Town

Sunday April 31, 2013

    Today Eric and I had a little extra fun planned. This morning, Eric and I brought all 5 of of our boys into town to go to the pool! Since the other boys get to go home, we firgured it was the least we could do to make sure that these 5 had some sort of fun for vacation.

    Loading up the truck, it looked as though we were going to be pretty packed once again. Not only, did we have a lot of people going into town, but we were bringing 4 dogs as well. The plan was to either sell them or just give them away to lower the population of animals on campus. Anyway, 3 of them were large puppies that were extremely cute. So naturally Eric and I each wanted to hold one on the drive in. This was working out all good and well until we were about 5 min. outside if town. Thats when it happened. My puppy calmly opened his mouth, and shot dog vomit EVERYWHERE! It was all over the boys beside me, all down my arms and legs, and all over the floor of the truck. It wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that since we were in the back of the truck, the wind took all of it and dispersed it all over.

    This was so gross! As all of it was starting to bake onto my skin in the sun, Eric being the great friend he is gave me a nice little reminder. "Hey dude, you know that since they are puppies, and all their vomit was white, it was probably all breastmilk." GROSS!!! So now, I have dried dog breastmilk that has been partially digested, all over my arms and leg. No biggie. Fortunately, today was a town day and we were taking the kids to the pool so I could shower.

    Getting to the pool, before we brought all the kids in, we went and spoke with the owner to see if they were open and to see if we could bring our kids in. He was a little reluctant and then gave us a very stern warning/lecture about our boys. Apparently our boys have been here several times in the past, and every single time, they have pee'd in the pool and the owner has to clean it all out. He told us that this was the boys' very last chance. If a single one of them pee'd in the pool, we were never allowed back.

    Relaying this back to them, the boys understood and were ready for some swimming! It is actually an extremely nice swimming pool. It looks just like a resort and even has a loose tucan that walks around the pool guarding it. For the first couple of minutes, Eric and I sat in some lawnchairs watching the boys as they swam. We felt like such parents. But then parent time was over and it was time to be a kid again, so we jumped in and started throwing the kids all over the place.

    After the pool, I had some things that I needed to do online right at 2:30. So while Eric took the boys with Juan and Emmy to a soccer field, I went online. But as soon as my meeting started, the power in the entire city went out! Blah. When the power came back on a little later, my meeting was already over.

    Good news was, today something very special happened. I got to skype my grandmother and my aunt and uncle! She has been reading my blogs and we have talked on the phone a couple of times, but never face to face. After a couple of failed attempts, we finally got it to work. As soon as my grandmother saw me and the jungle that is growing on my face, she couldn't believe it was me. So after a DNA test, fingerprint scan, and the use of voice recognition software, she finally believed me that I indeed was her grandson. The 4 of us had a really good talk and as usual, my family is extremely supportive of me.

Monday April 1, 2013

    Today I got a little bonus. I got to go to town again! The main reason was to take the truck in so they could fix a couple more things on it. We had to move our appointment to today due to the vacation of the students. Originally, they said that it would take 3 days. However, after we dropped it off, they said that it would be ready tomorrow at 5 which was great news.

    But as usual, it was not a simple drop the truck off and go. Other volunteers came in as well which always means a full day trip. When everyone split to run their errands, I went to the bank to withdrawl the last $250 of the donation money for the truck. However, after I put my card in, put my pin # in, selected withdrawl, and put in the amount, the machine flashed the word processing just before it shut off on me. I had the fear of death instantly for a few seconds until the machine turned back on, and gave me my card back. However, I was still a little worried because I recieved no reciept and no money even after the machine said it was processing. I thought maybe the machine took the money out of my account and didn't give me the cash.

    Fearing the worst, I went into the bank to talk with someone. As I walked in, I came into contact with a soldier holding a shotgun who asked what I needed. So I told him the story and he sent me upstairs. Once I got there, a lady behind a desk asked me why I was there and so I then told her the story as well. She proceeded to tell me that there was nothing that they could do and that the bank was out of money.

    Having no luck at the bank, I ran to get internet to see if money had actually been withdrawl from my bank account. And sure enough, $250 was withdrawn. Great. I then signed onto skype hoping my mom was on and could talk to me. Thank-goodness she was. So now, my mom and I went through the whole "push a bunch of numbers, listen to elevator music, and get transfered from person to person" routine. In the end, they said that we needed to wait 24 hours because sometimes the issue resolves itself. If when we came back tomorrow, there was still a problem, then an international claims dipute would have to be filed. Wow. So exciting. Good news is, that the person we spoke with had actually heard about many occassions where an international bank runs out of money. For me, thats the hardest part to understand, how a BANK can run out of money. Oh well.

