November 8, 2010

So far things here are OK. We had another crazy storm on Saturday night. Here the dirt on the mountains isn't very sturdy, and people build homes on them so when it rains really hard there's always a chance of a land slide. We live, I think, a good distance from the mountain that is closest to us, but Saturday night our neighbors (we technically live in a part of their house) were running and screaming down the stairs and they pounded on our window and door screaming "wako"!!! Well, we get our shoes on and ask what is a wako, but a bunch of people are running, so we just start running with them. Mind you, it's like 10:30 at night. So we´re running. We out run everyone, my companion is scared, and I'm a little frightened, but we have no idea what a wako is. So we make it a couple of blocks and there's a lady in her doorway of her home; we stop for a second because there are no people around us, and we see nothing coming behind us. Then we ask the lady what is a wako. I promise the lady didn't even blink. Her eyes got big and she yelled "wako"??? She yelled inside the home "wako!" and took off. So now we are really scared, so we continue to run to our pensionista´s house, and she finally explains what is a wako: landslide. Then we're too scared to run back to see if it was real and the elders kinda laugh at us when we called to tell them where we were, and so we slept at our pension´s house. In the morning we learn that it was a false alarm, and our neighbors were worried for us so much that they went to the church at 2 am to look for us. But then they called the elders who told them where we were. Wow, no more wakos! Other than that, not much. We are having difficulties with our area, but faith will make it work. We have people to teach, but not many with the desire to change or pray or read. Oh, this morning I saw Barney the purple dinosaur walk down the street.  Last night my companion got an earful about the problems with the USA and Latinos and Arizona from a contact, and it was funny because 1) he had an American tshirt on and 2) he didn't think I understood, but my Spanish is coming in just fine, so I understood him.  Ok, so that's the news from Huanuco Peru. Love you all and thanks for the pictures!-Love, Hermana Wood