Hola from Santa Cruz!
It´s been wierd weather here in Santa Cruz these past few days. Yesterday it poured rain all day, the kids at work went completly crazy!! Today it´s just muggy and hot. Well it´s another week at work... tomorrow we have the morning off because we have some SALT banking things to do. This past weekend was good. My host dad just had Hernia surgery, so he has been at home recovering. So my host mom and dad have been travelling to the hospital numerous times for check-ups etc. He is doing much better, which is so great. Saturday morning I headed off to meet my co-workers from work. We ate Saltañas and drank Coke at 9 in the morning. Sick! I don´t think I´ve drinken coke that early in the morning! We then headed off to the pool for the morning. It was quite fun. Saturday night me and Cesia headed over to church, I was assuming we would have a normal church service but we got there and everyone was painting the church. So, in my church clothes, I helped paint our church. We then scrubbed the floors until we could basically eat off them. After we were finished we got home and it was raining. My host dad is the only person in the household who can drive and we needed chicken after church. So Cesia asked her dad if I could drive the car to pick up the chicken. Now I was thinking that he would say no, but he graciously passed over the keys to his little beater of a car. I think I said this before, but honestly this car goes about 15 km an hour. No joke! So the first trick was trying to turn the car on. It´s standard so I thought I knew how these cars work, but because this car is so old it needed time to heat up. So we waited in the car and after stalling a few times I finally got out of the drive way. There is only one windshield wiper, so I turned that on full blast but it didn´t help at all. So... I just continued driving (very slow).. cars honking. Cesia is telling me where to go, and thankfully this chicken place was only about 5 minutes away, so we got there. When we drove back I had to turn left so I started turning the wheel but honestly I had to put all my muscle power (with is a lot.. haha) into turning this steering wheel. It was ridiculous! It was the hardest thing to turn! Finally we got over the bridge and made it home OK! I got home and my dad prayed a long prayer thanking me for getting home safely! He then asked me after if I had a drivers licence here in Bolivia... I don´t.... I think he forgot to ask that before we left to get chicken. I think that will be the last time I will be driving that car, but I can now say I have driven in Bolivia!
So Sunday was a pretty relaxing day. Sunday nights church service was hilarious! We had a regular church service, but then suddenly this band of trumpets, drums and saxaphones came into the church and started playing songs for us. They played about 3 songs and then right when they were about to leave one old man from my church yelled for them to play another song. I think he requested his favourite song because once they started playing he starting running around the church and started doing some crazy dance moves... I was really impressed... and he honestly didn´t stop until the song ended (the song lasted about 10 minutes). Everyone was taking pictures of him. He loved it!
This Sunday my dad has asked me to sing a song in church. So.. if you have any suggestions let me know!
Anyways, this week is another week of work. I have to get going! Hope all is well!
much love
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Opposite ends of the world..
Things are going well here in Bolivia. It rained for the first time in a while today... the kids here went crazy! We had a bit of a water fight, which was fun. We just finished lunch and I have a bit of a break before the next group of kids come in. So a bit of an update is needed on my end. Last week (Tuesday), I did my sermon. Now I was thinking that I would be preaching in the church... but no... it was on the street about 2 blocks away from my house. So a lot of people from my church came and sat in this persons driveway. So I got up there and was hoping to have something to hold my notebook, but all they had was a chair. So they told me to sit down and preach. So here I am ¨preaching¨and it was just such a funny setting because taxi drivers and cars would drive by and stop, stare and then keep driving. I don´t think they are used to having foreigners preach.. especially on the street. For some reason my host dad sat in his car the entire time, but still was able to shout out haleluiah when he got the chance. My sermon was about loving your neighbour and what that means when doing service (like SALT). I think it went over really well. It was pretty nerve racking and I told my host mom that I was nervous and she just started laughing so hard! My host sister Cesia taped it so now I have a copy of my sermon. It will be interesting to listen to it next year when I come back home and see how much my spanish has improved. My host parents both said that it was ¨bonita¨, so that was nice to hear.
