Fischers in Peru

The weekend of 23-24 August saw myself and René travel roughly north-east out of Arequipa for about 6 hours.  This got us about halfway between Arequipa and Lake Titicaca, to the village of Matazo.

Below:  The main street of Matazo, with locals hanging around the general store.  One of the things different about this area is that the ladies wear hats festooned with plastic flowers!

Being August, it was c-o-l-d.  Normally we don't travel in the high country during winter because it just gets too difficult.  But René was up for it and I try to go on as many trips as I can, to meet more of the Christians and pastors of the churches in these areas.

Below:  On the road to Matazo.

Above:  René trying to get phone reception at Santa Lucia, about 1/2 way to Matazo.

We left Arequipa at about 4:00am, and after a couple of hours driving we made it up onto the altiplano behind Picchu Picchu, a range of peaks to the east of the city.  By the time we got to Salinas Huito, I couldn't wash the windscreen because the water in the tubes was frozen.  Getting to Matazo, I tried to throw the dregs out of my coffee cup, but they were frozen too.  Next morning, I went to get an apple out of the car so that I wouldn't take my meds on a empty stomach, but it was frozen solid too.  While filling my water bottle on the tailgate of the Hilux, I spilled a bit and it froze before my eyes!

My Quechua friends were amused at my surprise to all of this.  I mean, I've never travelled conditions this cold, and it never really crossed my mind that an apple could freeze solid during the night.  No wonder they don't store much fruit or vegetables in sheds or whatnot; it would just freeze and then be useless when thawed out.  Only dry goods and their beloved chuños (freeze dried potatos) make the grade.

Anyway, freezing cold aside, the purpose of the trip was to run a taller (workshop) in Matazo on the Friday afternoon.  First session was led by René, taking the participants through John 3:16 and how one could prepare a talk/ sermon/ study/ Sunday School lesson from it.  Then it was my turn to take the group through Jesus' conversation with the 'Rich Young Man' in Luke 18:18-30.  Why does Jesus only quote 5 out of the 6 commandments from Exodus 20 re. our relationships with others?  Does he have a strategy behind not mentioning the commandment re. coveting/ greed?  By comparing a rich man entering the Kingdom to a camel passing through the eye of a needle, is Jesus teaching that rich people can't be saved?  Why then does he cryptically say that what is impossible with men is possible with God?  And what in the context can help us understand what Jesus is teaching?

Below:  René busting his moves in the workshop.  Notice the women seated to the left, the men to the right.  I came across the same practice in Pakistan back in the 90's.  It's not strictly adhered to here in the campo, but it's what usually happens.

Well, it turns out that Jesus' encouter with Zacchaeus (a filthy rich fella if ever there was) in the very next chapter shows us exactly how God does the impossible: we get to see a camel pass through the eye of a needle, as it were!  God so works in Zacchaeus' heart that he is no longer greedy and grasping and covetous, but now generous and open-handed.

Below: Saturday morning breakfast.  Note the dishwater thrown on the ground, which has frozen right where it landed.

Saturday after breakfast we started the 6 hour drive back to Arequipa.  As a couple of the hermanas (sisters) had to get back to their farms, we took a different route and ended up going around the eastern side of the volcano Ubinas (below).  The closer you get to this behemoth the more desolate the landscape becomes, because the volcano regularly spews out loads of pumice-like gravel and ash.

On the way back René and I hopped out to take a closer look at some of the cushion-shaped plants, called 'Yareta'.  René is quite taken with Yareta because during the winter months it sheds some sort of resin, which he calls "lagrimas" (tears).  René says when he's got a cold he inhales the aroma of the resin, in much the same way we would use menthol (or Vicks) to ease congestion.  Personally I'm not sure Yareta resin really works... but then I'm not that sure about Vicks either ;-)  I keep a lid on my cynicism but I'm pretty sure René suspects I'm an unbeliever anyway! 

