Jungle kids

My very favorite day of my trip to Peru this summer was when we traveled by boat across the Marañon to a little village called Timashnum.

We were going to paint the church and meet the villagers.  BEST.  DAY. EVER.   I don't think any of us had a clue when we left that morning what was in store.  We arrived and started varnishing the church.  A couple of people brought some bubbles and started taking turns blowing them for the kids.

Before long, some of the team members started playing mimicking games with the kids, kind of like Simon Says. 

These videos really tell the story better than words.  We ended up with 50 or so kids!!!  It was amazing!  I have no idea where they came from, but it was so much FUN!!!

Here Luke is playing a "Simon says" game with them. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm8C5HiMgsc

Then we played some sharks and minnows.   Watch the kid in the brown shirt come flying toward Luke at the end. HAHAHA!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9PSZvOyw2s

And this one shows how many kids we ended up with.  Andy did a great job with them.  

http://youtu.be/Ircel8sgikM

It was a beautiful, beautiful day.   At one point, we were playing "perro, perro, gato"with them, and I was tapped.  I took off running after a little boy and as soon as I hit a slick patch of jungle mud, I hauled off and did a spectacular face-plant right in the muck!   The kids thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.   Before I knew it, they picked me again, and sure enough, I face-planted again, right in that wet spot!   They did it just to see me fall splat!  It was so funny!   I got wise after awhile, though, and took off my shoes.   Those bare-foot kids had an advantage, I'm telling you.  

If you saw my previous post about the barefoot pastors, you'll remember how much that touched me.   To us, shoes are practically part of our feet.  We don't leave the house barefoot, and we have a pair for every occasion.  But here they are totally optional.   If you look at the feet of the older adults you'll see their toes splayed out wide.   They grip better that way, I suppose.  

To me, this day was all about connections.   We have so much in common.  Kids love to play.  They love to laugh.  Seeing someone go splat in the mud is hilarious.    Chasing each other is fun.   Half a world away, deep in the jungle, different languages, cultures, clothes and customs, and yet we spent the day together laughing our heads off.   Friends, this is heaven.   Honest to God, pure unadulterated joy in plenty.   Heaven.  

Amazon flora and fauna

Well, I think it's time to post a zillion pics of amazing things I encountered, from bugs to butterflies to toucans and caiman.  Here we go!

Orchid at the mission station. 

I saw a lot of these in the jungle. Greg said it is a fungus of some kind.  Bonus points to the one who can identify it. This specimen is about 2 1/2 feet long. 

Chickens are everywhere.  Well, everywhere there are humans.  This is probably a good thing because they eat bugs all day long. 

Bromeliad with a centipede hiding inside. 

Huge moth who fluttered into church. 

Blurry suri.  

This is how they store suri - wrapped up in banana leaves.  

Fallen bananas.  The red thing on the right is the flower. It's HUGE.  

Banana leaves. I had no idea they got this big.  

I saw a ton of butterflies, but they are really difficult to photograph!  Google blue morpho to see a good shot of the ones I saw quite a few of fluttering over rivers.  

Leaf cutter ant!

Rivers-  I should have a whole post about them.  This is where the Marañon meets the Kusu and where the original mission station was.  

All of the above are on the Marañon.  The skies were beautiful.  It went from clear and hot to rainy to overcast.  I could have ridden in boats like that for days.  So very beautiful with the breeze in your hair even when it was hot.   I loved it!  

 

 Cacao pods. 

This was at the port in Imasa.  Port is a strong word.  We had to wade out in nasty water to get to the boat.  We saw a lot of boats filled with bananas.  This was a spectacular pile. 

The trees at Quelap had bromeliads all over them.  They looked like flowers when they were red.  

 

Probably my best nature shot - no editing whatsoever!   You should see the outtakes!  

Just a taste of the waterfall in Tarapoto.   

Noni fruit growing at the district center in Iquitos. 

This is unripe cashew fruit.  The fruit is apparently very good but was not in season.  When Greg was a kid in boarding school the farmers used to get the kids to eat all the fruit they could stand and they'd collect the nuts to cure and sell.   I think it's his favorite fruit. 

  

Rubber dribbling down from a gash in rubber tree bark.  

Pineapple!   I have to say the pineapple in Peru was the most succulent, sweet, tender pineapple I've ever tasted. 

Where the Nanay river meets the Amazon.  The water is both a different color and temperature, and it was visible from a long way away.  See the lighter color ahead?  That's the Amazon.  

Three-toed sloth!

This is some kind of ancient tortoise.  It really looks like a dinosaur, doesn't it?

Aanconda!   That big lump in his middle is a chicken.  We weren't allowed to hold it because it just eaten.  

This tree had these gorgeous caterpillars all over it. 

On the Amazon.

We stopped at a paiche farm along the river.  Paiche are huge and very tasty fish. I didn't get a good picture of them, but the farm also had caiman- these little alligator guys were feisty!  

Giant lily pad!

Plumeria flowers in Iquitos. 

Llamas at Quelap.

Interesting spider.  She had her babies all over her back.  I could just hear her yelling, "You kids get off my back!"   This was the biggest spider I saw, and it was pretty small- maybe an inch and a half long.  Sorry to disappoint all the arachnophiles out there.   

One last shot of Mr. Toucan.  He was heavy!

One thought to conclude with here.  A lot of people think they could never go and do this thing or that thing.  What we're all really afraid of is the unknown.  When we we say no to going and doing things for  God, we aren't any safer than we are when we say yes.  The 405 freeway has way more traffic than the Amazon River.  The tarantula that walked through my living room the week before I left was no more dangerous than anything I saw or did in Peru, it just looked big and scary.  It's all in our heads. The bummer is that when we play it "safe" we miss out on a lifetime of adventure and countless blessings.  I'm so glad I didn't!   

More later, 

Bonnie :)