June 10, 2017  –  I’m sitting at my computer on a Saturday evening, listening to the little kid birthday party next to us. When someone here has a birthday party, the whole area around them has a birthday party too! But, we don’t get any cake! We can hear everybody’s everything. There are 2 little doggies that live above us and we can hear when they run across the floor. We hear the little girl next door cry at night when she’s tired. I’m sure our neighbors can hear our blender going when we make a smoothie for breakfast or the conference talk Carter listens to when he takes his shower in the morning. That’s just life in our little patch of Peru. We’ve been here for 2 months and we are getting used to it. It’s a lot different than our 1 acre chicken farm in St. David, AZ. We sleep pretty well at night. Our bedroom is at the back of the apartment away from the street so we don’t hear the traffic noises very loudly. We live on the 3rd floor of our 4 story building. There’s a walkway on one side and on the other side are homes that are just one story, so I can see down into their courtyards. I can see their laundry hanging. Every day there is different laundry on the line. It is not normal for Peruvians to have a dryer, but we have a little one to use. Thank goodness! We also have a rack on the ceiling of our laundry room that we can bring down to hang things on. We put our towels on it every morning with a fan blowing on them. They don’t get dry otherwise.

It takes 3 keys to get in our  place. There’s one outer gate, one inner gate and then the key to get in our apartment once we get up the 3 flights of stairs.

Looking out our bedroom window, this is the first gate we enter to get in.

The second gate to get in.

Carter on the stairs inside our building

We feel very safe here. The streets and walk ways are well lit at night. There are vigilantes, security guards, that patrol every little street. We pay them 70 soles monthly, which is about $23. The vigilante rides up and down our street on a bike at different times during the day and night and blows a  whistle that sounds like the whistle referees use. We are still trying to figure out when and why he does that. There are lots of different horns, whistles and clangs we hear. One is from the bread guy in the morning. He rides his bicycle around and honks his little horn to tell you he is there. People come out and get fresh rolls from him for their breakfast. Carter has been out a few times when we first got here to sample the bread. The guy sells 4 different kinds of buns. They are OK, but not wonderful.

Another  sound we hear is the garbage truck when it comes around in the morning. A bell clangs to let you know they are coming. There are raised metal containers along our street that people put their little bags of garbage in. They are picked up every morning. Another sound we hear are the horns honking from the the taxis, cars and trucks that pass by. It is very popular to use your horn here when driving. When we walk down the street, taxis that pass by honk at us letting us know they are there. There are LOTS of taxis. LOTS!

An empty garbage container and a vigilante riding his bike in the back ground

We see this adorable doggie sometimes when we are walking to work in the morning. He is always on the same doorstep. He never barks, just lifts his head up and looks at us through the flap of fur over his eyes. I don’t think he’s a stray. I think he lives in the home. We don’t see stray dogs here much at all. We see lots of people walking their dogs. If a dog barks at us, it is from the top of a building. We do see stray cats sometimes. We are told that we live in  a middle class neighborhood. It is mostly kept clean and neat.

I named this good & gentle doggie Chet! I wonder what his real name is and is he a he or a she?

Last week we had an earthquake drill at the office. We are supposed to leave the building and stand in circles like these while we wait. The S stands for siesmo, earthquake. We are told that they get tremors here in May and October. We didn’t get any this past May. This is one of the siesmo circles at the MTC next door.

Some of the beautiful fruit here

Written by Faye