new

It’s 9:21 on Sunday night. I feel so confused, I don’t even know what day it is.. Yesterday was such a long travel day and we have been pretty exhausted. Dr. Matthews came to the Pucallpa airport to pick us up at around 5:00 this morning. That seems so long ago now! We loaded all our stuff into a small gold Toyota and as soon as we started driving I remembered what driving in Peru is like- thrilling! Haha basically you just drive how you want and honk your horn if you feel like someone is in your way. Everyone just cooperates and moves-thank goodness. The drive was great, but I was so tired so I think I dozed off for some of it. About 30 minutes later we drove into the base- our new home. There are 3 main buildings- Dr. Matthews’ house, and 2 SM houses. There is also a small hut in the middle of base that is the dog house. There are 5 watch dogs here, a cat and a rooster, plus a lot of bugs and wild birds. Haha :) We met Cindy and Bernie, 2 of the SM’s who are just here for the summer. They are both very nice and have been very helpful to us :)Finally, a little after 6, we went to bed and slept for a few hours. It was a restless sleep for me, partly because everything is so new and because it was so noisy between the dogs, rooster, bugs, and cars.. I’m thinking earplugs will come in handy. Anyway, after we got up we decided we needed to pee and shower.. This is the point where it really hit me about how we are going to live for the next 9 months. We have 2 “bathrooms” one is a squat pot and the other has a little stool (I guess you could call it). It will take a little getting used to, but overall not a terrible situation. There is one real toilet on the base but it’s at the other house. Our shower is also an interesting place. There are 2 wooden stalls about measuring about 5x5. To be honest I am quite thankful for these showers because I think they are the best ones we will have all year. Although they are freezing cold (like the freezing that takes your breath away) they have pretty great water pressure and it’s kinda fun to look up in your shower and see the trees above you. :) After our shower we had some breakfast. It was the guys turn to cook and they made some delicious omelets! I don’t usually like omelets at all but these were great! We came back to our room and did some cleaning up and moving in. It’s hard to move in since we are on the travel team and probably won’t be spending a lot of time here anyway, but we did what we could. We’re trying to keep all our suitcases and such closed because we don’t really care to have any unwanted guests hangin out in there. Haha :) We had to do a little patch job on our mosquito nets with some duct tape but now we’re all fixed up. I have to say, I don’t mind sleeping under mosquito net, I think it makes me feel safe. Haha. Later in the afternoon we helped Bernie with some decorations for a baby shower that we hosted tonight for one of the local workers. It’s pretty fun to already be involved in that stuff only a few hours after getting here. Then we met all of the kids- the kids who have endless energy! We played some soccer with them and some other crazy games. They really wore us out! Then they wanted me to read to them, so with Steph’s help I read some Clifford books written in English in Spanish. Oh, that was confusing- the books were written in English and we read them in Spanish. :) I really wish I knew more.. learning a language is no easy task. I need a lot more practice, but I think I’ll certainly get that this year. I just need to keep up my motivation to want to learn! Then later this evening we had the baby shower and supper, all of which was very good.


I’m not sure how I’m feeling… I cried a little bit tonight.. I feel a little lost and scared, but I know it takes time to get used to this completely new situation. It’s just so crazy to think that I’m going to be here for nine months… Yeah.. I don’t really know. I wish I had access to internet out here because I really miss communication but maybe in the long run it will be a good thing that we had less communication at the beginning as we become adapted to our new home. I just pray with all my heart that God will help me be strong. There was so many things I wanted to do, and I’m just feeling a bit discouraged tonight. I know it’s probably a lot of things, exhaustion being one of them I’m sure. Tomorrow is a new day full of new adventures. I’m going to read a little bit and then try to get some rest.

Buenas noches.