A Picture's Worth 10,000 Spores

 Ok so here’s the full scoop (kind of) on the mold story.  Here’s the reason we’ve evacuated our second story (where we live) and are being threatened to leave our lovely town to go to a strange new Peruvian city several hours away (ahhhh even just typing it breaks my heart!)

So when we first moved in, we noticed that our ceilings are covered in mold…lots of it. Looking back, we now realize that we were all just in culture shock with absolutely everything that was going on around us, so we thought that ceilings carpeted in mold was just a normal thing in Peru, thus we didn’t think too much about it.

Welcome to our bedroom :)

This is normal right???

 Well last week, we had Peruvians come and see the mold. I was shocked at how shocked they were! “THIS IS NOT NORMAL!” they all said and couldn’t believe that we’d been living there for a month.

When Abigail found THIS, we knew we had to do something

We informed headquarters about our living conditions and they were appalled as well. They told us to get out of there at once and that they'd get to work on taking care of it. 

So on the day of the water fight and of the accident, we packed up all of our stuff and moved it downstairs. We went through every article of clothing and everything we owned to check it for mold. I didn’t have too many things go moldy, but Brit and Abigail both had some doozies.  

We invested in cheap masks!

We moved everything into our new bedroom/storage/dining room/living room etc

From much studying and researching on mold, I have found that it is best not to disturb that nasty stuff, because once it gets airborne, you're in for a treat (lungs made of mold). Well it's a good thing I don't know how to communicate that to angry Peruvian men!

Feliciana's husband came in one night while we were sleeping downstairs and was like, "what the...? why are all the gringitas and their junk downstairs?"

So the next morning he comes in and was like, "Uh why is all your stuff downstairs?"
I told him that a man was coming to look at the mold and he kind of flipped out.

Pretty much he said that we didn't even have money for supplies to finish the third floor (which is true) and we surely didn't have money to pay a man to come paint over the mold that is just going to come back with the third floor unfinished (also true). He then proceeds to say that we can take care of the mold ourselves (FALSE!)

Here's where it gets bad. He's saying all this to me while Brit is in Banos and Abby is in the shower. So I'm alone with this angry Peruvian who then takes a BROOM (remember what happened with Feliciana and the broom? Like husband like wife) and starts sweeping the mold off the ceiling and straight into my lungs. Ohhh how I tried not to breathe it in, but it was inevitable because he was going to town.

Shoot, shoot, shoot!! What do I do?

I say, Ok! Yeah thanks! We'll do that later! Tomorrow morning! Al the while I'm praying that I don't die and that he'd just stop and leave.

Eeeek as soon as he left I ran and found my mask and stuck it on and went outside to get fresh air while people looked at me funny.

Anyway, since it's Carnaval and since it's the rainy season, and we're broke, the mold problem probably won't be fixed for quite some time. Eagle-Condor doesn't want us here, because it's super dangerous....so they want to send us to an orphanage all the way down in Trujillo. Which would be super cool if it weren't for the fact that I have made AMAZING friends in Cajamarca, I am madly in love with my kids, I love Puylucana, Banos and Cajamarca so much and the thought of leaving it all so early is seriously heartbreaking.

 I'm pretty sure I'm refusing to go.
Actually i know for a fact I won't go.
I'll find a friend in the ward to stay with or something.
It's going to take a lot more than a house covered in black mold to get me to leave this little bit of heaven I call home.

-Elia