bought them one as a present. Their apartment is really small but there is a great spirit there and they are trying so hard to start their lives together right and do things the Lord's way. We love Miguel and Flor. I posted an extra picture of them here, especially for my little sister Darcie. Flor got this shirt from another Peruvian who served in her mission. He gave it to her because she loved playing soccer. Who knows where he got it from, but...it's a Timpview Soccer t-shirt!
After lunch we went and met Alberto's friend Cynthia and her sister Claudia. They are both in their 20's. They are Catholic, but they live next door to the mission president and their brother is at BYU. We also met their mother and together the five of us drove around Trujillo while they showed us a few other parts of the city. It was really fun for me to see a different side of Trujillo. There are parts of Trujillo that are actually really well taken care of and quite beautiful. For some reason it made me feel better to see that people can reach that economic level here. Most people that live in the nicer areas of the city work for banks, large companies like Nextel and Gloria (a big dairy company), or own their own larger, profitable businesses. It made me feel good to know that hard work here doesn't always get you a higher economic level of poverty. A small few are actually blessed with more.
At the same time, it was sad to see the contrast and it provoked a lot of thought...these girls have probably never experienced the poverty of their country firsthand, so I wonder how in touch they are with how hard life is for the rest of their fellow countrymen and women. I think this happens a lot to us in the United States. We of the middle class take our economic status for granted and part of us feels that if people wanted to have more, they could. I've thought a lot about a quote from Primo Levi's book Se questo e un uomo (Survival in Auschwitz) where a man named Kuhn is praying and thanking God that he has been saved by the random selection process where the S.S. guards in Auschwitz would send a few prisoners to be killed. Levi sees Kuhn praying and says, "Se io fossi Dio, sputterei a terra la preghiera di Kuhn," which is, "If I were God, I would spit Kuhn's prayer back to earth." I don't agree with Levi. I think we should ALWAYS be grateful and thankful to God for what WE have, but at the same time, I think it's a careful balance between gratitude to God balanced with humility that recognizes both our blessings (through no particular worthiness of our own) and the innocent suffering of others. Anyway, all this talking is about me and not about these girls. They were very sweet girls and very generous to us. And their home, home life, and situation all reminded me of something you would find in the U.S., so I don't fault them for having what we have. It's just such a stark contrast here in comparison to the U.S. where most of us are well-insulated from those who do suffer in poverty. I guess it was good for me to see the contrast as a reminder that there is suffering in my own country very close to home that I often ignore.
As for dinner with Jenry and company, it was delicious! Jenry treated us all to dinner at a great restaurant that serves chicken served three ways that are very typical in Peru: rotisserie, deep-fried, and on the grill. It was really great and so much fun to go out with everyone again. Luckily, this time no accidents were had by Angel David. At least not at dinner. Prior to dinner when Heather and I arrived at the house, Adrian was mad at Angel David and had shut him in the room without knowing that the door would lock. No one had a key. Angel David is too little to open the door from the inside, but the whole time he kept calling out that he had to go to the bathroom. Meanwhile, Jenry was trying to break into the room. When the door was finally opened, it was a little too late for Angel David and his pantalones. At least this time he didn't have to sit on a cold high chair afterward.
In the afternoon, we were going to return to Miguel's neighborhood, but our friend Alberto had called us earlier really concerned that we were in third world Trujillo suffering great depravation. So he hooked us up with a girl from Trujillo whose father is the manager of an important bank and he wanted us to spend the afternoon with her seeing a different side of Trujillo. At the end of the afternoon, we returned home to have dinner with our family who wanted to take us out, so...not a super productive day, but after dinner, we did come back to the office and have been working for about three hours.
A few things:
We are huge fans of Miguel and Flor. We love them. They are the couple that just got married last week and they are one of the purest, sweetest couples. Miguel has talked to us a couple of times about his feelings regarding the church, God's plan, his faith, what it's like being married to
Flor...he's amazing. He's so good and so kind and so full of faith. You don't find many people like him anywhere in the world, especially in the United States. Flor is the same way--so humble and so sweet. They are starting really with nothing. They laugh about it. Until last night they were eating on the floor of their kitchen because they didn't have a table, but Flor's mom just bought them one as a present. Their apartment is really small but there is a great spirit there and they are trying so hard to start their lives together right and do things the Lord's way. We love Miguel and Flor. I posted an extra picture of them here, especially for my little sister Darcie. Flor got this shirt from another Peruvian who served in her mission. He gave it to her because she loved playing soccer. Who knows where he got it from, but...it's a Timpview Soccer t-shirt!
