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VIM TRIP The team was leaving early Friday morning from Friday, Oct 8 Up at On the long flight to The plane landed in Saturday, Oct 9 Up at 7:30 am. Breakfast in the Hotel café was coffee, fresh squeezed OJ and toast. We congregated in the 2nd floor foyer for devotions. Bonnie gave an interesting analogy about holding up a glass of water for a long time and carrying burdens, and how that relates to going on mission trips. A local tour guide joined us on the bus for a tour of There are more taxis than passengers. Many taxi drivers are moonlighting professionals. Police and teachers are not paid much. 40% unemployment. If you are 30-40 years old, you have a very difficult time finding a job because of age discrimination. The young people get the jobs. It’s unfair, but that’s the way it is. There are some original pyramid ruins in The “romantic park” was a curiosity. [Elevation 274 ft] It’s on a cliff next to the ocean. A large statue of a reclining couple is surrounded by a park of beautifully tiled walls/seats. We stopped at a large cathedral and took a long, interesting tour. In
the Pizzaro chapel (where his remains are), there are 4 million small tiles making up the
frescoes on the walls. Common things to see are images of the Virgin Mary in a big dress
than gets bigger towards the floor, like an upside-down “V”. This was a Spanish
concession to the Peruvians likening the dress to the We walked to a different yellow building a few blocks away. Street
vendors followed us trying to sell souvenirs. This is the St Francis of Between these two cathedrals was the Presidential palace. There is a
good deal of political strife going on in As we drove around there were contrasts between the buildings and locations. There will be a house with a nicely-kept green lawn next to a junk yard with adobe huts and a mat roof. We drove north of [Follow-up: The We had been on the “go” all day and it was dark as we drove
toward When we got back to the hotel around Sunday, Oct 10 Add eggs to yesterday’s breakfast. Devotions at Very common sights were small motorcycle taxis and small 15-22
passenger buses. There would be a driver and a second person, a hawker, who hangs out the
window, shouting to potential customers, taking fares, maybe price/destination (couldn’t
really understand what they were saying), etc. Lots
of hustle and bustle. As the little bus took us to the bus station, we saw laundry hanging
to dry on a lot of the roof tops. It must be laundry day. Like Gomez-Palacio (Mex), the
buildings are built upwards as resources ($$) permit. You see a lot of partially built-out
stories and rebar that extend upwards at the corners. Another common sight, not seen is
the The bus station was interesting - not a big one at all. The large bus
had to back into a narrow front so the bus was inside the building. Just enough room for
one bus to fit. On the way to Tarma, we passed another larger, more modern bus terminal;
so this must be the cheap bus line. Buildings in the little towns we pass look just like
in Several hours into the 6 hour bus ride to Tarma, we stopped at a
restaurant for a rest stop. [elev 10,306 ft] El
banos were a welcomed sight. There were none on the bus. An ice cream bar tasted good
(s/.2, or about 66 cents). Of course, we are traveling UP into the mountains, over the
crest of the We saw mountain peaks in the distance that are snow capped. As we get
closer to the We arrived at Tarma’s bus terminal at 6:10 pm. Tarma is nestled
in a valley surrounded by high mountains which cut off the sun light early. It was already
dark. The pastor and others are there to give us an enthusiastic welcome. There are lots
of helpers (almost too many) to load the baggage and then us in a 16 person bus to go to
the Hacienda. It started to sprinkle. The top and inside of the bus are packed with
luggage and people. The lady from the Hacienda followed us in a car in case any bags fell
off. By the time the bumpy ride gets us to our destination, there is a light rain. We
unload as quickly as we can so things are not too wet. Room assignments are communicated
and John, Harold, and I are together (as in Tarma web site:
http://www.go2peru.com/webapp/ilatintravel/articulo.jsp?cod=19993200 We had our first of many wonderful meals this night. Some of us
stayed to hear the planning session when Roger, the local pastor, came back later. Roger
has two churches; one in Tarma and one in a small village called Monday, Oct 11 Up at The bus takes us out of Tarma on the highway for about 15 minutes and
