We're Getting Warmer!

 

We are seeing more rain these days.  We are not into the rainy season yet so we´ve been a bit surprised.  They say it rains every day during the months of December, January & February.  Right now we´re seeing rain about two times a week.  It has also warmed up a bit here.  That does not mean higher temps during the day.  That means it doesn´t get nearly as cold at night.  Rather than 30 to 32 degrees low at night, it is now more like 36 to 40 degrees low at night.  It´s enough that we have noticed a difference in our apartment in the mornings, but it is still chilly.  Here´s a view close to our house right after a rainstorm.

Notice the side of the building is just red brick.  They only finish off the front of the buildings and make them look nice.  The sides and back are always unfinished like that.

This week I continued to try to fully recover from being sick.  I worked the first half of the week, but had a relapse on Thursday where I had to stay in bed the whole day.  Thursday is one of our busiest days, but Dave had to handle it all himself.  I am now fully recovered but it really took me until the 15th to feel completely normal.

Here are a few photos of some of the food we have enjoyed here.

 This is a photo of the granadia fruit that we mentioned previously.  The black seeds are crunchy and sweet at the same time. They are inside a clear sack membrane that makes it look a bit like snot but it tastes good.

We found a bakery that makes these huge croissants.  Cost?  One sol which is about 37 cents.

This same bakery makes these called Donas, which translates to Donuts.  No hole in the middle, but it is fried dough.  They put this filling called manjar in the middle.  It is like frosting and has a caramel flavor, sort of.

Our lunch one day.  You can see the bacon Dave scored sitting on top of the chicken and the size of the avocado is pretty big as well.  You can eat avocado every day here if you want.  It´s awesome.

Speaking of money, here is a shot of some of the most common coinage.

The two sol piece is just like the 5 except smaller.  One sol equals  US 37 cents.  50 centavo is half of that.  20 centavo is about 7 cents.  Five soles would be about $1.83 US dollars.

We continue to visit as many of the wards as we can here in Cusco so they can get to know us and build up awareness of the Self-Reliance center.  We still have not made it to all of them.  But we are seeing parts of the city we haven´t visited before.  The ward building we go to for the Career Workshop presentation to the Pichu ward members is in the Santiago neighborhood and it appears to be a bit poorer section of town.  Here are some views we see as we travel to this chapel.

Not sure if you can make out the person that is washing up there under those coverings.  They are right on the very edge of the hill.

How would you like to have to climb up those stairs every time you came and went from your house?

Our second class of the workshop had significantly fewer number of people in attendance.  We had fourteen and probably 4 were new.  It had been switched to Sunday rather than Saturday due to a stake activity I´m going to talk about later. It didn´t help that a big downpour started about a half hour before the workshop was to start.  I think it hurt our attendance.

We continue with our English classes as well.  Our 7 pm Tues-Thursday class has grown so large that we have to split the group up and both of us teach that hour.  Dave had to teach 14 by himself Thursday night.  It doesn´t work real well with that large of a group.  Dave took some photos of me teaching that class on Tuesday.  You can see how big it is getting.

 

The center is also getting busier.  Our visits to the different wards must be paying off.  Dave took a photo on one of our busy days.  The six laptops they brought for our office are starting to be a necessity and that is a good thing.

Saturday since I was feeling better, we took off on some sightseeing in the city.  We went to the Plaza San Blas and spent most of the morning there.  We bought an entrance ticket for a number of religious sites in the city.  It is valid for 10 days.  We figured we could go on our lunch breaks to a number of the places since they are walking distance from our center.  They didn´t allow you to take any photos inside the church.  But we´ve got some photos of the parts we could take.

This is the outside of the church.  It is not very impressive.  It is not that big of a church but it has the most impressive pulpit in all of South America they say.  It is made of wood and the amount of carving that went into it is amazing.  The best I can do is post a photo of a postcard to give you some idea of what it looks like.





You can see only two of the levels, there is one below the circular part of the pulpit.  It is suppose to represent, hell, earth and heaven.  The funny part is we were told the figures at the bottom represent Calvin, Luther, etc.  those that left the Catholic church and the Catholics believe they are now in hell whereas we see them as forerunners to the restoration of the gospel .  Then at the top is St. Peter up in heaven.  The whole thing is just covered with carvings.

The backdrop to the altar is very impressive as well, all covered in gold leaf.  We were not able to take any photos of that.   We were, however, able to take some photos up on the second floor.

Here is an example of one of the bishop robes that they would wear to perform mass.

There are two bell towers and this is one of the bells.
We took some photos from the tower.  This is looking down on the plaza.

And these are looking off over the city.  You can see the many church spires at the Plaza de Armas.

I took this photo trying to show the two hills that have designs mowed into the side.  We live just below these hills.  The tall white building on the right side is like two buildings down from our place, but it is alot taller than our building so it stands out. 

We also had someone "volunteer" to show us an art gallery of a very famous artist from Cusco, Antonio Olave Palomino.  Volunteer meant we owed him a tip for his guided tour of the gallery.  It cost us 10 soles.  Antonio Palomino's work was pretty impressive but very expensive.  We couldn´t take photos inside the gallery but the patio was very beautiful and they allowed us to take photos there.  Again the woodwork was incredible. 

 

The wood balcony went all around the patio area.  It was gorgeous.

 Kelan, make sure you enlarge these photos so you can get a good view of the wood carvings.  I think you would be impressed.

 

Saturday evening we attended the Inti Raymi dance festival.  We didn´t dance in this one like we did in July with the Cusco stake.  It was fun to just watch.  We were surprised that there was only one dance that was the same as was done at the Cusco stake dance festival.  There must be a lot of folk dances here in Peru.  We took tons of photos.  Here are a few, well, relatively speaking.

 

One of our English students was part of this group.  He was the best dancer of the bunch and he is so timid in our English class.  He is on the right closest to the foreground (above).

                      This was a really fun dance and the men danced with so much energy.

 



These gals are from barrio Picchu where we are giving our workshop.

 

 

 

                   They have such pretty dance costumes.




We got a good shot of the stake president looking back before he headed out onto the dance floor.  Pres. William Carrasco of the Inti Raymi stake.  He is a medical doctor.








Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Out of necessity, most of us are involved in earning money and acquiring some of the world's goods to be able to sustain our families.  It requires a good part of our time and attention.  There is no end to what the world has to offer, so it is critical that we learn to recognize when we have enough.  If we are not careful, we will begin to chase after the temporal more than the spiritual.... I bear testimony that our priorities, tendencies, inclinations, desires, appetites, and passions will have a direct bearing on our next estate.  Let us always remember the words of the Savior:  "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  Elder Michael John U The, April 2014 General Conference  "Where Your Treasure Is"