The 26th of July celebrations.

Saturday the 26th of July was a major milestone in the life of a certain woman and it was celebrated in style. The 60th birthday party was huge and although none of our children were present we still had a fantastic time. All the guests, both invited and uninvited, were treated to a truly Australian party - singing, dancing, eating and sipping. As soon as the photographic evidence is gathered, collated and censured it will appear on the blog! Until then you just have to wait!

The Motupe parish bingo fundraiser.

A big day in the life of the Motupa parish.
I have quickly come to the conclusion that Catholic parish fundraisers seem to be the same all over the world. The Motupe parish held theirs last Sunday and there was a remarkable similarity between our Catholic primary schools White Elephant Sale back home.

There was the usual range of stalls selling hot and cold food. The skittles and ‘knock em down’ games were popular. There was the torture chamber where you were marched off to, put in the stocks and had to wait until someone came up with an appropriate ransom. The new one for Marion and I was the guinea pig game. A circle of boxes was set up with prizes on the top of each one and if you held the ticket corresponding with the box the little devil went into you won that prize. The children thought it was great.
The highlight for the crowd was undoubtedly the Bingo which went most of the day. You purchased as many Bingo cards as you liked when you arrived and you used the same cards all afternoon, each card was S/-2.00. As the day went on the prizes got bigger and so did the crowd. The final prize was S/-300.00, and that is big! The organisers hoped to make around S/-3,000.00 to help support all the Motupe parish programs.

The guinea pig 'hunt' was fun for all ages.

The favourite with the crowd is the bingo.

The crowd loved the torture chamber with the dunces chair, the stocks and the hangman's noose. As expected both Marion and I received the appropriate treatment much to the amusement of all the crowd.

Donna has decided that it may be time for them to leave because Trevor could not register even one tin at 'knock em down' stall!

The houses near Acho.

I simply had to take this shot of the houses on the side of the valley opposite the Acho flower market. It looked as though the Dulux paint rep had recently visited showing off a new colour chart!

Parade by the district schools.

Seriously, where do you begin? There were so many photo opportunities as we stood by and watched, and yet we seemed to be standing around for hours waiting for something to happen!
Firstly, you must remember that next Monday, 28th July, is Peru’s National Day and right now everyone seems to be conducting a parade of some sort. The Peruvian red and white flag is appearing everywhere, all the varying sizes may be purchased at any street corner or at traffic lights while you are waiting for them to go green, that’s if you wait for them to change.
We never learn, once again we arrived at the designated point right on the advertised starting time – next time we will arrive an hour and a half later so that we will not have to wait so long! Because even then you will still be early and not miss a thing.


As you can see the dais was not even ready, the band were relaxing and some of the school children who had arrived on time were either practising their goose step march or just milling around and swapping stories. All the schools seem to insist on the high kick and arm swing when marching and I can assure that some find this technique very hard to master.
The teachers were out in force, dressed in their uniform but not marching together, women in one group and men in the other – I was too scared to ask why!

The school bands continue to impress, however, when you realise just how much time they spend with their instruments then you expect something good. I just wish they would use more than one sheet of music. After a very short time you have learnt the tune off by heart!

Once again the traditional costumes came to the fore, they are so colourful and worn so proudly, even by the little children.

We loved the array of pre-school uniforms on display.

The food vendors never fail to appear and take every opportunity for a sale, you name it and you could buy it. The hot food on sale looked terrific and smelt even better, however, neither of us was game enough to purchase a plateful.
The line markers had almost completed their task of marking the guide lines for the marchers.

Eventually the usual array of speeches got under way, but only after the official party paraded the Peruvian flag, flew it from the flag pole and then sang the National Anthem. The dog seems far from interested in the whole proceedings although you would have thought that the sound system may have moved him on. The speakers did seem a bit of an over kill for the size of the crowd, nevertheless, you have to realise that the public address system is the most vital part of the event and the louder the better.

As the crowd began to build we were reliably informed that all the local people from the areas represented by the schools had to attend, if not they were fined S/-50.00. That is big money for these people and it seems quite unjust. I am not quite sure who gets the money if a fine is imposed; I suppose the equivalent of our local councils.

Most of the uniforms worn by the school leaders and the band members are owned by the school and are spotless. The parents would really struggle to come up with that sort of money.
It was getting so cold that we had to make a move so we missed the main parade. It was a pity because we really wanted to see some of our English students who were marching with their school.
We had to head to Acho, the flower market to purchase a few more squares of lawn and some soil. Yours truly managed to accidentally leave the hose running all night and the ground became so soaked that a hole appeared in the middle of our back lawn and for safety reasons it had to be filled.

The Pedregal Alto comedor project has begun.

Mick rang us the other day to report that the bulldozer had ‘cleared’ the land in preparation for the builders. The site is different from the first one, however, it is still close by and well and truly at Pedregal Alto. It has taken quite a while for this actual new site to be finalised and the papers handed over. Nevertheless, the project is now under way. I have attached some photos showing the difference between ‘before’ and ‘after’ the bulldozer attacked.



These 'before' shots were taken very early on a foggy Sunday morning a few weeks ago before Mass.


These are the 'after' shots on a much clearer day. I must say their idea of clearing land is very different to mine.

This is how we travelled up to Pedregal Alto with about five others for S/-1.00 each. He even cleaned his taxi while he waited for us to go back down - with others!

Dog paradise.

