As I have procrastinated on writing the blog for today, I will have to give bullet points.
I cut my finger with a knife while trying to get the corn off of the cobs. Don't worry pops, it wasn't a big cut and hardly bled. No biggie.
Did all my laundry today since it was a super hot day.
Decided to help Emmy out and clean the entire house for her. I washed pots and pans and dishes and silverwear, and I cleaned the table and floor.
Angelica couldn't take it and left
Found out that the new volunteers will be here Thursday.
Sorry that I had to do bullet points for today folks!
Wednesday Feb. 6, 2013
You will notice that I am not writing very much for this section as I have procrastinated and it is already Sunday. The only thing the I can remember about today was the fact that at 10 pm, Joy came up to us and said that tons of new volunteers were going to show up at 2 am. So she asked Eric and I to clean Missy's old house, move and assemble bedframes, find mattresses, and hang moskito nets. This was a crazy long and tiring process. One of the bedframes that they wanted us to get was actually out behind missy's house in the jungle. It was so far back there that it took us awhile to even find it. And when we did, things were so overgrown that there were vines holding it in place. So here Eric and I are, just yanking and pulling and grunting and inhaling all of the moskito's in the jungle trying to get this bedframe out. Missy was standing in the clearing watching us and thought it was absolutely hilarious. Which, It probably was considering she was watching what seemed to be a human tree and a homeless man struggling in the jungle to get this bed out.
Thursday Feb. 7, 2013
The new volunteers arrived today! Crazy! I had heard that they were upstairs in the big house with Eric and Ali, so I went over to do the traditional meet and greet. But when I got up there, there were 3 guys my age, and I recognized one of them. Greg was the one I recognized. He and I were at southern together and he just got accepted to Loma Linda. He is a really cool and really smart guy that is fun to talk to. Another one of the guys was Amos. He is an asian guy who also went to southern at the same time as me. But even though we are the same major and had many similar classes, we never met. It's crazy that even at a small school, we can go years without meeting people that are around us. The last guy up there was Warren. He is the son of Warren who is also the son of Warren. We thought about calling him Junior, but since he is the 3rd, we decided to call him mini junior (MJ for short). He is a crazy guy that is full of life and always eager to do stuff. He is actually doing some filming and going to put a promo video together for FF because he is majoring in videography.
After meeting them and hanging out a little bit in the morning, Warren called a team meeting for all of the volunteers to get acquainted. I am already impressed. So we sat down together, introduced ourselves, and got on the same page. This communication thing is cool. I think i'm going to like it.
But unfrotunately, this is where my day got a little stressful. After meeting everyone, I had to go back to my house to watch the boys. Today was Juan and Emmy's day off and Eric was helping Ali. So that left me to deal with all these rebels. I have found that when Juan is on campus, they are little angels, but the moment he leaves, they become little devils. So I knew that I was in for an interesting day. And right before they left, Emmy's came up to me and said, Hey, by the way, you are in charge of cooking supper.....great! Oh well, somehow I will make it.
I was doing fairly well for awhile. But after a few hours, Davicito was killing me. He was terrorizing all the other kids, stealing stuff and lying all over the place. He simply would not listen to anything. So I went to Eric and said, hey, I need you to take Davicito, or just switch jobs with me for a few hours because I'm gunna flip. At first he said he would take Davicito, but then decided to just switch with me. So I took the babies, and then later started to cook with Ali.
While cooking, Warren called my name from downstairs and said that he needed a translator. This made me a little nervous because I didn't know if some parent was here and was upset or something. But I said ok and I went downstairs. He said that he just needed me to talk to one of my boys because he had asked them to do something, and they ran the other way. As soon as he said that he wanted me to talk to one of the boys, I wasn't worried anymore. I was betting money that it was Davicito, but it turned out to be Edwin (which is equally unsurprising). So I went over to him and talked to him. I asked him why he ran away and then explained that Warren is the new boss and he now has all the power on campus. I told him that he needs to listen to Warren and do what he had asked. Edwin immediately said yes teacher and went and did it. It was WAY to easy, and I felt so cool like a parent or something!
