Electrical work, hot shower, and twister

Sunday March 24, 2013

New ball from my mom

As you know, I don't normally blog about my days off in town. However, today had kind of a funny situation. This past month and this next month coming up are some of the busiest months out of the year for Rurre. During these 2 months, Rurre gets swamped with Isreali's.

Before I continue my story, when did they become Isreali's? Because everytime I refer to them, I want to call them Isrealites. It keeps messing me up!

Anyway, because of the lack of workers at Narguila's and the unbelievable rudeness of most all Isreali's, Narguila's doesn't even turn their Wifi on. This is a problem, because we pretty much only come to town for internet. So this forced Eric and I to go to the other few places in town with Wifi. All of which were closed. This put Eric and I in a predicament because we knew that we were going to be online all day long with can get expensive if we are paying 8 B's per hour.

However, we came up with a genius idea. We decided that we could go to one of the only hotels in town that has Wifi and get a room just for the day with no intention of staying the night. In the end, we paid 30 B's each, and sat there in that room with beds and a fan for about 10 hours. That works out to be 3 B's per hour for Wifi WITH a fan, a bed, and a bathroom. Kind of a good deal.

Later that evening, we were planning on going with our moto taxi buddies from last week at about 10 pm. However, around 9:15, Missy signed onto FB because she came into town to run a couple quick errands. Score! Free ride back to FF. Great day off.

Monday March 25, 2013

 Mike being here has good things and bad things about it. One bad thing is, he likes to work..... a lot. While everyone is on breaktime, he wants to keep working. This is a really good trait and I'm jealous of it. Since I'm working with him though, that makes me work a bit more than normal as well. Which again, isn't a bad thing.....usually. But fortunately, today it rained a lot. This made it so we had to work inside.



Gamenight with twister from Ryan and Liz

We started at Missy's old house where he and Samuel (the Venezualen) is staying. What we were doing was installing switches and lightbulbs and wireing the house correctly. Because before, it was wired so poorly (Bolivian stlye). This was actually kind of cool because I have never done electrical work before and now I was learning. Mike is actually really smart with electrical stuff. He spent awhile explaining the physics and graph formations of the electrical currents.

There is no doubt that I slowed him down today. But that was because he wanted to teach me by "trial by fire". He explained what we were doing and how to do it, then he would have me explain it back to him and then try it myself. Of course, that always meant that he had to go back and fix my mess. But I started getting it after awhile. I still need to do a few more houses before I actually feel comfortable doing it by myself though.

Tuesday March 26, 2013

 This morning was the final day that Missy's mom and grandfather were here in Rurre. They had a flight out today at 5:00 pm. But before they left, Pastor Moore wanted to have one last meeting with the younger volunteers about relationships and sex. So during the school's recess, we all met in the church and had one final chat. It has been great having them here and they are great people.

After the service, Mike and I went to the tool shed to work on more electricity. It was actually pretty cool, I installed a new light with a switch almost all by myself! Only problem was, I wasn't able to work with him very much today because today is Tuesday, meaning it is Juan and Emmy's day off. So I needed to cook lunch for the kids before they got back from school. Then they also needed supervision afterwards.



Solar shower from Ryan and Liz

After lunch, Eric informed me of some interesting news. Apparently, there is a vacation from school starting tomorrow until next wednesday. He also told me that many of the kids would be going home for the week and going to come back for school. This, needless to say, sounds great to us! Just a short breather with a few less kids. So we will see how that turns out and if things actually happen according to plan.

Wednesday March 27, 2013

First thing we did this morning was to have a staff meeting to make sure that everyone knew what the plan was for the day and for the holiday break. For today, both Juan and Emmy had to go to town to run errands for our family and for the rest of Familia Feliz. This once again left Eric and I in charge of all the boys with no school. No Problem.

Fortunately, before Juan and Emmy left, she had made breakfast. So all Eric and I had to do was serve it and keep the kids in line. After breakfast, we had all the boys do their chores and laundry while Eric and I supervised while doing our laundry too. Our clothes are long overdue for a good scrubbing. Someway or another, the kids are always able to fly through their chores and not have any problems when they are motivated by the fact that they can play afterwards.

Before Emmy left, she asked Eric and I to make majalito (basically a sort of fried rice with french fries and other random goodness inside) for lunch today. Only problem is, this meal takes just about 2 hours to prepare. I wasn't too worried about making it, but rather the time because another big job that we were asked to do was to work a lot of the trench. But so far, our day is getting really full, really quick.

Eric and I could probably make our own cooking TV show now. We were dominating this majalito! Chopping and boiling and deep frying left and right. We had Jack Johnson and the Beach Boys playing while we cooked all while the kids were swimming. I think the food came out pretty great, little salty, but still pretty great.

Right after lunch, Eric and I wanted to rest for just a few minutes before we went out to start digging. But almost as soon as we went in our room, I heard some commotion outside and I went out to see what was going on. Apparently, Moises and little Miguel were punching each other while they, and a few others, were finishing up eating. Then the parent inside of me rose up. I started off by telling them that fighting was NEVER ok. Punching and kicking never solve anything and if they have a problem they needed to talk to me or Eric. They said yes teacher, but I wasn't quite done with em yet. I asked them if they thought Jesus liked it when they fought? The whole table got really quite and a few of them looked at me and said no.

"Did Jesus ever punched or fought with anyone in his entire life?"

"No teacher."

" Then should we ever fight with each other?"

"No teacher."

As soon as I started talking about Jesus and asking them questions, it seemed to sink in pretty fast. It seemed as though the importance of the issue went up really fast. I then told them that there is actually a really interesting verse in the Bible that talks about fighting. They all perked up to see what I was gunna say. I told them about Matthew 5:39 where it says if someone hits us on one side of our face, we should turn the other side of our face to them. Anyway, I just thought that was kind of a cool story.

