Bye bye Steve...

Monday Feb. 25, 2013

Today, I did something cool.....maybe.....I don't really know.....wish I could remember, but I procrastinated my blog.....

Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013

Today was not a good day at all. Last night, Eric started to feel a little under the weather. But this wasn't too surprising because he has felt a little poopy numerous times throughout our time here. But apparently, whatever he had, I had too. I just hadn't presented with the symptoms yet. However, it was just a couple of hours until it started to hit me. This proved to be a very long night where neither of us got much sleep at all. We were constantly groaning in pain. We had the chills, fevers, wanted to puke, had the runs, and we had absolutely no strength at all. We were completely week and every movement took an extreme amount of energy accompanied with some pain.

Because it took so much to simply roll over, we simply wanted to lay perfectly still in bed. Problem was, the longer that we stayed in one position, the more it began to hurt. So as I said, it was a long night. The next day wasn't any better. However, I think Eric had it a little worse than I did because he still had to wake up and teach for about 2 hours because nobody could substitute for him. I was at least about to lay in my bed and lather in my own self pity.

To make matters a tiny bit worse, today was Juan and Emmy's day off. And when they are gone, it is my responsibility to cook for the kids, and both Eric and I's job to care for them in the afternoon. We were in no condition to man the battlestations for these goobers, but the war goes on right? So I started, very slowly and painfully, cooking some lunch for them. After a little while, Eric shuffled into the door and was done for the day. So he helped me cut veggies and serve the kids.

One of the hardest things about cooking for them was simply the face that we didn't want to smell the food. We had absolutely no appetite and couldn't even think about touching food. The last meal I had was dinner last night. I missed breakfast, lunch, and didn't want dinner. Eric was the same, but he even missed dinner last night.

As we layed in our beds feeling awful, Tabitha, sweet sweet Tabitha, showed up at our window. "Eric, Eric. Are you there?"

Eric responded in a pathetic voice "yes."

"Hee hee. What about Chad? Chad are you there?"

In an extremely bleak and depleated voice I responded, "yes."

"Hee hee. Oh my, Oh my, you poor poor boys! Can I bring you anything? Maybe make you a special soup broth. How about some potassium soup broth?"

To which, Tabitha went to work and made us an amazing soup. It was the only thing that our bodies would allow us to eat. And I don't know what she did to it, but it was sooooo good. I think she sprinkled some love fairies inside and maybe a couple raindrops from a rainbow, because it made both of us feel a good bit better. Problem was, shortly after we finished, we tanked right back down. But we both felt a lot better knowing that we had something in our stomachs.

This continued throughout the rest of the day. There would be a short period where we felt a little better, then tanked. This made for yet another long night. However, not quite as long as last night. I actually fell asleep at 8:45 PM. And for anyone that knows me, that should tell you that something must seriously be wrong.

One fun fact that I did find out from the outside world today was that a man named Junior who visited for a couple days a few months ago arrived with a doctor/electrician from the States. Also, 2 Argentinian people arrived who I know nothing about. But I'm sure I will find out.



Wednesday Feb. 27, 2013

Today both of us were feeling so much better. We still were not 100% when we woke up, but we were pretty close. I wanted to work, but I also wanted to take it easy. So what I ended up working on, was repairing a busted water pipe that one of the volunteers hit with the weedwacker. That one pipe knocked out water for the whole campus. This was pretty cool because I haven't done pipework before, but now I know! We chopped out a portion of the pipe and reconnected the ends. It wasn't too terribly difficult, except the toolds that we were using were extremely old and rusted. So that made the process a little slower.

After fixing the pipe, I went to go start burning the trash pit. I have been wanting to get rid of that mess for a long time now, but because of the sporadic rain, the trash has been wet. But it was a hot day today so I figured it would work. Not so much though. I dumped about 10 liters of diesle just over the beginning of the trail of trash and hardly any burned.

The more I worked, the better I felt. Which is really weird to me because I could have sworn that I had an allergy to hard work! So later that afternoon, I ended up doing a lot of shoveling to bury electric cables.





Thursday Feb. 28, 2013

Very exciting news today. We got electricity!! Not only that, but they installed light switches in our house and an outlet in Eric and I's room. So now, we have electricity whenever we want it. No more dead computers.

