Ademir's Wedding

Rocio's borther Ademir got married! Twice!
Well to be fair despite being a Mormon he did get married twice to the same woman. The first ceremony was here in Huancayo and we all attended. Michael wore he special silk suit, probably for the last time as it is getting very small for him now. Still, I am very glad we bought it as he has looked very good in it each time he has worn it.
There was a very nice ceremony at the local Mormon temple and then dancing and fried chicken for those who wanted either. Then Ademir and his now wife Shirley went off to Lima to the religious ceremony the following day at the main Mormon temple for Peru. Everything in Peru is centralised in Lima.
Morons don't drink alcohol so there was none at the ceremony in Huncayo but there was certainly plenty at the after party at our house.
Michael slept through almost all of it




Here is a picture of Bob who wasn't going to drink. It is officially titled "How the hell did that happen"




Plenty of others had a bit to drink too

Altitude

Nothing much about Mike in this post I’m afraid.
Bob and I went for a little walk up one of the nearest of the hills that surround Huancayo. Jus t like the other times walking the hills here for me the problem isn’t tiredness but lack of oxygen. We got a taxi to the edge of the city and started up through the last houses, looking very strange to the locals I guess, and with a couple of rests made it into the fields. It was soon getting very hard and we had to walk a few minutes and then rest a few, tying to get our breaths back. The air here once you get out of the pollution of the city is very clear and so the mountains always look close. We spent the next hour or so apparently gaining a lot of height over the city without getting any nearer to the peak we intended to climb. Every time we stopped we could look back and see more and more of the city laid out below.



After a much struggle we made it out into the wild mountains and were ready for the lonely climb to the peak when we came across a village with families strolling around and for some reason carrying huge bundles of wood. Again we must have been a strange sight to them. We struck out again across more fields (Why put potato fields up here when there is plenty of valley below?) and fought our way apparently without oxygen up up again into the wilds where it started to rain and it looked like our day would be cut short. About now we got a phone call from Rocio asking where Mike’s immunisation records were. By this time it looked as if the quickest way off the mountain would be to go up a bit more and take a different ridge to go down, so we carried on a bit, very sad that all our pain and struggle would be in vain. As it turned out the rain never quite got going and we carried on up. We found a lonely road going towards the peak and small tree planting project, perhaps in progress perhaps abandoned. I took one baby tree in our bag with us as a reminder of our walk. As we gained more and more height of course we had less and less oxygen in the air and we were really struggling nearing the top. I particularly remember a small sheepfold that we rested on as soon as we reached it, and rested on at its far end too, perhaps 10 meters away as by then we couldn’t breathe again by then. The scramble up rocks to the summit was ridiculously hard taking a couple of steps and resting a couple of minutes and I really believe that had the mountain been even a bit taller we would not had made it.
At the top we ate cheese sandwiches with dried up cheese and had gulps of fruit juice, one of the most enjoyable meals I have ever had, and we planted my little tree right on the peak where one day it will grow to be the tree in the silliest most exposed spot of any tree in Peru.






The way down was a great relief we could walk and walk without stopping but any tiniest rise brought us to a halt and when we finally got home we were almost unable to get up the stairs.
Another fine day out I think.

Quinceanera

Today we were all invited to Cousin Diana's 15th birthday party, a big deal here in Peru, something like a Jewish bat mitzvah. She had a big party in a local disco with her formal partner for the event and about 6 other besuited and dressed couples to receive them as they entered, a mariachi band to serenade them, formal waltzing with the friends and relatives, speeches and then an all night disco.
Rocio, Mike and I stayed for the Mariachis (which I love) and the food (lots of sweeties so not too bad for us veggies) and then went home.



Here is Mike enjoying his sweet biscuits by spreading them all over Mum.




Bob stayed all night and apparently danced "Perreia" with one girl and asked another out. I believe he did have a couple of drinks at some point. I also believe that videos exist showing more of the night than Bob remembers and when I get hold of copies I'll surely share them with you all until then here is earlier in the evening when the waltzing was going on. You can just glimpse the birthday girl dressed as a princess through the throng.

ID card

Michael finally has his Peruvian ID card. Very important this even for a baby. It's not easy to travel on an intercity bus for example without one. We had all sorts of hassle getting it of course. The local authorities didn't want to accept Michael's birth certificate even though it was issued by the Peruvian government in the embassy in London and they didn't believe he was a Jenkins despite seeing my gringo face in the office. Then they managed to spell his name worngly on the fist one they printed. Still we got it in the end and her he is showing it of on the bus ont he way home.



Rocio Mike and I went into town and as is our custom stopped off for a drink, banana juice for Mike, Milky coffee for me and fruit juice for Rocio. Here is me trying to take a picture in the mirror.




Rocio’s family are hat makers and so as a present for her from Bob and my trip to Bolivia I bought her a Bolivian hat. This is the style worn in La Paz this year, a development of the bowler hats Bolivians have traditionally worn I guess. Rocio always but always looks good in hats

Football and slapping

Football is getting to be a regular event around here. Not just Bob and Jean Fernando playing their "Contact sport" version but for my little boy Michael who loves chasing the ball around the patio. He loves the version where someone holds his hands and he leads them around, like here with Kunkle Bob




or the version where he is in his walker and can't ever actually get to the ball as the walker always bounces it away from him. We call this Davros Football and he can be happy playing this almost on his own for ages.



He is so very good at balance nowadays, it won't be long before he's walking on his own. He sits up woth no problems and climbs around in his play pen (Never was a cot for him, he refuses to sleep in it) and we both love it when he goes on my shoulders. I hold on to his funny legs and he balances and spends his time laughing, slapping my head and trying to give my ears love bites.