After a brief rest, I went out to start digging holes. Since it rained yesterday and it has been sunny today, It made the groud a lot easier to work with. The only issues I ran into were massive roots, and a massive ant that bit me.

Thursday March 28, 2013



Enjoying the hot water

This morning we were asked to attend a staff meeting. They warned us however that this was going to be a very long staff meeting and to bring our computers. When we got there at 8, Warren had a brief devotional then gave us the plan for the day. Basically, he gave us a few assignments to work on, and gave us all day to do them.

The only problem with that plan is that Eric and I were in charge of 5 boys as Juan and Emmy left at 3 am to take others to there homes for break. This schedule didn't leave us time to supervise them, or make them lunch. But we got super lucky when one of Missy's kids said that he was going to the Toma and could take our kids. That alone was an all day affair. So basically, Eric and I got a day off on campus. Not only did we get rid of our kids for the day, but the girls said that they would cook for us! Score!

The jobs that I was asked to work on was a work program layout, changing the website, and planning for the pathfinder camporee at the end of April. These things is what I pretty much worked on all morning. In the afternoon, I was finished with what I needed to do, so I grabbed a shovel and went to work on the never ending trench for awhile.

Now I have to make an apology. My brother and his wonderful wife Liz, sent me a package awhile ago that had a solar shower in it. It is basically just a bg that you fill with water, then set out in the sun for while to make the water hot. When I first saw it, I was just confused. I thought that was an incredibly random gift that I might use once just to say I did. Wrong.

I had actually forgotten all about it until yesterday. So technically, the first time I used it was yesterday, but I didn't set it out early enough and the water was just luke warm. But today, I had the bag sitting out all day and wowie, let me tell you, that shower was great! The water was so warm and it even had a good flow to it. The bag holds enough for 2 quick showers so Eric and I were able to both get a shower in before it ran out.

The only problem we will run into in the future is making sure no one can see us. Because here at FF, it is inappropriate for a guy to take his shirt off in public. And I'll tell you right now, I am NOT taking a shower witha shirt on. But other than that, amazing shower.

Later this evening, we also used another gift that my brother sent me. Twister! The kids here (and even some of the volunteers) had never even heard of that game. So tonight, we whipped out the game and popcorn and had an evening of fun. It almost felt like a saturday night.

Friday March 29, 2013

Today, Eric and I got a miniature day off. Early this morning, he, Juan, and I went up the road and talked with a chainsaw guy who sells wood for posts and houses and any other kind of boards you need. So we went to him and ordered all the posts and frames that we will need to build that ladies house across the river. The ball is finally rolling.

After that, Warren, Eric, and I wanted to go into town, then cross over the river and look for this ladies house to see the grounds and what we will be working with when we begin construction. But by the time we got to town, it was lunch time. So of course we are going to eat! We actually got to go to Ron the bakers new restaurant. Ron is the relgious baker that i've talked about who sells brownines and banana bread in town. The restaurant was super good! I had a carrot burger and fries and was pretty full afterwards.

Anyway, after eating, we made the trek over to San Buena (the other side of the river where the lady lives). Once we got to the other side however, there were no moto's that could take us up there as it was siesta time. Not a problem with me though. I'm all about walking in the hot sun in order to save a few pennies. I was a little nervous though, because out of the 3 of us, I was the only that had ever been to her house, and that was only once. But I was able to get us there with no problems.

When we got up the mountain to her house, we found Selena, Bismark, John Alex, and their 2 older sisters. The little ones were very excited to see us and kept giving us hugs all over the place. The mom of course wasn't there however as she was off selling ice cream.

After getting our measurements, we headed back down the mountain and back to the docks. Fortunately, Warren decided that he would let Eric and I have a few minutes online before we ran a couple errands and went back. This gave us just enough time to check our facebook's, check our mail, and see what is happening in the 1st world countries.

Saturday March 30, 2013

This morning, Eric and I were supposed to be in charge of the sermon. However, since there were so few people on campus (due to the vacation), we thought it would be a great idea to go up to the church up the road. This turned out to be a great idea as Samuel (the Venezualan volunteer) has been doing a week long revival with them, and they had asked us to attend church with them anyway.

The good news was that it got us out of doing a sermon. But the bad news was, we had to leave Familia Feliz at 8:30 am in order to be at their early service as well. But thats a small price to pay to get out of sermon duty.

The church is so great. It's a very small area in someones backyard. Half of it is covered by a roof while the other half is covered by a tarp. They are a very small congregation but are very devout. One lady who had to have been 60 got up for special music and sang maybe 3 notes on tune. But no one laughed, no one made fun, it was actually very nice and allows you to really focus on the words that are being sung.

Their service is a very on the spot kind of service. For example, when we got there this morning, they asked if Warren would give the sermon. When it was time for special music, they didn't have anything planned, they just got up front and asked if anyone would like to come up and sing or something. Then, 10 minutes before he had to do it, they asked Eric if he would give his testimony on how he came to Bolivia, in spanish. And he did a very nice job.

After church, they asked us if we would stay there with them and have a pot luck. This completely blew me away because we showed up with about 30 people and we were just in the backyard of some family's wood hut. So somehow, this congregation came up with the time and money to cook us a fantastic meal.

Following a couple hour nap, and my 3rd solar shower of the week, Eric was put in charge of putting on a game night. So tonight we played probably 5 different games with a group of the kids. The ones that played seemed to really enjoy it. The plan is to get this to be a more frequent social activity on Saturday nights.

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