200 Alpaca Scarves

Well, I've decided to get back into the habit of blogging. No I'm not talking about writing the type of meditative Scripture-based articles that I've been continuing to maintain here and on www.fireonyourhead.org alike. But some stuff happens down here in Peru, where I live and serve as a missionary for those of you reading who may never have known, or you did and forgot.

I realize that the difference in culture from Canada to Peru is far greater than the cultural divide between my home country and The Netherlands ever was. So I'm going to get back in the habit of blogging, to at least write short snippets. Not daily, but hopefully I can keep caught up with it weekly with short entries of two or three paragraphs, nothing too heavy.

So much stuff happens, it's ridiculous. Like living in a huge house in Peru with a landlady who sets her alarm to come upstairs between 1:30 am and 2am to turn the WiFi router off because she believes that it needs to be turned off for at least four hours per day in order not to overheat. Yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds, especially since Google searching didn't turn up any results of the number of casualties per year of Peruvians who've died from router explosions. The idea that some Peruvian lady could get a good whole night's sleep uninterrupted but refuses to be persuaded that it's not necessary to do so, is quite humorous (but really annoying too). I emailed home to tell my dad, since the house is bound to burn down now since the WiFi router has been on for almost two years now.

Everyday I see and hear such silly nonsense from living in a third world culture that would make for good blogging. Did you know cold Coke is bad for your throat? Did you know that if you're cold, eat chocolate? I grew up in Canada, and somehow failed to ever learn that one.

Again, to be clear, I'm not mocking people or the culture, because I'm not better than them and they are not better than me. But, I'm sure I can blog some of my cultural shockings and frustrations as a harmless and creative way to cope.

I think I fell out of 'journal' type of blogging after quite a while because of several factors--social networking like Facebook and having almost everybody and anybody who cares to follow my life on there. Plus, it's easier to upload my pictures of missionary life there instead of on wordpress or blogspot. For those of you who won't be clicking on either hyperlink, I post Just Your Average Revolutionary on both sites since I can't make up my mind which site I'd rather use since they've both got features the other doesn't (Wordpress' more professional 'site' look, and Blogger's ease of use and the fact that's the one I started and more people know that link).

The other factor is podcasting. If you've never checked out Fire On Your Head, then allow me to say in one thought, that that thing has taken on a world of its own. A lot of people listen and check it out. In each episode as of late, I usually take 5-10 minutes to make an intro before each interview with different guests now, in order to share awesome or silly things going in my life and ministry. So since I've developed these other avenues to shine my personality through, I've kinda left blogging behind, and the stats for my readership declined steadily in the advent of those things anyway, so I felt maybe blogging was no longer in vogue.

Then I realized I was missing out on the main thing journal-blogging provided me--an outlet; a way to cope with some frustrations and channel them into humor or just plain pensive writings that make ME feel better by writing them. So whether few or many people will read this blog, I'm going to pick up the habit again. Besides, it's pretty hard to write enough in Facebook status updates or FieryCanadian tweats.

As for the 200 alpaca scarves: that's another story, so you'll have to keep posted if you want to know more!