The last thing that happened today was that the guy who will be the long time director once Warren leaves and his family arrived and wanted to move into my old house. This wasn't a problem, however, I was keeping a lot of my stuff over in that house as Eric and I are pretty cramped in our dorm sized room. But It wasn't a problem. I simply went over there and packed all of my stuff up and moved it into Eric and I's room.
Friday Feb. 8, 2013
Today was a busy busy day! We woke up for our first 7:00 am devotional with Warren and the new volunteers. I am so excited about how organized he is and the communication that is happening. After singing a couple of songs, we had prayer, then Warren gave us a devotional, then came the assignments. He had written up a list yesterday of all the things that needed to get done. The job that I took/was given, was working on getting the lawnmower to finally work, then mowing anywhere and everywhere that is possible for the lawnmower to go.
After separating, we went to our respective houses, had breakfast, and went to it. Juan and I went over to the tool shed to begin working on the lawnmower that I was doubtful would even start. Juan and I worked for awhile on fixing the belts for the blades underneath, then once we were done doing that, we took the battery out of the truck and were able to finally start the mower after months of it not working. We knew that as soon as we got it running, we just couldn't turn it off because the battery in the mower is completely shot.
As soon as we got it running, I was so excited! I was ready to go dominate some grass! So I drove all the way over to the soccerfield and as soon as I put the blades down to mow, boom. Done. The belt poopep (haha i meant to say popped but I saw that I typed pooped and I thought it was funny so I left it) again. So we took it back over to the tool shed and used 2 stumps, and 2 old batteries, and lifted the mower on top of them so we could get underneath of it. Juan decided that it would be best if we totally detached the machinery under the mower. So we took everything apart which is a good thing we did because we found 2 really really bad belts, and all 3 of the blades that cut the grass were completely trashed. they were rusted, completely dull, and falling apart. Fortunately, we found all of this before Warren went into town to get supplies for FF. So Warren decided to just go ahead and take Juan into town and get everything he needed for the mower as Warren doesn't speak any Spanish and would have a hard time describing what we needed.
This left me searching for other projects to work on. One thing that I found to do was rake up mowed grass with Amos and little Warren. I spent much of the afternoon doing this and getting a lot closer with them and talking a lot. I am absolutely loving having all these guys here. They are so helpful, so needed, and so cool. It's like a breath of fresh air for Eric and I. Even just being able to work in the field and do manual labor is fun! It's hard work, but we feel accomplished afterwards.
Another thing I was able to do today was get some boys to work! This alone is a mjor accomplishment. Just getting the boys to do anything other than torment each other and make mischief, is extremely difficult. But I was able to get Moises, Miguel, David, and the new boy Daniel to help me pick up trash all around the big house. The goal was to get a lot of trash together in a certain spot in order to burn it. So I was able to get a lot done with the boys.
Eric worked pretty hard today too. He spent a large portion of the day working at the church cleaning it and preparing it for Sabbath. The best part about this is, he took the kids that I just can't stand with him. I think he has some kind of magical wand that he uses in order to get Davicito and Edwin to work, because I can never get the to do anything without a lot of effort.
This evening, we had our first rounda with the new volunteers and our first real one in awhile. We actually had a decent group of people there and enough spanish speakers to lead out. We sang some songs, prayed, Warren read a passage from the Bible, we sang again, then shook hands. Following this was dinner which is always a happy time. Especially to welcome in the Sabbath.
Saturday Feb. 9, 2013
I was very excited for this Sabbath. Not only was I very tired and ready for a break from working, but I was really anxious to hear Warren give his sermon and to attend the church service. Today was the first Sabbath that we were going back to a normal service. However, Ali was not feeling good at all this morning, so Eric and I needed to help out with the babies. Eric took Jenette while I took Bismark. Once church started, Bismark did not want to stop crying at all! He just cried and cried. Mostly whenever I sat down. I tried numerous times to go and sit back down after I calmed him down, but every time, he started screaming. So I ended up standing outside of the church the entire service holding this baby and keeping him from crying. Fortunately, Amos was taking pictures and then decided to come out and keep me company which was really nice.
