A Closer Look at the Groceries -

Packaging of food, and other items, is very interesting here in Peru. Since many people cannot afford to purchase large quantities, the packaging is much smaller, thus reducing the price. Crackers, cookies, nuts, spices, juices, and many canned goods are only sold in small packages or by the piece. We have even seen cigarettes sold by the individual cigarette. Eggs can be purchased individually or in cartons of 15. There is also some innovative packaging as can be seen in the following photos.

Water comes in all sizes of containers: 600 ml (.6 qt), 2.5 liters (2.6 qts.), 7 liters (7.4 qts.) all plastic bottles, and large 18 liter (5 gals.) jugs. We prefer the boxes, which have a plastic liner bag and hold 20 liters. We like to keep one or two in reserve since the stores sometimes run out. (This is our Harry Potter room, great for storing water, bags, brooms and suitcases.

The box comes with a built-in spout that is made operational by cutting the outer cardboard case and pulling the plastic valve out. Pretty clever.

Ketchup, mayonaise, and spaghetti sauce in the largest containers available. They hold about the equivalent of a small jar.

More products in boxes. One liter of milk, a bottle of yogurt, and a box of orange juice. Each is about a liter. They do not require refrigeration until after they are opened.

We cannot leave out chocolate. Both of these are good, but we like the Sublime brands, especially the chocolate covered almonds.

Some of the interesting fruits and veggies. We soak all of them in a disinfectant before eating.  That is a white mango on top of the basket.

This is the disinfectant Kilol ("kill all") that is a natural disinfectant made in Peru from grapefruit seed and other natural ingredients. We mix one teaspoon with a liter of water and soak the fruit and veggies for 10 - 20 minutes.

We had the 4 Elders assigned to our ward over for dinner on a Saturday. Since Elder Robles on the left is from Mexico, Marilyn prepared meat, cheese, beans, tortillas, guacamole and salsa to make burritos. They easily cleaned up everything! They said they really enjoyed a break from rice and potatoes, which are the standard items with every Peruvian meal.

Elder Schenk on the left is 6'5". We are the short ones in this group.

Shopping in Huaraz - Part 2 -

Buying groceries is not the only interesting shopping activity, just about anything you can imagine is available on the streets or in the central market place. Here are a few examples.

Clothing and back packs.  We think that they have to take all those things inside every night--what a lot of work!

More clothes, different wall.

Another clothing store next door to the one above. Also, notice the belt salesman on the right.

Sidewalk shoe store.

More shoes on the sidewalk.

A mobile belt saleslady enjoying a popsicle on a sunny day.

Another belt salesman.

You can also buy furniture on the sidewalk and other items offered by this group of vendors. Check out the cool hats.  And as you can see, the sidewalks are really not used for walking--we have to mostly walk in the streets, at least down in the main market area.

This is our favorite kitchen supply store and the owner. As you can see, he has a little bit of everything, much of it stacked on the floor in front of the counter.

Not all street vendors are downtown. This merchant set up on the corner one block from our apartment. There was a big volleyball tournament at a nearby school that day and lots of people came, providing a sales opportunity for these vendors.  These are basically cheap kids' toys.

It was about lunchtime on a Saturday, so what better time to set up your hot meal stand for all those hungry folks following the volleyball games.  The yellow things in the square plastic tub are potatoes, one of the many varieties of potatoes here.  Not sure what the other foods are.

Why not get your teeth checked and your eyes examined while you shop? The medical profession is not afraid to use bold advertising. 

Shopping for food in Huaraz -

Recent posts have contained a lot of text and few photos. We would like to alter that trend. We have been collecting photos of the varied and interesting food sources where we get our weekly groceries. There are no supermarkets, malls or Walmarts; so we go to various small vendors in and out of the large central market. We also have several grocery stores that actually carry a variety of items in one place and have familiar checkout cash registers.

We'll start with one of the grocery stores that we shop at regularly.

This is Novaplaza, the second largest grocery store.

This is the guy who checks your bags when you enter the store and places them in the lockers behind him while you shop. This is at Trujillo, the largest grocery store in town that carries the basics but does not have any meat or fresh produce.  Well, they do carry lunch meat and hot dogs.

Here are some of the fruit carts, which are on every street near the central market.

Fresh fruit

Motorized fresh fruit

A closer look at the motorized fruit vendor.

Besides bananas and pineapple, you can see mangoes, pineapple, chirimoya and other local fruits.

Have a strawberry! Our favorite photo. We bought some, soaked them in disinfectant and they were delicious.

How about some fresh watermelon! Note the vendor does not have a hand on his left arm.  We see people eating individual slices of watermelon and pineapple in a bag all the time.

Now for some veggies, meats and other items that are available at the markets.

One of Sister Oxborrow's favorite veggie vendors in the central market.

The carrots here are great, very tasty, even the large ones, which are usually a little woody in the States but not here.  They only have red onions here.

You can also purchase your veggies along the sidewalk if you wish.

Or in the middle of the street.

And if you are hungry while you are shopping, these ladies will fix you a plate of chocho, which consists of a variety of white, round bean, tomatoes and onions.

Here's more on chocho from an article in "Nutrition Unplugged" by Janet Helm, a nutrition journalist and registered dietician.

