As I sat in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church in Boone, NC tonight I reflected on the central place of worship in my time of Sabbatical. Beginning with wonderful, inspiring worship in Anderson Auditorium in Montreat during the College Conference in early January, I have experienced worship in settings as diverse as a village church in Tamshiyacu, Peru and the newly rennovated Chapel at Shallowford Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA. I have worshipped singing songs in Spanish to the beat of a drum and I have worshipped singing the traditional hymns of Lent. I have been inspired by the challenging words of Reverend J. Herbert Nelson to “get up off your blessed assurance and do something”, by a sermon by Pastor Ricardo Jara focused on using the “gifts of the Spirit” and by our son Chris’ reminder on Transfiguration Sunday to “stay awake” and encounter Christ in this season of Lent. I have worshipped by taking my offering to the front of the sanctuary as the Praise Team played lively music and by joyfully receiving the offering of children as they as they shared their memory verses from their Sunday School classes. I have felt the presence of God in the mountains of Montreat and Boone, NC, in the Amazon rainforest and in Atlanta, GA. I have felt surrounded by the universal church and by the love of God’s people everywhere I traveled. I have been affirmed again and again in my conviction that the worship of God – wherever it happens – is one of life’s greatest blessings.
I give thanks to God for every opportunity I have had to worship in my Sabbatical time.
Ash Wednesday
Hobo Hideout
Two weeks ago tonight I was in Moyobamba, Peru after having flown into Tarapoto (an hour southwest of Iquitos by plane) the afternoon before. I left Iquitos that Monday afternoon with just my backpack packed for five days and four nights. The first three of those nights were spent in Tarapoto and Moyobamba – two cities I had never visited before. I had some great adventures – riding motorcycles through crowded city streets, spending a morning at Bano Termales (the Hot Springs of Moyobamba), and taking a wild two hour taxi ride over winding mountain roads at a high rate of speed to travel from Tarapoto to Moyobamba and back.
When I arrived back at the Iquitos airport I didn’t tell the motokar driver to take me to El Jardin – but instead to a hostel – Hobo Hideout. I am 58 years old and I have never spent a night in a hostel. I missed that whole “backpacking through Europe” stage of life and figured it was “now or never”. I checked in and was taken to a “dorm room” with four sets of bunkbeds, most of which were taken for the night. I found one and settled in – and went out to the “lobby” to meet some of my fellow travelers. It was quickly obvious that I was (by far) the oldest person staying there, and the least interesting looking (ie less tatoos, piercings and braided hair than anyone else). There was a young man from Spain who was taking a couple months to backpack through Peru and Equador; a young couple from Germany who were doing some research on several types of flowers found only in the Amazon; two guys from Lima who had never been to the jungle before and were spending their summer break from the University in the rainforest (and had already had some interesting jungle experiences with Jimmy, the hostel’s owner) and others. It was fascinating to hear their stories – and sometimes wonder how much was fact and how much was fiction. It was also enligthening to experience life – for a brief period of time – with a kind of “carefree, live for the day, experience all that I can in the moment” crowd.
I think about that now as I begin to contemplate my transition back to Jefferson City and the schedule that awaits me there.
“Did I really live that?”
“I find that the intense experiences of these expeditions have a dreamlike quality to them. You’re left thinking afterward: Did that really happen? Did I really live that?” Those are the words of Sydney Possuelo who led an expedition deep into the Amazon jungle in search of an uncontacted tribe (NOT to contact them – that would introduce them to disease and illness which would destroy them, which has happened many times – but to map where they are to protect them).
Scott Wallace (who has ties with the MU School of Journalism) was on this adventure and writes about it in “The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes”. They had many more frightening and dangerous experiences than I ever hope (or want!) to have. Yet as I read this quote from Possuelo, I understand. Wallace writes, “So divorced are such experiences from our very day lives, it strains the mind to believe they ever happened. Already the journey was acquiring a sense of the unreal. How time had dragged in the jungle. I knew the day would come when it would seem like all of it all happened – snap, like that – in a split second”
As I leave now for the airport in Iquitos, and from there leave my jungle home, it feels that way.
