29th June 2009
Had Rachel's English students round last night for Borscht (beetroot soup has been a bit of a long-standing joke - the Peruvians think we eat really weird stuff!!) and pancakes. It was a good night, though it has to be said that Borscht wasn't their favourite. Did take the opportunity to ply them with our jam and they couldn't get enough of it - I even made 4 impromtu sales!

25th June 2009
Spent a very pleasant afternoon in Huacachina at our friend Beth's place with our friend Naomi from Lima. We did wonder whether we were going to get there, however, since a teacher's strike in the middle of the central highway (equivalent of the M25, only smaller and less round) meant we were held up for ages in a huge stationary traffic jam. We switched transport to a more nimble mototaxi (motocycle ricksaw) and eventually found a way through. The country seems to be in revolt at the moment. Peru's other main road, which leads from Lima to Huancayo, is also closed at the moment, since striking miners have filled it with rocks. Add to that the political troubles in the north.....

23rd June 2009
Not the best day to have the latest bout of diarrhoea since I spent it miles from anywhere in the middle of the countryside on technical visits with Paz y Esperanza to plan the construction of... yes, you've guessed it... their toilets! Fortunately, I didn't have it too bad and managed to wait until we got back to civilization. Despite this, it was an interesting time visiting 11 of the 40 families who will be receiving their all-in-one water filtration, shower, kitchen tap and toilet block combo next week. The local water supply is so dirty, so it will make an enormous difference to health. One family were even breeding fish in their well, the same one they used for drinking water!

22nd June 2009
Got some feedback from our fruit-based products project market researcher in Canete, the large town north of us, about the papaya and banana jam and it's good - all who got a free taste said it was delicious and one person even insisted on buying a pot at a higher price than I was expecting. Our researcher wants 15 more pots for tomorrow, this time to sell! I think, at this stage of the project, we'll have to arrange to split the profit 50:50 between the vendor and the project.
Also, have spent 24 hours cooking up some tasty and tangy orange and lemon cordial for the fruit-based products project. Peruvians seem to be addicted to sweet sugary fizzy drinks, which aren't cheap. Our cordial would satisfy the cravings, contain real fruit, and be a whole lot cheaper (it's around £1.44 for 3 litres of fizzy drink here, whereas we could make 3 litres of squash for around 14p). There are, however, real doubts about whether it would succeed, since the fizzy drink market would be tough to crack and it is simply easier to open a bottle of fizzy than it is to mix cordial and water (which would need to have been previously boiled and cooled). More product and market testing coming up...
On a different note, I took Fiorela into the Techo Propio office this morning to introduce her to the lady there and also to get up to speed on some recent changes to the governmental building scheme. It now means that each family in the housing project has to pay a minimum of around £158 in theory, though the technical team do not see a way of making a seismically-safe house for this amount - they are asking for each family to top-up the government grant by around £450 - a huge amount. There is also now no choice - brick houses have to have concrete rooves. All in all, it means that Fiorela is going into the project with fresh doubts about the scheme.

21st June 2009
A really interesting day at La Calera (see entry on 10th June), one of the largest fruit and poultry producing centres in South America. It was enormous! Unfortunately, having tweaked a leg muscle yesterday at basketball training, I had to pass up the opportunity to climb on board one of Peru's famous paso de paso horses, which walk and run in a very odd way - with their feet splayed out - with the idea that the ride is much smoother, but Rachel had a go and enjoyed herself for a while. It was good to hear about the social side of their business too. Apparently, they support projects and NGOs all up the south coast. I have asked Auturo for more information...
Church was as normal in the evening though, being Father's Day, we did have a small dinner afterwards together. I also got to do a taste test session on the jam for the new fruit-based products project and the overall results for testing the market in Chincha (about 40 people) look promising.