After lunch we went and met Alberto's friend Cynthia and her sister Claudia. They are both in their 20's. They are Catholic, but they live next door to the mission president and their brother is at BYU. We also met their mother and together the five of us drove around Trujillo while they showed us a few other parts of the city. It was really fun for me to see a different side of Trujillo. There are parts of Trujillo that are actually really well taken care of and quite beautiful. For some reason it made me feel better to see that people can reach that economic level here. Most people that live in the nicer areas of the city work for banks, large companies like Nextel and Gloria (a big dairy company), or own their own larger, profitable businesses. It made me feel good to know that hard work here doesn't always get you a higher economic level of poverty. A small few are actually blessed with more.
At the same time, it was sad to see the contrast and it provoked a lot of thought...these girls have probably never experienced the poverty of their country firsthand, so I wonder how in touch they are with how hard life is for the rest of their fellow countrymen and women. I think this happens a lot to us in the United States. We of the middle class take our economic status for granted and part of us feels that if people wanted to have more, they could. I've thought a lot about a quote from Primo Levi's book Se questo e un uomo (Survival in Auschwitz) where a man named Kuhn is praying and thanking God that he has been saved by the random selection process where the S.S. guards in Auschwitz would send a few prisoners to be killed. Levi sees Kuhn praying and says, "Se io fossi Dio, sputterei a terra la preghiera di Kuhn," which is, "If I were God, I would spit Kuhn's prayer back to earth." I don't agree with Levi. I think we should ALWAYS be grateful and thankful to God for what WE have, but at the same time, I think it's a careful balance between gratitude to God balanced with humility that recognizes both our blessings (through no particular worthiness of our own) and the innocent suffering of others. Anyway, all this talking is about me and not about these girls. They were very sweet girls and very generous to us. And their home, home life, and situation all reminded me of something you would find in the U.S., so I don't fault them for having what we have. It's just such a stark contrast here in comparison to the U.S. where most of us are well-insulated from those who do suffer in poverty. I guess it was good for me to see the contrast as a reminder that there is suffering in my own country very close to home that I often ignore.
As for dinner with Jenry and company, it was delicious! Jenry treated us all to dinner at a great restaurant that serves chicken served three ways that are very typical in Peru: rotisserie, deep-fried, and on the grill. It was really great and so much fun to go out with everyone again. Luckily, this time no accidents were had by Angel David. At least not at dinner. Prior to dinner when Heather and I arrived at the house, Adrian was mad at Angel David and had shut him in the room without knowing that the door would lock. No one had a key. Angel David is too little to open the door from the inside, but the whole time he kept calling out that he had to go to the bathroom. Meanwhile, Jenry was trying to break into the room. When the door was finally opened, it was a little too late for Angel David and his pantalones. At least this time he didn't have to sit on a cold high chair afterward.
Giants
I don't know if you've noticed yet from the pictures, but Heather and I are kind of giants here in Peru. I'm 5'3 1/2 and Heather is 5'5. The first day we got here, we went to church and I was wearing heels at least and it was incredible. Everyone was tiny. That was a first for me. So...in many of the pictures, we sort of dwarf the people we're with. Some people aren't super short, but they're usually considered tall here.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Monday, May 7, 2007
You know you're in Peru when...
Heather and I have a whole list of things that are signs that we're in Peru. This picture of us outside of the Pizzeria San Remo is a perfect example. I saw this picture and I just thought, "Sheesh, you know you're in Peru when you wear your velour pants outside of the house and try to pretend that it's normal." I would never do that in the U.S. unless I was wearing them to go work out or something.
Another time I commented to Heather that I thought a guy was good-looking and she just gave me a look and said, "You know you're in Peru..."
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