This past weekend I went with the youth group from my church to this river that we had been to before. Again, it´s not a real river... more like a stream. So we decided to play mud futbol. It was really fun! By the end we were just covered in mud. We then went 4 wheeling again... they didn´t let me drive it- but I think it´s Ok because I think it would have been a disaster if I did.
This past Sunday was pretty relaxing. Sunday night we went to church, and Walter (my host dad) was preaching about reading the bible. Anyways, when he was almost finished he randomly called me up to the front and asked me to sing a song in english. Now honestly I was really put on the spot and I had no idea that he was going to do this. My mind went completly blank. I couldn´t think of one stinken song to sing. So I told my church that I will sing for them another day. So I guess I have to start practicing for that.
This week has gone by fairly quickly. I have been trying to find places where I can go for runs, but honestly everywhere you turn there are stray dogs. Two nights ago I got on my micro and was heading home from work and guess who I saw? The same driver that was driving the one night where he said his shift was over and then had to have my sister talk the bus driver on my cell phone! I hid behind some woman the entire ride home. I found it pretty hilarious though!
So this weekend there is not much planned. Starting next week I have been asked to coach the girls on how to play basketball. There is another school that is wanting to play against us, and apparently they are pretty good, so I am supposed to teach these girls (who know nothing about basketball) how to play. So our game is supposed to be next Saturday at 9:30 am. It should be interesting!
I seriously am lacking in clothing here. I only brought one big backpack for the entire year. I don´t know what I was thinking in just bringing one pair of jeans for the entire year!!! I think next week I am going to check out this used clothing place and hopefully find some bargains.
Well I should get going. I hope this gives a bit of an update on how things are going! My sister Clare is leaving for Africa on Sunday... so I´m here in Bolivia, my other sister Heather is in China and Clare in Africa! My mom is getting a little worried!!! It´s pretty neat though!
Anyways, much love to you all!
This past weekend I went with the youth group from my church to this river that we had been to before. Again, it´s not a real river... more like a stream. So we decided to play mud futbol. It was really fun! By the end we were just covered in mud. We then went 4 wheeling again... they didn´t let me drive it- but I think it´s Ok because I think it would have been a disaster if I did.
This past Sunday was pretty relaxing. Sunday night we went to church, and Walter (my host dad) was preaching about reading the bible. Anyways, when he was almost finished he randomly called me up to the front and asked me to sing a song in english. Now honestly I was really put on the spot and I had no idea that he was going to do this. My mind went completly blank. I couldn´t think of one stinken song to sing. So I told my church that I will sing for them another day. So I guess I have to start practicing for that.
This week has gone by fairly quickly. I have been trying to find places where I can go for runs, but honestly everywhere you turn there are stray dogs. Two nights ago I got on my micro and was heading home from work and guess who I saw? The same driver that was driving the one night where he said his shift was over and then had to have my sister talk the bus driver on my cell phone! I hid behind some woman the entire ride home. I found it pretty hilarious though!
So this weekend there is not much planned. Starting next week I have been asked to coach the girls on how to play basketball. There is another school that is wanting to play against us, and apparently they are pretty good, so I am supposed to teach these girls (who know nothing about basketball) how to play. So our game is supposed to be next Saturday at 9:30 am. It should be interesting!
I seriously am lacking in clothing here. I only brought one big backpack for the entire year. I don´t know what I was thinking in just bringing one pair of jeans for the entire year!!! I think next week I am going to check out this used clothing place and hopefully find some bargains.
Well I should get going. I hope this gives a bit of an update on how things are going! My sister Clare is leaving for Africa on Sunday... so I´m here in Bolivia, my other sister Heather is in China and Clare in Africa! My mom is getting a little worried!!! It´s pretty neat though!
Anyways, much love to you all!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Four Wheeling, Samaipata and much more..
Hello!
