Day 7: Ilave

Goodness, I am so bad at updating my blog! Yes, I am still on Peru… but I’m determined to document it all, because I am planning to put together a scrapbook of the past three years and the places I’ve traveled. And to make my life easy, I’m just going to print out the blog… easy schmeazy

January 1^st 2012: Happy New Year! Some breakfast in our tummies, and a little hot juice with a tint of liquor to help with digestion, we loaded ourselves into the van for about an hour drive to the small town of Ilave.

It was a relaxing drive. Listening to music and looking out at the passing countryside. I was in Peru.... over 5,000 miles from home... crazy...


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Ilave is the third largest town in the area; Juliaca being the first and Puno the second.
Ilave was also the town that Fr. Bloom served as a missionary for seven years. Sunday mass was at 11 o’clock at the Catholic Church where Father lived and worked during his seven missionary years. The Church was packed full! There were a lot of elderly residents dressed in traditional garb. No one was very clean and there were a hand full with clear physical ailments. It was also clear by the fervor and devotion they exhibited at mass, that their deepest heart’s desires were being met. It was so beautiful to see.

After mass, we met the parish priest in the rectory and went on a little stroll around town while lunch was being prepared.

There were some people who recognized Father :)

This little walk around town was quite an experience. Ilave is not on the tourist map, so tourists are seldom seen in the town. I could have sworn these people had never seen white people in their lives because when we walked by… their eyes were fixed on us. Then to make things more hysterical, little Sarah decided she wanted one of the traditional skirts worn by many of the Ilave inhabitants… well, she ended up getting the entire outfit. Here she is wearing traditional Peruvian garb:

And boy was it a sight when SHE walked by. She instantly became the life of the party and people thought it was hysterical! And so did we!

And we have spectators:

And the final look with Father Bloom :)

We returned back to the parish rectory for lunch, and we received llama gifts.

(Sarah is holding hers in the above picture)
Say "llama!" :D

About 4:00 we got back on the bus and had a heck of a time getting to this poor country home with a mud house where an elderly Peruvian couple were living. We didn’t really know why we were going there, but we kept getting lost and had to turn around like three times. We were crazy confused. Well, we found out later that Father had met this couple awhile ago and was finding ways to help pay for the woman’s failing colon. It was amazing the conditions these people were living in.

Well, almost as soon as we arrived it started to rain and it was quite a challenge getting out of the countryside on muddy, uneven roads. We arrived back in Puno about late dinner time, went and got some Chinese food and returning to the orphanage in the evening.

But when we got back, we remembered that the orphanage owns a number of dogs trained to attack strangers. This is of course to keep thieves away. Well, when we got back the dogs had already been let out, so we had to go a different route led by a Sister carrying a broom stick. This scared us so much we found ourselves running from Father’s room back to ours… which was literally two steps away!