    For the rest of the time in town, I simply sat in Ron's restaurant (Paititi) checking things online and talking to friends and family.
Tuesday March 2, 2013

    What do you know?!?! I get to come to town again today! But not until the afternoon. This morning we had a big staff meeting to discuss outreach programs, inreach programs, work programs, the website, the pathfinder camporee and various other things. That meeting went until 12:30. So it was quite the doosy. The bigger problem was, it was Juan and Emmy's day off so Eric and I needed to cook lunch. Fortunately, I was able to beg one of the girls to cook for us as well.

    After lunch, Gerry, Samuel, and I headed off to the chainsaw guy who we ordered all the framing for the house from. But he wasn't there and we didn't see our wood sitting out front which generally means that it's not done. So we went back to Familia Feliz empty handed.

    Back in the motherland of Familia Feliz, other volunteers loaded up in the truck and we were off yet again to town. The truck should be ready in the afternoon and I needed to check my bank statement to see if the charge went through.

    But before I did anything, Missy needed me to send a big bag of things to her sister Joy in La Paz who is about to go back to Canada for awhile. That process was a lot easier but longer than I expected. I ended up talking to the guy behind the counter about my time here in Bolivia and how I have been working at Familia Feliz. It's amazing that majority of the time, when I tell people that I work for Familia Feliz, they immediately get nicer and more open to helping. So appartenly FF. has a good reputation.

    After that, I went directly to internet to check my bank statement. With fingers crossed, I opened my bank statment and sure enough, it had gone through. I wanted to get on skype with my mom, but she wasn't online so I had to send her an email saying that we needed to open up an international dispute claim.

    The rest of the day in town was claimed by internet, and running errands for Familia Feliz, including the building project across the river. Just as an update for that house, all the wood has been ordered and should be ready at the beginning of next week. We have a lot of the material needed to build, and we have spoken with the family and told them that they will need to get helpers to carry the wood up the mountain.

Wednesday March 3, 2013

    Now I know what you're thinking, what do I do in town today right? Well, surprisingly enough, I broke the trend and I stayed on campus today. I did some pretty interesting work today but unfortunately it is not a lot to tell.

    Today we dragged several bags of rice outside from the store room to spread it all out on tarps to dry in the sun. This is all the rice that we harvested from the choco over the past couple of weeks. So we have quite a bit to do. After the rice site in the hot sun for about 4 hours, we have to somehow get all of the dirt and leaves out of the grains before we can take it to the mill. Most of the time, when people do this, they just pick up a bucket full of rice, hold it up high, and pour it slowly and the wind will take the junk out. But no no no, thats that efficient. So we decided to give the wind a little help and brought our fan out there. This actually worked really great! As we pour the rice in front of the fan, it blew all the junk away.

    After we cleaned several bags of the rice, we had to put them back into bags and seal them in order to take them to the mill. Eric and I ended up working until about 7:40 pm just because of how slow the process is.

    A lot of people have asked me about Jenette and how she is doing. So I figured it would be a good time to give an update on her. Just looking at her, she looks a lot better. One of the big things that is contributing to that is the 2 new volunteers that are living up there with her. They are dressing her nice and doing her hair and bathing her so she smells good. They are doing a great job at making her look and smell completely normal.

    As far as how she moves, she is now able to not only crawl, but she can support her own body weight while standing. She still cannot stand up by herself, but once we get her up, as long as she has something to hold onto for balance, she can stand there for a couple of minutes. The way she crawls is not the typical crawl on the knees and hands. No, Jenette has her own unique way. She kind of sits on the ground with one knee in the air, and when she wants to move, she uses her arms to push herself up, then uses her feet to push her forward. It is pretty interesting to watch.

    But overall, we are seeing really good improvement. She has a long way to go though. But all of the volunteers are doing a good job with her and we keep trying to encourage muscle development and walking.

    One other thing to note, is that the rest of the boys got back late in the evening from their break. This was good because classes started first thing in the morning.

Thursday April 4, 2013

    This morning I had several things that I wanted to start doing, however as soon as I had finished my breakfast, Mike showed up wanting some help with the electrical work. But that was fine with me because as always, I'm always up to continue learning new things.

    Today he wanted to wire Missy's house and install switches, lights, and outlets. Mike is very intelligent when it comes to electricity, especially when it comes to the physics aspect. He is very patient and does his very best to try and explain things very clearly to me so that I learn it very good. And something must have stuck, because today, I wired the bathroom and installed a lightswitch by myself! Boo yea!

    This afternoon for the work program, Eric and I took all of our boys plus a couple others out in front of Familia Feliz to machete. The entrance to Familia Feliz has become incredibly overgrown to the point that it's become hard to see our sign from the road. The grass and weeds look more like trees than schrubs.

