We aren't in Kansas anymore

Yesterday was one of those days where I'm more acutely aware of the fact that we are definitely missionaries in a foreign land. The US embassy has issued a recommendation that Americans should not travel to Bolivia. Our neighbors said they saw fighter jets flying over their house. I went to the pharmacy to pick up anti-parasite and amoeba pills to take because I talked to a nurse and she thinks I picked up some kind of creature in my stomach. At the same time I was picking up pills to kill whatever is living in my stomach I picked up some medicine to kill a tropical rash I have on my arm that won't go away. If you know me this kind of stuff I do not take with a grain of salt...it grosses me out and I was so mad for a while thinking why in the world do I have to pick up everything that comes my way. I've adjusted my attitude and tried to laugh it off and just keep taking medicine and hoping everything clears up. My parents are still coming on Monday and will be here for Christmas. Grant's parents are coming at the end of December. Our plans to travel around the country might have to change a bit. We are doing well and I praise God for that.

End of the Semester

Here are just a few pictures of the end of the semester and some of my classes. It was a really great half a year and it went by so quickly. I had a wonderful time and I love all my students (most of the time :) Spanish III I was handing back their final and telling them the good news that they survived the semester and all did very well.

Every Friday I have Library time with the Third grade class. I was reading a Christmas story that they loved. It's hard to imagine reading Christmas stories and everyone is wearing shorts :)

This is my 5th grade class and this is their favorite thing to do--play Manzanas a Manzanas. It's Apples to Apples but I made cards in Spanish to help them learn new vocabulary.

This is my Spanish 1 class....yes just three girls :) We had a class party and one of the girls brought in Saltenas. They are a popular traditional treat. They are made of dough with chicken, peas, potatoes, and broth. First thing you do when you eat them is shake them to distribute the broth and then you just eat them out of your hand. The first one I ate like that I made a mess but it doesn't take long of living in Bolivia and you are a pro.

A Christmas Carol

I was the Assistant Director of A Christmas Carol. We started in September and just performed the 6th and 7th of December. It was a fabulous show. I was in charge of set design and props and we built a three level stage and created many creative backdrops to change the scene. " Two honest benefactors pleasant to behold" For costumes the students wore basic black and added shawls and bonnets, scarves etc..

These are two of my Spanish students and they are also part of our mission. This was their first show and they did great.

This is another backdrop we painted. One of my students designed the triangles and we had them made and then they created a wonderful winter scene.

Here is Scrooge with Jacob Marley the ghost. We had to build two extra platforms for the bedroom and office of Scrooge and we painted 8 backdrops.

Here is our Scrooge holding Tiny Tim. Josh (Scrooge) is an unbelievably talented actor. Behind them is one of the beautiful backdrops that the kids painted to make a London city scene. When I got flowers the first night I was surprised but when the kids gave me another bouquet the second night as well I was overwhelmed. They are one of the greatest group of kids I've ever worked with.

Our Kids for the Day

Here's the family....Edwin is showing off his injury....he was already sad because we left right after this picture.

While Vivi and I were ordering food Grant and Edwin had fun with the camera.....I love this one!

Vivianita y yo

Two very handsome fellows if you ask me :) They were inseparable all day.....

This was Edwin's transportation all day because he had cut his foot so bad so we called him Tiny Tim. He did find he could crawl and play on the play set at Burger King.

Parents for a Day

Sunday was a busy but great day. All the staff of Talita Cumi wanted to have a retreat for a day but it's impossible because they always have kids. So our church volunteered to take the kids in individual families for the day. So Grant and I were on to be the teacher's for Sunday school which is normally a challenge. Keep in mind our church is in English so normally we teach Sunday School in English but now we've added 30 kids who only speak Spanish to the mix. So we joined classes so I could talk and then translate for myself. It went well. I sometimes forgot which kid I was speaking to and would choose the wrong language but we got through.

After church we had Edwin who is 6 and Viviana who is either 15 or 18. The orphanage told us she is 18 but she says she is 15....who knows. We went to lunch with the pastor and his kids to Burger King. They had never eaten onion rings and Vivi hated them but Edwin liked them. We were going to go swimming but Edwin fell and cut his foot and had stitches so we couldn't swim. Grant had to carry him all day because they only sent him with one flip flop and so he couldn't walk. We decided to take them to the cinema instead of swimming since Edwin couldn't play much. He had never seen a movie in the cine before. We saw Enchanted the Disney movie except in Spanish. Grant said he didn't mind. The kids loved it. They ate so much popcorn and drank every drop of pop. After the movie we went home and jumped on the trampoline. Edwin couldn't jump so he sat on the trampoline and Grant bounced him and he laughed endlessly for an hour. We took some pictures together and they gave us a thank you card and then it was time to go home. Edwin didn't say a word on the way home and he cried when we got there. He didn't want to leave us. It was sad. It's unbelievable how quickly you can get attached in one day.