Above:  A close-up of the surface of a Yareta plant, with 'lagrimas' of resin on the surface.  The pink & green parts of the plant standing proud by a few millimetres are the flowers.

Below:  pumice gravel desert courtesy of the volcano.

René really is lots of fun to hang around with; often we're just cracking up laughing with stuff we see or talk about (he was really tickled when I referred to a speed bump as a "sleeping policeman", for example.  I think the amusing bit was the idea of running over a policeman).  And he's always ready to explain things to do with training in a Quechua context, or customs and practices, the way the local government works (or doesn't) in the remote areas, and so on.

In other news, I've been helping René resurrect his old Honda XL 250, which for years has been parked up.  It's running again after a carburetor clean-out, fresh fuel, and some fiddling with the electrics.  Just waiting on the front wheel to come back with it's new 21" rim to replace the old 23" rim, because it's so hard to get the larger sized tyres here in Peru.  Anyway, with a few more bits (like a new speedo; the old one was irredeemable) the old mechanical mule should be ready to rip once again.  I think René's plan is to sell it on, and put the money towards a small car instead.  Wise man!

Below:  the XL250 sporting a natty new seat cover.  As a younger bloke, René covered many miles on this thing, visiting churches, supporting church leaders, teaching the Scriptures.  I think he originally got the machine from a retiring German missionary.  The paperwork says it's 1995, but that must be the year of importation; the actual model is an early-mid 80's XL250S.

If you do a lot of travelling in el campo ('the countryside') here in Peru, you really should be doing it in a 4WD.

Above: The mighty Hilux in the Paracas desert, on our way back from the Feb. 2023 SIM 'Spiritual Life Conference' in Lima.

Now we Australians are fairly familiar with 4-wheel driving; it's part of what we do.  I spent some of my youth on the farm putting the old '72 Landrover through its paces on the steep shaley hills in the bush backblock, and like most of us I've had the pleasure of digging out a few thoroughly bogged 4WD's (and one bus here in Peru, but that's another story).  So whether it's 'bush bashing' or going on off-road holidays or getting around on the land, we Australians feel pretty familiar with the Australian terrain.

The danger, we have discovered, is when you get into unfamiliar terrain with a 4WD.  Like the Andes mountains, for example.  It's easy to see the dirt roads, the river crossings, and the semi-desert countryside as something we understand, and therefore we just assume we know what we're doing.  But therein lies the trap!  Because Peru has one thing we don't really get in Australia: the huayco (pronounced 'wai-co'), aka the landslide.

We came across this landslide (below) while taking a break down Quillabamba way last October, out the back of Cusco towards the jungle.  It was on a dirt road that winds up the mountains a few kilometres east of the famous Machu Picchu.  Now, thanks to a load of unseasonal rain, a few landslides had started happening.  And so it was that we came across this beauty:

Now, yours truly took one look at this and said, "No worries, we can get over that!" and then hopped out of the car, levelled it off a bit by pulling a few rocks and small boulders out of the way, popped the Hilux into low range 4WD, and over we went.  But a couple of bends later, we found that the road was completely washed away -- and there was no getting around that!

And then it dawned on me the dangerous situation we were in.  There were small rocks still trickling down from the mountain slopes above, and we needed to get out of there.  With Kerry guiding me, I managed to keep clear of the soft edges and do a 15-point turn in the Hilux, and then we headed back to the landslide we had just crossed.  This time I got Kerry and Megan to get out of the car while I drove it back over the pile of mud and rocks.

But as I was crossing it this time, the boulders under the rear wheels suddenly slipped sideways, and for a moment there I thought I was going over the edge and into the river a hundred meters (or so) below.  But thankfully (very thankfully) the rocks stopped rolling, and I got the Hilux over the pile and back onto the road.  Kerry and Megan clambered back in, and we headed back the way we had come.  A few minutes later Kerry asked, "That was a close one, was it?"  "Yeah," I said with the usual degree of Australian understatement about these things, "it was a bit ropey!"

