Homes are mainly cinderblock with mortar and dirt. Restrooms are few and far between as well as the showers. Cordovans' mainly work in the fields harvesting potatoes, beans, etc and there are few of them that have livestock for milk and cheese. Chickens were fairly common as well as sheep.
The general vibe of the people there is pleasant. I would say about half of them seem to be open to talking with us 'gringos' (that's what they call us) and the other were very resistant or leery to even get close. For the most part, the village is used to having 'gringos' around. Our church has partnered with a church in Kentucky and between them and us, there is a fairly big presence there on a normal basis. Typical day for us was just basically to spend time getting to know the people. Finding out what they believe and what is important to them.
It just so happened that the week that our group went it was festival week in the village. The festival is something the Cordova celebrates every year. The week consists of lots of homemade fireworks (going off at all hours of the day and night), games such as volleyball and futbol, lots of local food begin cooked and sold in the Plaza, and church services. You see, Cordovan's are mainly Catholic but their church is only open once a year. This means that they have a priest come in once a year which is during festival time. This is when people get married, baptized, and confess their sins for the whole previous year. It's hard to wrap your mind around, I know! It's get even stranger.
Cordova worships an idol doll named Carmen. They dress her up and put her on a big decorated pedestal and parade her down the street at the end of the week to mark the end of the celebration.
So, there you have it! A brief overview of the people, culture and our time spent in Cordova.
I thought I would show some pictures below and tell about some of the things we experienced while we were there.
I promise we did not plan this - but everyone of us ended up wearing blue on trip to Peru. TEAM BLUE, we became! This is us at a pizza place in Lima, Peru, our first night.
Below are views as we were driving up the mountain- a 2 hour trek
Meeting Pastor Don Ahelio for the first time.
C.W. preaching on Ephesians 5
Just me and the donkey!
Me with the same little girls
This is at a Selinda's house/restaurant. There are a few restaurant owners in Cordova and it's basically out of their house. Selinda is a lady that we think is a believer and that we spent a lot of time with while we were there. These are pictures of her kitchen which is in the back of her shop/house. This is her granddaughter Britney and if you look closely you can see that she is peeling chicken feet.
This is me and a couple of girls peeling potatoes for another restaurant owner named, Madeline. We peeled so many potatoes that by the end of it our thumbs were bruised between the skin and nail from using our fingernails to lift the skin of the potato. Madeline is another female believe in the town. She is such a sweet girl and we got to have great conversation with her.
This is Jose kitchen. He invited us over one day to cook us a traditional Peruvian dish called, Red Spaghetti. It was quite the experience. They don't sanitize like we do, nor do they worry about cross-contamination, but since we were the ones helping prepare the food we were keeping an eye out for that!
Dancing in the street started on day 2 of being in Cordova. The bands would go around playing and people would be drinking and dancing in the street. The band played so much that by the end of the week I knew some of the tunes.
They also make these firework towers. Think about it....drunk people making and climbing a firework tower. Geez...
Working in the fields of the Andes mountains. We were asked to pick lima beans for a lady in the village...and so we did!
This is the Catholic church in the village that opens once a year.
These are monuments that were made for and sometimes donated to the church. Some are creepy looking...
This man was in charge of decorating the virgin Carmen doll that the village worships. You can see that she is on her pedestal here and he is putting roses in the arch over her head. She also lights up
This is the house/yard of Roxanna, a lady we got to meet and read the bible with while we were there. She is a good friend of Madeline, which I mentioned before, and we believe that they are both believers.
This is Roxanna's son, Kengi. He is doing homework on the rock table
This is a street vendor named Juan. He was kind of enough to allow us to evangelize to him- :) We got the chance to go through a booklet called Two Ways to Live, which lays out the gospel very clearly. He seemed to understand the two options (heaven or hell) and told us that he wanted to live for Christ. He asked great questions and we had good conversations.
This is one of my favorite dishes that we ate while we were in Cordova. This is called LomoSaltado. Just about every dish is served with rice there, but this was beef with peppers, onions, tomatoes, and fried papas (aka french fries) cooked in soy sauce.
Now use to, about 6 years ago, when our church first started going to Cordova they told everyone not to eat the food there because it would make us sick. We hardly abide by that anymore. Personally, I loved the food. There were a few iffy things that I put into my mouth but for the most part it was all very good. AND no one got sick!!
This is just a drunk guy sleeping on the streets. Since the festival was in full swing by this time, there was a lot of late night drinking. This is was a common site to see.
This is the ceremonial march with the virgin Carmen.
This was the last morning we were in Cordova. The sun was setting as we came down the mountain at 6am.
This is me and our translator, Noelia. She was a wonderful translator and people person.
This is the team on the backside of the mountains
This is Maylu, Jose's daughter. She loved to play with us. Here I am holding on her to hands and pulling her up high as she jumps! The little smile on her face was priceless.
No comments:
Post a Comment