But with every good news, there is always some sad news that comes along with it. Steve left today along with Lars and Mike (2 volunteers that were Eric and I's age). It was actually really sad to see Steve go. So I spent his last 2 hours with him and got some last minute bread tips and talked with him about regular things. He was sad to go, but anxious to see what lies ahead. I have learned a lot from that man and I appreciate it.

After Steve left, I went out to work. I started out by going to all the classes and loading up their trash buckets to haul to the dump. Then I went back to try and kill a massive wasps nest with easily 50-60 wasps. However, the spray that was purchased is only good for mosquitoes... Needless to say, I just made them mad and I was sent running the other way.

After these events, Elijah and I started working on digging the ditch again. Eric ended up joining us after his class too. But working out in that hot sun, we were only able to go for a couple of hours. But we had to be done by 4:00 anyways because Juan, Eric, little Warren, Elijah, and I needed to go to town.

Unfortunately this trip was for business not pleasure. Juan, Eric, and I needed to get to town, cross the river into San Buena, and see if we could get some pricing for roofing for the ladies house that I am planning. Unfortunately, we wern't able to get ALL the info that I wanted, but we were able to get some.

After crossing back over, we went to Narguila's for a tad bit too do our checksies online before we went over to a "pizza joint" that Eric had spyed once. We were all very excited to eat there, but once we got there, it wasn't exactly a pizza place. They had pizza, but they had all kinds and ethnithcities (don't know how that is spelled) of other foods too. It actually sounded quite delicious! However, half of the things we ordered they didn't have. They did however have a pretty good pina colada which I will gladly go back just to drink.

We ended up getting back quite late which was great because the kids were already in bed! That was just a bonus.




Friday March 1, 2013

Today actually started out quite funny. You see, there is this really stupid game that elementary kids like to play called "Rabbit Rabbit". It's where on the first of each month, if you are the first to say Rabbit Rabbit to someone, they have to be nice to you for the whole month. Well, Juan Tapia (big Juan) loves this game. He goes hard and makes sure he is always the first one. I generally never even try. But this morning, I wanted to win.

After we woke up, I came up with a devious plan. I was going to lay in my bed rolling around like I had a lot of pain, then Eric was going to get Juan and tell him that I needed help. So when Juan came in, I was rolling around like planned, then he got worried and came over and felt my head and was asking me questions while I just moaned. Then I slowly moved my hand away from my face and looked at him and said "Conejo conejo!" (which means rabbit rabbit in spanish). All the kids were at my door too and erupted in laughter.

Turns out, with what Eric had told them was wrong with me, and how I was acting, Juan and Emmy thought I had hemorrhaging Dengy fever which is apparently deadly here. So we actually scared them into thinking that we were dieing! Whoops. haha. Oh well, they got over it and thought it was funny.

After this little joke was when my plate got filled up. I went to talk with Warren about the days tasks and he was eager to talk to me. Apparently, he had a whole list of things that he was wanting done around campus. After looking at it, I knew that I was going to be quite busy. But not more than 10 minutes later, the girls asked me to bake bread. That in itself takes up a majority of the day. Along with Steven leaving also came a promotion for me to the role of head baker. The girls also added another cleaning job to my list, and asked me to plan the church service for tomorrow. Oh boy.

All I have to say is thank-goodness for Elijah. He has been my right hand man these past few days. It has been great getting to know him and work with him. He was able to help get a few things done while I was tied up in the bakery.

I have to say, I was a little nervous baking bread this time. This was this first time here at Familia Feliz that I would be making bread solo without Steve being here. If I blew it, I was going to get a lot of abuse! So all I did was add a little extra sugar to my dough. Sugar makes EVERYTHING better right? The bread actually turned out really good I thought. So bread number 1....success.





Saturday March 2, 2013

Sabbaths are always great! We get to sleep in a little bit more too. This morning, Eric and I decided to go matching mode and wore blue shirts, black pants, and yellow ties. But for some reason, he forgot to put on his red beard.

After church, we convinced Warren to let us take the truck to Asunta. Which is always a favorite of the kids. Oh, and by the way, the big truck is fixed. Juan was able to fix it this week. Just in time because the little truck is broken yet again. The tire is popped, and the clutch is broken again. But anyway, we loaded up, and were off.

At Asunta we started off by cooling off and thrashing around a little bit, but as usual, the mud war began. Mud was flying all over the place hitting everything and everyone. In fact one of the little babies got caught in the crossfire and got hit in the eye! Ouch. Other than the baby, the rest of the day went without incident.


You Stay Civilized..... Planet Earth!!!!