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.

Grant and his boys

They are a cute bunch if you ask me :)

Juan de Dios is the youngest of all the boys. He is very inquisitive and loving.

Here is Grant with his boys from Talita Cumi. The one on his shoulders is Juan de Dios. The tough guy in green is Gustavo, the one in front is Cesar, the tiny one in blue is Edwin, the brother of Juan de Dios. To the right of Edwin is Jose David, Clemente has his arm around Iver.

Así es la Vida

On Friday I had my monthly meeting with a group called Damas Dinamicas. We are reading a book a month for a year and getting together once a month to discuss the book. This past month we read Celebration of Discipline. I enjoyed it--it will challenge you.

On Saturday we had a mini Staff Conference for WGM. We met at school and had meetings and worship and updates. For lunch a French caterer came and made us crepes. It was a strange concept for me because when I think of crepes I think of dessert or breakfast crepes. They made the crepe in front of you and you filled them with chicken or beef. They were strange but tasty. There was softball game after all the meetings and Grant played. His team was victorious by a bit of a landslide if you ask him.

Sunday we went to Trinity Union Church. Grant was on for Sunday school. Our pastor is in Miami visiting a drug rehab center. He would like to start something similar here in Santa Cruz. After church we were invited to go with a group of staff from Talita Cumi to lunch at La Casa del Camba. It was a little bit out of the city and over a huge bridge. It's a thached roof building made of bamboo. It was a huge place and the structure was very interesting but I didn't have my camera with me. Sunday night we went grocery shopping. It's not a good time to go because the stores are so busy but our weeks are also busy so it works out to go Sunday's.

All week long they have been calling for another city wide strike but it never quite gets finalized. I found out it is the same issues that have just never been resolved. On Monday even though it was like an oven in our house I decided to cook since I hadn't attempted anything difficult in a while. I made scalloped potatoes and meat loaf. Of course it didn't taste like it does in the States but it was pretty good.

Tuesday we had Parent Teacher Conferences since we just ended a quarter. I only had one conference so we decided to go to the Butterfly Farm since we had a little free time. It was hot and sunny in the morning but as we drove there it got dark, cold and windy and a huge storm rolled in. We were sad the Butterfly place is gorgeous from the pictures I've seen. They have a huge home for butterflies and an orchid hot house. They have horses you can ride and 15 natural pools that are all connected with waterfalls to swim in. You can rent canoes and kayaks as well. Since it was raining we decided to wait. We grabbed some lunch and went home a little while later. That night I had my Daniel Bible study at TUC. I really enjoy Beth Moore's studies.

Wednesday we have prayer meeting for WGM at 4. After that a group wanted to get something to eat so we went to dinner. On the way home we got caught in awful traffic because there has been marches and protests going on in the city. As we sat in traffic we saw a riot police vehicle go by with it's lights and sirens on.

Thursday was the day everyone expected a Paro (strike) but it turns out that just the government workers and offices went on strike today. It's not city wide. It would have been relaxing to have a day where you have to stay at home but I'm glad we are having school. I didn't want to start getting behind with all my Spanish classes and drama. My classes are going really well and I'm really enjoying teaching here at SCCLC.

More Political Conflicts

Today Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center is the only school open and operating. Over the past week there has been some conflicts at the airport and the governor asked people to demonstrate at the airport today so schools were closed. American Airlines flys into La Paz and then Santa Cruz daily. To the best of my understanding they pay La Paz the landing fees and such and then La Paz is supposed to share the money with Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz decided they wanted to be paid in cash every time a flight lands. American refused because then they would be paying double so all flights stopped. This was very bad news for our friends Mike and Aileen because they were scheduled to fly out Tuesday. Instead they had to fly to Lima, Peru paying extra for that ticket to catch an American flight out of Lima to the States.

La Paz wants for American to keep flying and so they sent their military to occupy the airport here in Santa Cruz. There were shots fired and some Santa Cruz police were injured but now they are occupying the airport and flights are supposed to be leaving from here again. Today though all the people who are opposed are marching to the airport in protest. We are praying that it does not get violent. I am also hoping that nothing like this is happening when we try to fly home.