Globos de agua
Don’t be surprised if you are riding down the streets of Iquitos on a Sunday afternoon in late January or February and get hit with a “globos de agua” – a water ballon. It is Iquitos’ unique adaptation of Carnival, celebrated in many countries in the weeks leading us to Fat Tuesday. On Sunday afternoon I walked out of the gate of El Jardin to walk up to the Plaza to meet Freddy. In front of the little grocery store accross the street was the usual group of teens, but something was different. There were more – and they were all holding something. Then, when motokars and motorcycles came by, I saw what they were holding - water balloons – and they threw them at the occupants of the vehicles. As I walked to the Plaza I saw this repeated on several street corners, and by groups of youth and children in front of homes. So I asked Freddy (a source of infinite knowledge – just ask him) and later read an article about it in the Dawn On The Amazon Newsletter.
”Celebrated every year during the weeks before Fat Tuesday, Carnival is a centuries old ritual observed in many countries. The Iquitos adaption of the Carnival season starts with water balloon fights and concludes in the locally unique tradition of dancing around the Humisha tree on the final night.” As early as four weeks before Lent you will encounter young people in the streets tossing buckets of water or water balloons at passing cars and motorcycles. These “water wars” were originnally a battle of the sexes, with groups of males throwing water at groups of females, and vice versa – but have developed into the current practice of hitting passing vehicles. Although these activities are against the law, the law is generally ignored by the local officials.
When I got to the Plaza on Sunday Freddy was drenched – yes, the motokars he was riding in was hit by globos de agua! And Freddy – in Freddy style – was laughing and enjoying Carnival. When we got back to El Jardin I witnessed a “water war”. The teens in front of the grocery store were “armed” – and a group of teens on motokars and motorcylces approached, blowing their horns and also “armed”. The light turned red and they stopped and balloons were flying everywhere. And then, I heard a siren, and a police truck was coming with about eight officers in the back – and the motokars and motorcycles took off. I have no idea what happens if they are caught.
The “dancing around the Humisha tree” which takes place on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday is great fun, I am told. But alas I will be back in the USA on that day and miss the fun.
Blanquita = YUM!
I don’t usually consult a Travel Guide before going on a trip, but for this adventure I did purchase a copy of Frommer’s Guide to Peru. In checking out the chapter on Iquitos, I realized I have seen all the “Iquitos Highlights” and “Attractions Near Iquitos” listed in the book. I’ve even eaten on most of the restaurants listed, and then one caught my eye: “Blanquita – A truly local experience…this is a place where you’re almost certain to be the only gringo. With a woman out front preparing tamales and banana-leaf juanes, and resolutely local menu featuring massive portions of chifa (Peruvian-Chinese) and Amazon specialties such as cecina (flat, tough grilled pork with plantains). If you’re curious about the local diet but don’t dare eat in the Belen market, this is your place.” And it is on Av. Bolognesi – only about 12 blocks from El Jardin!
So last night I started walking down Bolognesi around 6:00, just as the sun was beginning to set. Frommer’s said they open at 5:30, but I know Peruvian time. It was a pleasant walk – most of the streets in this part of the city are “one way” and I get used to that. Fortunately the morotcycle blew its horn and swerved in time to miss me. (Yes, I learned years ago to “look both ways before crossing the street” and I will from now on!)
I arrived at Blanquita, and as advertised there was a women in front making and sellng juanes and tamales, and another peeling and selling fresh fruit. I was welcomed in, seated and waited on almost immediately. They seemed to have one waitress for each table and the food was prepared right there in the main dinning room for all to see. There were already folks eating, and before my meal was complete the whole restaurant was filled – and I was indeed the ONLY gringo there.
I ordered the cecina with plantains. The cecina was a grilled ham steak, nearly the size of my plate, not tough at all. It was well prepared and delicious. It came with a heart of palm (chonta) and carrot salad and a plantain “ball” – plantains mashed and perfectly seasoned and formed into a ball about the size of a tennis ball. Topped off with a small bottle (glass bottle) of Inca Kola, it was a fabulous meal. Total cost with tip was 20 soles – about $8.00!
Blanquita is one restaurant I will add to my list of favorites in Iquitos, and recommend to others. Maybe I’ll try their Peruvian tamales next time!