Well I think it´s about time that I gave an update on how things are going. We returned last friday from Samaipata... a beautiful small village about 4 hours out of Santa Cruz. This was where our MCC retreat was held. We left last Wednesday morning and arrived there in the afternoon. It was such a rewarding and much needed time to get away. All of the MCC staff in Bolivia came and spent time together. I feel like I have so many new and funny stories to tell. While we were there, we had a lot of time to get to know the other MCC workers who are in Bolivia. I met some pretty great people, and am looking forward to continuing to get to know them. We had 2 days of meetings, a very interesting but challenging topics to talk about. On the last night we were there the mosquitos were so annoying at night. I woke up in the morning and found that I have 46 bug bites on my face and 64 on my left arm. It is ridiculous. I look like I have chicken pocks. Anyways, I think they are bed bug bites or from a spider. We had a talent show at the retreat and all of us salters sang a nice song for everyone. It was very nice! It was a cooler temperature in Samaipata compared to Santa Cruz.
I have a pretty scary but funny (now) story to tell. Last week (Tuesday- the day before we left for retreat) when I was at work I was eating a piece of bread and I ate it too quickly, so I drank some water to help it get down... but THEN I started choking. It was so scary! I was by the sink and I started to choke and I couldn´t breath for about 30 seconds. So then people started surrounding me and no one knew what to do. But then one of the cooks came and did the hymlick remover (don´t know the spelling) on me and I then was Ok. but it was really scary. It was funny because the thing that was going through my mind was the movie Ms. Doughtfire when the guy starts choking and then Ms. Doughtfire comes and saves the day. Anyways, it was a scary experience. But I am fine now!
This past weekend me and Cesia and my host dad went to the river. Now this is not the type of typical river I thought it would be. Honestly, it was a huge area full of sand and then there was a little place where the river was.. I wish I could show you pictures. So anyways, we stayed there for a while and then my dad let me drive his car. Now this car is pretty hilarious. It only goes about 15 km an hour so while we are puting along, cars are honking and letting us know that we are going too slow. So anyways in order to get out of the river we needed to get up this huge muddy hill. So I started driving up the hilll but then we got stuck. So me and Cesia climbed out and started pushing the car up the hill. But we were too weak so then 5 random guys come and help us push the car up the hill. It was so hilarious. So finally we got the car up the hill. But then the car overheated. So we had to wait until the car cooled down. But during that time a guy on a 4 wheeler came by and my host dad asked him if I could go for a ride. So me and Cesia climbed on (I was in my church clothes) and we went for a ride ... in the river. We got totally soaked and muddy but it was probably the funnest thing ever. I have some pictures that my host dad took that I will send when I get the chance. So it was a pretty fun afternoon.
This past tuesday the After school program went to the picina (pool) for the day. It was so much fun! So we swam around all day in the pool, played futbol and volleyball. I got completly burnt though!
My host dad Walter makes these booklets that are sent out to Argentina, Columbia, and over places down here, and he showed me his latest booklet for October and my picture was on it, and there is a whole page about me in the booklet. So I guess my face will be all over down here. I thought it was pretty funny!
Yesterday, the SALTers went to a Mennonite Colony about an hour away from Santa Cruz. It was quite an interesting experience. We had time to ask them questions about their life and beliefs and then had lunch with them. I took some pictures so I am going to try to upload them onto here when I get the chance.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving... my first holiday away from home this year. The Canadians who are here in Santa Cruz, all got together and made a huge meal! It was so great! We were going to buy turkey but it was too expensive, so we had chicken instead! I definetly missed being with my family in Calgary this year!
So tonight is the big night were I am preaching! But I figured out last night that it´s not in the church but ON THE STREET! It´s pretty interesting to have a church service on the street, and we light firecrackers to attract more people to come. So wish me luck! It´s in spanish I am continuing to practice my pronounciation! I´m a little nervous though!
Ok well I should go practice my speech for tonight. I kids are coming in an hour so I need to get going! Please keep e-mailing. Honestly, I have enjoyed checking my e-mail and seeing what a big support network I have back at home! I must say that I am lacking in my responses to e-mails mostly because I don´t have much time on the internet. But just know that I continue to think of everyone a lot and I will reply to e-mails when I can!
I love you and miss you all!
