Happy Anniversary, Arequipa!!

On the rooftop of a restaurant in the Plaza de Armes in Arequipa, with the cathedral (built in 1612) and El Misti (volcano) in the background.  

This last we took part in celebrating the birthday of our host city, Arequipa.  In 1540, the Spanish conquistadors founded this city as part of their conquest of Peru.  After 470 years it is now one of Peru's most prosperous cities.  On Sunday afternoon, after church we went to the parade in the Plaza de Armes (town center).  It was a huge parade, lasting from 9am until late in the evening!  We always thought the Tupelo Christmas Parade was too long, but wow, this one is really long!  We didn't get to the parade until about 3 and stayed a couple of hours.  There were dancers and floats, with natives from all over South America dressed in beautiful costumes!  It was amazing and we had a fantastic view from a rooftop of a restaurant in the Plaza.  It was a great day until we tried leaving, and in the massive crowd Marcus had his wallet stolen!  We are having to learn what we can safely do here, and have to think through every step differently than in the US.  This is partly because we are in a large city, partly because we are in South America, and very much because we are white and stand out as minority! 


Aside from the parade, the people here celebrated with fireworks!  They had a fireworks show on Saturday night, which we did not attempt to go to.  We did hear the fireworks at midnight, and also individuals shot fireworks at random times of the day, including 5:30 am.  In Arequipa it seems that fireworks are a way for people to celebrate birthdays, special Catholic saint days, and anything else they can think of!  We hear fireworks often any time of the day or night!  

First Week of School

We have officially completed our first week of school!  Marcus and I are officially students in ABC Language school as well as all four children are now students at Rey de Reyes (King of Kings).

Marcus and I love our school, which is a Christian organization designed to teach missionaries spanish.  We have fellow students from Korea, Sweden, Germany, and of course several others from the US.  We have grammar class together with a man from Korea, then we separate and each have one on one conversation class.  Our teachers are very kind and encouraging, and we are thankful for the friendships we are making!

Sarah Caroline's school uniform (she says she looks like a waitress!)

The children did well this week starting their new school. This is probably the biggest adjustment they will have to make, and overall they have handled it really well.  The teachers are very kind and helpful to them, although they do not speak English.  There are a couple of teachers in the school who do speak English, and they have been kind to help our children adjust.  What a blessing to us that Sam can go with the others to school!  We thought he would need to go to a different preschool, and were praying about our different options.  There were some good schools, but the locations were going to be difficult with our schedule and where we live.  He is pretty overwhelmed by his class, but they are allowing him to stay with Luke until he gets a little more adjusted.  Luke has been a great big brother to take care of Sam, although he is ready for some independence!  The biggest difference for Ben and Sarah Caroline is that all handwriting is required to be in cursive!  Even in first grade the students write in beautiful cursive, and so at night we are practicing handwriting with the older two.  This is hard for now, but will be something we will be thankful for later.

Sam wears the "blue thing", or a "maudil" over his clothes to school (like Madeline).  Luke wears a "buzo" which is gym pants, t-shirt and jacket.  All children are required to wear these hats when they go outside.  We don't have a photo of Ben - he wears navy pants, a white dress shirt, a navy tie and red sweater.  On gym days he wears the same type outfit Luke has on.

We walk a lot each day to and from our schools, which is our only way to exercise right now.  We take a taxi to take the children to school, because it is a long uphill walk otherwise.  After we get them settled we walk to our school, about 10 min away.  After we finish school we have about an hour, and we work on our homework until time to get Luke and Sam at school.  We walk them home (downhill, so not too bad), which takes about 15 minutes.  After being home for about 30 minutes, Marcus walks back to the school to get Sarah Caroline and Ben.  We then have "lunch", or you could call it an early supper I guess??  It is tradition here to have the big meal of the day at lunchtime, so we just go ahead and eat then.  The kids take a small lunch to school, but they have that at about 10:30.  This is just one of the many adjustments to living in South America!  We all work on homework, handwriting, and maybe have time for playing in the park.

Sarah Caroline's new friend, Alli (her mom teaches at our school, and they are in the same class at Rey de Reyes)

This week the Lord has certainly watched out for us....  on Wednesday we had a gas explosion in our kitchen.  Our oven and stove is gas and a little on the old side, and sometimes doesn't light well.  I had gone to light the oven and when I went back later to check it, realized it had not lit.  When trying to check on it (obviously without thinking through that gas may have leaked), it made a huge explosion and blew out the kitchen window!!! Sarah Caroline was standing right there with me, and Ben was in the doorway.  Thankfully none of were hurt, and the glass from the window went all around in the kitchen but did not cut us at all.  I didn't realize until later that the hair was singed off of my arms, but no burns thankfully.  Marcus and I were pretty overwhelmed with thoughts of what could have been, and gratefulness that the Lord was watching over us.  Our window has already been replaced (at a price of only $30!), and the oven suffered no damage.

One big prayer request for this week is that we could find a Christian, trustworthy cab driver to take us to school in the mornings.  It is a safety issue to take any cab that comes along (there are certain companies that are considered safe).  We know we need a driver every morning, and we also would like to have someone to call when I need to run errands or if we all need to go somewhere further than walking distance.

More updates to come....

Welcome to Arequipa!

