The Lima Peru LDS Temple Mission: Our friends Lucho, Negra, and our Democratic Pigeons

On our walks to various places including the Temple we have been making a few friends. Early in the mornings the local pigeons will see us coming from a block away and fly from their roof top perch and land at our feet. If we do not bring enough crackers for them they will walk behind us for a ways begging for more. The first counselor and his wife, our neighbors upstairs, also walk the same route. He is a Republican and one of his goals has been to "kick" one of our friendly pigeons. We are trying to train them to buzz the president and leave something fresh on his suit jacket. We'll let you know if we succeed. We have warned him they are Obama pigeons and he should be more respectful.

We only see our pigeons early in the mornings, though sometimes on
our afternoon shift one of them will still be in the neighborhood.

Also on our walks to the one of several shopping plazas, Golds Gym, and the barbershop we pass a neighborhood 'watch-ee-man'. That is the term the Peruvians use for their ever present local security guards. We have become friends with him along with his dog Negra. Often Negra would be sleeping in her house until we became friends a few weeks ago. Now at the sound of our voices she will come running. She knows we have treats for her. These include burgers from Peru's finest, a place called Bembo's. Lucho, the security man, carries no weapons, no Mace, no radio, not even a whistle like the guy in front of our apartment. He looks after a preschool on his street. Maybe the kids like Negra too. The guy in front of our apartment, at least has an official looking vest and uniform along with his whistle. Just about every neighborhood in La Molina has a 'watch-ee-man.' They are common throughout Lima in the middle and upper scale neighborhoods. We pay a monthly fee to the security company for our around the clock 24/7 security of 70 soles or about $27.00 per month. All of the other tenants and owners on our street pay similar fees.

When Bembos was closed one morning, too early, we stopped by
this local family operation and had the cook make a couple deluxe
burgers for our friends. She was pleased to have her picture taken.

RA has cooked some soup bones we bought from the local Tottus store for Negra as an alternative to the double burgers and chicken sandwiches we have given her in the past. We try to walk a few miles almost daily and choose a route that will take us by Lucho and Negra every several days. Tomorrow it is time once again to visit them as we likely will walk to Jockey Plaza and back and that is about six miles. Negra has to be restrained or she would follow us home. Of course if she is wolfing down a double burger with the works she lets us walk away.

Lucho and Negra "on duty"

Lucho has become quite emotional on our last several visits. I suppose he thinks it odd that a couple of Americanos would care about him or his dog. He has had tears in his eyes as we have brought him treats. He told us he "thanks God that we would care about him and his dog." We will find other ways to help him as we get to know him better. These security men make very little money so I know he does not have much. It is common for apartment owners to give a little something to their local 'watch-ee-man' but Lucho and his dog are more than a half mile away from us. We give our local guys treats from the local coffee shop, muffins, and chicha which they appreciate.

Negra did not want to hold still as those deluxe burgers
were in the bag and she knew it.

We use our limited language skills to talk to Lucho and also Spanish commands for Negra. We will learn more about them as we become better friends. There are a lot of very poor areas on the outskirts of Lima and he likely must travel some distance to get to his neighborhood where he looks after things. There are many things we like about life here in Lima Peru. Making friends with Lucho and his dog Negra has been one of them.