Pools, voting, updates and more!!

Well, this week has come and gone and today, Oct. 3, happens to be voting day in Peru. They are not voting for president, that only happens every five years. Today it is all about state, regional and local government. Interestingly enough, everyone has to go back to close to where they come from to vote. Kinda reminds me of Bible times! Not only that, they are charged close to 80.00 soles or about 26.00 if they don't vote. That, I am told, is down from the 300-400 soles they used to be charged for not doing their civic duty! So some of our girls are voting today. What a mess! It seems like there aren't enough voting locales for the lines are terrible! One lady came in here now and said the line was going for 3 or 4 blocks!!!
On a better note, this week we had an opportunity to go to the home of Shirli, the mom of the little hemophiliac boy. Her home is situated in a squatter's community with the name La Paz, which means peace. The reason they named it that is because there was no violence involved when the squatting began about 5 months ago. And that is very unusual. Shirli wanted to do something to thank us all for helping out with her son. She must have spent most of her money for the month on us and that meal. Talk about a lesson in giving!! We are going to try to help her get to Lima where her son can get some better medical treatment. Several of us missionaries are going to help her add some wood to her home. It had a tarp as a wall. So many needs!!!! We are soooo blessed!

This week we also took our girls to a new pool in town. We were so excited to find it not too far from where we live. But we were more excited to see that it was CLEAN!!! My last experience with a public pool in Peru was green water, pieces of who knows what floating about and water that does not allow you to see the bottom! So, for a little more than 10.00 dollars we were able to take the house full of girls and some of us volunteers. It was a blast for us all and the girls are begging to go again...anything to help us survive the terrible heat!!

Here are a few pictures showing what we have been up to this week! Enjoy...

Piling in the truck, heading to the pool!

Elvira enjoying the pool!

Some girls with their new suits sent by the last volunteers that were here.

Ana Victoria

Aaron being silly, as usual!

The Testosterone in our group

Milagros and Olga

Angel and Sarai

The Awesome, CLEAN pool!!!

Sitting down to eat...blue tarp in back as a wall.

Delicious food, although a little worried how clean these fresh veggies are

19 year old mom with little one...only 11 hemophiliacs in the town of Iquitos

boy outside of home playing with this bike...how dare we EVER complain!

Friend and church member that was over helping fix the food

Some of the homes around where we ate

Little boy of church member taking a nap at home

Church member in her garden.

Church member's home...will be helping with wood for her home, too!

a little closer view of her home and kids