A month or so ago there was this landslide (video below) in Peru.  You just won't believe the violence and power of these things until you see the video.  Thankfully both truck drivers survived, but their trucks were utterly trashed.

So anyway, now that we're a bit wiser about travelling in Peru, we can travel a bit more safely.  Just remember: the real danger is the danger you don't recognise. ;-)

Now that the winter chill is retreating, trips out in the sierra are possible once again.  Not even the ETE (Educación Teológica por Extensión) diehards Roberto and René want to do trips during the winter, and the students are certainly happy to stay closer to home.  The streams freeze over, and while there isn't much snow (that falls mainly during the warmer wet season, December to February), it's just bone cold.

A couple of weeks ago Ben and I went to Chivay (about 3 hours from Arequipa along sealed highways) for one of the ETE meetings.  Not many students attended this time; it can be a bit hit-and-miss, as often the students get saddled with last minute family obligations, farming responsibilities, or even have to attend to community work organised by their local alcalde (village leader).  And when the alcalde pronounces that it will be a weekend of working on the local roads, for example, then everyone has to drop whatever else they're doing, and they all head out -- husbands, wives, children, the lot! -- to work on the roads.  Shovels, rakes, baskets for shifting gravel and earth, and babies bundled on the backs of the mothers.  That's how public works get done in many of the villages of the campo (country areas) in Peru.

Anyway, by Saturday afternoon only about 12 or so students had managed to turn up, but that was all that René needed to get the progam happening.  After organising the dates and locations for some of next year's classes, René got a good class exercise going: asking the students to form groups of 3 or so, they had to study Matthew 16:13-23 -- the episode where Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ (Messiah), then Jesus declares that Peter will be the rock on which the church is built, but finally Jesus has to rebuke Peter for his refusal to accept that Jesus must suffer and die in Jerusalem.  Their task was to decide what the text was saying in its context, and then prepare a brief outline of how they would teach from the passage, and finally each group reported back to the whole class to explain and justify their conclusions.

Above: a number of the church people presenting a short play on how we could better prioritise our time.  Various social media platforms were presented as thieves of time that could be spent more profitably for the cause of the gospel.  Some problems are the same no matter where you live in the world!

Of course, for many Protestant Christians here in Peru, this text in Matthew is often seen as 'Catholic' text for establishing Peter as the first pope -- and as such, it's a text they tend to skip over or avoid altogether.  Yet, whatever our Christian denomination or persuasion, the text of the Bible is simply the text of the Bible, and we need to read it as such without fear nor favour.  René, you cunning strategist!

Ben and I each joined different groups, and our role was to help the students ask questions (because good questions are like keys which unlock meaning) and consider a text they weren't that used to thinking about.  We had to be careful not to push our own views of the text, but rather let the students do the work.  And work they did!  With a bit of prompting and encouragement they started to take in the wider context, to think about Jesus' purposes as the Christ, and what Peter and the disciples were thinking (or not thinking, as the case may be).  After about 30 minutes' discussion and pondering, the students reported back and, as usually happens when people study a the text on its own terms, each group came up with quite similar ways of summarising the text and its parts, and how they would teach from it.  Good job!

Above: René and Ben having a chat.  Notice how the church has plenty of warm cushions and woven coverings on the benches, and blankets available for people to use during the service.

On Sunday morning René and I left Ben in Chivay (he'd taken his own 4WD), and we headed north to Cota Cota via Tisco to pick up Benigno, his wife and a co-worker.  They had just spent a month in Cota Cota running classes and exams on behalf of IBSA, one of the Bible colleges in Arequipa.  Then it was back to Callalli (pronounced 'cul-yali') where we dropped off René who wanted to catch up with some believers there.

Above: 180 degree streetscape in Tisco.  The altitude, the silence... it's hard to beat.

