Photos to Celebrate Our Half-Way Point

On July 13, 2009, we will complete nine months as missionaries, the halfway point of our 18-month mission. To celebrate, we offer the following recently taken photographs, which have not appeared previously on this blog. To get an expanded view of each picture, click it.

Flower saleswoman in San Pedro de Cajas, Peru:


Valley above La Oroya, Peru (at 12,200 feet above sea level). The green pipe carries water for the city of La Oroya:


Grocery store with firewood in front, a rack of bags of chips near the entrance, and green bags of coca leaves (source of cocaine) in the doorway; taken in a small town south of Huancayo:


Sharon, granddaughter of our driver José Quinto, playing the keyboard in Beverly's piano class:


Yellow flowers on the side of a hill near the Gruta de Huagapo (cave) in the Palcamayo valley north of Tarma:


Dancers in the streets of San Pedro de Cajas:


Terraced farmlands above Tarma:


Three women of San Pedro de Cajas:


Cactus growning on a fence wall in San Pedro de Cajas:


School kids holding a parade in the Plaza de Armas of Huancavelica, Peru (sometimes we think kids in Peru march in parades more than they spend time in the classroom):


Vicuñas on the Pampa (altiplano) of Junín:


The town of Cochas Bajo, west of Tarma:


Woman sitting in the Plaza de Armas of Palcamayo, Peru:


Mountains south of Tarma, Peru (these peaks are about 17,000 feet high):

The Sights of Semana Santa

Semana Santa (Holy Week) is the biggest celebration in Tarma. People from all over Peru come here to enjoy the sights and sounds of the events leading up to Easter. Here are some of the things to do and see during Holy Week. (We'll leave out the not-so-holy activities that also abound during this week.)

Dancers parade around in costumes to represent past Peruvian cultures:


Closeup picture of the dancers so you can see the beautiful, colorful details:


Alfombras de flores (flower carpets) are the most famous part of Semana Santa in Tarma:


The flower carpets are created on the streets beneath flower arches:


The thousands of residents and visitors line the streets to see the flower carpets and to witness the processions, which take place every night:


The processions pass under the arches and over the flower carpets. (Note: the little light just below the pinnacle of the arch in this picture is the full moon):


All the visitors need food, which the street vendors are happy to supply:


These are churros, similar to a donut only they are rectangular:


The most attractive snacks are candied apples:


During Semana Santa, the women from the countryside surrounding Tarma come into town to sell their flower petals. This woman just arrived with her bags of flowers and her two little girls:


The country women in the Tarma area wear either the traditional white sombrero ...


... or the traditional stocking cap:


This woman smiled for Scott's camera, showing the typical dental problems of the poor people here. She has a wad of coca leaves (from which cocaine is extracted) in her mouth:


We hope you all have a happy Easter, even if it's not as exotic as Semana Santa in Tarma!

Our Trip to San Pedro de Cajas

We left Tarma at 7:30 am and headed through the high Andes mountains to attend church in San Pedro de Cajas (altitude 13,300 ft.). This is rich farmland, and the Peruvians try to use every square inch possible, right up the sides of the mountains and down into the valleys:

The narrow and bumpy dirt road followed the agricultural valley and then did a series of cutbacks up the side of the steep mountain:

When we didn't stop to think about how close the road was to the edge of the cliff, we enjoyed vistas like this one:

At the top of the mountain, the terrain leveled off somewhat, leaving a patchwork of more farms. The purple-flowered plants shown here are potatoes:

As we approached San Pedro de Cajas, we saw the small farms of the village:

The branch of the church in San Pedro de Cajas is part of the Tarma District. There is a nice chapel (which stayed a not-so-nice 45 degrees during the entire meetings). In Sacrament Meeting, Beverly bore her testimony and Scott gave a 20-minute talk. Here are a few of the members: the branch president is 4th from the left on the back row and the two full-time missionaries, Elders Bird and Costo, are front and center:

This is a picture of one of the little Primary girls:

After church, we walked along this street to attend a social at a church member's home:

This woman is one of the church members who attended the party.

Several of the sisters of the branch posed for this picture:

The hostess of the ward social was happy to have Scott take her picture:

The food at the social was "pachamanca," a favorite here in the high Andes. It is like a "Dutch oven" dinner, but instead of an oven, they use a hole in the ground, lined with leaves. The hole is filled with potatoes, meat, husk-wrapped bananas with raisins, etc., and the whole thing is covered with red-hot stones:

Today was another amazing adventure for us here in Peru!

The New District Presidency in Tarma

This is the Tarma District Presidency who were called and sustained last week at District Conference. Front row, l to r: Scott (advisor to the presidency), President Oliver Romaní (district president). Back row, l to r: Brother Daniel Román (executive secretary), President Jaime Calderón (1st counselor), President Luis David Agostinelli (2nd counselor, he lives in La Oroya), and Brother Jose Miguel Calderón (district clerk).

