Dean and Ruth’s Diary

Newsletter from June – open each page separately and click again to enlarge…

Here is our latest newsletter for May 2009, click each page to open and again to enlarge.

Enjoy!

Here are a few extra photos from Dean’s birthday party….

Here is our newsletter for April … you’ll need to open each page by clicking on it and again to enlarge it.

We’ll be seeing you soon, when we return in July.

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Our church have a group who travel locally to do evangelism and mission. They invited us to go with them this weekend to a place called Tomoyo. It is a small community of 23 families spread out over a large area which is not accessible by road. We had to walk about an hour across 3 rivers ( carrying all our stuff) to get there.

Sadly when we got there we found out that the teachers and the children had all gone to Potosi for the weekend!!! So the people we were planning to work with were not there!! But the team didn’t loose heart, they set about cleaning a newly built but unused health centre, and visiting families to invite them to spend time with us the next day.

The community speak Quechua… and a little Spanish, so playing games was a challenge… we used lots of demonstrations and sign language. It was fun to see them play parachute games and watching the dramas. The team had bought solar powered radios which are fixed frequency to a program which reads the bible in Quechua. Each costs the equivalent of £7 and we gave them to different families, many of whom cannot read and work out in the country miles from anywhere.

The journey home began at 5.30 am with a wake up call and breakfast. Followed by packing up and carrying all the stuff back to the road. We were at 3400m ( about 3 times the height of Snowdon), the sun was only just up, the water was well over over knees and the bottom of the river was covered in rocks and gravel. We have never been so cold in all our lives!!! It was painfully cold and it was only half an hour later did we regain feeling in our toes.

Brrrr….

Beautiful sunrise as we crossed the river

The mission team from our church

Here is our newsletter for March, click on each page to open and again to enlarge…. please leave a message.

We had two other striders visit us last weekend, one from Switzerland named Regula who is a nurse working in Trinidad and the other from Columbia named Gabriel who is working with students in a small town named Llagagua. – a truly international weekend.

It was great to show them around Sucre, to take them to church, the market and visit our projects. On the Sunday was a festival in a small town called Tarabuco about a hours drive which happens just once a year. It is a parade through the streets of dancing in traditional costumes and a presentation of food and gifts to “Pacha Mama”. The clothes were amazing and the colours were fantastic. Each village has a distinct fabric and costume and all are very proud to have been selected to dance or march to represent their people. Each village had the traditional woodwind instruments and many wore belts filled with bells and special shoes with metal disks. The air was filled with singing, laughter and music… the traditional style Quechua singing is very high pitched!!!

In the afternoon each community had brought a selection of food they had grown, gifts of coca leaves, tobacco and other strange things all presented on a giant ladder to offer to Pacha Mama – the mother earth god. The young ladies and men did a stamping dance and were “whipped” by the elder of the villiage if they made a mistake… although they only pretended to whip each other with many smiles and laughter. We enjoyed seeing how the traditions of the rural communities are kept alive and how proud the young and old people are of their culture.

The photos don’t really capture the atmosphere – yes and it is me dressed up in the traditional costume…. they always seem to pick me out of the crowd for these silly things.

Also – as a strange add on – on the micro (mini bus) I bumped into a person who used to work at Abbot’s Hill school with me. I was speechless when a stranger came up to me and asked…”Are you from Hemel Hempstead? I used to work with you?” In the middle of nowhere!! It really is a small world.

Traditional dress

Watching the dancing

Dancing and playing traditional instruments

Yes those are coca leaves they are carrying

They pick me - every time!!!