"Embrague?" Surely that word isn't English OR Spanish.

Katrina and I started last week full of ambition.

After our crazy September, last week was a breath of fresh air. No early class, no packed combi rides, no homework. Starting out, Katrina and I assumed that we’d use our newfound free time to do everything we’d been slacking on; however, we assumed wrong. Time, once again, snuck away from us.

We did, however, managed to squeeze in some pretty notable things.

Celebrating my birthday Peruvian style!

First, we finally bought our plane tickets for Cusco. Cusco is the number one tourist site in Peru, because it’s just a few hours away from Machu Picchu—one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Machu Picchu is a 15^th century Inca site that’s often referred to as the “Lost City of the Incas” and is supposed to be absolutely breath taking. (If you want to know more about it…you can read Wikipedia just as easily as I can.) After a while of shopping around, Katrina and I have found the tourist package that we like, and we’re booking it tomorrow. We’re making the trip to Cusco in late December, right after we get back from Huánuco—a strategy that I hope will help us from getting altitude sickness. Machu Picchu is nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, which is…well, 8,000 feet above Lima/Callao. However, it’s only about 2,000 feet above Huánuco, and hopefully this means the change will be much less dramatic than it could be.

Speaking of Huánuco, we nailed down our schedule for that trip too. We’re leaving Oct. 16 (next Wednesday) and we’re coming back to Lima on Dec. 15, just in time for our trip to Machu Picchu. Now—you might recall my glorious tale of the vomiting in the bus on the way back from our last trip to Huánuco. Since Huánuco is in the mountains, it means that the road is pretty much constantly winding and twisting; and there’s also the change in altitude to deal with. The combination is simply too much for my Dramamine to overcome and thus, vomiting ensues. Not surprisingly, this makes me less than excited for the upcoming road trip to Huánuco. However, this time Wilfredo is driving us in his sweet new ride, and I’m hoping that will make the trek a little easier. If it doesn’t—hopefully it at least means we’ll be able to pull over and I can barf on the fresh mountain soil, as opposed to a plastic trash bag.

Moving on to more delightful things—I also had the pleasure of experiencing a birthday in a foreign country last week. Birthdays are a big deal in Peru—or at least in the Paz family. Katrina and I love going to the birthday parties of our extended host family; we especially enjoyed the food there. The birthday parties always have a special dinner that the host dishes up, followed by singing and a heaping plate full of cake from Tottus. My birthday was no exception—Graciela dished up some great eats, we had black forest cake and we spent the evening laughing and listening to music. I even got some earrings from my host family, which was super sweet of them. Perhaps the most interesting part of the evening came when the family began asking us about the government shut down and Obamacare—and let me tell you something—these things are difficult to explain in broken Spanish. So thank you, government.

 

My birthday also brought another adventure—my first driving lesson in Peru. Now let me start by saying this—if you’ve ever rode passenger side in my car, you know all too well that I have driving anxiety. Don’t get me wrong—I try not to let it prevent me from driving somewhere—I just FREAK OUT the entire time I’m driving. So—add that delight, to me learning stick for the first time in my life, to the fabulousness that is the old Daihatsu, to the fact that the only non-crowded place to practice driving that we knew about wasn’t actually roads—it was dirt and rocks and dogs and people wondering around. Did I mention Wilfredo’s lesson was in Spanish? The first time he told me to tap the “pisa embrague” I just looked at him like he was crazy. This led to Katrina telling me things in English, Wilfredo telling me things in Spanish, me sweating profusely, and an incredible paranoia that I would hit a dog and be traumatized for the rest of my life. Nonetheless, the lesson ensued, I killed the engine upwards of 10 times, successfully switched into first, second, and third gear, and managed to not kill us (or any dogs.) We even drove on a real road for a little bit.

Now—moving on to last weekend. The routine for leadership in Peru is generally to follow a monthly schedule that tells everyone who preaches and presides. Katrina and I both preaching and presiding once every three weeks. The schedule comes out at the beginning of every month; however, we hit a few snags with the October schedule and it came out at about 12:15 a.m. on Friday morning (aka after October had already started.) The good news? The schedule was finally out. The bad news? I was in charge of Saturday’s service and had less than 48 hours to plan. Katrina didn’t get off the hook easily either—she was given the Sunday service and less than 72 hours to prepare.

 

Katrina and I both decided it was a little too ridiculous to ask anyone to prepare a sermon on such short notice, and decided to lead testimony services. Now here’s something different about Peru—people are ready, willing and excited to give testimonies. Always. During my service, every single person in the church gave a testimony, which ended up making the service two hours long (sorry guys.) In the end, I think both services went well, especially considering the tight turn around.

As for the week ahead—Katrina and I are trying to get everything in order before we head out to Huánuco. We have some big events planned for church this weekend, including a talent show and a clothing donation, and I’m thinking I’ll definitely have some interesting things to write about. Talk to you then!