then turns onto a narrow, winding, dirt road that takes us up into the I’m anxious to get to work because it’s so late in the
morning. I help unload the lumber from the top of the bus. Then we start separating rocks
into small, medium, and large piles. There is an embankment bordering a dirt road that
goes up to the next level. Using shovels, picks, and by hand we dig into the embankment
and pull out rocks. When we arrived, a handful of locals were already working on this so
we were supplemental help. Everyone joined in. As the rocks were raked out of the ground,
we tossed them just a few yards away. Seems like a lot of effort for an unknown wall. We
are not 100% certain exactly where the wall will be placed. One thing we do know is it
will be an earthen material wall which is very common in Another task was cutting out a huge cactus plant. Several people work with machetes and axe to hack at the roots. A one point everyone stands back while Ed uses a long pole to knock off the highest “arms”. This is tricky because of an electrical wire running right next to it. We don’t want to take out the village power supply! The needles on this cactus are 1-3 inches long and very sharp. This makes it difficult to pick up as we throw the pieces in a gulley about 20 feet away. While picking one up, it slipped and fell on my foot. The needles went through the top of my hiking boots – OUCH! A couple of times over the next 5-10 minutes, my foot hurt when I stepped a certain way. I took off my boot and sock. There was a cactus needle sticking out of the top of my foot. “Dr.” Wendy pulled it out. It was about 3/4 inch long and half of it was in my foot, the other half sticking out. There were two additional puncture holes, but no other needles to extract. We finished cutting the cactus and dumped the pieces to the side of the property. Eventually, I guess, they will decompose. Move more rocks, then lunch. Moving rocks became our “joke” for the trip, but is also a metaphor for a VIM trip in general. We don’t always understand why God has sent us somewhere or what the end result will be. We may never know or see the fruits of our labor. But it’s not necessary that we know. It’s only necessary that we trust. The rocks are a lesson in trust. We brought our own lunch fixings and ate inside the church building.
It was bare except for a few moveable benches (pews) and a pulpit. After lunch, move more
rocks. Some folks began preparation for the children coming later in the afternoon. Part
of the activity was a kid’s bell choir. I had real doubts as to how effective this
would be. Our church is just restarting our adult bell choir and it’s no small task.
How is it going to work with kids and the language difference! The bells are color coded
and Wynnell holds up flash cards with the appropriate colors to ring at the appropriate
time. This is played to a prerecorded tape with the melody. The concept actually worked
very well and it was popular at both Move more rocks. I finally got tired of rocks and went to play soccer (football) with the kids. The field was next to the church building and large rocks marked the location of the goals. The ball was a deflated basketball which had a large gash in it. It didn’t matter to them, you could still kick it around. At first I helped being a goalie. I figured that would be easier and less running. Later they got me playing the field and between the running and the elevation, I was really sucking wind. The kids enjoyed me playing and they referred to me as “mi hermano” (my brother). A couple of days later in Tarma, one of the girls was at the church and saw me. She ran up and gave me a hug - “mi hermano”. As we left for the day and the bus teetered its way down to the highway, I noticed how pretty the surrounding valley scene was. A song came to me: “Down in the valley, the valley so low. The bus missed a corner, oops down we go.” We were ready for hot showers, but only got cold water. Later we found out there was a “trick” to get hot water. Turn on the hot water and let it trickle for a slow count to 10. Turn it up a little more and count to 10 again. Still more and it should be hot. I was so cold and wore out after the shower, I laid in bed for 45 minutes under a mountain of blankets to warm up before dinner. This was trout dinner night. The typical dinner consists of three
courses: soup, the main course, and desert. This is way more food than I’m use to.
