New Friends, Delightful Mornings, and Alpacas

Derek has figured out how to use coffee beans, milk, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, chocolate powder, his new manual coffee bean grinder, and his new milk frother (birthday gifts this year) to make me the perfect mocha.  It’s delightful.  So here  I sit, enjoying my homemade mocha, around 2 in the afternoon, with my laptop in hand, while both of my boys are napping.  This too is delightful.

Today was a great day at class.  There are some days when I come home feeling a bit defeated by the Spanish language, but most days, like today, I feel encouraged.  It’s been SO helpful that I had some previous exposure to the language.  I think it’s really helped everything to “click” much quicker.  I still have a long way to go, but it’s so nice when our teacher introduces a new rule, and I realize that I’ve already been applying it without really knowing why.

Today started out really well even before getting to school, though, because I got to see this:

 

I wish I could send this picture back in time to myself a month ago.  It’s so so wonderful to see how much Finn love’s his Celia.  This morning as we headed out the door to school he was giving her repeated hugs.  Added to that was the joy of getting to listen to John Piper for 30 minutes via my earbuds while walking down the street in the perfect 70 degree morning air to our school.  These morning walks are so good for helping both my mind and my body to warm up for the day.  I’m sure many of you would trade your commute for this one in a heartbeat. 

Lately God has granted us several great opportunities to spend times with our new missionary friends here in Arequipa.  There’s something so special about the bond that fellow missionaries can form in a foreign culture.  I know it doesn’t always work out that way, so I don’t want to take it for granted, but this is one aspect of missionary life that Derek and I have both really looked forward to. 

[side note: Does that sentence make sense?  I feel like there’s something wrong with it, but can’t figure out how to fix it, haha!  Since beginning our Spanish study I sometimes struggle with English!]

A couple days ago I got to go on an afternoon excursion with the Gutierrez’s and some of the ladies from church to a really interesting place that not only sells really wonderful alpaca yarn and garments, but also has a series of displays and demonstrations showing how alpaca yarn is made.

 

We saw and got to pet several alpacas penned in with a little nativity scene.  It seems I took this shot at a bad moment for one of them, however in retrospect, I suppose this sort of thing renders the Bethlehem scene a little more authentic, right?

This lady is a professional alpaca fur separator (not really sure what her official title is).  She was raised to know how to separate the fur into 4 different categories of softness depending on where on the animal it came from (apparently there are not many people who know how to do this).  She was very friendly, and let us feel the different types of fur.

 

This is a Cusqueñan lady who was weaving a traditional Quechuan blanket with the alpaca yarn.

 

Here we saw all of the old machinery that used to be used to sift through the alpaca fur and turn it into yarn. 

Yesterday was a national holiday here in Peru, a Catholic holiday celebrating the “Emaculate Conception,” and so we didn’t have class, but we offered to babysit for the Bonhams and Gutierrez’s so that they could go out and spend some time together before the Bonhams head back to the states on HMA for several months.  We really enjoyed our time with their children, and so did Finn.

 

 

He’s got a new little buddy.  On the ride home from church last Sunday they were cracking each other up with jokes that only they understood.  It was so fun to watch.

 

 

I’m continuing to make progress in the cooking department here.  I was so excited to locate peppermint extract at a little shop near the church last Sunday, so I’m going to try to make some mint chocolate brownies for our school’s Christmas party next Friday.  We’re all supposed to bring some sort of food to share from our own country.  Peppermint doesn’t seem to be a common thing here (sadly, the Starbucks in town doesn’t have my favorite - the peppermint mocha frappaccino) so I thought those brownies might be a good contribution.  I might also attempt to make some spinach dip if I can figure out how to do that with the ingredients here.  We’ll see about that.

Here’s a funny little story for you.  The other day at the grocery store I spotted this bag, and without really reading it, I assumed that it was chocolate covered almonds.  That’s what it appears to be from the picture, right??

 

Well it’s not.  It’s chocolate covered something else - still not really sure what, and Finn’s the only one who likes it.  We’re learning that you really can’t go by the picture alone when it comes to food here.  So our translation apps tend to get a lot of use during our grocery runs!

That's all for now!

- Laura

Our new life in Peru

A few new aspects of our lives here in Peru:

• Earthquakes - mild earthquakes seem to be fairly regular occurrences here.  A fairly regular topic of conversation with our classmates at language school is regarding who felt or didn't feel the most recent tremor.
• Fireworks - they like to shoot it off pretty regularly here...
• Focusing on breathing - I now realize that there are many times throughout the day that I hold my breath in order to focus on something else.  These instances are now always followed by a couple minutes of concentrated breathing, to reintroduce the oxygen that has been lost.  (Altitude issues)
• Wearing hats and sunscreen.  I've been told that there's a hole in the ozone layer over Peru.  I don't know how accurate that is, but it does get some of the highest UV levels of anywhere in the world (ironic considering Peru was the ancient center of sun worship).  So we gringos have to wear lots of sunscreen and hats.  I've never considered myself much of a hat person, but I'm learning to become one.
• Walking.  We don't have a car here, so we walk a lot.  We do taxis a lot too, but walking is good for us, so we do that when we can.  It never rains here either, so the weather's always perfect for walking!

Things we miss already:

• Cheeseburgers, sour cream, frozen vegetables, Campbell's soups, quick comprehensive shopping trips (because of no car, we do lots of little trips).
• Wifi
• Colder weather.  It's so weird to hear Christmas music and see Christmas decorations when it's sunny with a high of 75.  We don't complain, because the weather's beautiful, but I do miss the fall weather that I see in my friends' Facebook pictures!
• Our bed.  The one in our apartment just isn't all that comfortable :(

And now for a few pictures:

 Finn loves going for walks.  We use the stroller when we're going to leave our neighborhood, but we let him walk until we get to the gate of the neighborhood.

Derek got to play the keyboard at church this past Sunday, and really enjoyed it.

Finn is learning little by little to stay busy during the church service.  There is a room with toys where I can take him when he get's rambunctious, but no nursery workers, so we try to keep him in the service as long as we can.  Everyone is very understanding and forgiving, too, so we are thankful for that!

Some of my Spanish vocab and doodles.  We're trying to internalize a ridiculous amount of vocabulary words right now, so we're using any and all means to try to help them stick!

 Finn watching some ants on the sidewalk.  He also likes to point them out in our apartment.  Fortunately, they don't ever seem to come in hoards like they did sometimes in Alabama.

In the evenings Finn often asks for music, so we have lots of dance parties!  He's developed his own signature dance moves, which are really entertaining to watch.

That's all for now!

Laura