Well I think it´s about time that I gave an update on how things are going. We returned last friday from Samaipata... a beautiful small village about 4 hours out of Santa Cruz. This was where our MCC retreat was held. We left last Wednesday morning and arrived there in the afternoon. It was such a rewarding and much needed time to get away. All of the MCC staff in Bolivia came and spent time together. I feel like I have so many new and funny stories to tell. While we were there, we had a lot of time to get to know the other MCC workers who are in Bolivia. I met some pretty great people, and am looking forward to continuing to get to know them. We had 2 days of meetings, a very interesting but challenging topics to talk about. On the last night we were there the mosquitos were so annoying at night. I woke up in the morning and found that I have 46 bug bites on my face and 64 on my left arm. It is ridiculous. I look like I have chicken pocks. Anyways, I think they are bed bug bites or from a spider. We had a talent show at the retreat and all of us salters sang a nice song for everyone. It was very nice! It was a cooler temperature in Samaipata compared to Santa Cruz.
I have a pretty scary but funny (now) story to tell. Last week (Tuesday- the day before we left for retreat) when I was at work I was eating a piece of bread and I ate it too quickly, so I drank some water to help it get down... but THEN I started choking. It was so scary! I was by the sink and I started to choke and I couldn´t breath for about 30 seconds. So then people started surrounding me and no one knew what to do. But then one of the cooks came and did the hymlick remover (don´t know the spelling) on me and I then was Ok. but it was really scary. It was funny because the thing that was going through my mind was the movie Ms. Doughtfire when the guy starts choking and then Ms. Doughtfire comes and saves the day. Anyways, it was a scary experience. But I am fine now!
This past weekend me and Cesia and my host dad went to the river. Now this is not the type of typical river I thought it would be. Honestly, it was a huge area full of sand and then there was a little place where the river was.. I wish I could show you pictures. So anyways, we stayed there for a while and then my dad let me drive his car. Now this car is pretty hilarious. It only goes about 15 km an hour so while we are puting along, cars are honking and letting us know that we are going too slow. So anyways in order to get out of the river we needed to get up this huge muddy hill. So I started driving up the hilll but then we got stuck. So me and Cesia climbed out and started pushing the car up the hill. But we were too weak so then 5 random guys come and help us push the car up the hill. It was so hilarious. So finally we got the car up the hill. But then the car overheated. So we had to wait until the car cooled down. But during that time a guy on a 4 wheeler came by and my host dad asked him if I could go for a ride. So me and Cesia climbed on (I was in my church clothes) and we went for a ride ... in the river. We got totally soaked and muddy but it was probably the funnest thing ever. I have some pictures that my host dad took that I will send when I get the chance. So it was a pretty fun afternoon.
This past tuesday the After school program went to the picina (pool) for the day. It was so much fun! So we swam around all day in the pool, played futbol and volleyball. I got completly burnt though!
My host dad Walter makes these booklets that are sent out to Argentina, Columbia, and over places down here, and he showed me his latest booklet for October and my picture was on it, and there is a whole page about me in the booklet. So I guess my face will be all over down here. I thought it was pretty funny!
Yesterday, the SALTers went to a Mennonite Colony about an hour away from Santa Cruz. It was quite an interesting experience. We had time to ask them questions about their life and beliefs and then had lunch with them. I took some pictures so I am going to try to upload them onto here when I get the chance.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving... my first holiday away from home this year. The Canadians who are here in Santa Cruz, all got together and made a huge meal! It was so great! We were going to buy turkey but it was too expensive, so we had chicken instead! I definetly missed being with my family in Calgary this year!
So tonight is the big night were I am preaching! But I figured out last night that it´s not in the church but ON THE STREET! It´s pretty interesting to have a church service on the street, and we light firecrackers to attract more people to come. So wish me luck! It´s in spanish I am continuing to practice my pronounciation! I´m a little nervous though!
Ok well I should go practice my speech for tonight. I kids are coming in an hour so I need to get going! Please keep e-mailing. Honestly, I have enjoyed checking my e-mail and seeing what a big support network I have back at home! I must say that I am lacking in my responses to e-mails mostly because I don´t have much time on the internet. But just know that I continue to think of everyone a lot and I will reply to e-mails when I can!
I love you and miss you all!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
an update
Hola!