Living in the clouds

Samaipata High School Retreat

We were living in the clouds this past weekend--literally. We went to Samaipata this weekend for the high school retreat. The town is located in the mountains and all weekend long the clouds hovered so close to the mountain tops we were occasionally in the clouds as we drove. We left around 1 on Friday (getting out of school a little early) and then came home Sunday night. Samaipata is about 3 hours from Santa Cruz. We took three buses and a couple other vehicles full of all the luggage and food. There was a speaker for the weekend and we had many sessions that were really great. I was in charge of sophomore girls and let me tell you sophomore girls have a lot of energy around 1 o'clock am.

We had group games and also free time so a lot of games were played--American football, Bang, Dutch Blitz. During the group games we played Montana Hoops, Dragon Dodge ball and relay races with mouth wash and squirt guns. The camp we stayed in was called Traudi and it was in the middle of a valley with gorgeous mountains around us. During the free time Grant and a courageous group climbed up one of the mountains and explored. They encountered a lot of briar patches and barbwire while they were at it.

There was a bonfire the last night and Grant and I shared our testimonies and then a few other counselors shared and then we left it open for the students to share. It was so amazing to hear what God had been doing in their lives in just the last week. Many had recommitted their lives to being radical about their faith instead of having passable faith. They made commitments to step up and be leaders in the school and to encourage one another.

It was a great weekend but Monday came way too fast and everyone is moving a little slower than normal. Both nights were late nights. There were many raids on other cabins and pranks pulled on each other. The sophomores were hilarious with their prank. They raided the senior girls cabin and yelled and made a loud racket but as they were doing that they were stealing their things. The next morning they had an auction to sell all the shoes, toothbrushes, hats and deodorants they had acquired. Also the next morning the senior girls came and yelled and sang loudly at our door to wake us up. So the other counselor ran to their room found their key and locked them out of their room--they were still in pajamas and barefoot :)

Servant Day Talita Cumi

Here is a group shot of all the students from SCCLC and some of the kids from the orphanage. This was at the end of the day so they are not their freshest :)

This blue used to be white and always dirty from little hands. This is what I was doing all day. I used a plastic bag and textured the walls. They loved it and I had many admirers watching as I painted.

Here is Juan the toucan who cannot fly.

Two students painted this garden scene throughout the entire room. It was very colorful and the girls loved it.

Here is Grant with some of the guys sanding benches.

As part of our spiritual emphasis week at SCCLC we had a servant day where all the kids 7th grade-12th picked a location out of about 15 and worked all day. Grant and I led about 15 youth at Talita Cumi, the orphage Grant works at. We had many projects to do and a lot of work got done. The guys started by sanding and varnishing all the benches from the place. Two of the girls worked on a mural in one of the girl's dorm rooms. It was a garden scene and very beautiful.

Some of the other girls sanded and painted other various furniture all of which were in desperate need of attention. I was in charge of painting the dining room and living room and the hallway. We were painting it a dark color because of all the hands that touch the wall the directors said the walls are always really dirty and the light color showed too much dirt. Two girls painted the base coat blue and then I went behind them and textured all the walls to help hide dirt even more.

The orphanage has a toucan and right now Grant is trying to build it a cage because it makes a mess all over the place. It's really cute though and very tame the kids were petting him all day.

We worked from 8:30 until 2:30 which is a very long day to kids who aren't used to physical work but they did a great job and stuck it out.

Snow Day

Well Santa Cruz doesn't actually ever get snow days--it's never snowed here. So there are a lot more creative ways that SCCLC gets an unplanned day off. Earlier in the year it was because most of the country went on strike and this past Tuesday I got a call at 7 am saying we didn't have school because we had blown our transformer and there was no electricity. What actually happened was our neighbor has been bulldozing his land and he hit the power line and broke the power lines leaving the school with no power.

It has been around 100 degrees this entire week and so smoky. Ashes were covering the ground at our Bible study the other night. There is so much smoke in the air after I get home from school I smell like I've been to a bonfire. So given the day off we were invited to go to the water park Aqualand. We had a lot of fun with a group of about 13 of us. It's just a little outside the city and it was totally empty because it just opened for the season and it was a school day. We got some intertubes and floated down the lazy river a lot and went down the slides.
Here is Grant and I floating and racing down the lazy river. We had a lot of fun racing. I wasn't always this far behind :)

It's hard to tell but that is Grant going down the death drop slide. Everyone who went down that slide had welts on their back--I didn't go down that one but I did go down the one right beside it that was still steep but had smaller dips.

The park was empty because everyone else was in school. We had the run of the place.