Dancing in the Streets

I´ve heard that expression before but this past week in Cusco is probably the epitome of that saying.  On multiple days, the street just above our center was a dance floor.  We could hear bands playing, car and bus horns honking and traffic on the street below our center was backed up due to the street above being shut down to traffic.  It was crazy.  Finally one morning, as we had no one at the center, we decided to go see what all the noise was about.  For 45 minutes we watched as group after group of dancers went by.  And that was only a small segment of the whole procession!  At one point, the parade of dancers was backed up and a group had to wait to go on.  I asked them how far they were going.  I was amazed when they said San Sebastian, a neighborhood clear on the other side of town!  I googled up the distance and it is 4 to 6 kilometers depending on what streets they used.  4 kilometers would be 2.5 miles.  Some of the dancers were wearing really high heels as part of their costumes.  I think there were some pretty sore feet that night.  Here are a few photos I took as we watched this cultural tradition that occurs every June here in Cusco.

 All ages participated, adult men and women, teenagers and even children.  And they all took seriously the performance of their dance.

 Each dance and costume represents a different region or area of Peru.  The people here seem to know what dance goes with which region, but there are so many it is hard for us to keep track.

 These women are wearing costumes and performing dances typical of the Cusco region.

 The dance above originates from the jungle area of Peru.

 This one, above, was new to me.  I had never seen a costume with hats that look like haystacks and sleeves longer than the arms of the dancers.

 This one above was quite interesting as each dancer carried a stuffed animal of a llama on their back and wore these knitted masks on their face.  This group even had a donkey carrying on its back offerings to the saint which was being carried behind it.

Not sure which saint this represents but we did see this one at the Corpus Christi celebration as well.

Masks were pretty common with a lot of the dances.  Not sure why the one above is a back mask, but there were a number of groups using them.  

 The dance above is called, doctorcito, and they represent doctors.  They carried these books and would hit them with their small stick as they danced.

 Above, these teenage boys were very intent on performing well their dance.

 Many of the masks had very long noses.  I am not sure what they represent.  At one time someone told me the long noses were used to represent the Spanish race and distinguish them from the inca people.

 The bands all wore very colorful costumes.  This band´s jackets were a very bright pink.  I don´t even think the photo does the color justice.  Other bands wore purple or mint green shirts.  Not your typical band colors in the states.

 Above, this group´s costumes represented the bullfighter.  They even had small kids acting as the bulls.  It was a pretty fun dance to watch.

 These costumes were gorgeous!  And look at the braids, how they weaved gold ribbon down through their hair.  Very colorful.

 The orange costumes and the derby hats above are the costume from the region of Puno and have more of a Bolivian flavor.

These young girls amazed me how they could dance and march wearing the size of heels they have.

As for the missionary work...

We started out the week having a FHE with a family we have gotten close to.  Empe Dolmo is a return missionary, single mom with two teenage kids, a girl and a boy.  She works as a seamstress/tailor and has a shop of her own.  She works way too hard, starting early in the morning and going until 8 or 8:30 at night.  When we first got here she worked alone, but she has so much business that she now has 2-3 assistants that come in sew for her.  Whenever we visit her she constantly has people coming and going.  She has done some work for us as well.  She is as sweet as sweet can be, but she is inactive!  She has been disappointed by an ex-husband who was a return missionary and didn´t live up to the expectation that comes with that classification.  He hasn´t been there for his children.  She has been disappointed by church members and leaders who she feels have judged her and have not given her the support she needed.  Sounds way too familiar and hits a very personal nerve for me.  I have tried to share with her what I have learned and how important it is to not let the actions of others jeopardize her salvation.  We have extended nothing but love and support to her and her children since we have been here.  But so far no movement in her coming back to church.

We did a FHE lesson on faith and showed the very powerful self-reliance video used to teach this principle.  Here is a link to watch this 5 minute presentation about an experience a young girl had in the Phillipines as she exercised faith to solve a financial challenge her family was having.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-06-1110-pure-and-simple-faith?category=principle-1-exercise-faith-in-jesus-christ&lang=eng

We then invited this sister to come back to activity.  The temple dedication for the Trujillo Peru temple is soon and she is not worthy to attend, but in 3-4 years will be the dedication for the Arequipa, Peru temple and we challenged her to be worthy to participate in this event and promised her we would pay for her transportation to Arequipa so she could be a part of that if she would make herself worthy.  She was touched and said she would work towards that.  Hopefully, she means it.

