First package!

Sunday Oct. 28, 2012

Today was an exciting day because Eric and I headed to town in the afternoon because our day off starts tonight. The other reason is because Calvin heads out early in the morning. So the 3 of us got a hostel and had a good last night here in Rurre. We went to Juliano's for dinner which is a place where everyone gets pasta because of how good it is and their generous portions. Half way through our meal, Ron, the bread guy showed up and gave us a theological talk on things from his point of view. Later on we simply watched a movie that Calvin had been wanting to see for awhile.

Monday Oct. 29, 2012

Although today is our day off, we still woke up around 6:30 am in order to get Calvin to the bus station by 7. You see, he was supposed to fly out of here, but the airline (which happens to be one of the most reliable airlines in Bolivia) cancled his flight along with everyone else's for a week. Apparently, every single one of their planes are out of commission except for one. So that one plane is being used to make all the trips for Amaszonas. So Calvin was forced to get a bus ticket which will now take him over 20 hours!

Once we said our fairwells, it was just another relaxing day in Rurre for Eric and I. Later that evening though, I decided to just check the mail place (which is not a post office, but rather a hole in the wall that recieves everyone's mail) since it was near the taxi station. And low and behold, I recieved my first package! I was beginning to doubt the mail services here in Bolivia. But the package was from my wonderful girlfriend Kristen. It had tons of food and candy and pictures of us and of my family. It was so exciting to get a package!

Tuesday Oct. 30, 2012

Tuesday.......my most trying day. For some reason I was so tired this morning that I didn't even hear my family have worship. So unfortunately I totally missed it. I slept in till WAY late, like 6:30 am! But today was my class day....again. Furthermore, it was bread day. So this day was going to be a physical, mental, and emotional day for me.

Class was actually not going too terribly bad for me today. The kids were still misbehaving, but a little less than usual I think. That was of course until I turned my back for 1 second and a fight broke out. The fight was between Guillermo (who lives in my house), and another boy. Unofrtunately Guillermo beat on the other kid pretty good. Enough to make him bleed from his mouth and the expose one of his teeth at the root because the gum was peeled back. I have no idea how it even happened! I was literally turned around for just a second! Oh well, the rest of the day was dedicated to bread. It went pretty good. However, the best part was the fact that Eric and I were able to make Steven laugh a decent amount today. This, at least for me, is very warming because he isn't one that shows true happiness and laughs. He is overall a happy guy, but it can be hard to get him to laugh. So it is always nice when we see that he is having a good time.

Wednesday Oct. 31, 2012

As far as adventure and being like Indiana Jones, nothing too terribly exciting happened today. Eric and I needed to head into town later this afternoon in order to take care of a few things in town. Right when we were about to head back, Joy showed up with the truck which was wonderful because that saves us money and gives us more time in town. When the truck is not in town, we have to leave around 5:30 in order to catch a taxi. The way it works here is the taxi driver waits until he has about 10 people wanting to go to the same place before he leaves. So I could wait for hours, but until the car is full, we arn't going anywhere. The last taxi I was in had 15 people in it. Now keep in mind, this car has enough seats for 8 people. Anyway, Joy got in right when we were about to leave. The most exciting part of the day happened when we started driving back to F.F. (Familia Feliz). On our way back we had to stop for one of the regualr cow crossings. But one of the cows was feeling lucky and decided that he could win in a jousting match against our truck. So he ran straight at us and thunked into the truck. It was absolutely hilarious! And yes, the cow was ok. The rest of the drive, we all just told each other jokes and made fun of Erin for anything we could think of.

Thursday Nov. 1, 2012

Last night 5 people came in last night who are missionaries at another school here in Bolivia. There is a couple from Mexico, and Puerto Rico, and a Lady from Columbia. They are all only staying here until Sunday. They are just passing through on their way to visit family and friends during the summer months. They all seem to be very nice and outgoing. The first guy I met was named Gerry. He is from Mexico and was super nice. He has a wife a daughter here with him. Today I decided that I was going to work on some laundry and doing some house chores. But then Lizelle came over and asked if I could drive her and 3 of the other older girls to go get watermelons, coconuts, and bananas. Naturally i'll jump at any chance to drive. Then she told me that she wanted to leave right now. So I got my things together and took off to the big house to where the truck was parked.

Once the truck was ready to go, I drove over to the girls dorm, picked up the girls and hit the road. I felt a TINY out of place because all 4 of them were speaking spanish really fast and I was trying to understand the best I could. But it wasn't too bad. They were all nice and I'm now able to communicate pretty much anything I want. Granted, it's always with very broken spanish, but I can get the point across. While we were picking coconuts, one of the girls offered me this fruit to try which was yellow, the size of a lemon, and had thorns all over it. It looked like one of those poison fruits you see in the movies. But it didn't kill me and wasn't too bad either. I seem to be trying a ton of new fruits that I've never even heard of before.

