Army Base Visitation

Three weeks of summer break have past. I'm starting to wonder why my usual summer break never feels this long.
Each day, to make sure we're not completely lazy, we have four hours of work before the heat of the day strikes.  This last week a lot of us mowed all week. One of the volunteers, Pablo, brought out the tractor and started cutting down the higher sections of grass around the school, one of the new sm's that just got here a couple weeks ago, Kevin, weed whacked around all the garden and the orchard trees and I used the push mower to clean up path ways to houses. Those who didn't have other jobs used machetes, which is my least favorite way to cut grass.
There's a successful feeling though that comes after you've spent so long cutting all that grass and it's finally finished even if you do have to cut it again next week.

To switch things up this last Friday night after our normal vespers to bring in Sabbath, we all piled in the truck and road in the back to the outskirts of town where the army base is. During the school year some of the kids will go with a volunteer and do bible studies and sing songs with the soldiers. Things got busy in November and we didn't go and so after a month had passed, one morning while all of us were cutting grass or working on making food, a truck pulled up and out hopped five soldiers. I got a little nervous but luckily they chose to talk to Kevin who speaks fluent Spanish. They asked if we'd be coming back to do bible studies any time soon then said they'd be willing to bring a few soldiers out to help us cut all our grass because they have about eight weed whacked that could get the job done pretty fast. I personally like the idea.
It was pretty cool that they were wanting us back at the army base so that's where we headed last Friday night. It was a little strange hearing the metal gates cling shut behind us as our truck rolled through the entrance. Once we got inside the building a few men were scrambling around changing the dinning hall chairs to face where we would have the meeting and songs. The soldiers were lined up outside then after a bunch of shouting and commands on one of the soldiers part, they all came in and sat down around us. I was a little nervous but curious about the army base but felt more comfortable when we stared singing. The first couple songs I had never heard and I don't think the soldiers had either because there wasn't much singing that went on. However, once Jonatan asked the soldiers to stand for our last song, every soldier seemed to know the last song. There was something amusing yet pretty cool hearing around 80 soldiers all belt at the top of their voices all on different keys "Jesús es mi capitan" complete with hand motions.
I'm hoping that we'll keep going on Friday nights to do Bible studies at the army base.

Teacher, don't smile.

This is my first summer vacation in 8 years where I haven't worked at camp. It's summer vacation in South America right now even though it's December. Most of the kids have gone home leaving me and the other sm's with only five children to look after. In some ways it's nice because I feel like I can spend enough time equally with each child but it's also strange that the mission is so quiet.

Along with summer break has come an infestation of bugs. The plague of Egypt has taken a detour and ended up at Familia Feliz. It might just be because the rainy season has started and all the bugs are seeking shelter. Anyways, the mosquitos are everywhere. I've given up my skirts and traded them in for my work pants with the hope that they'll keep the bugs from biting but I get at least five new bites daily. Luckily none of those bites have malaria in them as far as I know. We've all quickly become use to the ants in our clothes, food and suitcases but I'm still working on getting use to them crawling around in my bed.

I learned two things this week. One, don't smile at men, any man for that matter because it will be taken the wrong way. Our garden exploded with more cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplant than we knew what to do with so we took what we couldn't eat to the market to sell. As I was waiting for customers, I was smiling at people walking by when one of my girls, Eva, informed me that I should never smile at men because it gives the wrong impression. Ops. Two, it's ok for my daughter to walk with her arm around me but I can't walk with my arm around her because it gives people the wrong impression. Ok. So I've been here for almost four months but I'm still learning a lot about the Bolivian culture.

It's been a combo of hot humid weather and long days without lots of kids to teach or play with that has lead me to this point. I now buy picole almost everyday. Now, picole (pronounced pea*col*ley) is just tamarin fruit that has been made into juice and mixed with about 1000 cups of sugar then frozen into delicious popsicles. They are my relief from the heat and ever since summer break began and the humidity has gotten worse than I ever thought possible, I have been a frequent customer at Doña Eva's (the house of the lady who makes the picole) It's funny because what started as something that brought temporary relief is now something I look forward to in my day. And although eating frozen sugar juice isn't the best thing for me all the time, I still continue to buy it. I finally made an application with my obsession with picole one evening when I realized that my obsession over tamerin juice is how I want my relationship with God to be, completely obsessed with Him so much so that it's what I look forward to every day and I'm not satisfied until I have Him in my life.

Running's not even my thing but....

If you ever feel unprepared, just remember that I started training for a ten mile race five days before the actual race. It happened this way. I have been meaning to start running here but the heat has been quite terrible so I delayed all types of exercise until I was told that Familia Feliz does an annual race from town to the mission - 13 km. I knew it was happening some time but I thought I'd have more than five days to prepare. I wake the girls up at 5 so that they can have personal devotions and then we have family worship at 5:30. I am with the kids the rest of the day and no one in their right mind wants to go running in the day light so my only option was early 4am. 

