Bucket List: Milk a Cow

I can’t believe it!! I have finally fulfilled my dream of milking a cow!

 It’s been on my bucket list for who knows how long and I did it right here in a beautiful Peruvian field. We wanted to make homemade cheese, because Miguel knows how and we’ve been wanting to do it. So after work, we ventured into the Peruvian outback to find some cows we could buy some milk from. Or rather some cow owners I suppose.

Me and the said cow

It was quite the adventure. Nobody wanted to sell us milk, it was crazy! I didn’t understand why they were so hesitant. We needed 18 liters, but we got 10 here, 5 there etc. And then working out a fair price was crazy too! They usually sell it for .80 a liter, but they were insistent on selling  it to us for 1.50 a liter because we were white. The nerve! Ricardo was able to use the power of “-ita” to knock the price down to 1.30 a liter, but still! 

 

So we sat and watched as a lady milked the cow for the milk we needed to make cheese and then we asked her if we could try milking it. It was sooo fun! It was not what I was expecting at all and it was kind of scary at first. I was super bad at it at first, but I got the hang of it and did … ok. The lady went to town though. She was a pro. Either way, I now can say I have milked a cow, in Peru none the less. Success!

Happy Cheese Week!

 What better way to celebrate cheese week than to make homemade cheese???

I may never eat store bought cheese ever again. Because we made a kilo of the world's greatest edible creation in the whole world!!! 

I’m  not even super big into cheese, but this stuff was sheer heaven. 

We went and got milk fresh from the cow’s utters, warmed it up, cooled it down and then I had to leave for FHE so Liz took over from there. All you do is add a chemical to it, cut it and drain it. Then voila, you have the creamiest, tastiest, most heaven like substance you could ever imagine.

 Gosh it was good. I think I may have even dreamt about how good it was. I woke up the next morning and ate to my hearts content.  Cheese on bread. Cheese on tomatoes. Cheese on avacados. Cheese on bread with tomatoes and avocados! Oh sooo good. I told Miguel and Liz that we MUST make it again before I leave because 1. I want to milk another cow 2. IT WAS SO GOOD!

Life Lessons 1: Things are Just Things

In the future, when I look back on this adventure of mine, I want to be able to remember how I changed, grew and what I learned from it. Because there has been so much and I will forever be grateful for this experience but I know I need to consciously remind myself of the things I have learned, or I shall forget it all. And that would be a pity, to say the least.

So just off the top of my head, here are a few that have been mulling around in my head the past few days.

1.      Things are just things, you don’t need them to make you happy

Three months ago, I would have told you that when I was growing up, my family was extremely poor and that we got by on very little. I’ll have a hard time saying that ever again. We had a refrigerator. A microwave. We didn’t have dirt floors. We had a roof that kept out water and mold. We had hot water. We had clean water and sanitary food. We had a heater and air conditioning system. We had a telephone. We were able to go to a good public school. We had washers and dryers. We could travel to church in less than 10 minutes. We had cars. I have two married parents.

Oh my goodness! I can maybe only tell you a handful of people  I have met up here who have even just one of these luxuries. So many of the kids who come to us for lunch and homework help have never had these things and it’s possible that they never will. But they can run and jump and play like I did as a kid. They tell jokes and tease others just like I did as a kid. They love to hug and show love and give gifts like I did as a kid. They look out for their brother’s and sisters a lot more than I did as a kid. And most importantly they are happy, just like I am.

They don’t need all those “fancy” things, like carpet, a roof or warm beds to be happy. A couple years ago, I was convinced that I could never be happy without my cell phone, or that I had every right to be angry when all the hot water was gone before I showered, or that my chores were so hard.

I’m sooo glad I got to experience just a tiny bit of what it’s like to live without.

Same Gospel, Totally Different Experience

I must write down my thoughts about church in Peru, because I think I’m becoming accustomed to the bizarity of it all and I don’t want to forget some of the things that blew my mind when I first got here.

We see some pretty crazy things...

1.      The music cracks me up seriously every time we sing. I’ve been singing these songs my whole life and can read music pretty decently. Thus I know how the tunes should be sung and I know that they aren’t sung the way that we sing them in America. It’s usually the last measure of a song that gets twisted and conformed into something completely different than what is written on the page. It’s hard to follow sometimes, but I’ve come to love it.

2.      On that same note, (haha good pun, no?) we don’t have a piano in our building, thus the key and octave of the song are begun in whatever key that the chorister would like. Then, if somebody with a loud, booming singing voice doesn’t like that key, they can simply change the octave/key simply by overpowering the rest of us with their voice and then we get the hint and follow suit with the new key being sung. It cracks me up everytime.

3.      I can’t remember if we do the following in the states or not, so somebody help me out. After the sacrament prayers, we all say amen after the prayers are read. It makes sense that we would say amen, but for some reason, Abby and I keep thinking that we don’t say amen in the states.

4.      Our ward is actually pretty good at starting on time, Ricardo is trying to whip them into shape on that, but it would not be unusual for us to start 15 or so minutes late. Also, on our first Sunday here, we got out of Relief Society twenty minutes early! We thought that that was going to become routine. False! We get out at least twenty minutes late everytime and then by the time we’ve thanked and kissed and pretended to understand every single woman in the room, we usually don’t head home til about 45 minutes after the hour. But it’s nice.

5.      The kissing. Our first Sunday here blew us out of the water on this topic. We got to church on time, but it didn’t start for maybe 10-15 minutes. In that time, every single person who walked through those chapel doors greeted us with a hug and a kiss (or a hand shake if they were a loyal married man). Apparently the rule is that when you come to church you go and kiss everyone already there and then sit and wait for those who come after you to kiss you. It was just crazy to us the first time because we had no idea who these people were and they were welcoming us with open arms!

6.      I can understand when Gringos speak Spanish perfectly. I can understand Miguel’s Spanish pretty well too. But when just about anybody else gets up at that pulpit and starts speaking at a million miles an hour, you’ve just got to rely on the spirit to give you some sort of spiritual lesson for that day because you don’t have any idea what they’re saying.

7.      We have trained ourselves to listen for words like, “Gringas, pelo rubio, altas, Estados Unidos” to know when we are being talked about. Usually one of those words is followed by an outroar of laughter from the congregation and we know it’s about us, but we have no idea what was said so we just laugh along and make a note of it to ask somebody about it later.

8.      Sunday School is awesome because Miguel is our teacher and it’s the BOM. Thus we know the stories already and we can follow along in both our BOM’s and LDM’s. And Miguel makes us read and pray in there in Spanish all the time, so it’s good for us.

9.      This is sad, but we dread Relief Society. It’s not our favorite one bit. Mostly because we have no idea what is going on and on some days (like today) we don’t even have a lesson, we just discuss (and when I say discuss, I mean argue) about upcoming business…such as the upcoming Relief Society Anniversary Activity. The ladies had a hay day arguing about who should prepare the meal and which was the best way to cook potatoes. They all had their own opinions on how the food should be cooked, but nobody seemed to have the time to volunteer to cook it. So Brittany and I volunteered to do so and everyone laughed at us…. But they couldn’t argue with us because they had all said they didn’t have time (and we wouldn’t have understood them if they had tried to argue with us) so the three gringas are going to prepare the meal for the activity. Stay tuned :)

10.  Boys are so cute when they are dressed up in white shirts and ties….but I guess I’ve always known that :)

   Also, speaking of church, I'm speaking in it this weekend, along with doing the musical number....ahhhh!