20th June 2009
No, I haven't joined the WI, but I have started making jam for the new fruit-based products project! First batch to be made was papaya and banana, so we'll see how it goes...
We also spent some time in the evening with the family we have been piloting the savings scheme with. They have really been through the mill recently, having now been robbed yet again (when will they get their new house?!). Nevertheless, they have managed to pay us back ahead of schedule and so we've decided to help them again with some start-up capital for a new project - furniture. All things going well, we should get out money back within 4 weeks, before we leave Chincha and, in the meantime, it will help them to start the ball rolling.
As part of the deal, they're also going to take my jam to other nearby cities and test the market there for me. It seems like it's going to be popular - they had one taste and immediately asked me for 15 pots so that they could go and sell it!!

17th June 2009
I spent the day down in the countryside around Pisco volunteering with a local Peruvian NGO, Paz y Esperanza. It was great to be part, at least for a while, of a already-up-and-running project and see how things we done. Working with their project manager, I went out visiting families who have received water and sanitation systems to collect water samples and do a mid-term evaluation of the effectiveness of the water filter design (a combination of sponge, charcoal, sand and cloth shoved inside a fizzy drinks bottle). I also got to see part of a community workshop about the filters, explaining how to construct and maintain them. It was great to see how this was done (with a lot of humour and fun) and see that the community really responded to the workshop, indicating that the NGO have built excellent relationships there and are highly respected.

16th June 2009
A bit of a rushed day going to Lima and back, but worth it to see our friends there and hand off to them some things to take back to the UK for us on their forthcoming trip. Now that we're thinking about moving, we can see that luggage is going to be quite a headache...

15th June 2009
It wasn't so much the alarm-clock that was the shock this morning as the very strong tremor than followed a minute or two after it. We were practically shaken from the bed and later found some articles the other side of the room from where we had left them the night before. It appears that the epicentre was close by (22km south-east of us) and it was a 5.4 - definitely the strongest we've felt since we've been here.

14th June 2009
So, joined the lads for a basketball training session this morning and it was great fun! I'm pretty rusty, but with a bit of hard work and some extra fitness, I'll be able to hold my own. I also will have to get used to playing centre, since I am now in the unusual position of being the tallest player on the court!
Also finished the next piece of research I've been doing, this time on micro-enterprise possibilities centred around adding value to agricultural produce. On paper, it looks promising, with the ridiculously low price of fruit and vegetables resulting in low production costs and the low technology involved meaning it can be easily accomplished in the home. The only snag is that generally Chincha people have very ingrained food habits and are resistant to trying anything new, so it would take some carefully planned product launch and free sampling initiatives to break into the market, if there is a market at all. This could only be ascertained by making some sample products and seeing what the feedback is. So, with this in mind, I'm soon to be running off a batch of passion fruit cordial and orange and lemon cordial (which would be much healthier and cheaper than the almost infinite quantities of fizzy drinks that are consumed here), a papaya and banana jam and, as something a little different, zapallo (a vegetable in the pumpkin family) chutney. Watch this space...

13th June 2009
Got picked up by Daniel this afternoon and taken to the coliseum, where the Chincha basketball team where playing an exhibition match with a group of Christian basketballers from Texas. It was a good event and well-put together, but the game itself was a whitewash. I did get a chance to speak to one of the Chincha players though and have found out about training times since I found myself really missing the game while I was watching it.
The event youth event at Daniel's church went well. They have a lot of people with a lot of talent and were able to put on quite a show. I hope that my talk didn't let the side down too much!

12th June 2009
For those of you who are very keen followers of the news, you may have picked up on the fact that there are some political tensions in Peru at the moment that have spilled over into violence. Don't worry - it's well away from us, in the northern jungle area where there is a tension between the government-backed multinational oil companies wanting land that is part of areas used by traditional jungle communities. In response, we had a prayer vigil tonight at the church. It started at 8pm, so we trundled along for then. The Pastor himself turned up nearer 9pm and by the time we had decided to call it a night we had managed maybe 5 minutes of prayer, which was a little disappointing.