One excellent thing about this trip was that, as we travelled, René and I got to spend a few hours chewing over the challenges of pastoral training and support in these areas.  I told him that I thought his class exercise was top-shelf: in the one exercise the students had got to think about and practice (i) reading the text in its context in Matthew, (ii) the process of interpreting the text, (iii) how the text applied to their own situation, and (iv) how they might structure a sermon or talk based on the text.  This really is the bread and butter of church pastoral work.  As René and I talked, we came up with a number of future possibilities for encouraging and supporting church pastors, teachers and elders in the sierra.  To quote Big Kev, I'm excited!

Above: For some reason Ben is looking happy in a rather protracted planning session (dates and localities of future ETE workshops).  It would be easy to complain that these sessions take far too long, but the Quechua way is to discuss and run absolutely everything past absolutely everyone, so that everyone feels like they own the decision.  And that means the students are far more likely to turn up when the time for the workshop arrives, of course ;-)

It was on the way home after dropping René off in Callalli that we came across an utterly destroyed vehicle smashed into an embankment.  Ben (who had headed back from Chivay earlier in the day) later told me that when he went past there had been a huge crowd gathered and a few very badly injured (if not dead) people had been pulled out.  Accidents like these are so common in the Andes; some people drive without any sense of fear or responsibility, overtaking at full speed around blind curves and putting everyone in danger.   Trucks reguarly engage in this deadly game of roulette, too.   We came around one bend on the way to Chivay and were greeted with two trucks and one car, all 3-abreast coming around the bend; there was nothing for me to do but hit the brakes, hit the horn, flash the lights, and squeeze over as far to the right as we could.  You really do have to be on your toes.  It's such a shame, because most of the Andean highways are superbly engineered and would be considered safe roads anywhere else, but the impatient and reckless driving habits of some of the locals are the real danger.

Anway, it was good to get back to Arequipa after nearly 12 hours of driving.  This coming weekend is another ETE workshop somewhere north of Cota Cota.  Looking forward to it!

We're now into winter here (southern hemisphere), and therefore the coldest months of the year are just ahead of us.  The ETE (Educación Teológica por Extensión) directors, René and Roberto, aren't total gluttons for punishment, so the previous two weekends (26-28 May to Cota Cota, and 2-4 June to Pachachaca) will be the last trips until September -- because in the Andes during winter it does get a bit nippy...

At about 5:00am it starts to get light, but there is little ice to be seen.  But by 7:00am each morning, this stream at Pachachaca was iced-over.   Not having a thermometer handy, I don't know how cold it actually was, but the last time I had felt such biting cold was when I lived in Canberra back in the late 80's, when -7.0 °C was common in August.  So I'd guess that a crisp June morning in Pachachaca is around -5.0 °C.

At 8:00am, René and a couple of the other men decided it was time for a shave and a freshen-up.  Down to the stream they went, just below the icy section (above).  With a bar of soap and a disposable razor, faces were shaved and hair got washed.  Talk about tough men!  I asked René how on earth he managed with the cold.  The secret, he said, was that if you are washing your face or upper body, is that you must keep your socks and boots on -- because if you do this bare-footed, all the energy from your body will immediately drain straight into the ground and you'll come down with an illness.  Likewise, he said, if you're washing your feet then you must make sure that your upper body is clothed and dry, to prevent immediate loss of energy or your 'vitality'.

That's just one example of the kind of health lore that many Peruvians subscribe to.  Of course, my reaction as a Euro-Australian was to think that energy flows and all that sort of thing are a bit on the 'alternative' side.  That they may be.  But never having bathed in a freezing Andean stream, I'd still be inclined to take René's advice anyway!  I might be 'Euro' in origin, but I'm definitely not one of the those Scandinavian ice-breaking skinny-dippers.

Driving back to Arequipa, René and the other brothers and sisters in the Hilux also had some conversations about the health benefits of drinking urine -- specifically that of donkeys and llamas.  The urine has to be fresh, I was assured, and it's good for curing diabetes and also COVID.  Stifling my cynicism, I asked whether the flavour was an issue.  René paused for just a second, and then said that the flavour wasn't important when you had such effective medicine.  Clearly we are from different planets.

