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Harknett's spaceLife in Peru |
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July 20 new website Our new website is http://pamrichinperu.weebly.com Please check it out. May be a little while before I get the pictures figured out, but please be patient. Thanks, Pam June 08 changing blog due to recent changes to the format of this blog, well, mainly the uploading of pictures, I will now be looking for a new blog. I will keep you posted when the new one is up and running. sorry about this and for the long silence. Pam July 29 life is challengingAs I may have mentioned before, we have 2 new big malls which make you think you're in Canada or Britain. You get lulled into a false sense, not of security, but of ease, thinking it's much easier to get things done. This is not true! Last week, we went to the mall for pizza for my birthday, and decided while we were there we'd get a small bar-b-que for my birthday and a vacuum cleaner that we had thought about getting for a while. We went to one store to get the bar-b-que first. That wasn't too difficult until the store assistant couldn't figure out how the hose connected to the gas tank. He seemed like he was going to take a while, so I left Rich there and went to go get a vacuum. I went to another store that had 5 or 6 on display. I picked one out then went to ask if they could get one for me. The store assistant went to see if there were any and came back saying there were none of that one or one like it. So I went back to meet Rich who was coming out of the store without the bar-b-que and saying we had to wait about 1 hour while the guy took apart the display bar-b-que to figure out how it attached to the gas tank. As we had the time, we decided to go to another store to check out vacuums. We found them, picked one we liked, paid for it, then were sent downstairs to collect it. We handed the man our receipt. He went into the warehouse and was gone quite some time. This didn't fill me with confidence. He eventually came out and said there were none in stock. So he called the store assistant who sold us the vacuum. She came down then suggested we go back up and pick another one and do an exchange. We went to look but none were as good value as the one we had paid for. I asked if we could get the money back instead. She said a hesitant yes, then called the manager. She took a while in coming, but eventually we got the money back with a receipt for NOT buying a vacuum cleaner. By this time, the hour was passed, so we went back to get the bar-b-que thinking we'd just go, pick it up and go home. Oh no, the bar-b-que wasn't supposed to come with the gas hose attachment, but as the guy had said that it did, he was going to give us one anyway from the store. The only problem with this is they check all receipts when leaving the store and we couldn't walk out without having a receipt for the gas hose. The department manager said we had to go to the after-sales office and get a credit note. That sounded simple, but the guy there said he couldn't give us a credit note because we didn't have a receipt. So Rich went to the check-out to get a receipt but they couldn't ring it through as costing nothing, so wanted to do it for a penny but Rich couldn't pay for that as it was supposed to be free. It took 5 people and 3 pieces of paper to finally be able to leave the store with the bar-b-que and free gas hose. All this just to give you a little taste of what life is like here in the wonderful country of Peru.
We are really enjoying being back, but are just occasionally reminded how much more simple life is in Canada and Britain.
Since we've been back, Rich has been busy teaching at the institute which is being held in the mountains this time to give the students exposure to different cultures within their own country. There are a good number of students this module, which is encouraging.
The youth group is continuing to go well. One of the youth was baptized this past Sunday. We have been amazed to see how God is working in his life in the past year. He's grown a lot and has been helping organize games and other activities.
This past week-end was Peru's independance day. For the ladies meeting, we did an international celebration. There are quite a few countries who have their 'independance day' in July, so we had a little contribution from everybody, also one of the ladies sharing her testimony. There was a fantastic turn out. Hopefully they will all continue to come.
We are looking forward to our first team coming next week, a group of 4 from Markham, Ontario. We will keep you posted on how that goes.
As you can see from the photos Lucas is also doing well. He's getting longer and longer, though not much chubbier. He continues to be the star of the show. He's also very helpful to have around when going to places like the bank. You get to go straight to the front of the line. He's rolling over lots but has a bit of trouble getting off his tummy, which usually means he falls asleep that way. He's also been sleeping through the night which is a wonderful blessing. Lucas is also a great way of making contact and getting to know people. We rarely spoke to our neighbours before we left, but since we've been back with Lucas, we chat to them all the time. The neighbour across the hall comes to visit him quite regularly, so we've been able to get to know her especially.
One unfortunate incident where Lucas was introduced to the Peruvian wildlife. We heard a buzzing sound in our room, so turned the light on to kill the mosquito. We found several, so thought we should check on Lucas. When we went into his room, 8 flew up out of his crib. They had been having a feast on his cheek! So we took our revenge on them and killed them all. Amazingly, Lucas stayed asleep dring the whole thing and was completely oblivious to everything. He didn't even react to the bites, although Rich and I were scratching for a couple days. It turned out that the telephone company had left a door open when they were connecting the phone and internet earlier in the day. Happily, we don't live in a malaria area.
Will close for now. June 25 Back in PeruYes, it's been a while and since I last wrote we have spent 6 weeks in Canada. We had an enjoyable time catching up with friends and family. We did some travelling though not quite as much as in Britain. We were even able to go to the States for Richard and Lucas' first time. We kept Tim Hortons in business, enjoyed lots of bar-b-ques, thunderstorms, sunsets and long days.
To update you on the visa situation, Richard and I got back into the country with no trouble. We weren't able to get Lucas a visa before we left, so we have to start that process once we got here. This means in a month or so we will have to take a trip down to Chile to get his visa. We chose Chile over Ecuador as there are less stories of difficulty there. I'm also in the process of getting everything into my married name, which is a bit complicated, but is being worked on.
Lucas is doing well. Not sure what he weighs these days, but he's growing lots in length. He's also started to roll over so can no longer be trusted on high surfaces. He seems a bit stunned by all the new things here, especially people talking to him in Spanish, but he's still very content. I never realized just how much attention he would get here. It's a bit embarrasing, but I guess we'll get used to it.
We head to Trujillo tonight to finally get settled into our home again. Richard has 2 courses to teach in the next module of the Bible institute which starts in 1 1/2 weeks, so he has a lot of work still to do. We also need to do the practical things like getting phone and internet reconnected. This is why I thought I'd take the opportunity now to update you here.
May 01 saying good-bye, saying helloWell, we've almost come to our time in Britain. We've had an enjoyable time and many different experiences. We really enjoyed catching up with everyone we were able to see, although not everybody we had hoped. Things we've enjoyed are:
seeing people
cool clouds
rainbows
rain
rhubarb crumble with custard
chocolate
sausages and red cabbage
green countryside
seeing the lenght of days change so much
We've been all over Britain - east of England, Scotland - central and Inverness, Newcastle, west of England, south Wales, London, Cadbury World! : ) We had some adventures, including the exhaust falling off! God was very good in that situation as we were close to friends we had just been visiting, the garage near by had the part, and they could do it immediately. We also found out we can't renew our visas. Once we're in Canada we'll have to send our passport to Peru to start the process all over again. Please pray that this would go smoothly and we'll have our passports back before our flight date to return to Peru.
Lucas has done very well with all the travelling and we're settling into life as a three-some. He had his first immuniazations yesterday and didn't react too much. He's now almost 13 1/2 lbs, so he's growing quickly.
Now we are getting ready to pack up and head to Canada. Will keep you posted once we're there. |
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