River Taxi Adventures
I decided to use a “river taxi” for my trip to Tamshiyacu for my “weekend get-a-away”. (Not everyone, when planning a quiet weekend away from “home” considers the jungle village of Tamshiyacu, Peru as their first choice.) My one previous experience with using a river taxi had been an adventure, and now I am beginning to believe everyone has that potential. Jules (my friend and translator) and I went to Puerto Huequito on Saturday, and boarded the waiting river taxi, an older model with bench seats made for three. Then we waited for the boat to fill, and when I say fill I mean filled far beyond reasonable capacity – after all each person pays 15 sole, and the more passengers, the bigger the profit (there were four adults and a child on our bench). Then we headed south on the Amazon, and again I felt that overwheling oneness with the river and jungle around me. It was a pleasant ride, uneventful until….. I could see the first huts of Tamshiyacu in the distance when the motor cut out. This often happens, but this time it would not start again. It was a bit to far to swim (and I’m not one to swim in the Amazon with its rapid current) so what were our options? Then two old men on a handmade dugout canoe with a small peci peci motor pulled up beside us, grabbed the rope used to tie the boat to the dock, and towed us to the first floating restaurant on the north side of Tamshiyacu! Then it was merely walking accross some hastily laid down (old, cracked) boards over the flooded areas (an Amazonian obstacle course), and a long walk through the village to a warm greeting from Pastor Ricardo and Lupe.
After a wonderful weekend in Tamshiyacu filled with great visits, inspiring worship, delicious food, and a glorious early morning walk in the jungle, we boarded a river taxi for the ride back to Iquitos. It was a much newer, nicer boat – still over-filled – and we made our way north on the river. We were passing Gallito, one of my favorite villages, when the motor operator signaled the driver to pull in to shore. While we waited on the boat the motor operator and driver got off and walked into the village. From where we were I could see the Presbyterian Church which our group had helped build in 2003, and worked on in 2006. It was tempting to get off the boat to go see the Pastor and maybe some other folks I know, but I also knew that when the boat driver returned the boat would leave – with or without me. About ten minutes later the two guys returned carrying two 2.25 liter (soda) bottles filled with gasoline. Evidently they realized we were going to run out before making it to Iquitos, so they made a stop at the local gas station.
Ah, travel in the Amazon, gotta love it!
“When I Fell From The Sky”
I am reading a book which may be considered very appropriate or very inappropriate for my current situation. It is “When I Fell From The Sky” and it is the true story of Juliane Koepcke.
”On December 24, 1971, seventeen-year-old Juliane and her mother, a well-respected naturalist boarded a LANSA airplane in Peru to meet her father for Christmas. They fought to get some of the last seats available, and felt thankful to have made the flight. Their plane flew into a volatile thunderstorm and was obliterated, killing 91 passengers. The teenage girl fell two miles through the sky and landed in the Peruvian jungle, commonly referred to as the Amazon. Juliane was the sole survivor but was presumed dead. She survived eleven days in the jungle, alone.”
Appropriate reading because I know, in a small way, the jungle she survived. Their plane was going from Lima to Pucallpa. Pucallpa is a town in the jungle “on the way” from Lima to Iquitos. Don Kopp, Jim Hofmann, Benda Waters and others were with me in 2003 when we made an unplanned descent into the airport in Pucallpa, were herded off the plane and into the tiny airport and through security while all the luggage was laid out on the tarmac and armed guards and drug dogs went through each piece. Fortunately we were able to reboard the plane and fly safely on to Iquitos – and I have had many more safe and glorious flights from Lima to Iquitos, over the snow capped Andes mountains and the jungle I have loved since my first trip here in 1999 and now call my “second home”.
Yet maybe “inappropriate” reading because I am here right now and in a few weaks I will be making that flight back to Lima, over the very jungle Juliane survived. “What if….” enters my mind as I read Juliane’s words as she tells her intriguing, yet terrifying story. Yet, as our children have heard me say so many times, “I don’t deal with ‘What ifs…’”. I will fly from Iquitos to Lima – over Pucallpa – on February 6 – and enjoy the beauty of the Amazon jungle below me. And I will trust the pilot – and God - to keep me above that jungle!