We hit the year mark as missionaries on Tuesday, June 9th.  So hard to believe that a year ago we were set apart and entered the MTC as green as could be, not knowing a thing of what we were expected to do as Self-Reliance/PEF missionaries.  With a year of experience under our belt, we can now talk for hours about the topic, help anyone set up an account on LDSjobs, present workshops on Self-Reliance and Perpetual Education Fund, present firesides as well, train leaders, facilitators, volunteers and run a self-reliance center and we do it all in SPANISH!  Dave´s language ability has improved tremendously.  I have watched him go on and on in Spanish to members and non-members alike.  I have even seen him speak extemporaneously, all in a language that was pretty much foreign to him a year ago.  My Spanish as well has improved and I now feel comfortable in almost any situation.

We visited the new restaurant that has opened up in the Ponce local.  All the renovations have been completed and they have been opened for business for a couple of weeks now.  One of my PEF students has even been hired to work there.  She had set a goal to obtain employment and within a week had gotten this job.  She is a very sharp gal.

This is their placemat, but it shows the name of the restaurant and the type of food it serves.  Pan means bread and Kracio is their last name. " Donde lo típico se come con pan" means "Where the typical is eaten with bread".  They have a very small menu.  They only offer two types of sandwiches, a lomo saltado sandwich and a chicharron sandwich.  Lomo saltado is a very typical Peruvian dish but it is normally served with rice and french fries so to put it on a sandwich is unique.  And chicharron is pork and it is a very popular, well liked menu item.  They also serve brownie with ice cream.  We went to try out the brownie dish.  It was ok, but still didn´t measure up to what we consider a good brownie back home.

We really want to see this member succeed with his business.  Not only will it help him, but it will help the Ponces as well and if he can hire other members of the church, it will be a help to them.  He needs to attend the business workshop, but currently we have no group meeting for that workshop.  We set up a time to consult with him and will let you know what happens.

This weekend, our manager, Carlos Hale came in to Cusco and we had training set up with both the Cusco stake and the Inti Raymi stake leaders on Friday and Saturday nights.  This training was with the Self-Reliance committe members.  The committe is made up of five people: the counselor in the stake presidency assigned to Self-Reliance, the SR specialist, the high councilor assigned to SR, the bishop assigned to SR and the stake relief society president.  The SR committe is the one responsible for making an action plan and implementing the SR program in their stake.  They should be meeting regularly.  This has not been happening at all and I´m pretty sure none of the leaders were even aware of this part of their stewardship.

We held a two hour training with each stake and set up a follow up date for their first Self-Reliance committee meeting.  They all expressed a desire to meet and make things happen, but I am learning that saying and doing are not the same thing in the Peruvian culture.

With only six months left in our mission, our focus is on training the members themselves to do what we have been doing.  We have been told that there are no plans to replace us with another SR couple missionary anytime in the future.  We are it.  We have been told that the goal is for each church unit to become self-reliant in regards to implementation of these programs.  Seems like an appropriate goal - to be self-reliant in self-reliance.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  "...one of the salient characteristics of the Savior: His love and compassion for the downtrodden, the weary, the weak, the suffering.  Indeed, these acts of compassion are synonymous with His name.    The Lord declared in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith: "It is my purpose to provide for my saints..But it must needs be done in mine own way".  The Lord´s way consists of helping people help themselves.  The poor are exalted because they work for the temporary assistance they receive, they are taught correct principles, and they are able to lift themselves from poverty to self-reliance.  The rich are made low because they humble themselves to give generously of their means to those in need."   If the Savior were among us in mortality today, He would be found ministering to the needy, the suffering, the sick.  Following this example may be one of the reasons President Spencer W. Kimball said:  "When viewed in this light, we can see that [welfare] is not a program, but the essence of the gospel.  It is the gospel in action.  It is the crowning principle of a Christian life."

Joseph B Wirthlin, June Ensign 2015  "Helping Others in the Lord´s Way"

Party Season has arrived with Corpus Christi kicking things off

June came in with a bang.  The first part of our week was pretty routine with all our classes and the self-reliance center activities.  But the whole week was party week here in Cusco because of the Catholic celebration of Corpus Christi.  The members have warned us that June and July is one party after another.  Thursday was the official day and it was an official holiday with businesses closed and all, I It did impact the attendance to our English classes that day.  So many of the celebrations and holidays are linked to Catholicism.  But much of it is viewed more as a cultural event than a religious event.