Teaching Institute in the Tarma District

While Beverly is teaching music (see her previous post), Scott is teaching Institute classes. He teaches a class on the Doctrine and Convenants (Doctrina y Convenios) on Thursday evenings. Here are his students from the second week of classes. The district president and his wife are on the far left.


Here's the members of the Book of Mormon class that Scott teaches on Friday evenings. Some of the students are the same as the Thursday night class.


On Saturdays, Scott and Beverly travel to La Oroya (altitude 12,200 ft), where Scott teaches Book of Mormon (El Libro de Mormón) and then they travel to Junín (13,500 ft), where Scott teaches another Libro de Mormón class. The first group of students from one of the classes is shown here. The young man on the left is putting in his papers to go on a mission. The man next to him is the Junín branch president. His wife is second from the right.


One of the students (shown in the previous picture) is this wonderful sister. She is 72 years old and is about 4 feet tall. She has been a member of the Church for about 1½ years, and is excited about learning more about the Book of Mormon.

Our Favorite "Grocery Store"

To continue your tour of our neighborhood, we now show you our favorite grocery store here in Tarma: Comercial Alicia. It's located only three blocks from our home. Here we buy our fruit, vegetables, cheese, juices, laundry detergent, tissue paper, etc., and most importantly our large containers of bottled water.


Inside the store you will find cluttered shelves and piles of just about everything, crammed into a space about the size of our Orem living room. The old man in the picture here is father to María, the owner (María's sister Alicia, for whom the store was named, passed away last year):


After Scott took two or three pictures of the store, he was wondering how to ask the two women who run the store for their pictures. But then, María the owner asked him to take her picture!


Scott was then able to take a picture of the other woman, also named María, who helps run the store:


These two Marias are so helpful. If they don't have something we need, they send a helper to go get it at another market. If the vegetables out front don't look so great, they volunteer to check their produce in the back for something better. If we don't know the Spanish name for something, they play 20 Questions until they figure out what we want.

Today we bought an onion, four Roma tomatoes, two large red bell peppers, and two packages of (chicken) ham. The total price: US$1.3o. As Scott says---the food in Tarma is nearly free.

Tarma is a cool place!

This chart of the 15-day forecast is almost identical to all the 15-day forecasts in Tarma during this, their winter season (Nov through Feb). In other words, the temperature stays more or less between 47 and 51 degrees Fahrenheit all day every day. It also rains most days for brief periods of time. During the Tarma summers, the temperatures are even colder!, but it doesn't rain.

Those are indeed cool temperatures, but during the day, you would swear it's a lot warmer than that. Sure enough, the "Real Feel" high temperatures, shown in the upper red line on the chart, indicates that during the day, the 50-51 degrees feel like 60-65. During our recent 5-day visit to Tarma we felt comfortably warm during the day and uncomfortably cold at night. We have since purchased jackets and sweaters, so we'll feel comfortable all day and night.

We love that climate!

Tarma: Pearl of the Andes

The mission president sent Scott (and the other counselor in the mission presidency) to Tarma (at 10,006 ft.), known as La Perla de Los Andes (The Pearl of the Andes), to interview priesthood leaders for the reorganization of the Tarma District. We were excited because the Area Presidency has asked us to live in Tarma.

This was our first glimpse of Tarma during the daylight, as we descended into the city. In the foreground you can see the small farms on the outskirts of town, and in the bottom of the valley (to the right) you can see the city, which appears as a brown cluster.



During our stay in Tarma, we visited the home of Hovita Oscanoa, a church member who is an artisan. She makes beautiful tapestries. Beverly is shown walking with the daughter, Luz Karina Tinoco, on a path near their home.


The town center is in the valley, but many people live in the hills surrounding the city. This picture shows one of the dirt paths lined with homes, located about 200 feet above the city.

Tarma is a town of contrasts. The following picture shows an elderly woman near the central open-air market. She is wearing the traditional native dress of the Tarmeña women, but most people wear regular clothing.

We were in our hotel room one morning when we heard a band playing sad music. Scott leaned out the hotel window and captured a picture of a funeral band, with the men dressed in black, walking on a path on the side of a hill.


Leaving the city, we drove through the picturesque farmlands on the outskirts of town. Here are some of the farms at the bottom of the valley. (This and the other subsequent landscape photos were taken by Scott out the window of a moving car.)


This is a closeup of some of the farms. Click the picture to enlarge it, and you'll see people and sheep.

During our ride back to Lima, the taxi ("colectivo") that we had rented overheated. We were stranded for an hour out in the middle of nowhere (at 13,000 feet), but Scott got pictures of sheep, shepherds, donkeys, and high mountain hills. This woman lives in a nearby village. Scott gave her S/. 1.5o (about 50 cents) and asked her to pose for him. The bag she carries is full of wool, and she knits as she walks along.

Here's a close-up of her weather-beaten face.

Going over Ticlio Pass (15,800 feet) always provides stunning landscapes. Here's the picture Scott took this trip.

Our trip to Tarma was a spiritual and cultural treat.