During supper, Roger came by with the Methodist District Superintendent. The DS spoke with
us for 5 minutes to expressed his thanks and appreciation for our efforts. Some of us came
back after dinner for a game of UNO, but we were all tired and didn’t play long. I
was in bed by Tuesday, Oct 12 On the bus ride to We were now instructed to move the large rocks from one end to the other end of a long pile of different sized rocks. We wheel barrowed the small rocks to the other side of the church and dumped them in a depression in the ground. Thank goodness for the new wheel barrow. The old one had a metal wheel and was very heavy even when unloaded. I noticed some of the small children would stand to the side of the wheel barrow with their hand on it as it carried a load of rocks to dump. I then found out why – they got to ride back inside the wheel barrow. One time I had 2 kids in the wheel barrow on the ride back. I didn’t take a straight path back, but serpentined around, bouncing them, pretending to almost crash, etc. Then a 3rd kid got in, then a 4th, then a 5th. I was pushing and bouncing those kids all over the place. Both the kids and I had fun. They wore me out though! A few of the guys were working with a local carpenter in the back room to divide it up into smaller, more useful rooms. We chiseled a hole in the floor to set a tall board acting to anchor the doorway. Wendy gave me some anti-biotic cream to put on my foot. The puncture holes from the previous day were a little red. This seemed to take care of it. They got better throughout the week and it was never a problem. One of the VBS activities was to divide the kids into groups and see who could bounce a balloon in the air the longest. Now the cell phone story. While in I saw 3 colorful chickens walking down the road and took photos of them. De Colores. Virtually every field has irrigation ditches. Larger ditches run to the field. These can be controlled to divert water from/to certain areas. Within the field itself there are one or more small trenches to carry water to all the rows, whether they are food crops or flowers. As we drive along the countryside, it’s not usual to see fields of beautiful flowers of all sorts. Occasionally you would see a black, quarter-sized spider. Apparently, Bonnie didn’t like spiders so when I found one, I got it on the shovel and took it over to her. Three small kids gathered around too. After putting the spider on the ground I thought “Oh no! What if one of the kids picks it up and gets bitten?” After 10 seconds one of the boys said something in Spanish and stepped on the spider. I was relieved. He probably knew more than I did. I took a small shovel of dirt out of the ground, “buried” the spider, and took off my hat. The kids probably thought I was a little weird. I heard others talking about a black snake. I saw a loop of a black snake sticking out of the ground, but it wasn’t very big. Later we found out the spiders were poisonous tarantulas and the snake was poisonous, too. Lucky no one was bitten, as we were frequently sitting down in the dirt and rocks. More hand bells with the kids and adults too. I was a distance from the building listening to the music. I’m sure it rang throughout the valley. It sounded pretty good. At the end of the song you can hear shouting and clapping. There is a never ending supply of rocks to move. It starts to rain a little. It sure doesn’t take very much work to get you breathing hard! An old lady from the village was given possession of a new soccer ball for the kids. I guess they’ll need to “check out” the ball whenever they want to use it. Hopefully, it won’t get “lost” that way. It was time to go. We thought this would be the last time we are here. We waved from the bus and said “Adios”. They waved back and said “Good-bye”. This evening we gathered in the big “fire place” room for a
history lesson of the Hacienda from the owner. Eucalyptus leaves from trees on the site
burned in the fire place as she talked to us. This ancient land belonged to the chief of a
pre-Inca tribe. When the Spanish came, they demanded taxes. Since he had no money for
taxes, just land, he was forced to sell the land to a Spaniard. In 1812, the land came
into the The original Spanish heirs intermarried with Peruvians. In the war
for independence from Chili, there was a good-bye dinner held in the same room where we
eat. Same wallpaper. This was a time of civil war where some people took one side and some
took the other. The next day, family members would fight each other. I don’t know if
she meant “next day” literally or just figuratively. Regardless, it is
reminiscent of events at the start of The Chili army was in Tarma where the head General had his headquarters. There was a small battle outside the town. At one point, they were rolling stones down the hill at the Chilean soldiers. Several important documents were signed at the house which makes it a historic site. They couldn’t change too much during the remodeling as a result. An old man who lives on-site was born here. He’s in his 70s. His wife, son, daughter, and granddaughter live here, too. He says “The house is not crying now”. Another good story is when an important man was running from the
