Strike a Bust

Well, fortunately the strike turned into nothing more than a demonstration for 3 hours. There were probably about 500 people that turned up. Hopefully the government won't turn a deaf ear and cause another indefinite strike. We'll keep you posted. Pray, too, for all the indigenous in Peru. Rumor has it that the government may be taking away the bilingual education and make everyone learn in Spanish only. That is not a good thing for culture conservation for sure. This would mean eventually the written languages would die out.

Yurimaguas hasn’t changed much since we left in January. The rivers are up, which is a good thing.

It had been raining while we were gone, however since we returned it hasn’t. We had a 104 degree day yesterday and that was in the shade.

The grass is almost knee high in places with the rain and the fact that the lawnmower died. We had a mechanic look it over and bought the parts he said needed to be replaced. After replacing all the parts the engine just smokes and nothing more. That will need to be resolved as the yard looks like the house is abandoned which is not good around here with squatters just waiting to hop onto property.

The next couple of weeks will be spent visiting and preparing for the RELENAP (Peruvian Indigenous Network). We still aren’t sure how many groups will be represented nor how many people will show up. Looks like I (Terri) will be the cook for however many show up. Pray that the word gets around to many so the network can grow.