What a hot day here in Santa Cruz.. 35 degrees! I am sorry for not updating the blog in a while. Things have been moving a long quite quickly and I didn´t seem to get much time to update. Things are going well here. My family bought me a fan today.. thank the lord.. so I will finally be able to sleep better! It get´s pretty intense here at night with the humidity. This past week flew by. Work is going well, although I am completly exhausted at the end of the day. The kids are great, but they really take advantage of my lack of spanish and don´t listen very well. It gets a bit frustrating sometimes! Yesterday the SALTers got together and we had a meeting in the morning and then went to an organization connected with MCC called ´Pronats´. This organization works with children who are working on the streets. It was very interesting to hear about their way of working with the kids and preventing them from using drugs etc. Last night as I was on my way home on my micro, we hit another car. So here, when there are crashes no police come and so people just keep driving when they get into a collison. So we hit this car pretty hard and then we just kept driving. But then the car drove up beside us and the men inside the car started yelling at the bus driver. Then the one guy got out of the car and started punching the micro. In the end the car sped away and so our micro started chasing after the car. Thankfully the car was long gone before we could catch up to them. I have to admit I was pretty terrified after that.
I feel like I have seen many challening things this past week. One including a women beating her 2 year old kid with a stick. People keep telling me that this is normal and I shouldn´t make a big deal about it, but it is a big deal to me. So it´s challening to turn my back and walk away from situations like that. There was one thing that the director at Pronats said yesterday that really stuck with me. He said, ¨You can´t tell a child that God loves them when they are hungry¨. I think this verse is very true, but it´s a challenging thing to think about.
So, my host dad (Walter) asked me the other night if I could preach in our church at the end of October. I willingly accepted and so now I am trying to prepare a sermon... IN SPANISH! I think I will actually learn a lot, but it will take some time to put everything together.
This next week all the MCC workers are heading off to Semiplata for our retreat. It´s about 4 hours away from Santa Cruz... and it supposed to be beautiful! So we´ll all be away this next Wednseday till Friday! Looking forward to it!
Well I need to head off for lunch. I feel like there are more stories to tell but I have no time! I hope you are all well!
What a hot day here in Santa Cruz.. 35 degrees! I am sorry for not updating the blog in a while. Things have been moving a long quite quickly and I didn´t seem to get much time to update. Things are going well here. My family bought me a fan today.. thank the lord.. so I will finally be able to sleep better! It get´s pretty intense here at night with the humidity. This past week flew by. Work is going well, although I am completly exhausted at the end of the day. The kids are great, but they really take advantage of my lack of spanish and don´t listen very well. It gets a bit frustrating sometimes! Yesterday the SALTers got together and we had a meeting in the morning and then went to an organization connected with MCC called ´Pronats´. This organization works with children who are working on the streets. It was very interesting to hear about their way of working with the kids and preventing them from using drugs etc. Last night as I was on my way home on my micro, we hit another car. So here, when there are crashes no police come and so people just keep driving when they get into a collison. So we hit this car pretty hard and then we just kept driving. But then the car drove up beside us and the men inside the car started yelling at the bus driver. Then the one guy got out of the car and started punching the micro. In the end the car sped away and so our micro started chasing after the car. Thankfully the car was long gone before we could catch up to them. I have to admit I was pretty terrified after that.
I feel like I have seen many challening things this past week. One including a women beating her 2 year old kid with a stick. People keep telling me that this is normal and I shouldn´t make a big deal about it, but it is a big deal to me. So it´s challening to turn my back and walk away from situations like that. There was one thing that the director at Pronats said yesterday that really stuck with me. He said, ¨You can´t tell a child that God loves them when they are hungry¨. I think this verse is very true, but it´s a challenging thing to think about.
So, my host dad (Walter) asked me the other night if I could preach in our church at the end of October. I willingly accepted and so now I am trying to prepare a sermon... IN SPANISH! I think I will actually learn a lot, but it will take some time to put everything together.
This next week all the MCC workers are heading off to Semiplata for our retreat. It´s about 4 hours away from Santa Cruz... and it supposed to be beautiful! So we´ll all be away this next Wednseday till Friday! Looking forward to it!
Well I need to head off for lunch. I feel like there are more stories to tell but I have no time! I hope you are all well!
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