viernes

We ate at a great Peruvian restaurant last night called Carbón. Lots of grilled and smoked meats, plus fried potatoes and plantains with creamy spicy sauces and salad on the side. Yum. Taking the little cabs to the restaurant was an adventure. The cabs look like motorcycles on the front but carriages on the back. It's definitely an open-air, exhilirating ride. And it seems like there are always 3.5 rows of vehicles driving in and between 2 lanes of road! Most of the amputations of limbs for the people who live here happen due to an arm resting outside of a vehicle that gets too close to a neighboring bus as it barrels down the highway.

But the highways in Iquitos are much better than the dirt roads in the nearby pueblos like Santo Tomás. They make for a bumpy ride even at low speeds. We all pile into a big truck to head from headquarters to the women's shelter and back. Sometimes there are 3 in the front seat, 3 in the back seat, and 4 or 5 in the truck bed with our supplies. Each bump sends the passengers in the truck bed a few inches in the air....

Dogs are free to roam wherever they want to here. None seem to have tags or belong to anyone in particular. They eat the food and trash of the street and people like that because they make things cleaner. They are living trash compactors, Paul Opp said, because they digest and reduce large quantities of scrap into tiny piles of waste that are more manageable and biodegradable. Most of the dogs seems really friendly and laid-back. There is a small hairless variety here I have never seen before.

We are going to the jungle today. They told us we would see "monkey island" and some vipers and anacondas in captivity. Those better be the only snakes we see.

I was hammering some nails yesterday into some VERY hard wood, and it was WAY HARDER than I thought it would be. But when I imagined that I was smashing a viper's head, that made it go much faster!!

I am really going to miss all the staff and volunteers I met at "Poppy's House," the women's shelter for ladies who have been raped or abused and have children to care for. One couple who works there, Kelly and Aaron, have been there for 2 years. They came to serve right out of college. What an amazing testimony from such young, beautiful, vibrant people who could go anywhere and do anything together but choose to live humbly and care for those in need in Perú. I came here to bless others, but instead I have been extremely blessed by them.