Trout with Wings

Before you think I'm turning all evolutionist on you and thinking I found a winged trout, the missing link, let me explain myself. Saturday was another instance when things didn't turn out the way we expected - something that seems to happen quite frequently. We ended up eating trout with wings.
Several weeks ago, we were invited to go on an outing with some of the youth from Huacarpay. The plan was to hike out beyond Lucre, see some beautiful scenery and catch some fish, fry them, eat them, play some games, eat some capuli, then hike back. But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men...

We arrived at the house of our friends the Puma sisters in Huacarpay at 8 AM on a sunny Saturday morning, as was planned. We spent some time getting things together for the outing - things like pots and pans, knives and laundry detergent to wash hands and dishes. All the important stuff. 5 of us (Carrie, Shannon and I and Juana and Rosa Puma, who is pictured at left) left around 8:30 in a taxi to go to the place in Lucre where we were all going to meet. The plan was to go to a fish farm owned by Sixto, one of the men from the church in Lucre. We were going to get some fish from him and take them with us, in case we couldn't catch any fish (or not enough to feed all of us). We were also going to meet the other youth from Huacarpay who were planning on coming with us. When we got to the predetermined destination, there was no one there. So we walked to Sixto's house to see if he had seen everyone else and if they had already gotten fish from him. Turns out he had no idea about the goings-on; neither did he have any trout big enough to sell us. He did, however, have some gigantic pears he sold us. On the left, you can see Vilma and I with them. So we were back to square one, still not sure where the rest of the youth were or what we were going to do. Juana, ever organized, took charge and we walked back through Lucre, meeting her sister Vilma and her boyfriend along the way. We were rather in a rush, but, in typical Peruvian fashion, took time to visit the parents of one of the women from the Lucre church. Of course we couldn't leave emptyhanded, so they gave us a bag of capuli (a Peruvian fruit kind of like a cherry) to take with us. By this time, we were thinking that buying some kind of meat other than fish was looking like a pretty good option, but weren't sure where to find it. We were told there was no meat where we were, but only in the market. So Juana and I decided to go get meat and leave everyone else at the meeting place, just in case anyone else should show up. Thankfully, God sent Pastor Eloy of the Lucre church along just in time to show us where there was some chicken very close. We bought chicken and met up with everyone else. We still had no idea where the other youth were, but, assuming they were ahead of us somewhere, hopefully fishing, we started out. On the way, we met up with another one of the women from the church who agreed to sell us some choclo (corn). We sent two of our group with her to get the choclo, then kept going, past the fish farm on the other side of Lucre, where we waited for the choclo-gatherers to rejoin us. While waiting, we suddenly realized we had no matches to start a fire, so even if we did have meat, it didn't really do us much good anyway. So Juana and I went back down to the fish farm, where we asked for matches from the man there. God's grace was great and he gave us about half a box of matches. Now, well-stocked, we continued our hike.
The actual hike part lasted about an hour or so. The weather was beautiful and it was great walking along all together, carrying everything, talking, enjoying the scenery, even if it was really hot. We finally got to the place where we were going to spend the day, sporting jeans wet to the knee from having crossed two small rivers. Upon arriving, my friend Juana and I cut up the chicken and Vilma started the fire, both of which you can see in the pictures. We began cooking lunch, since we were all really hungry by now. Shortly after we arrived, the other group of three youth arrived. We dispatched them to go fishing and some of the others to go find some capuli, while we started boiling the chicken. When we all reconvened, there was still no fish, but there was boiled chicken and a little capuli. We continued looking for capuli while the chicken finished cooking and the choclo got boiled. Another one of the youth from Lucre arrived just in time for lunch, bearing mote (corn off the cob - the kernels are about the size of your thumbnail). So we had chicken - hence the trout with wings - and mote for lunch. We ate at the perfect time, apparently, since right after we were done and were washing off our greasy fingers and dishes with laundry detergent in the stream, the clouds began menacing the sun. Instead of playing games, as we were planning, we decided we didn't want to walk in the rain, so we'd start heading back.
We didn't want to cross the water again and get all wet for our trip back, so Alicia, who is from Lucre, led us on a tiny little deer path along the mountain. After a while, we stopped in the grove of capuli trees below, where, like monkeys, Fredy, Andre, Jean and Alicia scampered up the trunks and we all began to unburden the branches of their load of fruit. Carrie was enjoying a branch full of capuli in the picture below. The clouds decided to leave the sun alone, so we figured it was a good time to stop and play games. The game of choice was spoons, played with sticks in the absence of spoons. After playing for a while, the clouds suddenly decided to make an encore appearance, so we decided it was God telling us that we should probably head back to Lucre before dark. We booked it along the rest of the deer path and arrived back in Lucre just in time to catch a taxi back to Huacarpay, jamming 10 of us in a station wagon for the 10-minute ride.
We arrived home, tired but content, having enjoyed our trout with wings and our time with our friends. It didn't turn out exactly
like we expected, but
we saw God's faithfulness throughout the whole day. It was a good reminder to me to look for His hand in everything, even the very smallest things, to find reasons to praise in every moment. And that is a beautiful thing.