People generally have very specific questions about foreign missions that missionaries hardly ever think to answer. Questions about strange food and animals leave single-minded missionaries confused and wondering whether they're talking about some gospel metaphor. Out of the good nature of my heart, I thought I might expound on some temporal matters that may be of some interest.
Q. What kind of strange wild animals do they eat?
A. Chicken and rice...at times rice and chicken. In my last area we drank hot jello every day before it could thicken. If that answer's not satisfactory, I've also eaten cuyi a few times, a giant hamster delicacy. Seviche is supposed to be the tastiest Peruvian food, but it's made out of raw fish and has been prohibited in the mission for a long time for all the sicknesses that occurred. Luckily, the ban has been lifted recently from one of our prohibited foods...tocush. Tocush is a potato they rot for a while underwater and then dry until it smells like poop (that's hardly a simile...they are uncannily similar.) You nearly vomit just walking past it in the streets. My last companion was legitimately angry with my little joke before I left when I told our Pensionista we were now allowed to eat it, and she could cook it for my companion whenever she liked. Ah, pobrecito... Meanwhile, I ate wild jungle deer this last week.
Q. What wild crazy animals do you see in the heart of the Peruvian jungle?
A. Dogs. Very rarely do you ever walk on a Peruvian street without seeing several stray dogs. That's just life. In super cool news, I did see a little monkey hanging around a fruit stand recently.
Q. Insects?
A. A couple flying cockroaches. Lots of sugar ants. Nothing surprising.
Q. What are other churches like here?
A. When Paul mentioned tinkling cymbals and sounding brass, he was talking about the churches here. They make lots of noise and shout and sing funny songs, and generally spawn confusion.
Q. What are schools like?
A. They sing and march around quite a bit. We have one on the other side of our street. I help a lot of kids out with their English homework, correct their books that have incorrectly written instructions in them, and recently wrote a severe letter to a university teacher for the quality of the course.
Well, I hope this answered some questions you might have had. I'll send a ton of pictures of the waterfalls we're visiting next week, once I get my darned technology to work. Till next week!