Dawn, Dolphin and Drum
Yesterday I choose to take a tour with “Dawn on the Amazon” – an appropriate name for an tour agency for me since Dawn is my favorite time in the Amazon. it was a guided tour of Belen, the poorest part of Iquitos, with its market with street after street filled with booths with every kind of fruit and vegatable imaginable, and “fresh ” meat lying out on wooden tables – chicken, fish, ciamen, turtle and Amazonian rodents of various sizes. We also toured the area with homes in this floating city which is being overtaken, as it is each year by the rising river waters, and many families have already moved to the second level of these basic one room homes of four wooden walls and thatch roof. We then took a small canoe out to the cruise boat “Dawn on the Amazon” for our river tour on the Italia, Amazon and Nanay Rivers which surround Iquitos. I saw this city from a different prospective, learned a great deal more about the geography of the area, saw the Blvd. area from the river side for the first time, and had an amazing lunch on the river. One highlight was the best dolphin sighting I have ever had. We stopped at the convergence of the Italia and Amazon Rivers because the tour guide Julio spotted a dolphin. The only fresh water dolphin in the world are in the Amazon – both gray and pink dolphin. I have spotted a few over the years as we traveled to various villages, but yesterday we saw 8 to 10 gray dolphin playing around our boat – not more than thirty yards away. And then I spotted two pink dolphin – not just with a “twinge” of pink as I had seen before, but true PINK dolphin.
When we returned to the Blvd by way of the Port of Nanay, I walked past a few of the makeshift wooden shops of local artisans and spotted on woman making a drum, and beside her were some flutes and tambourines. It was fascinating watch her work, and I ended up buying a drum and tambourine (maybe I’ll join the Praise Team 
) for 30 soles total – about $12.00!
The city off Iquitos and its people continue to intrigue and inspire me each day.
Sabbath Worship
I have been asked to write a little about worship here yesterday. I worshipped at the Evangelical Presbiteriana Iglesia de Iquitos, which is right next to El Jardin where I am staying. I could hear the Praise Team, consisting of keyboard, guitar and drums, beginning to play around 9:30, so I went over and we sang and clapped – mostly praise songs – for well over an hour, with many prayers interspersed as the Praise Team would contnue to play as one of the members, or one of the Elders would pray. Then Pastor Guiermo preached, and although I could not understand much of the sermon, I do know it was from Romans 8: “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are Christ Jesus, and that there were many “amens” from the congregation made up of folks of all ages. Following the sermon the Praise Team began playing again, and I recongized the tune and I sang “Here We Are To Worship” in English as others sang it in Spanish. Worship here is very lively. Fortunately the sound system is pretty good because the windows are open and the sound of motorcars, motorcycles and cars on the street right outside blend with the singing and preaching – and I hope, some of the preaching and singing is heard by those passing by. The “Passing of the Peace” is accompanied by many. many hugs – and lasts for quite sometime as folks literally greet every other person in the sanctuary! Although there is a language barrier for me, there is no missing the presence of God’;s Spirit in the worship here.
Next Sunday I will worship with our sister-church in Tamshiyacu.
From worship yesterday to the sights, sounds and smells of Belen today. Belen is the poorest area of Iquitos. Wood structure homes, built on stilts and consisting of one room on the lower level and one on the uper level, house multiple families. Right now many of the homes are flooded – and the families have moved to the upper level. where they will stay in very cramped quarters until March (unless the river rises as much as it did last year, then they will have to abandon their homes). It was easy to sense God’s presence in worship yesterday, less so today in Belen.
When in the jungle…..get a haircut!
My good friend Ian McCaslin was with me here on our 2011 Mission trip, and each day we walked past a barber shop a few blocks from El Jardin on Napo Street. The shop is in the front of a home – a couple barber chairs and mirrors. Ian and I joked about getting a “Peruvian haircut” – but neither of us needed one (I always get one before I come to Peru – in fact weeks before I leave Josh starts asking “Dad, have you gotten your Peru haircut yet?”). But Ian and I promised “next time”. In the year and a half since, Ian has often goaded me with “Are you getting your hair cut in Peru this time?” – and this time I did! Yesterday my “to do” list had two things on it (and only two) and the first was “get a haircut”. I walked in the shop – was ushered to a chair – and Rosilind, the barber and I communicated with hand signals and “Mas?” – “Si, mas” as she cut one side shorter and shorter until it was right, then the other side and back and front. The scissors looked like typical kitchen scissors, and then clippers with a frayed wire, and then she got out a brand new razor blade for the straight razor and trimmed around my ears and neck (no blood). The best $2.50 hair cut I every got!
The time involved and transportation cost might prohibit me from getting my hair cut on Napo Street every time I need a haircut, but the next time I am in Peru………………..
Ian, are you with me?
