Bells and Whistles: Around the neighborhood and boys playing soccer

So we got home again and settled into the routine. School, park...

Sometimes Navy would find some friends to play with.

Ethne turned 16!!!!! She got some chocolate milk. :)

Plaza del Armas

Did I already share this? I can't remember. But here's what I wrote on Instagram (but I think it was earlier than this point): Our Airbnb is... sufficient. It's not camping (we have beds! and toilets! and a kitchen!) but it's also somewhat similar to camping in some ways. We have a water filter that we are always using to get our water from. We brush our teeth with that water. We can't throw our toilet paper into the toilet. Our kitchen has a couple pots, one frying pan, and one kettle. Two small cupboards, and no drawers. And no hot water in the kitchen sink (but there is hot water in the shower thank goodness!) Also there are a lack of many of the ingredients I'm used to. But it is good enough--we're figuring out how to get along! (And I hope we all come home with more gratitude and less taking-for-granted.)

Since we've been here in Cusco, we've mostly taken it easy -- Brett's been working, and the kids have been doing schoolwork. We've played a lot of cards and read a lot of books (heavy in the luggage but indispensable).
Yesterday Jethro led some of us to a park, and it was interesting. There were some nice soccer fields that were already being used, so we found some free concrete space and Jethro asked some boys if they wanted to play soccer, and they went and got some more kids, so they had a pretty good game for a while.

And then at a later point I wrote:

But most of the time we just do our thing here at the airnnb-- Brett works, kids do schoolwork, purifying water, cooking (for 9 hungry people, two of whom declare that it's "bulking season," and soaking in bleach water anything we don't peel or boil, like if we want to eat grapes or apples), putting our bags of trash out on the side of the road every night to be picked up, walking our laundry to a laundry place who charge by the kilo, throwing our toilet paper into the trash cans instead of the toilet, going to church and playing the piano for sacrament meeting (me) and helping pass the sacrament (the boys), reading, cleaning, watching shows, going to the park to play soccer...)

Oh, and I should say shopping. Because I am constantly grocery shopping since we have no stores of food in our house (but it gets gradually better all the time). Luckily there is a (very small) grocery store literally 2 doors down from our Airbnb. 🙏🏻 And doing dishes. And boiling water in the kettle to do the dishes.

Some things the kids did: made vegetable (and other things) with the clay we brought (Ethne joined in for that one).

Fingerknitted a lot, then Brett would undo it and wind it up into a ball again so they can do it again (mainly Navy and Wyatt).

Navy and Wyatt made themselves crowns with yarn and egg cartons (with knives, we don't have any scissors)

Wyatt had a little Schleich animal or something, and he was dangling it from the stairs, trying to get it to stand upright on Navy's forehead.

And Orrin set up a booby trap thingee with a slip knot in the yarn, so that when you pulled on a little hanging schleich animal, it would release the other side and an egg carton would drop on you.

Walking up the road that we often took either to the grocery store Orion or to the ATM or the plaza.

Fresh fruit sold on the sidewalk. Pineapple always looked delicious. Also there would be popcorn a lot.

So frequently there were parades or some such going on. We'd run into them all the time.

This (below) was part of the music school begun by Doug Alley and run by Natalia. We thought that Jethro and Hazel could maybe volunteer here, and that Orrin and Ethne could practice instruments here. Well, it was much more difficult than I had anticipated. It was a pretty far walk, then there were no kid-sized violas and when they gave us a full-sized one, it was out of tune. Ethne tried to tune it and ended up breaking a string--oops. Anyway, we ended up not volunteering or keeping up practicing.

This was the bathroom at the school. Pretty typical.

An excursion one day, through the city to some woods I had read about on a blog, so we could leave the city and find some green space for a while. I believe it was called Llaullipata.

I'm pretty sure I have a picture of this lady from another day too.

I have some funny videos of us bouncing up and down with that stick that Brett is holding. It was hilarious to me, and I was kind of emotional that day, so I was like cry-laughing and then later Brett and I got into a fight. What can you do?