Our first week in Arequipa we spent most of the time learning our way around the city, shopping for the apartment and gathering school uniforms for the kids.  In-between all of the adjustments, we were able to do a little sight seeing.
Arequipa is a large city of 900,000 people in southern Peru.  The altitude is about 8000 feet:  higher than anything east of the Rockies in the US.  It doesn't seem that high, although we do have a view of three mountains/volcanoes outside of the city.  The climate is very dry (dusty and dirty) and we have arrived in winter!  I know you Mississippi folks may be jealous, but our weather has been pretty cold at night - down to the mid 30's or low 40's.  In the afternoon it gets warm (highs around 65-70), and is very sunny and beautiful!  The hard part of having lows in the 30's is that we have no heat!  We have heavy wool blankets on our beds and fleece ones over that for the kids.  

Plaza de Armes - the town center, with this cathedral being built in the early 1600's 

an overlook from outside the city

guinea pigs (at a guinea pig farm): otherwise known as "cuy", a delicacy to the Peruvians, and yes, our children have now all tried to eat cuy, and said they liked it  (it will not be a staple on our menu at home!)

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WE MADE IT TO PERU!!

We are so thankful to be in Peru!!!! What a blessing to have arrived safely!!! We traveled from Birmingham to Miami to Lima, Peru on Wed, July 28th! The goodbyes were very difficult, but we were blessed to have so much encouragement from family and friends as we prepared to leave.

The kids were a little anxious, as they have NEVER flown before! What a way to start! Marcus and I were a little anxious about all of our luggage - 12 suitcases, 6 carry-ons and 6 backpacks to deal with and get through security! We were so grateful to arrive in Lima to see all bags intact with all of our belongings. Lydia Rice, who is doing a one year internship with Peru Mission, traveled with us, and was a huge help gathering our bags. Thankfully we moved right through customs with no trouble! The kids were very helpful with all of the luggage, and they each (the older 3) pushed a large cart full of luggage from the airport across the street to the hotel. We were thankful the Lord gave them servant hearts at that moment!

On Thursday, we traveled from Lima to Arequipa, where we will be in language school for 3 months. Again, the Lord was watching over us as we traveled and all of our luggage made it. We were happy to see some familiar faces when we arrived - Steve and Dianne Hill. They also are joining Peru Mission and have been in Arequipa for 3 months already. What a blessing they have been to get our apartment set up and prepared with a refrigerator full of groceries, as well as dinner cooked for our first night!

outside of our apartment (there were fireworks going off, which is why Sam's ears are covered)

I spent the first two days shopping for items that would be simple to buy in the States - measuring cups, tupperware containers, mixing bowls, and some basic dishes. I shopped on two different trips on Friday - once with a sweet Peruvian lady who taught me what grocery items to buy and then she took me to buy a rice cooker and coffee maker. She speaks only Spanish - and I understand very little Spanish! So this was in interesting trip! Then in the afternoon Steve and Dianne Hill took us shopping again for household items and some more groceries.

My list was still long after one day - the prices are high for some basic things (peanut butter is $7 for a small jar, and a tiny pyrex measuring cup was $6), and the selection was pretty slim. On Saturday Dianne took me to a local marketplace where I had better luck finding the items on my list for a better price. Now we can get our small apartment a little more organized for a family of six to function in! We still have a need for a few basic furniture items which we'll shop for with help this week. We will post some pics later of our apartment...

We worshiped on Sunday in a non-denominational church that meets in a school auditorium, where we will go while in Arequipa. The people we met were so sweet and kind, but I'm not sure how much we learned from the sermon (all in Spanish, of course)! Ben and Luke met some boys their ages who live just a couple of blocks away, and they are a missionary family from Florence, AL!! They were pretty excited to have some new friends so fast! The boy Ben's age is also named Benjamin! They look forward to playing with them, and I am grateful for a friend as well!

We can't believe we are really here! It feels funny when we wake up and go to sleep thinking that we are so far from home! There is much to adjust to - the language, our apartment, new friends, altitude (higher here than anywhere in the US east of the Rockies), the weather (the highs get in the upper 60's and the lows about 35-40, with no heating!). The hardest things for me to adjust to right now as a mom is grocery shopping, doing laundry, and dishes. It isn't safe yet for me to go to a store alone, until I know more Spanish and learn my way around better. We walk or take a taxi everywhere, sot it's a little different than jumping in my own car to drive to Kroger or WalMart. I have to have Marcus with me, which means all four kids also. This will change as school starts, but for this week that is a challenge. The laundry is also a bigger deal - we thankfully have a washing machine but no dryer. It's very dry here so the clothes dry fairly quickly, but we only have enough lines to hang about 1/2 of a washing machine load. I am also washing our dishes in a little sink, rather than having a dishwasher. We have only enough hot water for one shower, maybe one and a half. So we need to adjust to how to work out times for everyone to get clean without screaming about the cold water! We are thankful to have these adjustments - we are learning so much about what is important and necessary. The kids are learning so much already about needs vs wants. Although we will look forward to a larger home, more hot water, a clothes dryer, etc it is good to learn we can make it and be content without!!

We are really enjoying family time and not following a schedule! It is so laid back, and we aren't in such a rush that we don't enjoy each other! This week we will continue to get settled in, do some sight-seeing, and practice Spanish. School for all of us starts next Monday!!

Thanks so much to all who have prayed for our travels and encouraged us along this journey!!! God is so good!