Cuy and Tocosh

My apologies, some internet problems have delayed my post!

A poncho is REQUIRED for the cold of Huacora!

Last Friday morning, Katrina and I were up and at ‘em bright and early for our trip to the Community of Christ congregation in Huanaco. Huanaco is one of 24 districts in Peru and is about a nine hour bus ride through the Andes. I’m a bit infamous for my sensitive stomach and motion sickness, so the idea of the bus ride wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. However, before we left, Graciela pumped Katrina and full of some of her infamous HerbaLife to help with our stomachs, I loaded up on Dramamine, and we were on our way.

I feel like I need to pause here to explain HerbaLife. HerbaLife is a weight loss program that Graciela sells in Callao that’s based off all natural products and includes a lot of different shakes and teas. Every time someone gets a little sick here, Graceila always has an HerbaLife solution. She is incredibly passionate about what she does and loves the product and it’s wonderful to see her passion when she’s whipping up an HerbaLife shake for someone. Katrina and I have promised her that we’ll go to a meeting, so when we do I’ll be sure to blog about it.


Tocosh de Mazzamora (aka 6 month old potatoes!)

Anyway—the ride to Huanaco was quite a blur to me because a side effect of Dramamine is sleeping in a hibernative state where you honestly have no idea what is going on around you. I can say that I woke up at one point and the bus was wicked hot because we were driving through an area where it was the middle of summer. I woke up at another point and it was SNOWING outside, which is something I didn’t expect to find this close to the equator. Something super strange about Peru is that the mountains here throw off all the seasons. For example, it’s summer in Huanaco right now but its winter in Callao. Weird, huh?

Katrina and I with the Community of Christ sign in Huanaco.

Anyway, Wilfredo, Virgilio, Katrina and I finally made it to Huanaco, grabbed dinner with a few congregation members and crashed for the night in a hotel. Saturday morning, Katrina, Virgilio and I headed about an hour and half away into the mountains to visit Huacora, Virgilio’s hometown. Huacora is the first “small town” I’ve seen in Peru. Coming from Lamoni, a town of under 2,000 people, when people say something is a “small town” I tend to be skeptical of just how “small” the town is, but Huacora fit the bill. I’m told Huacora has beautiful vistas, but unfortunately, we were shrouded in a curtain of fog for our entire visit. Oh, and it’s winter in Huacora (see what I mean about the seasons?) so it was PLENTY chilly up there.

We spent most of the day with Virgilio’s brother, Antonio. Antonio was an amazing host, making us coffee with a little sock-like tool I’d never seen before, picante de cuy (aka guinea pig) and tocosh de

mazzamora (tocosh is six month old potatoes). While these things might not sound desirable, I’ve been hearing about them for a long time now and I was ready to finally give them a try. So, the reviews? Coffee: great. Cuy: I’m reserving judgment. Katrina loved it, but for some reason I had a hard time not envisioning a little guinea pig running around. I can tell that it would have a nice flavor if you didn’t know what you were eating. Tocosh: good. Now, I must tell you—mazzamora is a desert, loaded with sugar and cinnamon. Katrina has tried tocosh in its more traditional form and she said it was a truly dreadful experience. So I’m not sitting here endorsing tocosh, but I am saying what I’ve tried of it has been pretty good—though the potato texture is a little odd.

After our morning in Huacora we cleaned up and met with Orlando’s family and the Huanaco congregation to chat about our role in Huanaco. This has been a bit of an interesting conversation, because we haven’t fully decided how long we’ll be in Huanaco, what we’ll be doing there, and, frankly, if there’s even a desire for us to be there. From what I could tell, the conversation went fairly well and it looks like we’ll be spending a few months there.

Sunday we spent the entire day at Orlando’s house, which is a little further up in the mountains from Huanaco. The views from Orlando’s are wonderful, and Orlando’s family raises pigs, chickens and roosters, which was delightful for me, because I love being around animals. They also have four dogs, which frankly, put me in heaven. We had wonderful meals with Orlando’s family, including some fresh trout we had bought on our way back from Huacora. (And this trout was FRESH—we saw it get fished out of little pools with a net, then smacked on the head until they were dead and put in a bag for us.)  We went on a few different hikes around the mountain, and the dogs Lucky and Oso followed us on as our little protectors, which I found adorable. In the late afternoon, we had a bible study led by Virgilio and a church service with the Huanaco congregation, which was nice. Since Katrina presided over the service and Wilfredo preached, it was hard to get a sense for what church is like in Huanaco, but I’m excited to get to know it a little better.

Sunday night, we caught a very wet moto taxi back to Huanaco and caught the bus back to Callao (in which I lost a little bit of my delicious dinner). Since arriving back at Graciela’s and resting back up, I’ve spent most of my time working on my sermon for this weekend in Monte Sion. It’s been about a month since I’ve last preached, and I’m definitely nervous, but hoping I can show some improvements. Wish me luck!