And a little more from here...

Just a few random things I've found out about the country so far. They say Bolivia is practically a one word joke here in South America, probably because it’s the poorest country on the continent, with an unstable economy and government. The whole city of Santa Cruz went on strike (the Thursday we were there) to protest the government refusing to return 20% of the tax to the city. I don’t know how it was supposed to help anything, but in any case, all shops were closed and no one could drive safely without a special permit from the mayor. Yep. Crazy stuff.

Serpents at work.

And the good times just keep rollin’…Woke up to one Goliath of a thunderstorm Sunday night. But I do think that if my ears had been as plugged as my sinuses, I probably would’ve slept right through it. I’ve been amazed at how cold the jungle can get…not really too cold compared to winter back home, but who would think a sweater and a jacket would ever feel good in the jungle? Doesn’t that just seem preposterous? So the rain made for an interesting trip to town since we ride in the back of the truck. They did have a canopy this time, but it started to rip off in the wind about five miles out of town. So Matt and I held it down the rest of the way in. I finally got a mass email out to everyone, but all it took was one more day to have enough material to write another one. Shall I start with the good news or bad news? Maybe I’ll just sandwich the bad news…squash it like one of these insects. So…good news. Half the roof is up on the bakery. Unfortunately we were a day late. All the rain caved in the big clay baking furnace. I can’t believe that no one thought to put a tarp over it…but I guess that’s how it goes. So it’ll probably be a few weeks before we bake bread…at least in mass. And the storm took away our power. No el sol leaves solar panels without much goin’ for them. (ar pans…what can you do with that? Seriously.) But those are the least of our worries right now. Three staff members left today…not just for town. Apparently two of the male staff allowed some female students to sleep in their quarters. Yeah. Nothing happened apparently, but still. Unacceptable. So they hit the road. And then the staff member who was telling the offending staff they needed to leave decided to quit as well. So she cleared out. We’re still trying to figure that one out. I’m actually kinda glad I don’t know much Spanish yet, ‘cause it was nice to be able to stay out of the politics. So now we’re holding down the fort. Jeff and Fawna are still gone to Santa Cruz. I’m wondering who’s going to teach classes tomorrow for the missing teachers. Maybe the kids will just work. Who knows, maybe it’s all for the best. So yeah…how about that good news? No one died today! I’m still alive! CLEARLY. And I’m praising God for it. Matthew and I were down in the creek, digging out a half-submerged stump by the dike. It was a major pain ‘cause we couldn’t see the roots we were choppin’ on. So I was using my hands a lot to pull out roots and mud, dog style (about as dirty as one too). Kinda using my fingers to “see” what I was doing. I had just stopped momentarily to say something to Matt when I saw a flash of orange. “Snake!” I grabbed the pick-ax, but the serpent quickly disappeared into a snarl of roots. Just then a couple of the teachers walked up. Said they just wanted to see what we were doing. I told them we were trying to fix a leak in the dike and had to get the stump out. Then I asked them about the snake. Their eyes got real big as they informed me it was a coral snake…deadly poisonous. Yep. So it seems I just had about 6 inches of God’s hand between me and kingdom come. Of course I couldn’t let the snake stay in there, chillin’ like a villain, so I dug it out with the pick-ax (very carefully!) and chopped off its head with a machete. It was only about two feet long fortunately, and didn’t offer much resistance. When I told some of the locals how close my hands had been to the critter, they looked horrified. Rainsby said it was a miracle I wasn’t bitten. Enrique whistled through his teeth and said “tu muerto” and drew his finger expressively across his throat. Yeah…I’d be dead if it had bitten me. I kinda get the vibe that God’s got some use for me yet. After my hands got done shaking (with fear, not with the locals in congratulations!) I managed to figure out how to skin the bad boy for a souvenir. So now I really feel like a hard-core missionary. Yep. You can just call me Bwana. :P

I think this week was a bit irregular for the school. We were gone for two whole days almost. Tuesday we went to the Catholic school in Yata for a sports tournament dealio. John and I got in on a little soccer, b-ball, and v-ball action. Good stuff. But it was SOO hot. Unrighteously hot…like almost hell hot I would imagine. I rained sweat until the pavement turned black and insects were drowning in the runoff. One bold critter dared to land on John’s arm and was immediately engulfed. Serious. No joke…

Wednesday morning Jeff gave me a tour of the garden and we talked about some crops we’d like to get going out here. Sweet corn, peas, and some other stuff. I’d also really like to get some potatoes going for them. They have a few, but they look pretty sad. I don’t think the top soil is deep enough. They already have a lot of tomatoes which they sell in town as well as lettuce, melons, squash, beans, carrots, and broccoli.