Now it would be easy for me to guffaw at such ideas (and believe me, when it comes to donkey's urine, I do have a laugh -- inwardly!).  But here's the thing: if you're from a culture which has, since time immemorial, had to survive in such a hard and sparse landscape, what are you going to do for medicine, and how are you going to think about maintaining your health?  And these days, even when Western medical technology is available, it's simply not accessible for most Peruvians due to the cost.  So maybe I'd just better keep my guffawing to myself.

You also know you're on another planet when, above the doorway you have just entered, you are greeted by two dessicated hawks:

The building we were staying in belonged to the Pachachaca/Tisco municipality and not the church.  I asked my Quechua friends about the dead birds, and they weren't sure -- but it is something to do with keeping evil spirits out of the building.  Maybe some Australians aren't that different; horseshoes above doorways, anyone?  Anyway, one thing was certain: it had been very bad luck for the hawks.

None of the houses in these altitudes have any form of heating.  There are no trees (it's too high for trees or bushes to grow, at around 4.500 metres) and therefore no wood to spare for burning, and so the only fuel available is dried llama/alpaca dung.  But there's only enough of that for cooking.  During the daytime the sun gives plenty of warmth, but the during the nights you just have to rug up.  For most people, that means a mattress of alpaca hides.

Yes they smell fairly musty, but I can also tell you they are warm and very comfortable.  I use a sleeping bag on these trips, but you also have to add a couple of thick blankets over the top, and sleep fully clothed.  (That's my stylish frazada there with the zebras on it.)

Below: students warming up in the morning sun.

For lighting at night, many huts and houses now use solar panels and LED bulbs.  The municipal building has its own generator available, so here are a bunch of the guys figuring out how to get it running:

I would have thought they'd be dab hands at rigging all this up, but the extension lead without any plug and two bare wires did present a challenge.  After yours truly, with some experience at 'home wiring' (ahem) had a crack at it, we had ourselves some light and the meetings and classes could begin.

Above:  René (left) and Nelsondavid (right) selling course books to a student for the next term of study. 

On the Saturday morning of each of the trips, the students would head out into the surrounding countryside to visit the farms and share the Christian message.  It wasn't just 'Bible bashing', as we might call it; I was impressed with how René, for example, knew pretty-well everyone courtesy of his last 40 or so years of visiting these communities.  "And how is your mother?" "Ah, your uncle used to attend the church in Chivay, didn't he?"  Genuine concern for people's welfare alongside clear and succinct explanation of the gospel were the order of the day, along with an invitation to that evening's church service. 

Above: the IEP church building in Cota Cota.  Note the loudspeaker poking out of the building above the doorway.  It is common practice to broadcast a church service to the whole village or town.  We might look sideways at this, but the fact is that the local municipality and other community organisations do the very same thing.  It's just an effective way to let the whole community know something, and it doesn't seem to raise any eyebrows.

On the way back from Cota Cota (last weekend in May), Roberto directed me along some little-used tracks which took us out near the Condoroma dam.  Along the way, he and René reminisced how as younger men they used to go along these tracks on foot.  It would take them days to get anywhere.  Then motorcycles became the preferred mode of transport.  And now, finally, they were doing it in comfort in a 4x4!

Above (centre of picture): pre-Inca fort, supposed to be about 1100 years old.  It's situated on a hill in the centre of a valley, and has commanding views in all directions.

The drives home on these trips are always an education for me -- be it learning about the benefits of llama's urine, or reflecting on the weekend's services and classes, or discussing the challenges many of these believers face in their traditional Quechua communities.  And as the scenery rolls past... well, there is always a lot to be thankful for.