11th June 2009
Finished writing up some research on the possibility of breeding poultry in Chincha within the domestic context. While this is a popular pasttime here, sadly there does not seem to be any room to expand it beyond having the number of birds that can be fed on family leftovers since the competition from large-scale and intensive commercial farmers is just too great.

10th June 2009
I was visited tonight by Daniel and his friend, Auturo, who have asked me to speak at the youth event in their church on Saturday night. I was a bit reluctant given the short-notice and the time it takes me to prepare, but have agreed.
As a swap, Auturo is going to show Rachel and I around the place where he works, La Calera, a massive commercial fruit and poultry breeding farms near Chincha that employs over 2000 people. It should be interesting, especially given the research I'm doing on poultry at the moment. Apparently, they send most of their produce to the UK, where it appears on the shelves of M&S!

7th June 2009
Took the opportunity of being in Lima to visit Lima Vineyard. It was only our second time there, but even still it was so nice to be back somewhere that felt familiar and see some friendly faces.

6th June 2009
Had a lovely day in Lima (yes, it is possible!) with Kat and Zara, two girls who we got to know through our Birmingham Vineyard homegroup whilst we were doing our training to come out here. They've been doing their medical elective in Bolivia, then travelling to see Machu Picchu as tourists and flying out of Lima to get home. We had 24 hours with them, which involved such luxuries as Starburcks, Canasta Games, an amazing light and water display at Peru's Parque de la Reserva and crepes and waffles. Not very appropriate, but a nice way nonetheless to celebrate our 1 year anniversary on the ground in Chincha!! It was lovely to see them and hear a bit of news from back home and just generally have some people to talk to. Our love goes back with them to all the folks in Birmingham.

3rd June 2009
The family that we've been piloting a saving scheme with haven't been so good at paying in recently, but with good reason. We've heard that they've been robbed twice in the last 3 weeks. We hope that they get their new house soon, so that they have more security. More alarmingly, we also heard that one of their daughters was abducted by 3 men and taken away to be raped and probably killed. Fortunately, she managed to get away before anything could happen, but it was a mighty scare for her and the family. Please pray for them.

2nd June 2009
The cycle of drawing up reports that investigates future projects continue and this time one that has the potential to be a success story - breeding guinea pigs (cuy). As the national dish, over 70 million of them are eaten in Peru each year and their high protein and low fat content means they are an healthy choice as recognised by rising exports. There are not eaten much on the coast (including Chincha), but general consultation suggests that this is because there is no steady supply rather than for any other reason. I have designed a small project, involving 11 families which, with start-up costs of around £150 is likely to bring in approximately £530 per annum. It looks like a winner and could be scaled-up easily enough if demand is high enough.
I also examined the idea of breeding rabbits in the same way, but have concluded that they are not that well-suited to the Chincha climate and there are higher investment risks associated with breeding them.

29th May 2009
Completed a preliminary report on the idea of doing a PEPE (pre-school) programme here in Chincha. This is something the Pastor announced we'd be doing in July, but looking in more depth at the programme I cannot see how this will be possible given the current circumstances. I think it needs to be parked for a while until we have resources to set it up, resources to run it, people to staff it and a general vision in the church to be doing something social - just little obstacles like that.
Currently, people just aren't interested in doing anything that doesn't directly benefit themselves, so I'll next turn my attentions to researching micro-enterprise schemes that will boost their own income. For folk to think of others it is going to have to take a long-term commitment on behalf of the church leadership to teaching and modelling it - it's a culture that is deeply embedded and it will take a lot to shift it.

27th May 2009
Time to preach again, and I decided to follow up on my last recent sermon. Rather disappointing to find that no-one could remember any of it, but I enjoyed myself speaking tonight - largely without notes for the first time. It was also only bite-sized, so hopefully people's concentration levels won't have dipped so far that they won't remember a word of it. One has to wonder if sermons really are the best means to teach a group of largely uneducated people, who are just not used to listening for so long. I suspect that perhaps they are not, but there is nothing I can do to change that.

