Cultural experiences in Peru

This past week has been filled with adventure and fun! On Sunday we went to the wild animal park and went shopping which is always fun with 7 American’s who know very little Spanish. Also on our shopping trip we saw the famous “naked man” of Pulcallpa. He is a guy who walks around the city without any clothes on. A little weird I know, but this is one of the things that makes the city interesting (ha ha). On Monday I learned how to wash my clothes by hand. It is a huge pain but it is definitely making me appreciate clean clothes. One of the problems I ran into while washing was putting too much soap into the bucket. My first load of laundry had so much soap that my shirts could practically stand up by themselves! I am learning quickly the art of laundering. During the week besides Spanish lessons and meetings with jenni I helped emmanuel (one of my friends at Km. 38) plant noni which is a type of medicinal plant. It was fun to work with him because it helps me to learn Spanish as well as some agricultural skills.
The biggest highlight of the week was going to Masisea for the weekend, which is a town that just had an Adventist church planted this summer. To get to the town we had to ride on a Pecke Pecke for 5 hours on the river. The boat was crowded with people but it was a really fun experience to see how people traveled. When we got to the port we had to ride on motocars for about 8 km. to get to the actual town. I got to ride on the back of the bible workers moto. His name is Domingo and he is a really awesome Christian man who loves Jesus. While at the town we stayed at a church members hostel. That night we helped put on the Friday evening program. After the program I took a shower without my headlamp because I forgot it at Km. 38. In the morning we went to Sabbath school and church. We helped out again with the service. A couple of the girls sang special music and told the childrens story. I got the privilege of preaching my first sermon in Peru. It was fun but a little scary to be preaching. But with God’s help I was able to make it through the experience. The plan was to return to Pulcallpa Sabbath afternoon but the heavy downpour that occurred prevented us from leaving. Instead we had to leave at 4 am to get to the boat on time. Unfortunately the road to the port was really muddy so it took a long time to get to the port. Also we had an interesting experience because our driver dropped us off about 1 km from the port in the middle of a papaya field. It was pitch black and there was a few guys just hanging out at a house. It was a little freaky to be there but the rest of our group finally caught up with us. The trip back to Pulcallpa was a lot shorter because we were going downstream. One of the interesting things about the trip back was getting Domingo’s dirt bike onto the top of the boat. It took about four of us to lift it but we got it on after a lot of struggle.
Another fun experience that I had yesterday was learning how to move logs out of the rainforest in our backyard. The logs are massive. They are around 6-10 feet long, 1 ½ feet wide, and 6-8 inches thick. Also, they are extremely dense which makes them even heavier. I think they weigh over 100 pounds maybe more like 150 lbs. We carried about 20 logs out of the forest on our backs to the trail were we loaded them onto a cart. Then we pushed the cart through a very uneven trail to the sawmill. Needless to say I am extremely sore and I have a lot of respect for the guys I work with who make it look easy. The dentist just arrived so I am gearing up for a crash course in Dental. Please pray for the project as well as the first medical campaign that is coming up at the beginning of this next week. Thanks for all the prayers and support!

ps.
the pics that i posted are as follows
1. houses- our home at km. 38
2. people- our group and some locals at the animal park
3. playing futbol at santo domingo
4. my feet riding on a pecke pecke
5. sunset on the yarina river