Chilean army. He was on horseback all the way from The Hacienda remained abandon for about 50 years. During the 1980’s many people stayed away from the area due to terrorists (Shining Path). Five years ago (or seven?) they decided to open it as a hotel. The other heirs sold out to her. When they opened it, there was no electricity, no water. The building we are in right now use to be a stable. She had a photo board with before and after pictures. Much of the buildings were rebuilt. At first, it was more rustic - with sleeping bags – like camping. Of the 10 rooms now “rentable”, only 3 could be occupied at first. Their friends came. Over time, more was added to what it is today. They did all of this because the place was so beautiful. She and her daughters run it. The heirs sold most of the good antiques to stores in Of the “girls” who serve our meals: one is studying
engineering in After the history lesson most folks went their separate ways. A few
of us listened to Gladys translate a Spanish newspaper article about the Bush/Kerry
Presidential debate in Web site (in Spanish) for Hacienda is
http://www.geocities.com/haciendasantamaria/ Wednesday,
Oct 13 The supposed “20 minutes” walk from the Hacienda to the Tarma church was actually 55 minutes. About 10-15 minutes of that was a detour due to muddy conditions. One of the guys who worked at the Hacienda went with us for a distance to get us started. Not everyone walked, just some of us. The others took taxis. The Tarma UMC (IEM) church is at 10,126 feet. Within the courtyard there were 4-5 piles of different sized aggregate from sand to fist-sized rocks (oh boy – more rocks!!!). Each pile was about 4 feet high piled against a wall. This will be used for making concrete. After arriving at the site we had a tour of the church and connected buildings. Roger’s parsonage was in the same compound right next to the church. The sanctuary had electronic keyboard, drum set, tambourine, guitars, and a calve-skin head rope-tension drum (complete with fur). We saw one of these drums at Chancay too. The “dining room” was basically a small junk room. This will be one of our projects. There are several nice rooms downstairs under the church. VBS will be there. Projects: clear out the dining room, tear out the floor, and pour a new level one in preparation for tiling. Scrape the interior walls of the compound and prime/paint if time. This church has had 4 pastors in the past (not sure if that includes Roger). One left and took about 60 members to a different church. The vision to bring in new members will be helped if the environment looks more appealing. No one wants to come to a church that looks run down. On this day we had lunch at a busy café in Tarma, however, we were up in a separate room to ourselves. I never realized taking food orders could be so complicated. This was the only time we “ate out” like this in Tarma. There are some old “school” desks that need work. Over the next 2 days we sawed the desktop part from the folding seat part. The seats were sanded and repainted. The benches will be put to good use. The desktops were taken apart to recycle the wood and nails for other uses. During the afternoon, word reached us that Ed and Some of us went down to an internet café. Harold seems to be the
expert at this. I managed to get a very short email off to a group of folks. Internet
cafes appear very popular and common in The praise band practiced for a couple of hours before VBS. VBS did
bell ringing and coloring. There was a church service at Back at the Hacienda, our hot water finally worked. I took a LONG HOT SHOWER. It felt GREAT! Dinner was great, but I was almost too tired to eat. I’m really drained this day and others noticed it, too. Thursday,
Oct 14 My alarm set for I took the first taxi into Tarma. Local workers had already wheel barrowed initial loads of sand, gravel, rock, etc and they were sitting in a big pile in the side street. We laid a layer of the large rocks on the bare ground as a foundation to the floor. Locals were measuring and prepping for placement of conduit that would be embedded in the new concrete floor. They poured 4 bags of concrete on top of the other materials in the street. Then they mixed it by shoveling it all from one pile to another right next to it. When that was done they mixed it a second time going back the other way. The pile was about 2-3 feet high, 4 feet by 5 feet on the ground. This all made a big “volcano”. They ran a water hose to it. As water soaked into the mix, they started final mixing of smaller amounts. When it was mixed, they shoveled it into 3-4 gallon vegetable oil tins. The tins had a piece of wood at the top on one side to make a handle. We picked up a can, carried it through the side door into the “dining room”, and dumped it out. Sections of the floor were leveled as it was poured. A smaller 2-bagger batch needed to be mixed to complete the job. I thought the new floor would have taken more time to pour. It was crazy to begin the job when we were going somewhere else