Hey, y'all! :)
Well, this update will probably be longer than the first one...it's hard to believe we've only been here one week! So many adventures in so little time...
So, we'll start with the "birthday party under the bridge" that was on Sunday:
First you have to remember that everyone there (except the three of us "senoritas") was high on glue. We took the cake...which we had made...which was a whole 'nother adventure (I'll tell the story of that in a minute :) ) So, it wasn't really much of anything compared to our cakes stateside, but THEY thought it was pretty cool. So we sat on their beds under the bridge and they set up their little "table" (which was some kind of metal container turned upside down). They were so cute...they spread a sort of tapestry hanging or blanket over it like a "table cloth". They sang happy birthday...in Spanish and then English, multiple times because it took them a little bit to find a lighter for the candle. :) And they all wanted a "foto" taken (I had my camera with me) --with the birthday girl, with the senoritas, with their girlfriend/boyfriend, with one of the ladies' baby that was being passed around... :) Anyway, after they ate all the cake (big cake; we gave them big slices :) ), a bunch of them + us piled into Jennifer's car, which is only meant to hold like 5 people but we had, um, 11 in there. :) And we drove around for a while...this person wanted to go here, another wanted to go there, a couple were just along for the ride...actually, we had 12 in there because we also had the baby. So, anyway, that was pretty much the extent of the party under the bridge.
And...the cake. Jennifer actually baked it; she did two white layers and two chocolate. Well, when she did the white ones, she didn't grease and flour the pans very well. SO, they were falling apart when she dumped them out. Then, she dumped them while they were still warm, so they stuck to the plates they were on, so they were basically crumbles. So trying to layer it...well, it wasn't working. The weight of the icing and the other layers was just pushing the crumble part out. :P So we ended up putting it in a glass bowl sort of thing and just decorating the top (Amber's brilliant idea!). But it was crumbly, there was no way to ice it smooth or keep crumbles out of the icing...so we used sprinkles to help cover that up. It ended up looking like a giant cupcake, really. Kinda cute, considering the disaster it started out as. :)
Monday was a pretty normal day; we spent the morning with the kiddos while the tias made bread (the making bread part isn't normal; they only do that once every 2 weeks), fed them lunch, got them all tucked in for a nap, had a couple of hours to ourselves, then they were up and eating supper at 4:45/5 pm. I am soooo not used to eating that early; come bedtime every night I am really hungry! But there's pretty much always bread and fruit in the kitchen, so I find something to eat.
The "older" kids went to bed at 8, then I was hanging out in the playroom with Santiago (one of the baby babies) and the triplets (who are almost 8 months old) keeping them happy and quiet until they got their bottles at 9. THEN I got to start on making the birthday cake for Benito, one of the boys here. There was only one pan and I was doing 2 layers, so it took about an hour and a half just to get the cake baked...so I just iced it Monday night and decorated it Tuesday. It's certainly a bit of a challenge to decorate a cake without any of the stuff I'm used to having to do it with, but it was simple and cute. Benito's favorite thing is "autos" (cars!) so it had little cars on it and of course it said "feliz cumpleanos!" The worst part was probably my lack of artistic ability with the "cars", though they were at least recognizable!! :)
Then on Tuesday, we had the birthday party in the afternoon. It was also the birthday of the one of the tias' son, so we went to her house to party. We took 8 of our kids; we got them up from their nap at 2:30 (considerably earlier than they usually get up!), got them dressed and ready to go (apparently, people dress up for birthday parties here. Like, really dress up--like for church. Even if the birthday party is for a 3 and 4 year old) and left about 3. We didn't get home until 7:15. When these people throw a birthday party, they do it in grand style!! There was a ton of Jello; soda; other sweets, and of course cake. They also served us a chicken and rice dinner which was really good. With all that sugar, though, our kids were pretty wound up! :)