We were told we should not miss the celebration so we headed up to the Plaza de Armas and spent about 3 hours there as we joined the Cusquenians and I'd have to say there were A LOT of people there.

Above is what the Plaza de Armas looks like normally.  Below is what the Plaza looked like for Corpus Christi -- solid people.  I'm not sure I have ever been somewhere more crowded than this.  At one point we were smooshed by the crowd as one of the saint statues passed by really close to where we were standing.

 Below is looking from Plaza de Armas down towards San Pedro market.  Solid people as well.  We've been here for almost a year and visited both places often and have never seen this many people in the streets like this.

It was like waiting for a parade.  Many people had come hours before to save seats to see the procession. 

And there were plenty of concessionaires, hocking their treats.  Just take a look.

Peruvian version of snowcones  and below regular popcorn and the pink version is like kettle corn.

Above, fried pork. They love this stuff! Below - cotton candy!

Police and fireman were there for crowd control and emergencies.

Basically, what they did was bring in all the patron saint statutes from each of the main "barrios" of Cusco to be paraded around the Plaza.  Each community accompanied their saint statue with a band or dancers or both and other community or church dignitaries.

They presented 15 saints in all.  We were there 3 hours but still didn't see all the statues parade around.  It was a very slow process, mostly due to the heavy crowds, I think.

Here are some photos for a sampling of what we saw.

Parade Banners

 Some are very elaborate.  They usually announce the saint or the community coming up.

Bands

 Here is an interesting band above.  They blew conch shells.  Maybe you can make them out below.

Dancers

And the stars of the show, the statues of the saints.

The statute above was of San Jeronimo.  Below, if I remember right it is San Sebastian.

The photo below shows how they carry them around.  A group of men carry them on their shoulders.  These statues are VERY heavy.  There was usually a minimum of 24 men carrying each statute and they were usually huffing and straining while they did it.

Religious Dignitaries

There was a typical dish that was served during a few days of this celebration called Chiriuchu.  We tried a bit of it and it was very interesting.  It had a little bit of chicken, guinea pig, salted alpaca, roasted corn kernels, a cornbread type thing, and seaweed.  

It was one of the sister missionaries birthday, June 4th as well, so the English class decided to bring a cake and celebrate with her.  

 Here the custom is to try to push the cake into the face of the birthday girl/boy.  They get a big kick out of it.  Her companion really caught her off guard and got in a good shove.

Friday after our English class, they were showing the Testaments movie in the cultural hall so we caught the tail end of that.  The good thing was we were able to talk with the Inti Raymi stake leader and set up a meeting to train his committee next Saturday while our manager Carlos Hale will be in town.  We already have Friday night set up with the Cusco stake for training so we are going to be busy next weekend.

Saturday we had a nearly perfect day.  We started it out with a workshop in the morning for the perpetual education fund that was taught by Zoila and Lourdes Roble.  We had 5 people there and our facilitators did a great job presenting it.  We only had to be in the background for support and back-up help if needed.  The only thing they needed help with was using the computer to show the videos.

Then we went out to Sacred Valley to meet with the district president to set up a leader training.  It was the first time we traveled somewhere all on our own.  We took what is called a "combi" out and back, which are glorified mini-vans.  It looked like we almost were going to be stood up, but he finally got there and we held a very abbreviated meeting with him but walked away with a date set up to train his other leaders - June 20th.

We then rushed back to Cusco to hit up the Saturday evening workshop for the PEF being held in the Inti Raymi stake and facilitated by Miguel Farfan.  We arrived late but walked in to find 11 people in attendance!  And Miguel did a great job as well.  He didn't stay within the time frame but he held the youth's attention the whole time and made some very powerful points with them.  He allowed us to make a few comments as well.  However, the great thing is the members are taking ownership of these programs and running it themselves.  We are working ourselves out of a job!  Yeah!  That is what self-reliance is all about I think.

Sunday we met a new volunteer who has been called to help us out.  Hopefully this one will come through for us.  We'd really like to get the center off our plates and onto the plates of the members.  We have so many other things we need to be focusing on in our last six months of our mission.