this afternoon. But it all got done in the morning. Once the water soaked in and was mixed, the movement of concrete went quickly because there were so many people carrying loads. It’s a good thing because they were real heavy. They even didn’t fill ours as full as the locals. Some paint showed up and one wall was mostly primed. We found out later it was not primer, but the good latex stuff! It sprinkled a little bit. I had forgotten my hat so I borrowed Joy’s for a while since I was working outside. Lunch was “make your own sandwich” in Roger’s parsonage. This was to save time as we were going to do something special this afternoon. A little after To start, everyone gathered in a circle and the song leader from church led a couple of songs. It was a festive, special time. The two girls had a full “dunk” while the boys were less so. In all cases, Roger was in the cold creek. The whole experience was much more meaningful than I would have thought. The Baptism elevation is 11,633 feet. This is the biggest cavern in There was a tour guide that took a large group of us in. Bonnie had done some caving before and said that the rule is every person should have 3 sources of light. The guide had one rope and one large flashlight for about 20 of us. There were drop offs that fell into the rushing water that ended up coming out of the mountain. There was a foot bridge with wood treads, but the gaps in between the steps were big enough for your foot to fall through. At one point we climb up a ladder and then completed the climb by holding onto the rope for safety. That’s as far as the Americans went – it was too dangerous – too dark. Some of the locals went a little further. Coming back out was easier because you could see better from the light coming in the cavern opening. The cave opening elevation is 11,827 feet about 200 feet above where the Baptisms took place. A web site for the cave is: http://www.go2peru.com/webapp/ilatintravel/articulo.jsp?cod=19994207 The bus ride to/from this sight was pretty bumpy being mostly on dirt/gravel roads. However, we got to see much of the countryside and agriculture that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. It was very interesting. Friday,
Oct 15 This is the last work day. I gave an emotional devotional – emotional for me anyway. Based on Hebrews 11, it talked about how each of us had done things on this trip “by Faith”. While walking into town, I took pictures and GPS coordinates of the war monument to submit as a virtual geocache. I took coordinates at the cave too and that would be a good virtual cache as well. As we walked through town many people were gathered, little kids in different colored outfits, marching band, and costumed cartoon characters. This was a parade getting ready to start in a few minutes in honor of a holiday this Sunday. It was wonderful to watch the groups of kids march by, different colors for different soccer (football) teams, clowns, bikes, Tigger, Mickey Mouse – everything that a parade would have in our town back home. Once we were all at the church, Roger was presented a Bible and other gifts for the family. Some of us finished the benches while others primed the walls with a thin whitewash of a primer. We had lunch back at the Hacienda. Because this is our last day and
another group is checking in today for the weekend, we are consolidated down to one boys
room and one girls room. Take a shower if you can and lunch was a “come and go”
variety. In the afternoon a VERY small bus picked us up. I guess the regular one was in
use elsewhere. Anyway, we all crammed in (how many Methodists can you fit in a bus?) and
we went to During the couple days of our absence, they had installed an iron security gate on the front doors and on the windows next to the soccer field. This will help protect the windows from flying balls as well as security. One man was starting to lay large rocks for the base of the retaining wall we had helped to prep. I went over and helped him while the others were doing things in the building. We traded names written on each others’ arms: Jose and Esteban. Back to the Tarma church for VBS. The praise band was practicing. The leader is Gabriel, two girl singers: Cintya and Tanya, and Luis on the drums. Luis helped with the concrete yesterday and he’s 16 years old. At 6:00 pm (we thought) was a church service, but instead it was a birthday party for Roger’s 2 year old son who was born during the previous Chancay VIM trip. Roger was assigned to Chancay two years ago and the baby was born while the team was there. At 6:15 we finally go into the church. The children’s choir bells are set up front on the alter rail. I find out that WE are going to play. We actually do pretty good (I did not have any practice – but if little kids can do it, so can I!!!). They handed out gifts to us individually. Gabriel gave me mine. After the service he gave me another gift – a black necklace. It was just an inexpensive tourist trinket, but that didn’t matter. I could hardly say “muchas gracias” because I was so choked up. We exchanged email addresses. His wife and small child were there. I didn’t