Day 69 – Sick day-but no diarrhea.

The clouds on the mountains around Namirez.
I'ts been really cloudy and rainy lately.

Well, we have spent more than two months here so far and haven’t gotten sick yet. That changed this week, but just a bad cold/flu. Victor Vivanco was sick too so they put us together, alone, and sent us up to Namirez alto. We spent all morning there and distributed a lot of invitations to the Memorial. We enjoyed our day in quarantine and got to know each other better. We actually got to visit a couple of schools and I was able to give some English lessons to one of the classes. It was fun and the teachers were very nice and laid back.

Papachinas after they're boiled. It's good to know these were a
vegetable because they looked like they had fur on them.

Of course, Leah is always amazed that my appetite seems to grow when I am sick, which worked out really well because hermanita Cajas invited us over for lunch. She and Leah worked together in the ministry in the morning and then returned to her house. They made papachinas with salsa de mani (peanut) and caldo de pollo (chicken soup)with yuca. It was really tasty (I am trying not to use “delicious” so much). Leah had a front row seat to the preparation of the chicken soup, and when she noticed the head, along with that weird red hat-thing chickens have, she decided to pass…all the better for the rest of us.

On the left are the papachinas peeled. They look like a potato
and have a similar texture but they are super slimey.

The papachinas are similar to potatoes but slimier. The peanut sauce was prepared with peanut butter, onions, achiote, salt, pepper, cumin and a bunch of other stuff-delightful. The caldo was really good-simple, salty, and not a chicken head in sight. Speaking of heads, Leah’s is a little sore. You see, everything in Cristinitas house is made for someone about 4 feet tall. Enough said.

As if she hadn’t been hospitable enough, the dear sister gave us a ton of juice oranges and tomatoes and a bunch of bananas as we left. Everything from her property-totally self-sufficient. Really, really awesome, huh?

We got home just as the others were leaving, so Leah jumped in with Ryan, Veronica and Zully and continued on to preach in the afternoon in Timbara and take care of her studies.  Shawn and I passed.

Leah with Veronica & Zully

Monica has her strawberry plants in these little containers
bordering her gardens. Look Fons-no weeds!

There is a road in Timbara that leads to a really pretty waterfall and that is where they spent the afternoon. Ryan has a study with a young woman named Monica and she always sends us home with fruit or vegetables; today it was a papaya & when they went back to see if Leah had left her umbrella there she gave them 6 pieces of piping hot choclo (corn on the cob). “Un trabajador merece su salario.”

Leah had two good studies that have been very regular-the studies, that is. I mean they have been studying regularly. I know what you are thinking. There will be no bowel movement comments posted to the blog page, okay?