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.