I wanted to share what a “day in the life” is like on the field, and specifically the jungle of Nauta, Peru! Our ministry was super low-key this month, as most months we work for a ministry full time from morning to evening. But this month we got to take things slow and really enjoy our time with the people native to Peru.
7am: My day starts the same pretty much every morning. I would wake up in my mosquito net covered bed (thank you Terri and Jeff Graham for this life saving net!) and put on work clothes and my rain boots.
In this photo you can see the lay out of my room and a very delicious jungle fruit fruit 🙂
8am: I would head down to breakfast at the lower building. The walk is decently long, but so pretty! Everything was usually covered in water from the rain and you could hear all the unique bird sounds native to the jungle. We would usually have a piece of bread, eggs, and a tiny banana for breakfast.
This was one of the first things I would see in the morning on my way down. These cows are quite mischievous and would lick your legs or steal your clothes if you weren’t watching.
9am: For the next little while, depending on the day, we would do different chores around the property. Some days it was moving wood to build a fence, or tote water to the kitchen to use for cooking. My personal favorite was using machetes to clear the land. It was so fun! I’d be happy to take care of all your yard service needs when I get home if I can use a machete:) These mornings were HOT. It would only take a few minutes out in that sun and humidity for me to look like I ran a marathon.
Machetes were so much harder than I thought they would be, but I believe every american family should invest in one of these;) We cleared a very large chunk of land in about 2 hours with them.
11am-2pm: This time of the day was nearly unbearably hot. Everyone in Peru hides from the sun this time of day so as to be somewhat comfortable. During this time we would wash clothes, clean the bathroom, play games, read books, swim in the river, or the more popular choice of killing tarantulas in our room. Marcel, the tarantula, was a resident of our room for many days until she decided to drop into our stuff and was killed by a brave soul. This was just the first of many spiders to meet their end in our room.
After hand washing our clothes, we would hang them out to dry. The cows loved to use this chance to drink the water we rung out and watch us. Only a few shirt casualties happened at the hands (hooves) of the cows.
We would take advantage of swimming in the Amazon to cool off. It was crystal clear (totally not) but we could care less. We saw many river dolphins during this time and got to beat the heat this way.
3pm-5pm: My favorite time of day!! We would take a boat to neighboring villages where we would act out a bible story, play some games, and love on the local village kids. I got to meet so many amazing people during this time and see the way these people live. They invited us in with open arms and proudly showed us around their homes and churches. One little 4 year old girl proudly scaled a palm tree to pick papayas for us while others challenged us to a game of soccer. The kids loved the bible skits and had never heard many of the stories. It is such an amazing experience sharing the gospel with these families. One village we went to had only one older christian woman and the pastor come to church, besides many many children. The message was on how these children need to be brave in Jesus and share the gospel with their parents. This amazed me. I am so use to it being adults first teaching kids but here kids got to share the truth.
Our mode of transportation everyday to the village was by… boat! It was so beautiful. The little boy in this picture is named Jesus. He lived on the farm with us and we loved to paint and play tag with he and his brother, Gabriel. On more than one occasion, I showed up to eat out of breath from chasing one of them in an impromptu game of tag.
These kids had so much joy. I loved to hear them laugh and they loved to make us laugh. Sometimes we would switch places and let the kids sing us a song or be goofy. Pc: Aly Badinger
In this photo we are playing a game of “boa, boa, anaconda” a twist on duck duck goose. The kids were super fast, but it was not hard to catch us clomping around in our rain boots:) pc: Aly Badinger
Most of the kids loved to play an aggressive game of soccer. It was quite a sight watching a bunch of barefoot village kids take on us girls on the muddy field while we lumbered around in our boots. But some kids preferred to sit out and make flower crowns and just sit together in the grass. pc: Aly Badinger
The pastor of the village, Las Palmas, loved to surprise us with cool jungle animals. One day it was a Boa but my favorite day it was a sloth. This guy was just chillin in the jungle but gave us a fun meet and greet before being returned to his tree home. He was pretty cute in my opinion:) pc: Aly Badinger
6pm: I would usually go down to the dock and watch the sunset or play cards until dinner. Amazon nights are so gorgeous. The sunsets were brilliant shades of red, blue, and gold streaking across the sky. The best part was that they last a little over an hour which astounded me. I learned it was because we were so close to the equator. Dinner usually consisted of rice, chicken, and plantains or the Yuca root that tastes like french fries. We would hang around and discuss things as a team or talk to my wonderful host parents (Julio was a favorite, I’ll miss him and his love for trying to scare us!).
This was where I would spend my evenings most nights, on the front of that houseboat. My awesome teammate, Jacee, was always up for a card game there or talk about what we had learned or loved about the day.
8pm-9pm: We had electricity most nights from 7-9pm. Most is the key word;) Some unfortunate souls would be taking a bucket shower when the electricity went out. And when the lights go out, it is dark! No light what so ever. To add to that, the bats come out when it is dark. Most nights I would fall asleep to the sound of squeaking bats playing in the water of our laundry buckets or hitting the rafters above me. A lot of nights you would find someone with a broom killing a spider or people crowded around a card deck. We worked on what we would like to do with our lives or discussed how we saw Jesus working in our lives. Falling asleep to rain pounding on the tin roof was my favorite.
I have no pictures to do with our bedtime routine but this little girl in the picture was someone we would regularly discuss at night. Lindsey was the most joyful girl you will ever meet. We all fell in love with her and her contagious smile and playful spirit. She is someone I will dearly miss from my time in the jungle. pc: Aly Badinger
Thank you for reading this very long blog:) I hope you enjoyed getting a peak into my everyday life here on the race and were able to laugh at a few of the struggles and laughs I experienced in the jungle!