Just to be clear, I'm not a runner. I aspire to like running but it's not reached that point yet. Nevertheless, Tuesday morning came, I woke up at 3:50 and went running with two other sm's. It was still pitch black outside with an occasional streak of heat lightning to confirm that there were no cows crossing the road. As we started to run, there was something almost soothing about the patter of feet on the pavement, the stars flickering above my head and the occasional car headlights killing our night vision.
One day of exercise down, four days left. But then I got sick. It must have been my body's way of warning me to not try to run 10 miles without training but I'd already decided my fate, sick or not. I read once on the internet (aka, the most reliable source) that you shouldn't exercise when you're sick because your body is to busy fighting off the sickness to exercise. Maybe that's common sense but who has common sense when the alarm goes off at 3:50 to wake you up to run?
Friday morning, I obeyed my alarm and went running. Two days of running 3 miles to prepare me for my 10 mile race. Things weren't looking so bright but there's a stubborn streak in me that refused to let myself believe that I couldn't complete the whole race. With this motivation tucked in the back of my head, I mentally prepared my mind for the journey as I stretched Monday morning on the outskirts of Rurrenabaque. My first priority was to watch out for the kids and keep them safe which seemed like a good reason to take it nice and slow the whole way - jogging style. There was a slight change in plans and that we wouldn't be running 10 miles because we didn't want to have to cross and pay for the toll so we started our race 7.8 miles from the mission. Way more doable. 

As the minutes ticked away to the pounding of my feet on the pavement and one by one the kids got tired and stopped to catch a ride on our mission's truck that was following along behind to pick up stragglers, the Bible verse that I had read that morning to my girls kept on resurfacing in my head. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race..." applicable, except that I had not yet finished the race, I was very much still running it and had a long way to go but it kept my spirits up as I kept a steady pace mile after mile.
I was the fourth volunteer to complete the race and the third girl to arrive but all I cared about was that I'd arrived and that I'd made it the whole 7.8 miles running without stoping. Maybe I'll even attempt running that far again in the future after my feet feel better.
The moral of the story though, is that being stubborn but motivated can get you to the end.... but it wouldn't hurt to prepare more than five days in advance for my next endeavor.



Below are two of the SM's, Lindsay and Josh after we finished our race.

Tarantulas for a Snickers Bar

There’s been a couple here the past week looking into coming to the school to volunteer next school year. They’re from the states and it was fun to have new people at the mission. After being here almost a week, they prepared to leave on Wednesday and gave all of the sm’s a mini twix bar. I haven’t tasted chocolate in a while and it was heavenly! 
I taught my 8am English class and came back to the main building after it was finished and saw a bunch of students and most of the student missionaries looking into a box that was on the ground. I walked over out of curiosity and to my disgust, I saw that the box had five big, hairy tarantulas in it. The couple that was preparing to leave didn’t want to leave without seeing a tarantula and had told the kids that whoever brought the biggest one would get a snickers candy bar. That prize is even highly motivational to me but when you weigh a candy bar to picking up a spider that could potentially be as big as your face, I decided against it. There were two white sacks in the box that two tarantulas were trying to cover. One of the sm’s, who has no fear of these spiders at all, brushed the spider out of the way and picked up the already split open white sack. I looked inside and there must have been over one hundred naked spiders squirming around in the sack. Just seeing all of them made me shiver and back away. The sack had been accidentally ripped when the children had picked the tarantulas out of the motequ trees. (The spiders favorite place to be and now that I know that, I will be staying away from those trees permanentalyl). Miguel was disappointed that no one had been able to find one of the huge black ones that jump – yes, they can jump too.
In that moment with about 12 volunteers and 20 students clustered around, Jonathan decided that it was his time to let a tarantula crawl on him. I’d say his fear is about where mine is when it comes to tarantulas but he decided that he had to overcome his fear. He stuck out his hand but freaked out and ran away a couple times just as the spider was about to be placed on his hand. Finally, Mr. tarantula was on his hand, Jonathan was hyperventilating and everyone else was extremely amused at the situation. In his defense, Jonathan decided that he needed to retake a picture of him holding the spider and held the spider again with an extremely calm face although his hands were shaking quite a bit. 