"Quinoa isn't the only superfood to emerge from the Andes Mountains. This grain-like seed, a staple of the Incan diet, rose to fame in the U.S. for its impressive protein content, whole-grain/gluten-free goodness, and 'ancient' pedigree. Now there's another ancient food from the Andean region that's about to emerge as the newest superfood. Chocho is a legume that's been a core component of Ecuadorian and Peruvian cuisine for ages. This dense, white bean is rich in protein (even more than quinoa and soy beans), contains healthy fats (omega-3s) and is high in fiber and minerals. Lots of good stuff comes out of Peru. Besides quinoa, we have Peru to thank for potatoes."

Sister Oxborrow at her favorite meat market, well actually we do buy some packages meats (when they have them) at Novaplaza but this lady has good hamburger and roasts and in spite of the appearance, the meat is clean and fresh.

This is our cheese and honey vendor. The dog was just taking a break from picking up scraps of meat at the various meat vendors. Although under roof, the large central market has many entrances and dogs come and go at will and no one seems to mind.

Although we buy our bread from the grocery stores or the bread and pastry stores, street vendors like this lady are common. She is brushing away the flies from her breads.

Have an egg! We have purchased from these vendors once or twice but generally buy our eggs at the grocery store. They come in cartons of 15.

We'll end this gourmet tour with this photo of "lechón", or oven roasted pork. With the seasoning that's added this meat is delicious. We ate it for the first time at the Bishop's birthday party, which we posted several months ago. We bought about 4 lbs. and have frozen some for future use. Of all the lechón vendors, this lady was recommended as the best.

News from the archives -

You have possibly noticed that our blog production has dropped off considerably since we received stake Family History callings at the end of May. We have been busy every weekend and many of the evenings. 

This past Sunday we visited and taught four wards in their combined Priesthood, Relief Society and youth class, starting with our ward (Central) at 10:00, then traveling to the Haurupampa Ward at 11:00 and back to the Centenario Ward at 12:00. We went home for lunch and then finished up the training with the Huaraz Ward at 4:00. 

Three of the wards meet in the chapel but the fourth, Huarupampa, meets in a rented building about 10 minutes from the chapel. Transportation was a concern since there are only two cars in our ward. Fortunately, the Elders Quorum President was there and had his car so he drove us, the Stake President (who does not have a car) and a member of the High Council to the Huarupampa building. Sunday evening we went to the home of a ward member and trained a family of six on indexing. It was a long but rewarding day.

We have been asked to train all 40 young single adults (ages 18 to 30) in the stake on indexing before the end of July when our stake is hosting a 4 day YSA convention here for the YSA from the  Huanaco and Lima Independencia stakes. One of the activities is to see if they can index 5,000 names during the convention. We have our work cut out for us.

Here is a follow-up on some of the interesting things we have seen and done lately at the archives.

First of all, we are now working with the Nikon 800 color camera that our trainer, Juan, has been using and evaluating since we arrived. It is a little easier to use since we don't have to adjust the lighting but is a little slower to capture the images. Since he has a high production rate goal, is better that he is on the faster B/W camera. He also wants us to have experience with the color camera. It is interesting to see the images in color--lots of colored stamps and different colors of ink and papers.

We continue to try and read some of the records as we photograph them. There is often more to the story than just the cold facts and dates. In the records we are doing now there are many, many more deaths related to traffic accidents. That would be expected in the 1960s when there were many more vehicles. In one book there were nine deaths reported the same day and another had eleven, all from two different accidents--probably a bus or truck hauling people.

One couple died in a fire and another couple was struck by lightning. Apparently quite a few people die from lightning strikes during the rainy season. There have been a number of deaths from drowning, gunshot wounds, and suffocation.

We have also seen reports of TB deaths, colic, and many people have died from pneumonia. You would expect that antibiotics would have been available for pneumonia by the 50's and 60's. Two sad entries show two sets of twins that only lived a few hours, but there are not nearly as many "naci-muerte" (born dead) as in previous years.

This week we will start the books that contain the data from the 1970 earthquake in which 20,000 people died here in Huaraz. We have no idea how they would have recorded all those fatalities.  Please don't think of us as morbid talking about all these deaths--it is just that is what we are dealing with all day.

The photo below was taken from the death records of Huaraz for the year 1955 (the year Elder Oxborrow graduated from high school). It is a statistical summary of the deaths for the year. We think it is fascinating how they classified people--although maybe not politically correct by today's standards. It is also interesting how many people died without medical assistance.  Below the photo is a translation of the summary.

The 1955 summary of deaths for Huaraz.

[Translation]
Demographic statistics of deaths during the year 1955

Adults -  272      Males -     255       Urban -   197        Legitimate -  403
Minors -   48      Women -  256        Hospital - 33        Illegitimate - 108
Infants - 191                     511       Rural -    281                            511
             511                                                511

White race -     19         With medical assistance -      116
Mixed -          286         Without medical assistance -  395
Indigenous -   206                                                    511
                     511

An interesting discovery this past week was finding the oldest book in the archives. It wasn't even listed on their inventory list. It contains the death records for the City of Huaraz from 1888 to 1891. Part of the cover is bound with real leather and the book is in good condition considering it is 126 years old. There are two entries to a page as you can see in the photo at the bottom.

The oldest book in the archives - 1888. Notice the real leather binding.

The label on the oldest book.

We reached two milestones this week. On Monday, we took the 70,000th image since we arrived. Those records will soon be available to many Peruvians on FamilySearch.org to enable them to search for their ancestors.

On Thursday this week, we will have completed 5 months in the mission. We cannot believe we have been in the mission field that long. It seems we just arrived in Huaraz a few weeks ago.