After church, Tabitha, one of the new volunteers that is only here for about 2 weeks had cooked lentil burgers with french fries and avacado sauce! Wowie was it good! We all ate our fill and then came rest time. It seemed as though pretty much everyone wanted to rest which was totally ok with me because my back was killing me from carrying Bismark all day long.
Later this evening, we loaded up the truck with several of the volunteers and went into town to play some REAL volleyball instead of "chaos ball". And when I say we loaded up, I mean we crammed! Not only did we have 13 full grown people in this tiny truck, but we also had TONS of luggage that Tracy's mom was taking since they were moving to Santa Cruz. Somehow, with people sitting on one another and shoving the doors closed, we all made it in and I drove the truck into town.
Once in town, most of us played volleyball the entire time while some of the volunteers went online and took care of things there. This was incredibly fun! It actually resembled volleyball! There was actually a volley and the ball was going over the net. Eric and I were on the same team for awhile which brought back memories of our intramural team that we were on together back at southern.
After a few hours, we were all pretty exhausted and hot and sweaty and were ready to head back. When we looked at our watched, it was already midnight. How did that happen?!?!? But I guess time always flies when you're having fun right?
By the time we had loaded up and got back to FF, it was about 1 am. Once we got back, Warren asked me if I wouldn't mind driving the truck at 6:30 am and taking Gerry and his wife to the bus station along with a few other volunteers. So I knew that I wasn't going to be getting much sleep tonight.
Sunday Feb. 10, 2013
Today was a fun and interesting day. As I said, I woke up super early after getting about 4 hours of sleep, then drove some volunteers into town. After dropping Gerry and his wife off, I took Tabitha and her husband Jaque into the Sunday market in search of Fruit and other things that they could cook with.
The market was actully hopping today. There were tons of stands set up and plenty of people selling things. I simply walked around with them for about an hour or so just translating for them, and helping them find some things in town. But today my highlight was that I found a peach that was ripe and amazingly delicious. It was so juicy and good I could have eaten so many more.
But after buying yucca, chives, cucumbers, olives, and other random things, we were back off the Familia Feliz. It's kind of weird coming to town and not even touching a computer. Before we hit the main road back to FF, I stopped at the post office to see if there were any packages by any chance for me. And what do you know? There was!! Sweet! It was from Ryan and Liz. I was so excited and anxious to open it. So as soon as I got back, I did. There were Oreo's, a candle, chapstick, twister, a solar paneled shower, and pictures and even a recorded DVD. This was a super cool and very sentimentle care package. I was sitting there laughing at some of the things they said that reminded me of home.
But then it was time to work. The focus was the upstairs of the big house. So Warren gave me the assignment of cleaning the storage room which was a complete disaster! There was so much random stuff in there that you wouldn't believe. Eric and I started by going through the stack of disgusting old mattresses and throwing them off the balcony before moving them to the trash pile that we had been building up. Then I moved on the making a pathway so that we could at least walk into the room. My main goal was to clear the entire center of the room and organize another time.
This room, was like a goldmine of interesting things. There were fishing poles, tools, suitcases, clothes, printers, and laptops. But by far the most interesting thing in the room was the section of medical equipment! I found so many crazy things! IV's, seringes, saline, and tons of drugs. Not only was there a medical section, but there was a dental section as well! Perfect for me. They even had books about dentistry and drug references for dentistry. Tons of tools and even and impression. So many cool things. I spent a good while simply going through all the medications and making a pile of all the ones that expired a long time ago. I also stumbled upon surgical equipment, sterile clothes, and a ton of Gauze.
The rest of the afternoon was filled with more basic cleaning of the upstairs. That was of course until our trash pile was ready to burn. When that happened, I got the go ahead, and I dumped diesel all over the pile, then set it ablaze. It was quite the large inferno. Being a guy and loving destruction, this was extremely fun and entertaining.
Also this afternoon, little Warren and Amos wanted to interview me for their promo video that they are making. This was kind of exciting and I was eager to do it. Hopefully it turns out nice and will be a cool thing to show when I get back.
You Stay civilized......planet earth!!!!
Haha this was one of my favorite blogs yet! So happy about the new volunteers and your stories were hilarious babe!! :)
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