And today I just worked. Did my laundry, which is quite an accomplishment in itself. I’m finding it’s easier to just do my laundry every two or three days so I don’t have to spend half the day in the creek (tempting as that is). I also worked on the waterwheel a bit with Phil and Matt. It’s a pretty sweet little project. I’ll get some pictures up eventually. The idea is to hook up a belt and motor to the wheel and make us a couple of extra kilowatts of juice to supplement the solar panel output.

So there’s the week in a snapshot.

I need to learn Spanish. CLEARLY. I helped or tired to help tutor the students tonight. Pretty sad situation with my limited vocab. And I can’t really supplement it with any English either, porque ellos no entiendan nada….well okay…muy poquito. But it’s all good, we’ll learn together. Perhaps by the end of the year I’ll be able to write an entry in Spanish. But then that wouldn’t do y’all much good now would it. John came up with a great analogy the other day. He said trying to speak a foreign language is like playing Taboo. There are a lot of words you can’t say, and you try to explain them using the words you can say. Problem is, in my case the words I can say don’t add up to much.

And we’re here! At the school I mean. It’s a jungle fo’ sho’. We flew out of the local airport in Santa Cruz early Friday morning. The airport is tiny! One departure gate, one ticket counter…we had to buy the tickets only a day in advance. There was no security to speak of. They didn’t even check our bags for the first stage of our flight and they have no scanning equipment. We just got on the plane…a twin prop engine deal with about 20 seats. I ended up having to pay $50.00 extra because my luggage far exceeded the 20 kilo (44 lb) limit. Anyway, John and I felt like a spectacle…together we had more luggage than the rest of the passengers combined. But then they weren’t moving out to live in the jungle for the next nine months either! And so we consoled ourselves. After arriving in Guayaramarin, we ended up waiting at the airport for about two and a half hours. Finally we took a taxi to the Adventist station (it’s a repeater station for the one in Santa Cruz). I was so thankful John was with me ‘cause he’s pretty good with Spanish. About 30 minutes later, Jeff showed up at the station on a motorcycle. He apologized for being late. Evidently the road was blockaded and he had to find an alternate route to town…which turned out to be a goat track through the jungle. Obviously there was no way to take all our goods on the bike, so John and I packed daypacks for the weekend and piled on. We conquered the goat trail without too much trouble although John fell off the back once. But what was worse was the distance. And with three of us crammed on a two man bike for a one hour, 30 km drive, we were in for a thrashing. Especially with John and I sharing the second set of foot pegs. By the time we got here I felt like I’d received a category four spanking. You know, the kind with the belt, and the wooden spoon, and no trousers…okay so it wasn't quite that bad…And so we’re here! Quite the setup they have here. Pretty much looks like a little native village with all these huts…There’s definitely plenty of work to do.

How it IS

It’s pretty easy to take our good ol’ country for granted until you go check out one of these third world deals. Here are just a few random observations to give you a flavor... People don’t pay their bills through the mail down here. Apparently it’s not safe. They pay all their bills in person. About the roads...mostly dirt, and the ones that are paved are often cobblestone. Traffic laws here are sparse, or at least lax. Crossing the street can be risky business. Every city has a plaza which usually includes the mayor’s office and a catholic church. The cathedral here in Santa Cruz is fairly impressive. 95 percent of the population here is Catholic, if that explains anything. The weather has been surprisingly cool. I guess they’re having what they call a Sur, a cold front that blows in from the south. Right now it’s about 58-60 degrees with a brisk wind.

Three days in

So here we are. John and I flew in to Santa Cruz on Tuesday morning. After three days, there's really not too much to report. Well, that's not true. There's actually plenty I could say, but no time to say it. We fly out for Guayaramarin early tomorrow morning. So here's a link to John's blog so you can see what's up for the next few days. http://hawkjo.blogspot.com That'll have to do ya until next time I can post. So until then.