23rd May 2009
Made it back to Chincha in time for the Youth Banquet in the evening, which we had been dreading (knowing the shambles it was in the run-up and all the grief it had caused various people). It turned out to be the best of a bad effort, but not quite the roaring success the Pastor would like to believe it was. They'd made a real effort with decorating the area and preparing for the dinner, but that fact that the main course didn't arrive until after 10pm, which was after most people had slept through a long sermon from a speaker who clearly hadn't been briefed very well, didn't help matters. The only people new to church had already left by then and it was poorly supported by our own disaffected youth - only 5 turned up. Still, it could have been much worse.

22nd May 2009
We've stayed for a couple of extra days to have a bit of a break and chat more about the project and future possibilities. We have been invited to Huancayo for the long-term but, for a number of reasons, we are as yet unsure about this offer and will need to spend time thinking, praying and talking with families and friends.

20th May 2009
More family visits. It's so refreshing to speak with people who are so grateful for what they've received. In Chincha there is a general sense that the people believe they deserve all the help they can get, almost to the extent that they consider it their right. Here, in Huancayo, the story is completely different and it is abundantly clear in the relationships.
Introduced Margaret and Fiorela (and a local lad, Amilkar) to Catan tonight before they had to take the bus back to Lima. It was a good time.

19th May 2009
Off to see the project - a training centre that teaches skills to the unemployed, mainly school-leavers, so that they have a greater chance of finding paid work - and it has come on in leaps and bounds since I was there last. I was very impressed. We also got to hear from various people throughout the day who were commenting time and time again about the real difference it has made in their lives. They have been doing it for so long now that the children they first helped with their education are now in positions where they are willing and able to financially help the next generation, which is testimony in itself to the impact the project has had on so many lives.
We also visited some families associated with the Trust. They were clearly very poor and in need of much help, but as Rachel pointed out, after our experience in Chincha it was strange thinking about people in poverty when they we living in a house (though it was often only 1 room, rented and in poor condition).

18th May 2009
Picked up Fiorela early in the morning and we set of for Lima, where she had a meeting with Pepe about the situation in Chincha. Then, together with Rachel, we went to the bus station to meet Margaret and board the bus for Huancayo. We've got a few days up there to visit the Peru Children's Trust project that I volunteered with over 6 years ago. It's going to be interesting to see what has changed. To get there we have to go up above 4,800 metres, but I am pleased to report that I coped well with the altitude.

17th May 2009
Leaving Rachel in Lima with our friends, David and Naomi, I hot-footed it back to Chincha to make final preparations for the sermon I was to give that night. I spoke on the subject of how to study the Bible and taught a very simple technique that doesn't even rely on reading it (since some people can't). It seemed to be well received, but the work was rather undone by the Pastor getting up immediately afterwards and telling people than I had just taught them only how to interpret the Bible and they had to come and listen to him if they wanted to know what it really says. Ho hum!

16th May 2009
Up in Lima for the wedding of our friends Jaime and Anna - a lovely day in the back gardens of a big posh house in a rich suburb.

15th May 2009
Had a nice lunch with Margaret and Beth, our friend from Huacachina. Margaret was down for a couple of days to try and push through the paperwork for the housing project. It still isn't done. We've also learnt that, to cover a gap in the finances, an extra premium is going to be charged to the families if they want what they were offered - a concrete roof - otherwise they'll have to have a light roof (bamboo, mud, plastic and a thin skim of concrete). It's news like this that makes us glad we've passed on responsibility to someone else.

11th May 2009
The weather has changed - I'm in long trousers for the first time in months and I've got a cold!