Spiritual Thought for the Week: Dallin H Oaks said the following:  "Last week I was talking with a member of the Quorum of the Twelve about comments we had received on our April conference talks.  My friend said someone told him, 'I surely enjoyed your talk.'  We agreed that this is not the kind of comment we like to receive.  My friend said, 'I didn't give that talk to be enjoyed.  What does he think I am, some kind of entertainer?'  I speak of these recent conversations to teach the principle that a message given by a General Authority at a general conference - a message prepared under the influence of the Spirit to further the work of the Lord - is not given to be enjoyed.  It is given to inspire, to edify, to challenge, or to correct.  It is given to be heard under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord, with the intended result that the listener learns from the talk and from the Spirit what he or she should do about it."  CES fireside for YA May 1, 2005.

Into New Territory

So the week started off with Cindy giving a talk in sacrament meeting in the Tullumayo ward.  They didn't have time to have both of us speak, so they asked Cindy to talk.  They said they would get Dave some other time.  We'll see...  She spoke on self-reliance, of course, but based her talk around the scripture, Moses 7:18  "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them."  Wouldn't that be great!  No poor among us.  It's possible in Zion.  Of course, she didn't mention that it took them hundreds of years to achieve.

After Sunday she promptly began to get sick and so the rest of the week she had to take it rather easy and stay at home in the evenings so she would feel up to traveling on the weekend to Juliaca & Puno where it tends to be even colder than Cusco.

Dave had to teach the Book of Mormon Institute class by himself and do some of the English classes on his own as well.  He has decided to turn the missionary English classes over to the missionaries more as we will need to travel more in the next few months.  He talked to the missionaries in the Inti Raymi zone about it and handed out a set of our posters for the first level to them.

He also met with the missionaries in Juliaca and Puno while we were there this weekend and trained them and handed out material to them as well.  He's a man on a mission when it comes to these English classes.

Our Job Search class bombed this week.  After having good attendance last week, not one single person showed up for the second class.  Wow.  Talk about discouraging.

Our second group for Education was discouraging as well.  We had 11 people signed up and only 3 showed up.  And that was with scheduling it on Saturday, the day they said was more convenient for them.

What can I say?  "Many are called but few are chosen"  seems apt in this situation.

On a positive note, one of my participates got her PEF loan approved in only 6 days!  She was so happy.

The self-reliance group being run by the leaders in Inti Raymi started this week and they had 12 in attendance!

The self-reliance groups in Abancay have completed their first set of classes.  We are trying to set a date to go out and present the certificates to the few that stuck it out for the full 12 weeks of the business workshop and did all the assignments.

Also, we have been given the name of a couple who have been called by the Ttio bishop to be self-reliance volunteers.  We were so excited to hear that.  However, we tried all week to reach them and visit with them and we couldn't get through to them.  The bishop told us they will be traveling the month of June so it won't be until July when we will be able to use them if they don't fall by the wayside.

Dave attended a Chamber of Commerce gala on Wednesday night with Javier Caseres.  To his amazement, Javier was called up on stage and recognized for the church's contributions to the business community in Cusco.

Javier & Dave hold the certificate presented to the church (ASPERSUD, the church's legal entity here in Peru) at the Chamber of Commerce gala May 27, 2015

 Dave hobnobbed with some of the rich and powerful that night.  He said they were passing around free champagne and cavier and women were dressed scantily.

It wasn't held here.  This is a photo of a casino called Babilonia, which in English is Babylon, but that is where Dave went Wed. night, into Babylon.  Side note, this photo shows below the name of the casino, "tragamonedas" which I find funny because the literal translation is "traga" - swallow and "monedas" coins.  I think it is referring to slot machines, but when you realize they are being called swallow coins, why would you go there just to let a machine swallow your coins?

He did say he had the chance to meet and talk with the owner of a chocolate factory here in town, Sol Naciente.  They gave everyone free samples of chocolate.  He thought it was eating chocolate and was disappointed to find out it was the baking chocolate with no sweetener added, very bitter.  I promised to use it to cook brownies when I have some time.

Despite not feeling 100%, we managed to visit some museums on Friday afternoon.  We visited the Museum of Popular Art, which was actually more interesting than we expected, the Museum of Natural History, which is housed in the building that was Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's house, a famous Peruvian writer back in the 1500's,

  and the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was a bit of a bust and not worth visiting except that it is housed in the Municipal Building which has a very pretty center patio and fountain.

Here are a few pieces of art work from this last museum.  The others we weren't allowed to take photos.

 Above, an oil painting of a typical Peruvian mountain landscape.  Below an interesting design for a table.

