ANYWAY, so as I turn to go down the next isle to get some apples, Jake is trailing behind me and playing with some tongs that are hanging down in front of some unknown Peruvian fruit.  Next thing I know I hear him screaming and crying, run back over there and find him surrounded by workers and concerned fellow shoppers.  He is holding and staring at his hand, which has several blond, hair-thin, thorns sticking out of it!  I picked out the ones that I could see.  But everyone else around me was highly concerned and eager to help, because Jake was still freaking out.  A couple of ladies were there who spoke English and they asked me if I had any tweezers, because there were more thorns in his hand and they are hard to see.  Needless to say, we found out why those tongs were there–for handling this fruit called a tuna, a cactus fruit.  I guess it’s similar to a prickly pear.

God took over for me, because I felt helpless and clueless.  Those sweet ladies (all of them) took care of everything.  One went to go buy some tweezers and another led Jake over to a sink to wash his hands.  Within 10 minutes all was well.

That evening we went to Chili’s for a birthday dinner for Sofia (Happy birthday, Sof!  Can’t believe you are already 5!).  By this time, though, I was feeling worse and didn’t even order food.  On the way home I had the boys in the car (Wes had left to play soccer) and we had to stop and get gas.  Filling up your tank here is actually quite a luxury.  You are not allowed to do it yourself, so every station is full service.  And in some places, they even have fill stations in the medians of the road, so you just pull over and they fill up your tank and then you are back on your way.  Pretty cool.  I only had 20 soles of cash with me (about $6), so I asked the guy to go ahead and give me a full tank, thinking I would pay with my debit card.  This happened to me once before, so you would think that I would have known that this was another bad idea from Stacy for the day.  He fills up my tank, it ends up being about 135 soles, then my card gets denied.  So here I am in the middle of the road, can hardly speak any Spanish, and have no way of paying for this.  I end up leaving my drivers license and car insurance with the guy and tell him I’ll be back after I find some cash.  Long story short, the Thompsons come to my rescue and I clean them out of ALL the cash they had on hand so I can go back and pay for it.  Thanks again, Alison!

So I’m finally on my way home.  By this time I am really feeling nauseated.  And the drive home, which normally would take 20 to 30 minutes, ended up taking 45-50 minutes because I got stuck in horrible traffic.  I was literally praying the whole time that God would let me at least make it home before I threw up, because I was stuck on the highway with nowhere to go and it would have been all over me.  Lovely, right?  Before I made it home, I called and asked Wes to meet me there.  I beat him home and managed to get a sleeping Derek out of the car and into his bed.  But I had to leave Jake asleep in the car and just waited for Wes to get there, because I was in need of a few moments with the toilet.

I’m learning that Peruvian viruses hate me.  I was sick all night and things got worse after that.  Wes said that when he got Derek up this morning he found Derek laying in his own dried up vomit, but he was happy as a lark.  I know, another lovely sight for you to imagine.  Thankfully, after a bath, Derek’s been fine all day.  I, on the other hand, am still in bed.  But at least I am finding time for updates now, right?

So, I spent all my free time on Mon, Tues, and Wednesday trying to do last minute shopping in order to get a few packages in the mail for Christmas.  I couldn’t find all the supplies needed to mail a package–boxes, bubble wrap, etc.  (Never found those, by the way. They only sell them at the post office.) Then on Thursday we finally had it all together and Wes was minutes away from going to the Peruvian post office (called SerPost) when Derek tripped on his step stool and fell on the kitchen tile, busting his chin open!

We took him to an emergency clinic and he had to get five stitches!  Don’t worry, he is doing fine.  He’s a tough little guy.  Acts like nothing ever happened.

Then, Thursday night from 6-10 PM I got to go to my first Peruvian wedding shower.  My Spanish teacher, Cynthia, is getting married on December 26th.  It was fun!  Tara and Alison went with me and we had a great time.  I am looking forward to going to the wedding, too. They are serious about their parties here.  From 6-9 appetizers and drinks were served.  The meal was served at 9, which was pork roast with an awesome dessert bar with crepes, ice cream and lots of fruit.  Cynthia’s sister is a talented singer/songwriter and so she entertained us throughout the night.  The shower was held in Cynthia’s grandparent’s backyard, but it felt like we were in a beautiful garden the way it was decorated.  Another cultural difference is that the guests don’t bring gifts.  When you walk in the door you hand over cash as you sign in.  And showers typically have a lot of hostesses (like 20 or more), who give the bride’s family at least $35 each to help pay for the shower.  You are expected to have a nice, fancy shower here.  If not, then, as Cynthia said, “Your guests talk bad about you and it gives your family a bad name.”

