Driving to the Beach

I forgot to mention an important part of the days activities--  driving to the beach, which takes maybe 15 minutes on a local bus.  That is an experience in itself,  with Latin music blaring,  buses vying for their part of the road and  racing to see  which one will  be first to pick up roadside travelers.  They make unrestrained use of their horns,  and the man who stands in the doorway of the bus,  hops off to encourage possible riders and to hurry on those who want to board,  at least I think that is what he is saying.  Hurry , hurry. At least these drivers come to a stop before they expect you to hop off the bus,  unlike our bus  experiences in   Ecuador!

I love the sounds and the Latin American sites  and the thoughtfulness of Peruvian youth who quickly get up from their seats to offer a place for Pete or I to sit.   

Debbie

Merry Christmas

 Friends:

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas,  but it doesn't feel like it very much. In a lot of places here in Trujillo, Peru, there are decorations, but they are a lot scantier than we do it in the frozen North. The colored lights help to brighten up the long dark winter nights and add cheer. Here, the nights are neither long or cold. Children at a nearby school were having a Christmas party and were leaving with large snowman made from paper plates.They envy our snow , but don their winter coats and mittens when the temperature drops to 65 F. 

The first picture is at the mall. Santa was there to give the kids false hopes, and Christmas songs were blaring from speakers everywhere to help rev up the happy shoppers and loosen purse strings,  just like Canada.  Out in front of the Temple there is the nativity to remind people of the reason for the celebration. 

We are thinking of you all at this time, and yes, we actually miss the snow and cold and colored lights, but, I'm sure the feeling will pass. 

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.

Love, Peter & Debbie

Chan Chan

Friends:

When we look out our windows on the North West side we see some of  the ruins of Chan Chan. It is speculated to have been  the worlds largest adobe city. It covered about 20 square kilometers of ground and was estimated to have about 35,000 citizens. The people fished, farmed, and worshiped the moon. Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimu empire. They built elaborate aqueducts and turned arid land around them into fertile fields of grain, fruits and vegetables. They had an enormous wall around the whole city. The Incas came and studied their methods and then decided to conquer them.  Nothing much changed except that they added the sun to their worship of the moon. 

Much of the area is not developed as an archeological site, and people(we) can wander over it. A few homeless people have moved in to a few places. Much of it looks like big piles of dirt. It is apparent that some of the buildings must have been two and three stories tall. In many random places some of the dirt has been dug away exposing some of the original brick work, which in some places is much finer than I had imagined adobe to be. 

There will probably be another installment on Chan Chan when we have visited the historical site that has been developed for tourism, on the other side of the highway.  That part is run by the government as a museum. 

Since there is almost no rain here, adobe is a durable building material. In our wanderings around  some of the back streets, we have seen a few houses in the poorer neighborhoods made of adobe. Sometimes walls are made of adobe enclosing farm fields. We see walls here and there in Trujillo of adobe. Once you get out of the commercial districts, by a block or two in many places things get a little rough looking. Most of the buildings are of red brick and cement though. 

Love, Peter & Debbie

Peru Mission - New Home

Friends:

Here is our new home for the next 18 months. The first two pictures on the left are of the Trujillo, Peru temple, where Debbie and I are ordinance workers, for about 6 hours a day. The next two pictures are of the apartment building that we live in. There is a balcony behind the chairs on our second story apartment. The temple is only a little over a year old. Both buildings are very well done. 

There is one other North American couple in the building, and 4 Latin American couples, in the senior missionary apartments.  On the other side of the building are rooms for local people to rent when coming to the temple. Their rooms have 6 beds, and full bath and storage space, and are offered very cheaply so as to be easily affordable.  All the rooms , apartments, and temple are very regal and well kept. Both buildings are surrounded with gardens and a security fence, and patrolled by security. There is a cafeteria in the apartment building that serves typical Peruvian cuisine. A complete meal costs just under $3 Canadian. 

When not serving in the temple, we are free to explore. We have had some interesting experiences already, which  we can share with over time, unless you want me to take you off our list. The tight security at the temple is not an indication that one is in danger. We come and go frequently together or individually to explore our new city, and to seek out markets to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, which are produced in this area in abundance and can be gotten very cheaply from vendors or in the Mercados (farmers markets), or by paying too much for in the supermarket at the mall where the presentation is more hygienic. 

The city is interesting but not beautiful. The main industry in the area is mining gold in the nearby mountains. It seems like the rest of the city of 800,000 makes a living from the people who mine the gold. There is a lot of agriculture in our area. They grow a lot of sugar cane, asparagus, passion fruit, avocados, mangos and bananas. It is watered by irrigation from the Moche river. The area is desert-like where there is no irrigation, with cactus growing wild in places. There has been no rain in 8 months, and it is more like a mist when it comes at all.  The temperatures here go from a low of 65 to a high of 85 year around. It is called "the land of the eternal spring". 

Since Trujillo is not a tourist destination, there are few attempts to dress it up for company. Spanish is the language, and very little English is spoken. That is OK. We knew that before we came here. We knew no Spanish when we went to Ecuador and got by (we returned from Ecuador 6 years ago). We have known since then that we wanted to return to Latin America, and have been preparing for the last couple years with an excellent "speak-to learn" program that has moved us forward in Espanol. Debbie is more fluent than I am, but I am getting by. 

The people are wonderful. They are friendly and gentle. For the most part, they are dirt poor but they seem very happy. In a climate where you don't need heating or air conditioning and taxes are practically non existent, and where food is cheap, being poor is apparently not as stressful or inconvenient as it is in North America. Only those with good jobs have cars. The bus system is excellent and cheap, and taxis are everywhere and also very cheap. 

We are loving it here, and feel very privileged to have the opportunity to be here. We will miss two Nova Scotia winters (but we won't miss them much) and one Nova Scotia summer and be home in time for planting in May 2018, and it will cost us the same or less than staying home.  Now, how bad is that?

Love, Peter & Debbie