Angry parent. SNAKE!!!

Putting my life in harms way to save the village!

So far this week has been pretty lax as far as adventurizing and fun stories goes. However, on Wednesday, while I was making lunch for the kids, Eric yelled for me from our house and told me that there was a snake in our house. So I dropped everything and darted over to the house. We are not sure, but we think it was a Fur-de-lance snake which, even though is a lot smaller, is one of the most dangerous snakes in the jungle, more so than pythons or anaconda's. This is because these snakes like warm evironments so they like to sleep in houses (especially in beds under the blankets) making them very sneaky and hard to find unless you are looking for them. They have a medium amount of venom, but their venom effects your neurological functions. Needless to say, this was a little concerning. So after taking a couple pictures with it, I cut it's head off with a machete. Then Edwin wanted to take 1 or 2 wacks at it before it disposed of it outside.

 The other interesting thing that happened was a little more encouraging and made me happy to see. Guillermo (one of my boys), who, at times can be very helpful or at other times can be completely worthless and disobediant, decided to come in my room just to talk. At first it just started out as talking about random little things. Then we started talking about religion and Revelation. He is actually really smart and knows Revelation pretty well. He was even quoting some scripture which is not something you would normally expect from a little boy, especially Guillermo. But he actually understands the imprtance of everything and knows that we don't have much time left before Jesus comes and that we need to study the Bible every single day and that Ellen White is a prophet. So it was very nice talking to him and finding out that he actually has a spiritual life and tries to have personal devotions most days.

Saturday Dec. 22, 2012

 Once again, we had no plans for church today. The girls just wanted to show the kids another movie this Sabbath, but we have done that for the past 2 Sabbath's. So Eric and I really wanted to do something different. We had heard that there is a church in Rurre (about a 25 minute drive), and another group of people that have their own service about 5 minutes up the road. Joy said that we were more than welcome to take the truck up there with some of the kids and go to that service. However, shortly before we left, we were told that the truck had a flat tire. So Eric went off to change that while I got all the kids ready to go.

 Fortunately we got everything finished just in time to make it to the church service. So we loaded up and took off. It probably only took us 3 min. to get there. Once we got there, I parked the truck on the side of the road and a group of about 10 of us got off the truck, marched through a few trees and into the backyard of this family. They immediately got up and greeted us with warm smiles, handshakes and hugs. There were probably 15 people already there singing hymms on benches. So our group pretty much doubled the church size.

 I really did enjoy this service a lot. It was very small, very quiet, but very reverent. We were surrounded by grapefruit trees, oranges, and bananas to boot. As tradition in Bolviia, we sang close to a million songs, had a kneeling prayer, a standing prayer, and then the sermon. At the close of the sermon, they said their fairwells and told us that they appreciated us coming and told us that santo sena (communion) is next Sabbath in Rurre. So Eric and I are going to try our best to go to that.

 Later that evening, Eric went over to Missy's house to sleep (he did that friday night too). The reason for this is because Missy is in Santo Cruz and has 2 barrels of gasoline in her house. This brings numerous thieves every summer to Familia Feliz because they know that there are only a few people on campus. So Eric, machete in hand, took 2 of the younger boys with him and took off to sleep at Missy's. The next morning he told me that 2 times during the night, 2 guys had come and tried to break in. Fortunately he was awake both times. The second time he went to the door with his machete while they were trying to break in and banged back on the door and asked who was there. Then they took off and wern't coming back. As it turns out, after they tried Missy's house, they went to the girls dorm to break in there. However Lizelle was there. Enough said. She is one bolivian that you just no not want to mess with. She will tear you apart. Hopefully I am telling the story accurately, you can probably get more details from Eric's blog about he was the hero of the orphanage ;-) .


Moises passed out in a sheet on the floor

*Oh, side note, the kid that sat beside me in church had 6 toes on one foot. So I was busy examining that for awhile.

Sunday Dec. 23, 2012

Today became very stressful very quick. Today is Eric's half day off and he was waiting to leave with Joy so he wouldn't have to pay for a taxi. Once Joy was ready, Eric, Lizelle.. and her took off to town. Normally this isn't a huge deal leaving me, a 19 year old girl, and baker steve as the only adults on campus. However, today was a little different. I was across campus talking with Steve when Jaculine, yelled my name and asked me to come over to the dorm. As I was walking over there, I saw a man there who I didn't recognize. Turns out, he is an angry parent. Keep in mind, Jaculine doesn't speak any english, steve doesn't speak spanish, my spanish is very sketchy, and non of us are really in charge. So Jaculine wanted me to try and talk with this guy and deal with it.

Stress rate increasing.





Turns out (this is what I have gathered from the spanish that I do know. I will have to confirm it later with Joy) that he is a parent of one of the boys on campus and wanted to not only see him, but wanted to take him back with him. But once he got here, he found out that the group he has been staying with is in Santo Cruz and wasn't there. This was maddening to him because he explained that he is not someone who has a lot of money, and he traveled a long way to see his son and give him a few Christmas gifts. So in that sense I felt very bad for him. However, he was wanting to take his son back with him and as far as I have heard about the boy, Familia Feliz has custody of him. So I was not going to let him know that I knew exactly where his son was because it is not my responsibility or my fight. I am not about to tell a parent, in broken spanish, that he is not allowed to take his son because of my hunch on the legality of it. So I explained that I'm not the one in charge, but I understand his frustration in wanting to come see his son and his son not being here. However, there is not much I can do. I explained that Joy (the director) was in town and would be coming back later that evening. But he was too anxious to wait or come back. So he went into town in search of her. So after 40 minutes of an angry bolivian parent talking to me, he left.

It was very good that he was cool and collected and not violent. That would have been a whole other batch of worms. After he left though, Steve made me feel good because he asked me how in the world did I just understand everything that guy just said. I just laughed and said that I didn't really get a lot of it. Just bits and pieces and I put it together. Then he responded and said that I completely fooled him, especially when I rattled off back to the guy in spanish. So that was a little positive reinforcement!

A few hours later, I went into town and planned on spending the night in town. It was great. There is a little hotel the only costs about $7 per night (for their cheapest room) and has wifi. There are only 2 hotels to my knowledge here in Rurre that have free wifi and the other hotel is more expensive and the internet doesn't work very well. So for $7 dollars, I was very happy and had internet all night. I was able to skype my parents for and hour and a half and talk with my girlfriend for awhile too. Now it is Monday morning and Christmas Eve! So this will be my last post before Christmas! Hope everyone has a great one and remember, Jesus is the reason for the season!


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