Saturday night was a story to tell, too.  We got invited to a friend’s 6th grade graduation ceremony for his daughter (the school year here runs from March to December).  Mark went with us and I’m really glad he did.  He helped us with directions, and we soon found out how it seems there really is safety in numbers.  The school is only 7 miles from our house, but it took us an hour to get there because of bad traffic, construction, and detours.  So yeah, we got a bit lost.  The school is in downtown Lima.  Not the safest part of town.  And the ceremony was supposed to last from 6 to midnight!  After driving through some sketchy neighborhoods, praying that we didn’t run into a dead end, or run into a mob of guys, and after dodging whistles from cops trying to pull us over (they just stand in the street and as of yet, don’t get in their cars to come after you), because aint no way we are stopping… we finally found the school.  Then we were like, UH, WE CAN’T LEAVE THE CAR ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD HERE.  Not too bright of us.  So we decided for Wes to just run in and tell our friend hi, and that we needed to get going, because we had to get the kids in bed (it was already almost 8 by this time).  Our friend was nowhere to be found and everyone there was dressed in suit and ties, and nice dresses.  They looked at Wes in his polo with looks that said, “Gringo, you are in the wrong place.”  They were right.

We have many lessons being learned and stories being added to our growing list!  Thanks for walking alongside of us.

Pretty much the only discernable difference is that the usual yelling of “Trick-or-Treat!” is replaced by screeches of “Halloweeeeeeen!”

Although completely last minute, I think the boys “Incredibles” costumes turned out pretty much awesome.  However, next time you’re needing a genuine super hero mask and all you have are some Sponge Bob goggles and you find yourself planning to spray paint them black about 2 hours before trick-or-treating, you might want to reconsider.  On the way to the Thompsons’ house we looked back and Jake had fallen asleep with black spray paint all over his face and in his sleep had drooled all over his Incredibles logo.

Oh, well… what’s the point of being 3 if you can’t get paint on your face and drool in your sleep and never know the difference?

See the rest of our pics here.

]]> http://theyoakums.net/blog/halloweening-in-lima/feed/ 0 http://theyoakums.net/blog/overcoming-depression/ http://theyoakums.net/blog/overcoming-depression/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:32:27 +0000 Stacy http://theyoakums.net/blog/?p=494 I realize that I haven’t posted much, if any at all, about what the last six months have been like for me as I’ve been on the road to recovery from depression.  The main reason for that is because the amount of time, effort, and energy we’ve spent being comitted to my healing has not left me with much room for blogging about it.  Also, this has been a complex process.  For some of the steps along the way we needed more time to work through things amongst ourselves before openly sharing things with everyone else.  We are so happy to say that now we have GREAT NEWS TO SHARE.  Therefore, we have updated our site and added a page that I wrote titled, Overcoming Depression, and linked it on the sidebar to the right.  I know not everyone is interested in hearing a long, detailed version of my victorious story, but for those of you who do have an interest or who may just want to know more about what depression may look like, then this article is for you!  I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, to all of you who have kept us in your thoughts and prayers.  We lift the name of our God up high, and my heart is overwhelmed with joy at Who He is and what He has done!

Yep. Very broken. The pain was surprisingly not that bad, but there was a lot of blood. So, I walked to the Fletcher’s house, called the doctor and then Lee went with me to the emergency room where I got looked at, got some painkillers and some x-rays and made an appointment with our regular doctor for the morning. I met with him this morning and he referred me to a specialist. Then, this afternoon I met with the specialist (a plastic surgeon), and he confirmed that indeed the bone is broken and that I’m going to have to have surgery to fix it. Now I’m scheduled for surgery tomorrow evening at 6:30 at Clinica Biblica. They are going to put me completely under and I’ll have to spend the night in the hospital.

So this is officially my first broken bone and my first surgery. Two firsts I think I could have done without. The surgery is not supposed to be risky but none-the-less I’m going to be completely unconcious on an operating table in a foreign country. We certainly appreciate your prayers.

So… In the ongoing effort to manage our finances, we’re making a concerted effort to reduce the amount of money we spend stuffing our faces. That includes the little face in the house. Sure… baby food may only cost 52 cents a jar… but he’s a growing boy and that’s a lot of jars. So, we’ve been making our own and looking for alternatives. In this pursuit we’ve found a gem… sweet potatoes. You can buy canned sweet potatoes. mashed! Like, already mashed. Pre-mashed. Essentially exactly the same as in the little jar at half the price. This is great. But this is not the lesson learned.

So here it is… the lesson learned. When you buy said can of mashed sweet potatoes, it might sit on the counter for a couple of days… which should be fine for the canned food… so it does, sit for a couple days. But, then you just might notice that it is a mysteriously swelling can of this sweet potato of the wonderful mashed variety. Yes, swelling… as in the ends pop out the wrong way… you know like if you leave a coke can out in the sun and then shake it up really good. If this happens, whatever you do, don’t think to yourself, “I’ll just take this handy knife here and poke a hole in it and let the pressure out.” Because, you see, mashed sweet potatoes are kind of runny, and when they are kind of rotten they are kind of smelly and when you kind of poke a hole in the can they kind of spray all over the kitchen and all over your face and in your hair and on the ceiling and the wall and the floor… oh, and the baby and the wife. So just trust me… no matter how good of an idea you might think it is… put the knife away and just throw the swollen can in the trash.