Feliz dia mamá

Feliz dia de mamá to all my daughters  and great women in my life who are such wonderful mothers.

                                   

(yes, I made this video for the offices here...because I am here to be a helper ;) ... they made be do it.)

Transportation...

Got into the "high class" cab the other day.  Can't see the propane gas tank behind the seat.

Don't you just love the drapes?  Oh wait it's not supposed to have drapes.

No need for keys either

But it does have air conditioning and overhead lighting :)

The cars are the same size, even the tires.

Night & Day in the Neighborhood

Culinary Course

Since John served his mission in Peru as a young elder,  our children have grown up with the stories of food he ate while serving in the remote regions in the Peru Arequipa Mission.  Many of those tales involved chicken and chicken parts.  We even have pictures of chicken heads and feet floating in the simmering stew pot set out over an open fire. While we do now live and serve in the  metropolitan area on the East side of Lima,  it is SOOOO comforting to know that options are still available for our culinary experiences while here.  We can still include chicken parts in the retelling of what we could choose from for our stew pot.

And seeing as how it is wrapped and prepared so carefully, it should be very safe for consumption.

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We live just a couple of blocks east of the University here in La Molina.  A university that includes a culinary school which hosts a small, trendy restaurant called Di.  Their specialty his postres (cakes) and dulces (sweet to eat things)

This lego cake made me think of Dryden.

Our first Saturday here, two sr. missionary couples, the Mayberrys (they are from St. David.  He is serving as the area medical advisor.  Faye is the sister to Celeste Innes) and the Halleys (they are from Indiana and he is serving as the area Auditor) took us to dinner and introduced us to Di.  They serve a very good frozen limonada (no yellow lemons here, all limes)

Strawberry Tart

Rasberry Cheesecake

Lasagna

This is a vegetarian burger made with beets and quinoa.  Fried onion rings on top and asparagus.  The french fries were good.  The burger was tasty, just needed a little beef. 

Looks are very deceiving.  This is a whipped jello dessert that has been left out and sort of dried and thick..... no bueno.  This was from an steak house we walked down too.  But the fantastic Ribeye and grilled vegetables were VERY delicioso.

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We work in the PSD office and our manager that we work with is Gabriel Paredes.  He is a young newly wed.  After we had been here a couple of weeks, he and his wife took us out to dinner at a trendy place near their house.... about five minutes from the offices.  It is called Manka and uses organic ingredients and stuff

this a grass limonada

This was our dessert.  It was a lime-mint sorbet type desert.  The stick is chocolate and raspberry dots

This is the berry cheesecake tart thingy. They had it.

This would be our main course.  A large dish shared by the four of us.  It was duck breast on a bed of cilantro rice that is piled on a sauce of aji or something else.  Topped with crispy something. It was yummy

This was the appetizer.  Yucca chips, a guacamole type base with raw tuna, corn and onions topped with bean sprouts.  It was actually pretty tasty.

the inside of the restaurant. It had small potted herbs as the center pieces and more potted ones on the back wall.

The Mad Hatter

Hats are a big deal here.  

Some are bigger than others....

We have asked about the significance of hats here.  The most common answer is that it denotes what village you are from.  But there must be some element of status or socio-economic factor as well.  But they do tend to vary according to what regions you are in, so it does play a part in it.  They also tend to get taller the farther out in the indigenous areas you go too.

Once a month, the American ladies in the ward, have an Out-to-Lunch bunch gathering with potluck dishes brought in.  They take turns as to homes it will be held at.  Some are Embassy workers wives and others are church employees wives.  They are gracious enough to invite the Sr. Missionaries so they can converse in English.

This was the first one I attended.  It is the home of the Area Comptroller (finances) for the church.  He has a hat collection that is amazing.  Some of the hats have photos that are with them.  He has traveled around the area and when he sees a particular hat he likes, he approaches the hat wearer and buys it off her head, but only after he takes a picture with her wearing it.

I didn't take photos of the whole collection. I felt intrusive taking this many.  But it was amazing.

Here are a couple of articles about the hats: (copy and paste the link into a browser bar)

http://dare2go.com/peru-bolivia-unique-hats/

https://threadsofperu.com/pages/traditional-andean-clothng

Brisas de Titicaca

Our office and the walk to the apartment

this side is for the Dunns, they are the Church History missionaries for the area.

This would be ours.  John has a place.....  When we first arrived, the desk ended just before the red chair and had a big box on top.  And there was no chair.  I don't know what they expected me to do.