We were walking up the hill to our house this morning when we came across ‘dog paradise’. They were all peacefully enjoying each others company, and the passing traffic. We both wondered if this very spot was chosen because of the fact that the owners of this particular house have slaughtered at least two huge pigs on the same concrete slab! Marion saw one and I saw the other, they were massive beasts and the scent of pork may still be lingering!

No water restrictions in Montenegro!

This is the method the local council use to water the median strip around here! You may notice a tyre and red traffic cone on the back of the water truck, they usually drag the tyre with the cone sitting in it behind the truck on a long rope - a warning to traffic coming up the highway to avoid the truck!

Another tremor!

We were standing at our bus stop the other morning reading all the newspaper headlines, as everyone else does, when a gentleman pointed out to us that a particular newspaper was predicting a major earthquake in the near future. The report said that according to all the relevant data one was overdue!
Would you believe it at about five next morning a substantial tremor rattled the valley, and beyond! The noise is quite disconcerting for those who are not used to it; the locals just seem to keep going on with their lives. Because we were both still in bed at the time we did not feel too much of the vibrations. I can assure the noise was bad enough!
That brings our total tremor experiences to about six since we have been here and I hope that they remain of similar or less proportions if they are to continue. However, we are reminded of the earthquake that destroyed Ica and killed over 450 people in August last year and Ica is only 300 kilometres south of Lima.

Look for the man with the blue cap, his name is Santos and his job is to make sure the buses remain on their correct route. They are not supposed to alter their journeys in order to pick up extra passengers.

He is also a fantastic help to Marion and I in selecting the correct bus for where we want to go. There are more buses passing this stop than the old Heinz fifty seven varieties! Different sizes, different colours, different shapes and very different ages. They go all over Lima and even take many different routes, and at different speeds. One day going to Los Olivos we took the wrong one and drove right through two markets and took thirty minutes longer than normal!

Class is in.

Last week Marion ventured down the highway to a university which advertises various language courses. She discovered that there was a person who may be available to coach her in Spanish. Next day she returned and met with Senor Roberto Suca and organised with him to come to our house on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for four hours from eight to twelve. So we are now both students of the Spanish language. I can assure you that Marion is coping extremely well and progressing rapidly. As for me, well let’s say “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” and you can transpose “brain” for “flesh”! Right now I am experiencing some difficulty with the structure of the Spanish verbs. It did not help me one little bit when I was suitably informed the other day that Spanish can be far more difficult to learn than English. I will battle on; however, in the long term I think that I may stick with painting and drawing!

A morning tea break from all those Spanish verbs.

Sister Joan Sawyer peace memorial march.

A very small start to what would end up as a huge march.

A simple wooden cross with its inscription ‘No mataras’, stands on the side of the road that runs through the district of San Juan de Lurigancho on the way to Montenegro. It emphasises the commandment “You shall not kill!” and recalls a Columban sister, Joan Sawyer, who was killed alongside eight escaped prisoners in 1983. They all died after police open fired on the vehicle outside their squalid prison in Lima.
Sr Joan used to go to the San Juan de Lurigancho Prison three or four days a week to visit prisoners. Conditions there were bad, and out of five thousand prisoners only one thousand were sentenced. The rest were pending sentence or perhaps innocent. Sr Joan used to try to bring them some relief – medicines for some, a kind word for others and news about how their legal papers were progressing in the Ministry for Justice. The majority of prisoners came from the poor sectors of Lima, therefore, no money - no legal support.'
On the morning of 14 December 1983, a group of prisoners decided to try to escape. They took as hostages Sr Joan, three Marist Sisters and several social workers. After all day negotiations with the prison authorities, it was agreed that the prisoners and their hostages would be allowed leave the prison in the evening in an ambulance. They were no sooner outside the prison gate when the police riddled the ambulance with bullets from all sides. Four bullets struck Joan and when they removed her from the ambulance she was already dead.
Each year around this time a huge procession takes place in the form of a peace march to remember this tragic event. Yesterday was the day. Two massive processions converged from different directions to the site of the cross. The organising committee for this year had decided on a ‘no drug’ theme; you may notice the word ‘drogas’ on the banners.
We are on the move, or in reality we started to close up the gap between our group and the one in front! Each parish or region was given a colour and we marched behind the cream flag. That is Joao out the front with the flag. This was also a very effective means for all the late comers to find out where there group was.



By the time we neared the end the crowd had reached massive numbers and it is very hard to even show this on camera. You must also remember that this was only half of the group, the crowd marching up the valley had already reached the end.

The traffic is hopeless, they can see the march, they can see that there will be a delay - but that does not stop them from continually leaning on their horns!

At the end of the march we all gathered in front of the stage they had constructed for the day, the band was in full swing and the amplifier system was cranked up to force ten! The band was the Columban Regional Director's, Father Diego Cabrera, and that is him on the microphone. They were fantastic, the young people fired up to their music. At the back of the stage you can see a picture of Joan Sawyer.

The actual cross is constructed of two old, bent tree branches and it is worth noting that every time we pass it on the way into Lima it has fresh flowers placed at its base. People remember Joan Sawyer and what she was trying to achieve.

If you look closely you may see the Bishop of the Diocese of Chosica, Bishop Strotmann Hoppe M.S.C., in the crowd. Chosica is the name of this particular Diocese of Lima.

The cross was slowly carried forward and placed in front of the stage. It was most impressive because the cross bearers slowly sway in time with the music as they walk forward.

Towards the end we looked at each other and decided to quietly depart and catch a bus up the valley before hundreds of others thought of doing the same. There was a fair chance that it would have been chaos when proceedings finished. A bit like leaving Mass before it ends!