Walker

We have bought Michael a Baby Walker like the one he had in England. It is great for him and he toddles about the house in fine style. Of course it gives him access to all sorts of stuff he shouldn’t have like the gas cooker and the shelf of glasses but we are gradually adapting things to him. He is so capable of standing and walking holding my hands that the walker is no problem for him. His crawling is still not great, mostly as he doesn’t get much opportunity to practice. The rough wooden floors or bare concrete floors her are not very easy for him.



Here is a bonus picture of Mike in his cot/playpen practicing bashing things with his beloved big white stick.



Michael now has four teeth. Two up and two down at the front and I'm trying to get a good picture of them but he moves so fast. The poor thing also has several others on the way. Somedays he does seem to be suffering and some days he doesn't want to eat. It must be sore for him

Trout, Anis and Churros

We went for a day out on Sunday with Rocio's friend Zenaida, to a small town called Concepcion. It is famous around here for its trout farms and it's a pleasant place to stroll about.
We did arrive very late in the day when most people were getting ready to go home but still we found a lovely restaurant for Bob and Zenaida to have trout and we sat in the warm sun in the gardens. It was most civilised and relaxed.
On the way we had bought Michael a white stick. He is always so anxious to get his hands on his Mum's cane and cries when he can't have it because she is using it herself. To be honest I use the cane a lot when we are out and about together as I constantly need to stop people from bumping into Rocio. It is amazing to me how many people will simply crash into her as we walk arm in arm. Somehow they never happen to crash into me. How is that? So I hold Rocio's cane across in front of me covering her. If someone wants to accidentally crash into her they must get through me and the cane first, and they still do it, not without a small bruise and a strange mark on their clothes from the dirty end of the cane but they do. Funny it is often teenagers and business men, posh women and drunks who bump her. Never women with their babies, old men or women selling stuff on the street. I am now very good at predicting who will try to bump her.
So Michael wanted a white stick and we bought him one of the mock military batons that school children carry around here to show that they are prefects (They get silly military braids for the shoulders too) He loved it immediately and here he is posing with it in the gardens of the restaurant.




He is a danger with it and he often bumps himself or anyone around, but he loves it.

Here is Zenaida giving Rocio a relaxing massage




Here is Bob also looking quite relaxed




On leaving the restaurant we were each given shot glass of Anise (Rocio drank mine) and this went down so well with Bob, reminding him of breakfast times in Domingo Perez, that we decided he should go to the shop to buy a full bottle of Anis and help Rocio and Zenaida drink it all before we got the bus back to Huancayo. This done we got into the bus, a small combi of course about the size of a VW camper and so did about 30 other people. Rocio and I were squashed into one seat sharing with 4 or 5 children who were in danger of suffocating otherwise and Rocio ran a kind of improvised crèche there. Bob was over by the door with Zenaida on one knee and apparently an unknown man on the other all squashed in together. The bus got so full that the young man who collects the money could no longer actually enter and had to hold on outside, earning him the nickname Superman. There was much singing and joking and complaining and it did seem like a loooooong way back but these are the cultural experiences that we tourists come to Peru for.

We had churros on the street on the way home, delicious and messy and they made Michael's eyes go a bit funny.

On being a vegetarian in Peru

Mike, Rocio, Bob and I went to a Vegetarian Restaurant in Huancayo. There are so many of them, which is always surprising for me as no-one else seems to understand vegetarianism here. I am thoroughly sick to death of explaining that I don't eat meat, not a bit of it, no not chicken 'cos that's meat, no not fish 'cos that's meat, no I don't want a bit of meat mixed in, no I don't think it's OK to just eat around the meat etc etc etc just to receive my meal with bacon in it (Ask Bob about the Veggie Restaurant on the Bolivia border!) So it's great that in a smallish city like Huancayo there are 30 or 40 veggie restaurants at my guess.
They are mostly very similar, ie the same menu at every one and it is all as very very bland as they can possibly make it and the toilets are always swimming with piss and broken ( A Peruvian tradition) but at least we can eat cheaply and without bacon.
Here is Michael messing around and not concentrating on his food at Nuevo Horizonte.



Bonus picture of Michael eating my phone instead.





The good news is we have recently found a veggie restaurant run by Hare Krishnas. You can always trust the Krishnas I have found. They cook strict veggie food. They always take care to make it nice and tasty and they keep themselves and their places very clean and welcoming. What's more there is some chance of getting a curry in Huancayo! I can't wait.

Catching up

So I am going to try to get back into Michael's Photo a day. I do have some photos of Michael in the Jungle and a few after we got back here to Huancayo and it seem too much to go that far back and try to piece it all together, so I'm going to do photo (or more) a day with what I have until I catch up. The photos are more of me than Mike, but that's what I have.
This however is Mike and I just before going to Mentushari




I spent a day with the men of the village trying to mend the road to Mentuchari which had suffered a mud slide. It’s hard messy work shovelling mud.



It was all in vain as the next day the local council sent a huge digger up the road and pushed all our good work into the river. Also next time it rained (happens a lot in the rain forest) their work was covered with mud too and the road was blocked again. That's life in the rain forest.

Here I am taking the shells off coffee grains so they can be dried and roasted. It takes hours but is good work as you can litterally smell the coffee to come.



Here is a view from the top of the coffee plantation showing the mud road and a bit of Mentushari City Centre



and here is the lovely coffee hulled, dried, roasted and ready for grinding and drinking. MMMMmmm I love Mentushari.




As a footnote. Can you guess which coffee the good people of Mentushari drink? Seeing as they grow some of the best coffee in the world. Fresh, tasty and organic. Yes, that's right they buy Nescafe!