As Day 2 draws to a close, the eye team is having fun in the hallway assembling their equipment for our departure tomorrow morning at 0800. The children's ministry team is elsewhere producing name tags for the Lima team. All 30 of us plus translators plus two bilingual Peruvian dentists will work together tomorrow.
We began the day celebrating a birthday. If you view our photographs you will see a group shot with a young man on bended knee. Alex turned 22 years old yesterday and this is his first mission. He is the boyfriend of Kendal Charbonneau and part of an extended clan on the mission that includes her parents Patricia and Jim, her siblings Kyle, Katelyn, Kristopher and his girlfriend Zara and former next door neighbour, Julia. It's wonderful to see an entire family contingent here!
In another photograph you will see the spectacular view from our convent. We meet daily in a gazebo with this view. In another shot you can see some of the team leaders.
In my previous blog I mentioned the weather has been wet. While that is true, it's important to clarify that Lima is actually in a desert. And the few drops we've experienced are part of the total annual rainfall of a scant 3 millimetres. It seems the sky is perpetually overcast and today's tour guide Miguel joked Lima won't see the sun until November. Maybe it was no joke?
We took an afternoon tour of Lima and visited a museum, square, several Churches and the burial ground beneath one of the Churches - an eerie catacomb of skulls and bones. In one photograph you can see dentist Dr. Bob Clinton and his wife and dental assistant Susan in front of the royal palace. Bob is the dentist of our volunteers from Kingston. In another is Jennifer and Joe Sue-Ho who are mission veterans. By the way, this author is standing by the door and the team's official photographer is the guy with the beard, David Hillock.
Lima has 9 million mostly Spanish-speaking people. Interestingly 30% or 2 million are Chinese and speak Cantonese. There's a good natured rivalry between Lima and the former capital Cusco - especially over football or soccer. However Cusco always wins its home games because the Lima competitors are no match for the higher altitude. All this according to our tour guide...who hails from Lima. Lima has few tall buildings and certainly no sky scrapers. Again we're cautioned about the earthquakes with 3 simple instructions: 1. pray 2. cry 3. cry and pray.
As the eye team packs up its refractor, I will sign off. A rock band is blaring at the disco down the street from the convent but we're all tired and tomorrow is a big day.
Click this link to see referenced photos: http://gallery.me.com/davidhillock
Sunday, July 5, 2009
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