10th May 2009
Lots of time spent today delicately icing the cakes, only for Rachel to be told by the Pastor at church that we could cut it up in the back room before dishing it out. In the end, it did make it out into the main room before being cut up, but it wasn't mentioned through the microphone and we were left feeling that all the expense and hard work had been for nothing, but we are beginning to learn to expect this kind treatment which makes it a little easier to deal with. The church folk themselves did enjoy it and some were horrified to learn that the chocolate cake contained beetroot! Only 50 people came, so we'll be eating cake all week!

9th May 2009
Peruvian Mother's Day (Dia de la Madre) tomorrow so I've been busy all day shopping and then cooking 6 cakes (enough to feed 100!!) for the special service we'll have at church tomorrow night. Mother's Day is huge here (bigger than Easter), so the pressure is on to bake some nice cakes!

7th May 2009
We spent the after with a family in the church who just poured out to us the grievances they have with it and, more specifically, the Pastor. There seems to be a mini-revolt going on, but we're going to try and stay out of it. In a sweet, but alarming, way we discovered that some people are only still involved in the church because we are and when we leave they will follow suit.
We went back to Pisco for the evening for our first Peruvian stag and hen night (or goodbye to singleness night as they call it here), with Jaime marrying Anna, a American who grew up in Bolivia, next weekend. It was a lovely night at a beach house with a Bar-B-Q. Then, Jaime and Anna had to answer a series of questions from those who had gathered, some of them very embarrassing, which they handled them very well. It was a late night by the time we made it back to Chincha.

6th May 2009
I raised the question of who was responsible for what with the Pastor this morning and it turns out that in his new leadership structure he has centralised power still further so that everything the church does is his decision. The Social Action leader would then be responsible for merely executing his decision. Fiorela and us, as connected with the Convention, have no role to play. He does not want us to come up with ideas or plans or do anything, though we can be invited to do things that he thinks of himself. I got the strong feeling that, now he knows we are going, he is not being afraid to show his true colours. It's going to be tough to stay around until the end of July with this attitude, but I shall be kept busy doing research for the Convention and also working with Paz y Esperanza.

5th May 2009
Up early to go to the Pastor's house and run the literature past him before I got it printed. Found out, to my surprise, that he has not yet agreed to have the workshops (despite announcing them on Sunday) and I would have to wait for their leadership meeting that night. I phoned after it had finished and discovered that they had changed things around, which is fine, but had the ring of pettiness about it. It also raised questions about who was responsible for what.
Went to Pisco for lunch with Jaime, another architect and Regional Director of a Peruvian NGO - Paz y Esperanza. He has heard that we are leaving and why and seems keen to have me on board as a part-time volunteer for a couple of months while I am finishing in Chincha. There is also the possibility of staying longer. They are mainly working with irrigation and grassroots community development through skills-sharing and tackling social problems such as domestic abuse. Would certainly be great to have a closer look at what they are doing.

4th May 2009
On the back of yesterday's announcement, I arranged some time with Fiorela (who I have been tasked with training up to replace us in the housing project and other project that the convention will be doing in Chincha) and the new Social Action leader in the church to discuss how to plan for the workshops. We had a productive time and covered some basics on project management and produced a list of responsibilities. I went home to produce the literature.

3rd May 2009
After Margaret had previously spoken to me about it, the pastor announced tonight that a group would be coming down to speak on Disaster Preparedness and Swine Flu (since the community are living in fear of it at the moment) next Friday.

2nd May 2009
Having found a frisbee (the only one in Peru?), we had a game with the youth in one of the communities today and it was a great time. Lots of requests to play again next week and the youth from our church did a good job of getting alongside the ones who came from the community. We're going to play again next week!

1st May 2009
All change! We had a leaders' meeting tonight at which the Pastor presented a new way of working - which would have seen us involved in meetings 6 nights a week and with clashes on other nights. When saying that it was impossible for us to follow the new working pattern, he removed us from leading our homegroup, which is rather sad. Now we won't even be able to attend as it is on a night that we can't make due to other commitments.

