Pinch Me Moments

I'd like to share with you a couple of "pinch me moments" I had this week. What are pinch me moments, you're wondering? They are times when I just think to myself, "Am I really doing this? Or will I wake up from this great crazy dream to find myself in my bed in Omaha?"

On Wednesday, after another excellent day at Casa Job (side note: Praise God, this has been my best week here so far. I feel like I am really connecting with some of the youth, my Spanish is slowing improving, I have not gotten ill when several of my teammates have...it's just been a great week!), eight of us boarded a bus to travel to another part of Lima to attend a memorial service, of some sort, for Manuel's mom. Manuel is the guy I may have told you about earlier this week who didn't play volleyball well but is great with the kids, has a huge heart...I just really like Manuel.

Manuel's mom died a month ago. He didn't find out until about 10 days after the fact, so he missed the funeral, which, as you can imagine, was very difficult for him. Just because he lives on the street, doesn't mean that he doesn't love parts of him family, I am learning. A month after a death, there is some sort of memorial service. We were going to support Manuel at it. The bummer of the story is that Manuel wasn't home when we arrived and we never were able to meet up with him.

The pinch me moments occured in the midst of the search for Manuel, though. We thought he might be at the cemetary, so we decided to go there. To get to most places in this part of town, you ride in a little moto-taxi. A moto-taxi is a motorcyle that the back has been converted to a 3 seater little cab. It has a canvas cover, two wheels...kind of like a rickshaw on a motorcycle, if that helps at all. There are quite a trip to ride in, let me tell you. The cemetary was also a little unreal. For starters, there wasn't grass anywhere, just bare dirt and the most grave markers that I'd ever seen in one small space. Throughout the cemetary, there were also tall wall-like structures that had people "buried" in them as well. Bascially, the casket is slid into a space and the hole is then sealed up. The name, dates, and other things are printed on the door that seals the space shut. Sometimes these "wall" were four high and at least 10 across. I simply cannot do the scene justice in a any description, but there certainly was a moment, when I was walking through that cemetary, that I thought, "Am I really in this place at this time?"

Manuel and his family were not in the cemetary, so we went back to his sister's apartment, hoping to find him there. Her apartment bordered the edge of the "town square". It was a narrow long park that was filled with people. I commented on this to one of the staff. They said that it might be because these people really thrive on having a close knit community. It could also be because they don't have television to isolate them from one another, or because they have so many people living in heir house that they like to get outside and away from them. Whatever the reason, the bustle of activity in and around the park was amazing. There were food stands all along the outside, offering all sorts of meals using every part of all different kinds of animals. Simple scenes like this, that are so unlike anything I've ever seen back home...these are the scenes that I think back upon when I'm laying in bed at night and I think, "Am I really in Peru, doing these things, living this life?" It's crazy, I tell you, but right now I couldn't have it any other way!