 Below, I think Dae found a long lost cousin or something.

The end of the week we traveled to Juliaca and Puno to do leader training.  This was new territory.  We have never worked with the members or leaders in Juliaca, which is a town about an hour before you get to Puno from Cusco.  And the leaders we worked with in Puno are from the other stake, Bella Vista, that hasn't done anything with self-reliance either.  Hard to believe we are almost to our one year mark and just now are starting to work with these two stakes.  But on the other hand, it is great to see the ball finally starting to roll with them.

We met with leaders only this time and trained them on the new program and their roles and responsibilities with it.  In Juliaca it was only 5 people, the ones that form the stake self-reliance committee and a few facilitators.  In Puno, the stake president wanted all his ward leaders there so it was a full meeting.  The attendance was good.

 Above is the leader meeting, early into the meeting.  It was even fuller by the time we finished.  Below is the stake presidency for the Bella Vista, Puno stake.  The man closest to the camera is the stake president.  The man standing up is his counselor assigned to self-reliance, Luis Oliviera.  I think we will be getting to know him well, at least I hope so.

What was amazing was most of them came for an hour long training and then stayed for another two hours for a meeting on PEF.  That was three hours.

The Bella Vista stake is really starting from scratch.  They don't even have all their members called to form their self-reliance committee and the counselor over self-reliance pretty much knows nothing about his duties so should be interesting to see where we go from here.

We set up a follow up time to do the Mi Camino charlar in Juliaca for July 5th so we will head out there again.  We were fortunate that the cold really wasn't bad that weekend, but it will be come July 5th.  We were not able to set a date with the Bella Vista stake.  They will need to get their ducks in a row before we can do a Mi Camino.

We flew to Juliaca instead of taking the bus.  What a treat.  It was a 55 minute flight versus an 8 hour bus ride.  It cost a bit more but it was well worth the cost.  I think our bus traveling days are over to Puno, unless the airfare costs skyrocket.

 Hotel lobby where we stayed in Puno on this trip, Conde de Lema.  Below is the view from our room.  You could catch a glimpse of Lake Titicaca if you looked to the left.

Below, Dave at breakfast at the hotel just before we left Monday morning.

The self-reliance leader in the Puno Central stake gave us a book about Tihuanaco, the ruins in Bolivia that we went to see.  Dave's all excited about it as it was written by a member of the church and talks about how the Book of Mormon relates to the ruins there.

 In Peru it is common to make xerox copies of books, so that is what this is.  Below is a graphic of the Wiracocha statue and what each part represents.

We were able to pick up our scripture bags we had custom made for us by a member that lives in Puno.  They turned out to be more like a small suitcase than a bag, but we love them anyway.  We ordered more items.  If any one likes what they see, and wants to get some as well, we'll take orders down with us in July.  They have a facebook page, Munay Art Puno where you can see a lot of samples of what they do.  They make scripture covers, ipad/tablet covers, bags & backpacks.  Take a look.

Not sure if you can make it out, but the left has the emblem of the Cusco Mission which shows MachuPicchu in the middle and around the edges it say, in Spanish, Faith, Obedience, Diligence, Charity.  Dave's emblem is the representation of the god Wiracocha that is found on the sun gate at Tiahuanaco.  Each of the bags have our names at the bottom.

Spiritual Thought for the Week: One of the attributes of the Savior we most appreciate is His infinite compassion.  My message to you tonight is that you can and must be an important part of His giving comfort to those who need comfort.  You can play your part best if you know more of how He answers those prayers for help.  Many are praying to Heavenly Father for relief, for help in carrying their burdens of grief, loneliness, and fear.  Heavenly Father hears those prayers and understands their needs.  He and His Beloved Son, the resurrected Jesus Christ have promised help.  You have seen such tests in the lives of good people you love.  You have felt a desire to help them.  We lighten the loads of others best by helping the Lord strengthen them.  Only God knows hearts, and so only He can say, in truth, "I know how you feel."  So I can only imagine, but the Lord, who loves [us] knows.  I can know only partially how much He feels joy each time you help Him bring a moment of peace and joy to a child of our Heavenly Father.  His love never fails, and we never will cease to feel in our hearts the urge "to mourn with those that mourn...and comfort those that stand in need of comfort."  Nor will the peace He promises ever leave us as we serve others for Him."  Henry B Eyring "The Comforter"  Ensign May 2015