Salinas Huito is a small town on the edge of a high-altitude salt lake, named Laguna de Salinas, or the 'lake of salt'.  We have similar kinds of lakes in Australia, which like Laguna de Salinas are dry for most of the year, but when the rains arrive life just teems.  Unlike salt lakes in Australia, though, the altitude of Laguna de Salinas is about 4,300 metres, which means oxygen levels are getting down to about 1/2 those of sea level -- so that takes some getting used to.  On top of that, the nights are often below zero, even in summer.

Above:  Wary vicuña resting on the lake shore, Laguna de Salinas.

Last weekend (22-23 April, 2023) I drove with Peruvian pastor mate Edgar to Salinas Huito for an ETE (Educación Teológica por Extensión) gathering.  Students from Salinas Huito and Salinas Moche (the town on the other side of the lake), as well as a few from further afield, got together to organise their studies for the next semester.

On the Sunday morning I was invited to preach (typically I know nothing of these plans until I turn up; it's all organised in a 'seat of the pants' kind of style).  In many ways I would rather hear our Quechua brothers teach from the Scriptures, but (i) they insist, (ii) I need to learn to relate to them, and (iii) I should model what we're trying to teach and get across.  So on these occasions I cave in and inflict my basic (but improving) Spanish upon them.  It's not like Spanish is their preferred language, anyway (they much prefer to chat with each other in Quechua), but that's our only common language, so Spanish it is.

I spoke from Revelation 7; "That sounds a bit ambitious," you say.  But (i) it's a great passage about God's age-old purpose of having a chosen people from every tongue, nation, tribe, people and language (v.9) who declare the glory of the One who has redeemed them, and (ii) it helps our Quechua brothers and sisters see how passages which are normally clouded with hocus-pocus interpretations are, in fact, clear declarations of what it means to live as God's people in a world which stands against them.

"Not many in that church service," I hear you think.  You're right; that was because the local authorities had called a community meeting for Sunday morning, and they issue fines to anyone who doesn't attend!  While I can't comment for sure on this instance, it has to be said that this is how Christians in these remote communities are often treated; things are often quite deliberately stacked against them.

We've just got through a very good wet season (normally Dec--Mar.) here in Peru, and so there has been plenty of water finding its way into Laguna de Salinas.  This, in turn, means there is plenty of wildlife on the water: flamingos, geese, and ducks in abundance.

Above:  The green pasture of Laguna de Salinas, with the active volcano Ubinas in the distance.  For years it's been throwing up a column of ash and shaking the land with its rumblings, but for the moment it's gone quiet.  Who knows how long that will last?

Below:  A pair of geese with this year's offspring, heading off to the water before the bloke with the camera got any closer.

With summer and autumn being the wet season here, it's also the warmer weather.  Still below zero at night, and plenty of frost on the cars in the morning.  When I muttered something about the cold to one of our Quechua sisters, she said, "Hah!  You should have been here last July!"  Um, no thanks; it was cold enough sleeping fully clothed, with beanie and gloves, and two thick blankets over my sleeping bag.

Below:  A peak to the north of the lake, with permanent ice stuck to its sides.

Edgar himself was so glad to be able to come along on the trip.  Pastoring a church in Arequipa, but originally from a rural community outside Cusco, he really enjoyed the opportunity to mix again with Quechua believers.

Below:  ETE director René (left), Daniel (Presbyterian missionary from Korea, center), and Edgar (right), organising something or other.

Above:  Evening light across the lake.  For me, it was a strange thing to consider that at the lakeside were were above the clouds, but still had peaks higher than us.  In the distance are the peaks known as Picchu Picchu, rising to about 5,600m, with Arequipa over the other side, about 3,300m below.  Everything was cold, beautiful, and silent.

Sunday after lunch we wound our way back to Arequipa -- a 3-hour trip which takes you down from 4,300m to 2,300m.  It really is a 'vertical' landscape.

We had the usual load of folks to drop off at their farms on the way home, which took us on some less-used tracks around the lake (below).  Edgar got home about as tired as I did, but already asking when the next trip might be, and could he come along?  Well, of course he can!