I will post some pictures at a later date!

Orange=Grant

So Grant has discovered that his name is possibly the hardest thing the kids at the orphanage have ever had to say. When he was first introduced they just had blank stares when they were told his name. Then they tried to say it and it sounds like Gruugh and then Grounge and then Grump. One day Esteban was teaching the kids their colors in English and he taught them orange. Somehow the kids thought that orange sounded like what they called Grant so they started to say oh yeah Tio Orange. So to some Grant is now called Orange and you can call me the Turkey Queen :)

Today my classroom had a funny smell to it that I couldn't place. When my kids came in they noticed it too and said it smelled like dead fish. Not until 4th hour my junior high class came in and one looked at the air conditioner. There was a dead frog in my air conditioner plastered to the vents so the air was flowing past his dead carcus! I was almost sick when I realized that was what had been smelling like dead fish and we had been breathing it all day. So I had a student stick a ruler in through the vents and dislodge the frog and get it out and chuck it out the window. I then asked from any girls with perfume to spray some in the air :) Crazy adventures of life in Bolivia.

Wilma's Graduation Dinner

On Saturday night we attended a Graduation Dinner. It was one of the girls from Talita Cumi, Wilma. It was a great night and we had so much fun hanging out with the kids. Mary, Edwin, Fabiola and Gustavo sitting nicely before dinner in their best clothes. They were all on their best behavior with all the guests coming to the party. A lady from our church cooked the dinner and had all kinds of pasta. The tables were beautiful and there were flowers as centerpieces.

Me, Juan de Dios and Grant

This is Wilma. She graduated second in her school which means she gets a full ride scholarship to a public university here in Bolivia. She is the first to graduate from Talita Cumi. Her graduation was the night before and the next night there was a dinner in her honor at Talita Cumi.

Juan de Dios sat at our table for the dinner. After dinner we taught a couple of the boys Paper Rock Scissor. They had so much fun they couldn't stop laughing. They had never played the game and Juan would get so excited he hugged me in between each game.

After dinner and playing Paper Rock Scissors for a while Juan de Dios wanted to dance! So we went out on the patio and danced.

After a while of dancing and me spinning Juan de Dios he got the idea to spin me. When you are at least two feet taller than someone it's difficult to say the least for them to spin you. :)

Thanksgiving in Bolivia

On Thanksgiving Day our mission has all it's missionaries from across the country get together and celebrate together. There was food followed by a program where many talants were shared and then we sang Christmas carols together. Lots of food....all the traditional Thanksgiving musts except there was not any cranberry sauce to be found.

Here is Grant and I on Thanksgiving day and we are glistening because it was at least 90 degrees that day and inside it was worse with no air conditioning. It was a lot of fun though with lots of traditions to be a part of with World Gospel Mission.

That is in fact a turkey's head that our director's wife is holding. Every year it's tradition for Bonnie to sing "Oh Tom the turk, Oh Tom the turk why did you have to be a jerk" Holding in her hand a real turkey head. It stank to high heaven but it was good entertainment.

After all the programs and caroling we made bags full of school supplies for the pastor's children in the church group we support here. I think we made nearly two hundred bags up. School is going to be starting up again the end of January. Right now Bolivian kids are on summer break.

Turkey Queen

The Friday before Thanksgiving the Senior class had a Thanksgiving banquet as a fundraiser. Grant and I went and sat with some people from our mission. It is very cheap here to rent chairs and tables, table cloths, dishes and glasses so they rented everything for 150 people and set it up in our gym. We had chicken instead of turkey but the theme of the night was turkeys. They had emcees talking about facts about turkeys and jokes etc. Before dinner our waitress said we had to pick one person from our table as a representative but we didn't know for what. My table nominated me to go up on stage. It turned out to be a game show and there were questions about turkeys and the country of Turkey. I was last to answer a question and I was hoping it wasn't something about the government of Turkey. Instead my question was "What does a Turkey say?" Relieved it wasn't a difficult question I gobbled away. There was a panel of judges that voted on the best responses and a Queen and King were named. You guessed it. I was named Turkey Queen. I was given a crown and a flag from the country and asked to address my people. It was a fun night and I don't think I'll forget too soon the night I was named Queen of Turkeys.

