Julie's week 5

Wow, I have had the craziest week! So much stuff has happened that I don't even know where to begin. On Tuesday morning I went into the city with Mike to make copies for the kids to color in the afternoon. We got a motorkar back to where we live and right as we were coming up to our street a bunch of guys with their shirts off ran by us. They were all carrying rocks, planks, or machetties in their hands and running in the direction of our house. The motorkar driver stopped and asked someone what was going on and the person said that they were going to fight the police! We were so confused but the motorkar driver told us to go to our house, shut the door, and not come out until it was all over. So we ran to our house and on the way we saw about 50 police with full riot gear on and a crowd of people chucking rocks and whatever else they could find at the police. It was nuts! We went into our house to find out what was going on. Nobody knew for sure what was happening but they told us that this had been going on for a couple hours and that we needed to just stay out of it.

A little later our neighbor told us to come with him and watch from a safe distance. So a couple of us went with him because we were kind of curious as to what would happen. We got over to where the action was happening. This one huge Peruvian woman with a cigarette in one hand and a fence post in the other sees us and yells something to the affect of "the gringos are on our side!" We decided that it probably wasn't a good idea for us to be there so we went back to the house. Later that day we found out what happened. There is an empty plot of land next to our community and a gang from Pucallpa decided to go and squat the land so that they could buy it for a cheap price and then sell it and make money for the gang. I'm not exactly sure how it works but if you live in a place for a month the owner of the land has to sell it to you for a really cheap price. You can then go and sell it to someone else and make a profit. Of course the owners of the land don't want this to happen so they do everything they can to prevent people from squatting the land. They called the police to kick the people out. The police came and were chasing the gang away and one of the guys ran into a house in our community. The police followed and tore the house apart looking for the guy. A 12-yea-old boy was inside and the police got confused nad thought that the boy was a member of the gang and and they beat him and took him to jail. When the people in our community heard about this they got really upset and started fighting the police. It was a huge mess! We were never in danger and everyone is fine. The police left a few days later so I think it's all over now. I guess we'll see though. They tell us that this sort of stuff happens with every invasion community and sometimes it can go on for months or even as long as a year!

Anyway, that was Tuesday. Wednesday had some drama as well. A guy who lives two houses down from us got into a fight with his wife and ended up drinking a whole thing of rat poison and then refused to go to the hospital. So the family comes to get us since we have 4 nurses and the Bible workers. The Bible workers talked to him for a while trying to tell him why life is worth living, etc. etc. and they finally convinced him to let our nurses help him. All we had available was a few charcoal pills though. They ended up having to burn wood and then crush it up and have him drink it. He is still alive as far as I know.

Here in Peru people are deathly afraid of white people. A lot of them believe that if you're white you will kill them and take their organs to sell on the black market. I guess a group of people actually did do this at one time so it has only cemented this idea in their heads even more. They call the gringos "face peelers." A lot of the time people will yell this out at us when we're walking down the street. Anyway, a few days ago this little girl died a few streets away from our house and there are rumors going around that she was cut open and all of her fat was taken out of her. Of course the rumors are also saying that we are the ones that did it. So we have had some problems with people not wanting health lessons or Bible studies anymore... Luckily only a few people are listening to these rumors and most of the people here know that we are their friends and are here to help them, not hurt them.

On Saturday I went to church at a place called Tupac Amaru. They had the last campaign there so they're sending two people there every week to support the church that they set up. It took us about an hour and a half to get there by motokar and it rained the whole way there. For some reason the road is made out of clay so you can imagine the mess it makes when it rains. On the way home we kept getting stuck and the driver and Mike would get out and push the motorkar. At one point, a guy on a motorcycle was passing us and completely lost control of the motorcycle and fell over into a huge puddle. It was so funny! He was pretty embarrassed I think. We got back to where we live and the tent where we have our evangelistic meetings was completely flooded so we had to cancel the meeting for that night. Instead I got to go back to 38 and see Brett! :)

In between all of the drama and excitement I have been going around to various places to find plants for the garden and researching how to build playground equipment. We were given two lots of land and have it all planned out. Now we just need to get started! First we need to clean the place up though. We also had our last week of VBS for the kids in our community and this week we are starting the same program for the kids in the next community over called Los Jardines. Today we've been advertising for it and trying to find a good location to have it as well.

I just ran into somebody from 38 and they told me that the dental trip that Brett was supposed to go on may be cancelled? Not sure why or whether or not it's true. Anyway, that's all for this week!