March 7, 2016

Hola!!

- Happy Birthday Russy!

I am writing again from the slowest internet in Punchana. It might be my last time coming here. Changes are tonight so I will find out tonight if I stay or go. I am pretty calm either way. I have been in this area my entire mission and at this point I can´t really imagine going anywhere else. But, it is all about where the Lord wants me. We will see.

- Cynthia and Alvaro, two of my converts here!

- Going out to work with Alonzo. We are getting him ready for the mission! 

This is the biggest street in our area.

 This week in food - my pensionista sells juice and chaufa for breakfast in the mornings and this week started selling anticuchos in the afternoon too. It is skewered cow heart and we have been eating quite a bit of it. I really like it. It´s like beef strips with a different flavor. Also, realized this week that what I thought was beef this whole time I have been here has not been beef! I thought the red meat down here in Peru was just of lower quality or something but we had it again this week and my companion asked me ¨Do you know what this is?´´ I said ¨Yes, beef¨ and she said ¨No, it´s the ligature¨ so, there we have it. That´s why the meat was so tough and weird tasting this whole time. Learning something new constantly.  I also learned how to make mayonnaise which I will definitely be doing when I get home because I literally eat everything with mayo and it is so yummy and I have no regrets about it. I will have to teach you all the ways of the Peruvian casera. 

This Tuesday the motokaristas went on strike because new police inspections for motokars are taking all their salary. So, on Tuesday we had no transport. The strike started the night before with groups of mototaxis zooming down the streets and waking us up every once in a while with all their racket. Then, on Tuesday we had to go to our zone meeting and we had to walk. Normally, the meeting is in the stake center, which is central to all the areas but, for some reason unknown to me, the zone leaders sent us to the Amazonas chapel which is the chapel farthest away from everyone. And we had to walk. So we sacrificed our studies to walk out there. The strike meant that everyone threw glass and burned things and put barriers in the street so that not even the people with their own motos could pass by. It was pretty crazy. But, it just lasted Tuesday and Wednesday we were reunited with our beloved motokar once again.

- the closest I will ever get to riding on a moto. The ladies ride on the back of the motos like this. Sidesaddle. Pretty scary but they must have really good balance because I have never seen them fall. 

On Wednesday this week we got home a little after nine after a lesson and I went to open the door, when I realized I didn´t have the keys to the apartment! I had never forgotten them before but I left them inside the house that day! We yelled below for the landlady but she didn´t hear us. We were so desperate that I even thought about scaling the wall to try and get the keys from the window, but our landlady´s son finally answered his cell phone and we got in. It was a close call for sure. 

This week classes started here. Here school vacations are from December to March. It was odd for me to see the school in front of our house start to receive students again because I was here when the classes ended too. I have been in this area for such a long time but I have grown so much. I think about when I got here and it feels like yesterday but I also feel like a completely different person than who I was when I got here. I hope for the better. Who knows what the rest of my mission has in store for me. I have experienced so much in this little area and grown to love the people here so much. I don´t know when I will leave but I know it will be hard to do whenever that time comes. 

Much love from Iquitos,

Hermana Fitzpatrick