El Fuerte

El Fuerte is located on the top of a mountain. The drive up was 6 kilometers mostly driving right on the edge of a cliff. At one point it was very steep and also muddy and our truck starting sliding--a little nerve racking to say the least but it was worth it. Once we arrived to the spot to park and pay we had to hike around to the different locations of the ruins. This mysterious place has been given many explanations for its origin. It is supposed that El Fuerte is the work of the Amazonian pre-Incan Chane culture, and later was used as an advanced city by the Inca people and finally by the Spanish colonists that turned it into a fortress. This was the second largest meeting plaza in the Incan times. They would hold military events and other important occasions in the center of this rectangle.

This is the largest carved stone in the world with carvings on top and on all sides of it. There are all kinds of crazy designs in the stone and some people have the theory that alien ships landed on the rock leaving the marks.

This is the side of the main rock--the top part is part of the religious meeting area and in the right hand corner are some houses.

This was at the top of a steep hike so we took a break enjoyed the scenery and took a few pictures.

Las Cuevas

Sunday on our way home to Santa Cruz we stopped at a place called Las Cuevas (the Caves). It's actually a park with a river running through it and three waterfalls. It was an easy hike and really beautiful and cool with the water misting everyone.

Self portrait :)

This is part of the second falls which I think are the biggest. There is a huge area of sand in front where some people were playing volleyball.

This was the third falls and the furthest away from the park where we left our vehicle. The waterfalls are so pretty and they have sand so it looks like it will be great to swim in later when it's hotter.

Samaipata

This weekend we had Friday off for Memorial day. Grant and I decided to go to Samaipata which is about 3 hours from Santa Cruz up in the mountains. We had already visited on the youth retreat but we were busy the entire weekend and didn't explore anywhere. The drive up was so much fun just because of the scenery. The mountains and valleys are beautiful the only problem is most of the time they are covered by clouds. On the way home it was perfectly clear.

There was a rope bridge on the way and so we stopped and Grant tested it but it groaned and sagged and some of the boards were already broken so I stayed on solid ground. There was a place to stay on the other side of the bridge and we still aren't sure if there is another way to get there other than the bridge.

We stayed at Traudi and had a wonderful view. The only other thing we were worried about was having was bed bugs :) It was nice but some people have warned us that it has happened.

This was our room--it was called Amancaya, which pronounced in Spanish resembles "I'm on fiya" It gave us a good laugh.

On the way home it was sunny and we stopped several times when there was room on the side of the road to take pictures of the gorgeous scenery.

Day of the Dead

Here is one of the graves on the roadside on the way to Samaipata.

All the graves are above ground and now they are cleaned up and all have wreaths on them.

Here is a stand selling the paper flower wreaths that are placed on the graves.

November 1 was Day of the Dead here and November 2nd was Memorial Day so we did not have school. On Thursday and Friday families go to the cemeteries and clean the graves. They also bring food, many times whatever favorites their loved ones who had passed away loved when they were alive. The family gathers around the grave and eat the meal and spend time with their loved ones in the cemetery.

Commute to work

This is the house I walk by everyday. They have many animals living in the field. There are two dogs, five cows, four calves, many chickens, three pigs and some baby chicks that are cute. One day I was walking home and I saw a girl come out of the house with a grocery bag and all of a sudden every animal came running from near and far. A chicken crossed my path running full speed ahead toward the girl. She dumped a pile of slops out and the animals had a feast.

So I've taken to carrying a rock and stick on my walk from my house to school. Why would anyone do such a crazy thing? Attack dogs--that is what prompted my new props. Above is the picture of the house that sits on the field we walk through. They have two of the meanest dogs and they get so angry when we come through. One day one of them had it's mouth around my foot and I kicked it off before it bit. The children at the house generally come running and dive for the dogs to stop them from biting. If I carry a stick and a rock it makes me feel more secure but I don't actually think the dogs are that intimidated.

Pictures from Samaipata

Our internet has been out since we returned from Samaipata so here are a few pictures from the weekend. This tree has bottles tied to it to scare away evil spirits from the compound.

I took this out the bus window on the road home. The way to and from is windy and hugging the mountain side the whole way.

More scenic wonders.

Most of the trees here besides the palm trees have gorgeous flowers from time to time. The toborochi tree comes in all shades--purple, pink, yellow and all shades in between.

Macaws are fairly common pets and their colors are so bright. This one sounded like he talked but I never made out anything he said exactly.

This was the view from my cabin the first night we got to Samaipata. It's so beautiful and inside the fence were a flock of sheep and there was a baby lamb. He was jumping up and down and up and down so many times that the sophomores and myself just laughed and laughed.