The past couple of weeks have been a bit harder on us mainly because we have been experiencing regular stomach upsets next to colds etc. Thanksfully Steven has been able to go to language school most days so his Spanish has been progressing. He has even been ‘upgraded’ to a (literally) higher class where the view can sometimes be quite a distraction.

Improved view from the new classroom

The past couple of weeks have also been about our nearing departure to Curahuasi. This will the 3rd time we move in 5 months. We have been able to arrange transport for some furniture and we ourselves will travel by bus coming Friday February 23. The night bus will leave around 20.00 and we hope to arrive in Cusco at 06.15. If all goes well a taxidriver will be awaiting us there to take us to Curahuasi in 2,5 hours. Vikki has already been busy packing and preparing.

As a consequence of our nearing departure last Sunday was our last Sunday in Arequipa. And not just any Sunday because our Olivia turned 2! We have made a nice day out of it and Olivia really enjoyed it.

Olivia on her second birthday

Also Steven had offered to preach in the church that we visited during our time in Arequipa. With mixed feelings Steven heard his offer being accepted. Mixed feelings because the preaching was going to be in Spanish. It took a couple of late nights translating but Steven has preached for the first time for 30 minutes in Spanish. It was definately not perfect but people were positive afterwards so 3 months of language school apparently have brought something.

Steven during his first preaching in Spanish

Another thing that we have been doing is waiting for our visa. This process has been taking longer becuase of the many refugees from Venezuala that are also applying for visa. Recently we were invited to the ‘migraciones’ office to have our picture and finger prints taken. This is what we did last week and we hope to be able to collect our visa this Wednesday or Thursday. This would leave us just enough time to open a Peruvian bank account in Arequipa. The reason that this is important is that in Curahuasi there are no ATMs on every corner but there is a so-called ‘agente’ of a Peruvian bank. If you have a bank account with that bank (and you actually have money in that account), you can get cash at this ‘agente’. A couple of weeks ago the first ATM was placed in Curahuasi but this is of a bank that we do not know which means that we are not sure that our Dutch debit cards would work there. Furthermore we want get some documents notarised so that the Diospi Suyana employee in Lima can start on the visa for Leah and Olivia. And in order to get those documents legalised we first need our visa. This means that there is still quite some (paper)work to be done!