He was braver than me and when Abby suggested that I hold one, I backed up several feet and prepared to run away. I may have been here two months but I am still not mentally prepared to have a spider, venomous with the potential to jump from my hand to my face, crawl on my hand. Gracias, pero no gracias.  I’m perfectly content with taking pictures of the tarantulas from a long distance. The couple then told the kids that they’d give another piece of candy to whoever found and brought to them a snake so naturally, I had to leave and lock myself in my room. My fear of snakes is greater than my fear of spiders. Maybe my fears will be completely gone by the end of my sm year but for now, they are very much still here. The kids didn’t find a snake though and so passed another day without me seeing a living poisonous snake.

There was no avoiding it anymore. This week I found myself in the agriculture group during the work hours 3-5 every day. I had been crafty and had avoided macheteing for the past four weeks by volunteering my services cleaning the church, the school rooms, the cafeteria and planting trees. However, it couldn’t be avoided any more so I grabbed a machete and trudged out to the banana grove with the fifteen other students. Within ten minutes of working I had a good size blister on my hand – weak. I looked over at the kids who were working and noticed that one of my 8^th grade boys, Eliseo, had cleared a whole section while I had been focused on whacking away at the same stubborn clump of grass with no results. I know I’m not as strong as Eliseo who has machetied well over 2,000 times as he carelessly told me when I asked him. Ok, 2,000 times to my 10 times makes sense now why I’m not that great at it. He let me borrow his machete after he showed me how to swing it with my whole arm while keeping my feet planted and I discovered a trick. It helps if your machete is sharp. I was using one of the dullest machetes out there. I made slow progress with my worn machete but at least I now know that I’m not completely slow, it depends on what machete you grab.

Tackle Season

This past week was one of those normal /abnormal weeks.
The power went out again on us from a lightning storm -normal.
Our water soon stopped after that - normal.
We used water from the dirty creek to wash our dishes - normal.
We didn't shower - normal.
The power was out for more than one day - abnormal.
We didn't have classes because no one had clean uniforms - abnormal.
On the second day of not having power, it poured and we played soccer in the rain - normal for the kids, abnormal for me. It was my first time trying to play. I didn't last very long.
Our soccer game turned into seeing how many times you can tackle the teacher in the mud. I successfully tackled about six children while I lost count how many times I was tackled, dragged through the grass to the pothole that was filled with water and sat on. If that's how the kids show me that they love me than I am very loved.
Just for the record, I successfully tackled Eliseo which is quite an accomplishment because while he is super skinny, he has a lot of hidden strength that you don't realize that he has until you're trying to knock his legs out from under him and before you know it, you're facedown in the dirt. He still insists that I was never able to successfully tackle him but I'm pretty sure Jonathan or Josh have GoPro footage to prove that I got him at least once.
After our tackling session was over and we sent all the kids back to their house because lightening decided to stop our fun, my house all decided to shower outside. (Momentarily forgetting about the lightening) Showering consisted of standing under the water gutter as it poured and trying to wash the dirt and grass out of our clothes and hair. We weren't very successful but I think taking a shower in the rain is one of those almost expected SM experiences. Here, we don't take days off from school for holidays, we take days off when the the rain keeps the power off for more than two days.

I like papayas. Papayas?

One way to get out of making your bed in the morning (at my age I shouldn't be looking for excuses but it's actually quite annoying to make your bed when it's surrounded by a mosquito net that's tucked into your bed) is to give your bedding away to kids to take to class. That's what happened this morning. As everyone was eating breakfast, I had finished and was going around the table hugging my girls when my oldest girl, Belza asked to use one of my sheets in her  Bible class. With some confusion on my part I agreed. Once in our house I gave her my multicolored, crazy striped and poka dotted bed sheet that I had bought in town my first day in Rurrenabaque when I hadn't realized there was more than one option for sheet patterns and she went on her happy way to Bible class to use it for whatever reason. I didn't see it again for four days but decided that I didn't need it any way because it's been so hot.

This past week I discovered a whole different world - the banana grove. Now, this may sound pathetic but I have never seen a banana tree before. They're a pretty good height with thick trunks, big leaves and a single flower at the end of each banana bunch.
The banana grove is where we get the majority of our fruit supply for the mission and I stumbled upon it when I was looking for one of the other SM's who'd taken a group out there to bring some bananas back to the kitchen. I found her and her group of boys sitting under a banana tree, licking papaya juice off of their sticky fingers. I was offered a piece of papaya and I skeptically tried it. Papayas and bananas are the main two fruits that we grow and eat since buying fruit instead of growing them is expensive. I've had papaya a couple times in food and haven't liked it but when I tried that perfectly juicy papaya slice, I changed my mind. I like bananas, I think that mangos are sweet and (now I can actually say that) I like papayas (but nothing can beat that sweet love of God - just because you can't write the first part of the fruit song without finishing the rest of it).

