Jungle Barbie

I mentioned in the previous post that Yolanda had got me involved in a children's campaign that the church was running last week. It happened on three afternoons, from Thursday to Saturday, and we got an average attendance of just under 200 children from the area. A great number!

My job was to help out with the actions and dances for the songs that we were going to sing with and for the children. The theme of the campaign was 'Jesus is my Superhero', and some of the songs we sang talked about various well-known superheroes who are nothing compared to Jesus. One of the songs mentioned Barbie...I didn't know she was a superhero...but anyway... The people running the campaign thought it was just hilarious and so appropriate that the new white girl should play the part of Barbie! Apparently they didn't notice I didn't have blonde hair or perfectly shaped body...haha.

On the first afternoon, I found out that we were getting costumes too! Someone had gone out and borrowed superhero outfits for us to wear in our dances, and my Barbie outfit was a Snow White dress!!! So there I was, dancing away in my Snow White costume (something I haven't worn since my mum made me my first beloved Snow White costume when I was little!).

Since then, I have had children in the area call out to me, 'Hola, Barbie!' Oh dear. What a reputation I have now.

However, I'm making it sound like Barbie was the centre of attention at this campaign, and she really wasn't. Jesus' love and amazing sacrifice were explained to the children on all three nights, and there were lots of children who came forward to give their lives to Christ at the end of the meetings. Perhaps some of them were only following their pals up to the front, or perhaps some thought they were going to get a prize if they said they'd accepted Christ. But we hope and pray that many young lives were truly given to Jesus through this campaign, and that the people of the church here will maintain contact with them and their families.

The campaign was one of the Samaritan's Purse ministries, so on the final afternoon the children received a box full of goodies! It was so delightful to watch them open their boxes and enjoy the contents. These are the kind of boxes that many of us have put together at school or church around Christmas time - shoe boxes and plastic boxes that we fill with toiletries like soap and toothpaste and with toys and sweets and games. It was a privilege for me to see the receiving end of these boxes, to be with the children for whom they are intended and to watch them open them. And I'll take this opportunity to encourage people to make up these boxes when you have a chance; it's worth it! I had fun explaining some of the North American contents to the children - what a Tootsie Roll is, how to use a Slinky, translating some written instructions and messages, etc.

On Friday night, after the children's meeting, I was invited to go to the thermal baths outside Moyobamba with a girl from the church. She took me on her motorbike (which is still a novelty for me and is thoroughly exciting!), and we spent the evening in the hot pools. It was amazing! I haven't been in contact with hot water for weeks, so stepping into those outdoor hot pools was a wonderful experience, one that I think I'll be repeating many times while I'm here in Moyo!

I was also invited to the young people's meeting on Saturday night at the church. It was nice to meet people my own age, and hopefully I'll form some friendships in the group and be able to go out with them to do things at the weekends.

Yesterday was the start of our final week of preparations for the beginning of school. I'm making lots of activities and games for the preschool and primary age children, and I'm getting quite excited about playing these games with the kids! There's been quite a lot of rain lately, and the roads are just mud baths. I bought a pair of wellies yesterday, making my walk to and from school a now pleasantly squishy experience. :-)

The children at the campaign

Dancing to a song about superheroes... I'm on the left in the Snow White gown!

Thrilled to open their boxes!

Hello, Moyobamba!

Bienvenidos a la selva! Welcome to the jungle! Apologies for taking a long time to write anything. I still haven't got internet properly set up on my laptop, and I'm borrrowing a cable from the house computer at the moment.

There is lots to tell! Let's start at last Monday, February 13. I got an evening flight from Lima to the town of Tarapoto. Tarapoto is a good sized town in the San Martin region of Peru; it is about 2 hours from Moyobamba. I was met by my hostess Yolanda, who took me to her parents' house in Tarapoto for the night. I got to meet her elderly parents and many of her siblings and their children, all living in the same area. Yolanda's parents are living in a nearly-finished new house...meaning, there aren't any doors yet and the living and kitchen area doesn't have a wall. As soon as I stepped out of the airport, I noticed things were so different from Lima: the air was a lot hotter for that time of night; it was quieter and there weren't taxi drivers jumping to get you into their taxi; in fact, there weren't any cars - everyone rides motorbikes! I have never seen so many motorbikes in my life! And the taxis are these mototaxis...a little old-fashioned carriage thing attached to the back of (no, not horses) a motorbike! Yolanda and I got into one of these mototaxis, and the driver put my huge suitcase (it was actually over the weight limit for the flight, but they let me through with it) on this little shelf on the back of the carriage. I felt very sorry for this driver and his vehicle, since we were going up lots of hills on the way to the parents' house. As if having myself and Yolanda in the back wasn't enough weight, he had my suitcase to carry too! I couldn't stop laughing all the way to the house...it was just so much fun to be in this whizzing mototaxi, and it was so surreal to be in the jungle!

Yolanda and I shared a bedroom at her parents' house, and our door was a thin lace curtain. The bathroom had a shower curtain as a door. Not the most private place. But at the time I thought, 'Ah well, it's probably because it's a new house.' (Hint: This may be a foreshadowing of future events.) All of the family was so welcoming and kind, and I had great conversations with them. Yolanda's mother had met Annie Soper, the pioneering English missionary to these parts, many decades ago and had lots of interesting stories to tell about the advance of the gospel in the San Martin region.

On Tuesday (only a week ago today) Yolanda and I got a minibus to Moyobamba. The bus was packed! And some poor soul had to heave my suitcase up onto the top of the bus where the luggage was stored. We were pretty squashed, but I enjoyed the scenery along the way - mountains, rivers, lots and lots of green, palm trees, other trees bearing weird and wonderful looking things. Upon arriving in Moyobamba, we got another mototaxi, my suitcase on the back, and arrived at the house of Arturo and Yolanda. 