30th April 2009
Pepe and Margaret came down and we managed to have a meeting with the Pastor to arrange a programme for handing over our responsibilities to others. We're letting go of Social Action (to distance ourselves from the housing project, as agreed with Stuart) and a few other responsibilities now, but we'll keep on with our homegroup until we leave as well as singing and preaching sometimes.
We also we part of a meeting with all the housing project families to open the Technical Team's new office and that was used as an opportunity to explain that we had done our part in helping them with their situations and their documents and now we were leaving the hands of the Technical Team to do the actual construction.

26th April 2009
Time for our annual visit from Stuart, the boss of South America, and his wife. Unfortunately, Rachel was ill in bed all day and it was left to me to chat about our situation. I presented the facts (church with no vision for social action, Pastor preaching against us from the pulpit and a housing project where our architect has already tried to replace us and made it clear that we are not wanted - seems he rather pay someone to do our work) and Stuart agreed with our assessment that it is time to call it a day in Chincha. He suggested that we move on as soon as possible, which would be the easiest option, but we want to stay until the end of July to see through Rachel's English course and the saving scheme with the family; work with our house group to raise up a replacement leader and see one of the houses built that we have spent so long fighting for!

25th April 2009
Had a phonecall from Techo Propio this morning inviting us to a meeting of all the constructors. It was an informative session, at which the Housing Ministry explained some streamlining in the processes; the basic requirements of housing; the system of paperwork for claiming the government grant after the construction is completed; the fact that they were going to be doing more random checks to pick up on rogue constructors (very necessary!); the fact that nothing can be reused from the previous house (which limits the extent of participation) and, shock horror, the fact that our architect is still not on top of the figures. Rather than having to pay 3,350 soles (news that was broken to the families fairly recently), the truth is that they have to pay 5,860!! There was also a characterisation of a bad constructor, which included delaying for 6 months! It is clear that the speaker found this delay wholly unacceptable and should make our architect feel a little uncomfortable since we've had families ready to go for over 8 months now. We certainly feel ashamed to have been involved in a project that has delayed so much, even if the end result will be worth it in the end.

23rd April 2009
We've taken the decision to help a local family financially (and not because of the Pastor's last sermon!) They were having some communication difficulties between them with the result that one of the daughters has not had her university fees paid for this year. She is 4 years into her degree and all this effort and investment would have come to nothing if we had not stepped in and paid her first month after coming to an understanding with the family that we would work out a repayment scheme with them. It transpires that there is a real need for a savings scheme, since the family don't trust themselves to have the money lying around in the house and the university has recently changed its rules so that you can't pay in regular smaller amounts. Without access to banking facilities, we're going to act as their bank, where they can save and pay for the university education in one hit. We're well aware that it's a risk on our part, but it is a family we know well and I'm confident that it will work well.

19th April 2009
A difficult night at church. The subject of the Pastor's sermon was giving and, unfortunately, he used it as a vehicle for attacking social action (there was none in the New Testament apparently) and the housing project in particular (we shouldn't give unless we give to everyone, otherwise we create jealousies). He then rounded it off by talking in glowing terms about missionaries who come and give food and money to others (and strongly implying that this approach is the one that Rachel and I should be adopting). It doesn't seem that our talk with Pepe and Margaret a fortnight ago has really stuck in his mind and such an attitude from the pulpit cannot help but call our whole placement here into question.

15th April 2009
Confirmed today with the local council that there is, in fact, no system operating at the moment for changing the emergency housing grants. It's possible in theory, but not in practice.

13th April 2009
I have just discovered that the local council is advising people to change their emergency housing grants so that they join it with the Techo Propio government building grant that we will be using. This runs contrary to all we have heard recently has been suggesting that the government is no longer giving out emergency housing grants (despite the fact that lots of people are still waiting to receive help after the earthquake) to anyone, Technical Teams included. It makes me wonder why they are giving this advice - do they know something we don't? In the meantime, it seems that Lanty wants to ditch it. This will be a topic of the meeting tonight between Lanty and the donors, but if the grant isn't being released I happen to agree that the risk is too great, but we need to help the families that we'll be letting down rather than just right them off.