During work assignments this past week, I was walking around the mission with a group of kids picking up trash when I noticed that one of the boys had lit the brush/burn pile on fire. I thought to myself that it wasn't the best idea to light a fire on such a windy day but then again, what do I know about fires? I can never keep a good fire going in the fireplace at home. Not twenty minutes had passed when I stepped outside of my house and saw smoke and ashes swirling all around the mission making the sky hazy and the air thick with smoke. The next thing I noticed was Josh running around and kids pouring out of houses with buckets, making their way towards the base of the smoke. Sometimes I like adrenaline parties and I was in full fire fighter mode within seconds. I grabbed my girls and we raced to the kitchen to grab buckets. Or more like I had to drag my girls out of the house, convince them to take the bucket of water then tell them to run to help put out the fire. I guess the possibility of a fire burning down the mission, losing all your possessions and missing supper didn't seem that important to them. I soon left them behind and carried my food storage container filled with water where the smoke was. The fire had quickly spread thanks to the wind and was dangerously close to the carpenter shop where we keep all of our gasoline. That's where the majority of people were working so I ran between the shop and the fire to throw my bucket when suddenly the winds changed and I was caught up in a cloud of white that made it nearly impossible to see. My throat turned to sandpaper and I emerged coughing, blurry-eyed with tears streaming down my face from the smoke. Facing the flames and haze head on wasn't working so well for me so I changed tactics and started putting water on the opposite side that the wind was blowing. The fire on that side was closest to Miguel's house (the director of Familia Feliz) and the banana grove. If all the bananas went up in flames that would be quite tragic. Miguel's house is brick so I wasn't terribly worried about his. We finally got the flames under control then dowsed in water and finally there were just a few embers burning which we let be..... and definitely shouldn't have because at 2am the embers lit up and started another fire that took some time to get under control - at least that's what I was told. My house was in a dead slumber and didn't wake up when we were called to come help with the fire. I'm a reliable firefighter.

Castigos and a Food Fight

Here in Bolivia, we can actually have the kids do physical labor when they misbehave unlike in the states. For the kid’s “castigos” or punishments, they have to take a machete and go cut however many pieces of wood that they were told to cut for their punishment. Two of the boys must have done something pretty bad earlier last week because I saw two of them hacking away with their machetes at a huge tree that they had cut down. They had to cut the tree into pieces then move it to a certain place. I’m a terrible person when it comes to assigning punishments because I can’t do it. I only made a child cut 15 pieces of wood once and that was when he was being very disrespectful in class. 15 isn’t a lot when the normal assignment is 50 or 100. That was the only time I made a child cut wood so seeing these two children out cutting a giant tree into smaller pieces when it was so hot made me feel bad for them so I went to the kitchen and brought them both cups of water telling them to drink it. They did so gladly and I even got a “thank you” in English from one of the boys. I need to learn to be tougher and not feel badly when a child gets punished, I guess. 

Let me tell you about two brothers who have found a way to cheat the system of having to cut wood. There’s Jesús who pays other children to cut his wood when he’s assigned it. Then there’s his brother, Manfred who went somewhere in the jungle and cut down a huge tree and then chopped it into thousands of pieces. Whenever he gets any punishments, he goes to his secret spot in the jungle then just hangs out with his already cut fire wood waiting for the right amount of time that he thinks it would take to cut the amount of wood he was assigned, then he’ll bring the wood back to the mission. They don’t know that I know this, but our director knows about it and told the other SM’s. I think it’s brilliant. These are also the two brothers who like to wrestle bulls for fun. Yes, for fun. They can be a little hard core out here in the jungle if they need to be. 

This past week was my week to be in the kitchen so all of my time was spent either teaching or preparing meals. Last night the group of kids that I’ve been working with in the kitchen, and myself, made popcorn for supper then started making bread for breakfast the next morning. Jesús is the oldest in the kitchen and he’s been really good this week at making himself look busy while actually doing nothing. Sabbath night I was determined to make him work with me so I dragged him over to the bread while he gave me several excuses on why he couldn’t make the rolls. No me importa. I showed him how to roll them correctly which was comical because I had just learned how to roll them three minutes earlier and he knew it. He grudgingly began to roll the bread and in no time at all we had finished.
(There they are grudgingly making bread and trying to pretend that they aren't having that much fun)

I turned around to congratulate him and there he was, bending down to get to my eye level and blowing flour off of his palm onto my face and hair. If you start something, you had better be prepared to continue it so I picked up a huge handful of flour and rubbed it all over his hair and the hair of one of the girls that had egged him on to throw the flour on me in the first place.  We all ended up with white hair, flour streaked faces and arms covered in it. I think I got more than the others though because all of the other kids ganged up on me. It got in my nose, mouth and my clothes until I thought I was leaving a trail of flour every where I walked. It was my first food fight and it was a good one.