Back to Pucallpa for two days, and I get welcomed back by two teenage boys stealing my wallet. Yep, the excitement never dies down around here. Kristin and I were buying meds at dusk for our next campaign, and as we rounded a corner, bumping and jostling between some people, a young guy stopped right infront of me, forcing me to stop. His friend was right behind me, and slipped my wallet out of my back pack. Of course, all this occured without me even realizing it, and when I discovered a couple hours later that the back zipper of my backpack was open, the plan those two crooks put together became all to clear and perfect in my mind.
So, after getting the run around from my bank for having my wallet stolen on Thanksgiving Day of all things (how dare I), I finally got my debit card cancelled so at least the thieves won't be able to use more then the 200 soles cash I had (about $60), some Bible verse cards in English, and some nice pictures of my gorgeous sister that I'm sure they'll enjoy pouring over almost as much as they like hooting and hollering at us girls as we walk by.
The really funny thing about all this is I had just realized that everything here in Peru has finally become completely normal to me. Life here is just what I do, and I have made a complete transition from thinking that life in the USA is normal. What a nice celebration of that realization. Oh, well, like the policeman who I filed the police report with who asked me whether I was married or not said, there's bad people all over the world. And, like I told him, that's true, but here in Peru the bad people look for people who look like me: tall, blonde, American, and innocent. :)
Moving on to what's been going on in my life over the past few weeks, since these recent occurances are just a part of the many adventures I've been enjoying while in Peru. The past 6 weeks, Kristin and I along with two Bible workers from Pucallpa, Manuel and Domingo, have been in Ciudad Constituccion. Now we're back and on Sunday jump into a mini campaign of about 2 weeks before Christmas vacation and travelling!
Doing our first full length program for the kids and families was challenging, but very rewarding and we learned a lot. We started out with 20 families in our program, but by the end only had 10 due to families having to travel and work in their chacras. But the 10 we had were quality. They showered us with many gifts of fruit, crackers, and cold treats, and always listened and encouraged us when our Spanish was terrible or our charlas were a little on the ridiculous side. We had a lot of fun getting to know them. The programs itself needs a lot of work we've discovered, and the next full length campaign, after vacation, we will be trying a new approach, starting in the homes with the families like we are doing now, but only for the first week, and then moving into a classroom setting. I think it will be much better for the families and us. We talk about a such a wide variety of topics that we need to have more time to do more then just scratch the surface of them, and having to walk all over tarnation trying to visit these families takes up a lot of time we could devote to teaching.
The kids program went fine, I just get really sick of singing the same old songs and having clingy, loud, whining kids hanging off of me constantly. 6 weeks of kids is a lot for me to handle! But, they are really cute. That helps me hang on to my patience until about the last two weeks. Then I really start to lose it. I've realized I am not made to be a kindergarten teacher! Give me the adults and I'm fine, but kids are just another story. Oh, well, I'm sure God is using this to help me grow in some way. Patience, maybe???
So, for the last 6 weeks we've been living in the adventist church of Ciudad Constituccion, in a tent. Camping for six weeks, woohoo! Actually, it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We ate all our meals with a really sweet, equally crazy lady named Rosita, who would go on funny little sprees with our food, serving us all potatoe stuff one week, all platanoes another, and so forth...but all came with the never ending fountain of rice. Of course. Rosita owned two parakeets, both of which she called Piwichu. She would paint them with pink nail polish and hack their wings off with a knife (one of which lost a toe as well when she got a little knife-happy) to keep them from leaving her side. After a few days of watching her chew up food and spit it into her hands to feed her "babies" we arrived for breakfast one day to discover a tragedy had occured. Her pregnant cat had needed a supplement to her regularly sparse diet, and feasted on parakeet. We think they couldn't handle all the love and commited suicide by jumping into her cat's mouth.
While in Ciudad Constituccion, we encountered many more experiences...all of which I want to write about, but, I am needed back at km 38 at this moment, so, this will have to be continued with part two in well, an indefinite amount of time, because, as anyone here will tell you, nothing in Peru is ever a sure thing...
Thank you all for hanging on and hanging in for this ever crazy, changing, bumpy ride. I am so thankful for all the prayers and support. Happy late Thanksgiving! Hope you are all still enjoying the left overs, eat some for me!