    Even though it was difficult to keep the boys on task, we were able to get a fair amount done. The only bad news is that I got a blister almost immediately on my left hand. Just when I thought I had gotten all the "gringo-ness" out of my body, this happens. Well, I still just over a month to get the sissy out of me.

    To close out the day, I found out terrifying news.... I was on the schedule to give the adult Sabbath School this week! And let me remind you, here, giving the adult Sabbath School class is way more of a sermon than the actual sermon is because of all the kids. This immediately got me a little flustered. I had no idea what to talk about and how to prepare for it.

Friday April 5, 2013

    Today I had 2 main tasks on my plate. The first was to start preparing for Sabbath School, and the second was to bake bread for our outreach program tomorrow after church. Both of which are all day processes.

    Here's the deal with the bread. Eric has been put in charge of evangelism on Sabbath afternoons. So one idea that came up was baking a bunch of bread and then taking the boys out on the road, then going house to house singing songs and giving out bread.

    It has actually been quite awhile since I have made bread, but I was ready for it. No Problem. Since Eric had class in the morning, I spent the morning making the bread by myself and mixing everything up. Then in the afternoon, he helped me divide them and bake em' up.

    While waiting for the bread to rise, I was able to sneak in some Sabbath School preparation. Fortunately, Mike has a quarterly that is in English. That turned out to be a massive help to me. It atleast gave me a template to go off of. However, it is still pretty much a sermon because no one else has the quarterly here.

    When Eric and I were finishing baking the bread, we were just doing our usual talking and making plans for next year when we are housemates at Southern. Talking about the things we're gunna put in our apartment, how much fun we're gunna have, the double dates we're gunna go on, the whole 9 yards. Just good guy bonding time.

    One thing to note on the day, further confirming my new found closeness with nature. Tonight, for dinner Emmy made some lemonade for us. But shortlt before I drank mine, I found 2 dead ants, a floating mosquito, and a fluttering/swimming moth in my cup. Hm, that's interesting. Oh well, all I needed to do was push them to the side of my cup and get them out real quick. Good as new.

Saturday April 6, 2013

    So today was the big day. The little time that I had to prepare for my sabbath school sermon was up. So after everyone sang for awhile, we divided into our classes. Fortunately, i was able to snag Samuel to translate at the last second.

    After I was finished, I didn’t feel like it went TOO well. I thought it actually went pretty bad. But Eric and a few others told me differently. But I dunno, I think they could be lying. And as always, when I started talking, I was completely dry, but afterwards, I was completely soaked. When Missy walked in and saw me, she was blown away at how much I sweated.

    After sabbath school was over, I was able to sigh a breath of relief. The hard part was over. Now all I had to do was the opening prayer for the divine service. But RIGHT before we walked upfront during the prayer song, I was told that I needed to do the welcom (in Spanish) and I was also responsible for the closing song. Are you kidding me?!?!? I don’t even know a single song in spanish. Wouldn’t have mattered if I did anyway because they assigned me a song to sing....never heard of it. So I recruited one of the boys to help me.

    Then right after the closing song, Juan nudged me and told me to have the closing prayer in spanish. Then I said no, you do it. But he nudged me again and said no no go ahead. To which again I said, no Juan, you pray. So he finally stepped up and prayed. Phew. So stressful.

    But after church is when things started going uphill. Right after church, Jerry and his wife Jenny invited us over to their house for lunch along with a couple of other volunteers.

    You know those girls that you can just tell that they are good cooks, thats Jenny. And I sure was right. She cooked us an amazing meal. But that wasn’t even the best part. After we ate, we all lounged around their house socializing and listening to Sabbath music. It reminded me so much of home. Where everyone gets together, eats a lot of food, the spends time together all with music playing softly in the background. Wowie.

    After we ate, it was time for our social outreach program where we take the boys out to sing songs and hand out bread to several of our non adventist neighbors. But we came into a problem. Juan wanted to go, and needed to because he knew all the songs and where people lived. But he didn’t want to leave Emmy at home alone with all the little ones and trouble makers who were not allowed to go. So I stayed back to watch the rest of the boys with Emmy.

    I was a little bummed at first, but it actually turned out to be pretty fun. Shortly after everyone else left, I pulled out my violin and started playing a bunch of songs while the rest of the boys sang along. They were fascinated by the violin and hearing one being played. I also brought out my computer and showed them tons of pictures from the States of my Family, Europe, Africa, and even scuba diving pictures. They were totally into it and wanted to watch all of my movie clips that I had. After the pictures, I ended up spending a lot of time with Armando and talking with him.

    Later in the evening, Eric had been planning to do a bonfire and roasting some bread dough. So we had a big night with all the kids roasted bread dough and drinking hot chocolate. I don’t know if they have ever had a social like that before or not. But they all seemed to love it.

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