Friday Nov. 2, 2012

For some reason, I didn't think the kids had school today. I don't know why I thought that, but I was surprised when they were heading off to school. Shortly before they left, I thought they looked a little bored, so I brought out Uno (which was in the care package Kristen sent me) and I asked if they wanted to play. They said yes, but they wanted to play after school. Thats when I taught Wilson (my favorite (I think it's ok to say I have a favorite)) how to play along with his brother Louis Fernando. These 2 boys go to school in the afternoon, not in the morning. This allows me to spend some time with them which is totally fine with me!

After we finished playing, I heard some violin music coming from the girls dorm. I thought this was Annie, because she was staying over there for a few days. So after one of the songs, I did a loud slow clap. Then the music stopped. I laughed and that it was funny because I knew she would give me a hard time about it later. As it turns out, it wasn't Anie playing, it was one of the new volunteers that I didn't know. So I knew that I was going to have to talk to her and clear that up.

Later that day at the "rounda" (the "feliz sabado" handshake circle every friday evening), I found out who was playing the violin. So after the handshake, I asked her if she was playing and she said yes and asked if I played and then wanted to play together. So we grabbed our violins, met up a little later and started to play Cannon in D. I absolutely love that song and never get to play it with anyone. So this was the highlight to my day!

Saturday Nov. 3, 2012

Today Eric was sick again. All of us are starting to give him a hard time because it seems like every single Sabbath, he is sick and can't come to church. We have started to call it the "Saturday Sickness". But fortunately, every Saturday afternoon, he always feels better.

Today I had the absolute hardest time staying awake in church. I don't know why I was so tired, but I was simply exhausted. So I was looking forward to taking a short nap this afternoon. But apparently I was just too tired to remember that I had 7 boys who will do whatever it takes to prevent me from resting! After we ate, I went to lay down and the boys started begging for me to take them to the Toma which was out of the question because last night it rained a ton, and it is such a long walk. Then they asked about just going into the jungle. I initially said no, but it turns out that kids are champs at knowing what buttons to push. So I finally settled on going at 3 (which they wern't too thrilled about since that was 2 hours away). I don't know what these kids have against sleep, but they are fierce enemies of it! Constantly the kids were saying "Teacher! Teacher!" So I didn't end up getting any sleep at all. But thats part of being a house parent right?

At 2:57 they were all ready to go and were pushing for me to be as well. So I got up and around 3:07, we left and headed into the jungle. I have to say, I started out the hike as a grumpy old grouch because I had not gotten any kind of nap and I was so tired. But once I decided to suck it up and stop being a girl, I started to have fun. Lesson learned. We were going through some very thick jungle. This stuff was no joke. Juan Carlos was up front with a machete hacking down trees and plants and brush in order to clear a path for us. All I could think about was how much poison ivy or other funky jungle poisons I was going to get on my feet and legs (because I was wearing shorts). After ducking under fallen trees, jumping over others, and balancing across trees that spanned deep ravines, we came up to the creek. Two or three of my kids immediately said that this part/place is dangerous and that we should turn around because all the big snakes like to hang around this area. The other boys wanted to keep going. So the decision was on me. What do I do? Well, I decided that there was only one thing I could do, I had to be the responsible adult and tell them that we should keep going. However, I was a little nervous because this is the first time that I have seen any of these kids worried about anything, especially in the jungle. They were all trying to avoid the water if possible and tried stepping on the shallow parts if they could find them.

But we finally made it to a little oasis that had another swinging vine that went out over water. These kids love these vines which I can completely understand! A couple of the boys went fishing with their 1 hook and piece of string. It's amazing how these kids can catch as many fish as they do without any kind of poles or gear! One of the times that I swung on the vine, I go to the other side and sat down at the base of a tree. After about 10 minutes, the kids told me that I should n't sit there because it was dangerous because it was a "boona tree". Boona's are ants that are the size of caterpillars and have a powerful sting if stung. I'm telling you, the ants here in Bolivia are no joke. They make every other ant in every other country look like.....well......something smaller than an ant.

Right before we decided to head back for worship, the kids found a tree with a fruit on it. Once again, it was a fruit that I had never seen or heard of before. It has a similar taste to a banana, but is more like a powdered cookie that is inside of a shell that you have to smash open with a rock. It was interesting tasting, and the kids literally picked over 100 of them and ate all of them right there on the spot. Then we headed back to the rounda to close out the Sabbath. This is also a little bit of a bitter Sabbath for many because this is Erin's last Sabbath here. So a lot of people are feeling sad about that.

Sunday Nov. 4, 2012

This morning Joy asked me to take the truck into town to drop off the other missionaries at the bus station because they left this morning. This was a little stressful because before we left, Joy said "be careful because of how bad the clutch is, the motor could blow at any time". Great! The hardest part about the truck is that it simply will not go into gear because of that dumb clutch. But somehow I made it work. I probably will not not be able to come into town tomorrow in order to post my blog. So I am rushing to submit it before we head back. I will not be able to post pictures from this week until a couple days from now. But rest assured, I do have pictures from this week! Oh! and I got 3 packages today! 2 from my parents and 1 from Southern! So excited! Can't wait to open them! Ok, well I have to go now. But I will post pictures later. so stay tuned!

You stay civilized......planet earth!!!!