My hosts are lovely people. They are taking good care of me, and it is a pleasure to be with them for the next four months. Arturo has been the headmaster at the Annie Soper Christian School, though this year he is back to teaching science to secondary students. He is able to answer my endless questions about how things work at the school and was great in introducing me to everyone my first morning in the school. Yolanda is a very jolly and friendly lady who cooks delicious Peruvian meals. She has been a teacher in the past, but she isn't working at the moment. She is involved with the Sunday School at the Presbyterian church, and has already got me into helping out with a children's campaign at the end of this week!

I have a large bedroom. Some of the little furniture that was in there has already been taken out. (There was originally a small television on a little wooden stand that has been removed recently. I was disappointed - not because of the TV but because of the wooden stand that I was using for some of my things...I don't have a chest of drawers or shelf, so I valued that little wooden stand! Never mind.) I have an interesting wooden structure with two beams to put my clothes on. But I only have two hangers. So, everything is lying over these beams. The wall where the door is does not go all the way up to the ceiling; so I can be heard on the phone and when I'm moving around, and I can hear everything that goes on in the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and office (which is just about the rest of the house!). And most distressing of all, my door is....a shower curtain...very precariously balanced on a little plastic pole between the door frames! Hahahaha...one can only laugh.... I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining about all of this, because I'm actually getting on just fine. It has taken a few days to get accustomed, that's all. :-) I did manage to pull my whole door down one night, which was very worrying, but since then it has stayed put. (By the way, I am wondering if they took the shower curtain out of the bathroom to put in my room, because there isn't one in the bathroom, and I get water all over the floor after my shiveringly cold showers!)

The streets around the house are muddy/sandy tracks with lots of dips in them. It is rainy season at the moment, so we get some terrific rainstorms fairly frequently. The town is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, but I haven't yet seen much of it. The area around Moyobamba is beautiful! The town is on top of a hill, and below there are fields (rice and other things being grown there), other mountains in the distance, and the River Mayo, which is grand and brown at the moment after all the rain. There are green plants and trees everywhere, and there are also plenty of beasties to be seen! I. Do. Not. Like. Cockroaches. Or any other creepy crawly or flying insect, for that matter. But I am managing to keep calm (most of the time). There is a little salamander creature that likes to hang around the bathroom window. I laughed when I first saw his silhouette against the pane of glass - such a funny little thing! 

This is turning out to be a massive post, so I will try to summarise. Two of MC's friends from Scotland, Carissa and Annabel, were over in Peru for a couple of weeks. They came to Moyobamba the same day as I did, just for a little visit. Carissa had been here for a few months, about 5 years ago, and had been a volunteer in Annie Soper Christian School. It was lovely to see them during my first few days here. I visited them at their hotel, where I saw hummingbirds and parrots and a (caged) monkey. Yolanda took us three 'gringas' to a beautiful spot outside the town where the birth of a body of water can be seen and where the water is just a gorgeous blue colour, surrounded by luscious jungle greenery and flowers. 

I went into the school for the first time last Thursday. The teachers are in from 8 to 1 every day the next couple of weeks before school starts. I am getting to know many of them, and I am looking forward to working with them until June. The school is really lovely-looking and has lots of ground. It is much smaller (student-wise) than San Andres, so it will be easier to get know more people personally. At the moment, it looks like I will be doing most of the teaching for Kindergarten English, the little 5 year olds! Yay! I'm really looking forward to it. We can do lots of activities and crafts and games and songs - much more exciting than grammar! But I will also be assisting in many of the primary classes, working with a young teacher called Pilar, who is very nice.

My health has been mostly ok since arriving, though I didn't make it out to church on Sunday because I had a very sore tummy. That's not unusual, and it will probably happen many more times as I adjust to new foods and water and climate.

I think I will stop there for just now. There is lots more to tell, and no doubt there will be many jungle adventures to share with you over the next few months. Please keep me in your prayers. Enjoy the photos below.

Yolanda's parents, who kindly hosted me in their house in Tarapoto

My bedroom

There it is: the shower curtain door!

Panorama shot of the area surrounding Moyobamba

Aaaaaaaaa....going to get eaten by the great stone crocodile!

Jungle paradise :-)

Two squawky fellows at the Moyobamba hotel

Translation-Traduccion

Yesterday there was a little more excitement for me at school because two students who couldn't speak Spanish came to take entrance exams. They had moved from Canada (though that wasn't their country of birth), so they could speak English. I was drafted in to do some translation work for them, and I really enjoyed it! I was reading the texts and questions in Spanish in my mind and simultaneously translating vocally into English for the students. Then I had to translate their written answers into Spanish for the teachers to mark. It was challenging and both humbling and encouraging. And it was certainly preferable to sitting at the matriculation desk, waiting for parents to fill in forms! If I didn't know before, I know now that sitting at a desk and doing administrative work is not for me. I am glad I can be of assistance in the school, though. Tomorrow is my last day, and I will be packing my belongings up over the weekend.

Last Sunday I tried a new fruit, and I couldn't resist posting a couple of photos because it's just so...different from any fruit I've eaten before. It's called granadilla and its innards are not at all appealing to the eye. The words 'brain' and 'fish eggs' and 'slime' come to mind when looking at it. But I finally worked up the courage to try it, and it's very tasty! Slimy but satisfying, as one great Disney character once remarked. :-)

The very innocent-looking granadilla's exterior...

...and the rather off-putting but tasty innards!