12th April 2009
Easter Day is not a big thing in Chincha and is much like any other Sunday. In our church, however, we did things a little differently by buying and cooking amongst us as a Pastoral Team a dinner for the rest of the church. We made sopa seca y papa a la huancaina (dry soup and potato in the style of the woman from huancayo - why is better than it sounds!!) and it seemed to be well received. Certainly the church was full, but it's always the way when their is free food or some kind of handout. In general, the people here are accustomed to receive (and see it as a right) and haven't yet learnt to give of themselves and their resources. This makes running a church a tricky business!

11th April 2009
Heard today that Lanty, the architect, is in Lima for a meeting to formalise the relationship and the shape of the project between his technical team and the project donors. Unfortunately, for us, the communication blackout continues! There are some enormous questions outstanding, mainly over finances and building with the emergency grant which have the potential to completely alter the shape of the project at this late stage. If Lanty and the donors cannot reach agreement, then the project is back to square one without an architect or an engineer (which would be very frustrating and serves to underline the fact that this framework should have been one of the first things set up).

9th April 2009
It took 1.5 days, but I have finally found the one pair of trainers in my size in Peru! Rachel is possibly even more glad about this than I am!!

8th April 2009
More training, this time with Crown Financial Services, who have material on teaching basic household financial management. Unfortunately, the material is far too advanced for our context. Fortunately, however, they are currently developing a more basic course and it might be that we'll be able to pilot it in a couple of months time. It would certainly, in theory, be very helpful for the people we are working amongst.

7th April 2009
Up in Lima for a training course with Alfalit, which should enable us to team adult literacy and numeracy. The course materials are excellent, but we are concerned about the time requirements for running the course and its suitability for Chincha, where people generally have no time.

6th April 2009
I had a Pastoral Team meeting this afternoon and it was actually good! There was some encouragement for the night before and, if this is anything to go by, there is much greater co-operation and willingness to move forward together. There is always the possibility that this will prove to be a false dawn, but here's hoping that the shift is permanent and just the beginning of something much much better than what we had to endure before.

5th April 2009
Led the singing tonight at church and it was clear that God was touching many of those there. A special time.
Unfortunately, my insides seem to be reacting to these pills and I was up until 4:30am with nausea.

4th April 2009
The day of our meeting with Pastor Pepe, Margaret and Cesar and Yolanda. The local Pastor got to share his thoughts on Rachel and I first and it was a relief to hear that he didn't have any things to complain about that were real issues. While situations had been twisted to present us in the worse possible light, what was clear was that he has been disappointed in us (because we are not the do-everything-in-the-church-and-pay-for-it type of missionaries than they are accustomed to receiving). Expectations have now been reset and our frustrations at a lack of local support heard, so we are hopeful that we have turned a corner in this respect.

3rd April 2009
Started a 3 day course of pills, which should do the trick.

2nd April 2009
A long day, most of which was spent in the visa queue at the Department for Migrations in Lima. It's hard to believe that we've nearly been here a year (sometimes it feels like so much more!) and it's time to renew our paperwork. We had a bit of toing and froing trying to get the write documents and a whole bunch of unfriendly service and waiting around for someone to do something, but 6 hours after we arrived there, we left with everything in order for the coming year.
Just made it back to Chincha in time to find out that I have two parasites and Rachel has one - off to see the doctor tomorrow to find out what we need to take. Not that pleasant to think of the beasties growing inside me, but nice to have a reason why i've been feeling sick on and off for about a month now.

1st April 2009
Completed the 2nd of our samples and handed them in to be tested at the clinic - be interesting to see what they come back with as we're both not right still.