realize he was married. We still had a large amount of supplies that were brought to donate to a school. There is a school next to the Hacienda. Three of us carried the boxes next door to hopefully find someone we would be able to communicate with. The kids gathered around us with curiosity. A man led us to a class room where a woman was - apparently the “principal”. We sat the supplies down and tried to communicate the best we could what the situation was, that these were gifts, etc. She had us carry them over to her office and she continued to thank us. She directed us to a different building and showed us some student artwork done with colors ground from colored soil/rocks. They showed us little packets of clumps, and another of powder, indicating they were ground up with a pestle/mortar to make the paint powder. She then proceeded to give us three student paintings as reciprocal gifts – which we accepted with thanks. Later, Bonnie went back to get some photos of the students and, in particular, one of the artists. Last supper at the Hacienda, but there are no rooms to go back to. All of the luggage is lined up to be loaded. We kill time and talk until the small bus arrives to take us to the bus terminal. Things are winding down. After we load on the bus, the girls who have cooked and served us meals come to say their good-byes. Before the Saturday,
Oct 16 The bus arrived in There was a long wait at the Our flight finally departed and after a 90 minute flight we arrived
in We walked two long blocks to a downtown tourist buffet. We’re the first ones there, but before the night is over it is filled with tour groups filing into the long rows of tables. There were long buffet tables filled with all sorts of different ethnic food. I went for the variety plates and even ate some Alpaca meat. There were two different live bands playing traditional Peruvian music. Occasionally, costumed dancers (2 male, 2 female) came out of performed dances of different styles and time periods (I assume). The music and dancing was very entertaining. The costumes and colors were like nothing I’ve seen before. On the last dance of the evening, the dancers came out in the
audience to get people to come up and dance with them. The one girl dancer tried to get
Raul to dance, but he wouldn’t go (later found out he wasn’t feeling good due to
the altitude). She then picked me and we danced around for a while. It was lots of fun,
but afterwards I was really huffing and puffing. That’s my story and I’m stickin’
to it. Our new motto is WHIPSIP (What happens in Sunday,
Oct 17 Up at The bus took us out of The train ride was interesting and went through some scenic country.
A couple of times the train stopped to pick up passengers or let hikers off to walk the
Inca trail. At one of the stops, some of our party were busy buying souvenirs through the
windows from hawkers at the side of the train. Typical American tourists!!! For most of
the ride, it was the arid-desert-cactus-rocks scenery. As we got closer to There are souvenirs and other shops literally a few feet from the
train tracks. These have first shot at the thousands of tourists who come here. Buying
renews immediately for some of the team. Because I forgot my cap at last night’s
buffet, I bought a wide-brimmed Given the time of day and a previous experience here, Bonnie suggested we eat first and then take the tour. We were first in the buffet. There was way too much food to eat and I didn’t want to overload just before walking on a strenuous tour. Our tour guide was Jamie. Not everyone went on the tour. Because of time constraints, we had a somewhat abbreviated tour. If a person really wants to see this site in depth, you need more than one day. I was the only one in the group who went up to the astronomical rock. I thought the geocache might be there, but it wasn’t. I didn’t have time to find it. At the end of the tour, Gayle and I hiked up to the high watch tower house. It was a strenuous jaunt, but a great view and photo opportunity. Elevation is 8,247 feet compared to 8,034 feet at the restaurant. Once we got back down to the others, there was a big rush to get on the bus to take us down the mountain into town. We can’t miss the train. The buses have drop offs positioned so you have to walk through a huge souvenir market to get to the train. As we were near the end of our trip, I bought a few things. The ride back was 4 hours, mostly in the dark, and very tiring. After we arrived at Monday,
Oct 18 Sleep until 7:00 am. After breakfast, I walked around for about an
hour just looking at the city. When I got back there was total confusion about the
flights. We had to leave right away. We stopped on the square to check things at the
airline. Lots of confusion. It ended up that we took the originally scheduled Airline new briefs http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/10/17/bt.peru.airline.reut/ http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh69028_2004-10-07_21-51-18_n07484164_newsml In Tuesday,
Oct 19 We killed time until we left for the airport around THE END
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