There was also a clown at the birthday party. A couple of our kids were afraid of him, but at least they were OK as long as they were right next to a tia...in our lap or holding onto us in some way. The clown was quite interesting! At first, Savannah (the other volunteer here at the baby home) and I were the only "gringas" there; Amber and Jennifer arrived right before we ate dinner. So he (the clown) was making the most of our presence! Most of it was just stuff like "how do you say ------ in English?" (nose, ear, hello, counting, etc.) and asking us what our name was. There were a few times, though, when he was talking about one of us, and everyone was laughing or shaking their head, and I had NO idea what he was saying. And I wasn't sitting close enough to Savannah to ask. Then later, after Amber and Jennifer got there, he came over to where we were eating and told us that whichever of us couldn't finish our food (which we had just been talking about how much food there was on our plates and how we couldn't eat it all), he was going to marry (he said all this in Spanish, of course). A little later, he gets up and starts talking and he has a ring and I don't really understand what he's saying until all of a sudden he says, "Haley!" and I was like, "what?!" The other girls are laughing soooo hard, and Amber and Jennifer were saying, "go ahead, go over there." So I walk over and he picks a flower and goes down on one knee, says something, gives me the flower, gives me a hug, and that was it. It was funny, really, but kinda weird...since I had no idea what he was saying at any point in time!!! But all the tias got a real kick out of it; the ones who were there and the ones we told when we got back. So, anyway...that's the story of how I got married (or engaged? I have no idea!!) to a clown at a birthday party in Bolivia. :) And Jennifer has the pictures to prove it. :) (and, as those of you on Facebook will have seen, I thought it would make a great Facebook status. ;) )
So that's the rundown on days and events...Amber and I both are, of course, in love with all the kids here. We each have our own special one, though; Jhosie is "mine", and Amber has "adopted" one of the little babies, Fabiola, as "hers". Fabiola is 3 months old, but she was a preemie, so she's just now at about newborn size. However, she is much more awake and alert than a usual newborn! She's the cutest thing...she has a TON of hair, and we think her face kind of looks like a little monkey, which just adds to her adorableness in our opinion. :) When we first got here, she was a very fussy little thing, but Amber figured out it was her formula that was making her tummy ache, so they switched her formula and now she's a happy baby most of the time.
We took Fabiola, Jhosie, and one of the sets of twins (Pedro and Angel [pronoucned Ahn-hel, emphasis on the 'ahn']) to church with us on Sunday. They were all really good; Jhosie LOVES the music! It's so sweet to watch her sway and clap her hands and stomp her feet to the music and kinda hum along sometimes (Jhosie doesn't actually say words yet).
When we got back from the birthday party last night, Jhosie made my night. I walked into the room where she was and started talking to other kids. Jhosie was all the way across the room, just sitting on the floor folded over like she has a tendency to do if someone isn't intentionally involving her in something in some way. But when I started talking, she raised her head and then started crawling toward me. She crawled all the way across the room, pulled herself up by my arm/shoulder, and gave me a kiss--and a huuuuuge smile. :) She's SO precious and I love her SO much....she's the one kid I want so badly to take home with me!! She needs a defender and a whooooole lot of love--she really needs a family.
And...one last kinda interesting thing to close out this reeeaaalllyyy long e-mail. At least I think it's kinda interesting to take showers with mosquitoes... :) The mosquitos are actually pretty bad in other places, too, at night, but in the morning when I go to take a shower, there are hundreds of them (it seems, anyway) in the bathroom and the shower. :P The first time I was like, "this is sooooo gross". Now I just think "this is soooo funny..." :)
Well, I better run...my computer and camera finally finished moving all my pictures over (more than 400 from one week... ay, yi, yi... :) ) so maybe I'll get some posted on Facebook at some point. After I make sure it's OK with Jennifer, that is. :)
May the Lord bless each of you with His great love and grace! We love y'all!
Well, this update will probably be longer than the first one...it's hard to believe we've only been here one week! So many adventures in so little time...
So, we'll start with the "birthday party under the bridge" that was on Sunday:
First you have to remember that everyone there (except the three of us "senoritas") was high on glue. We took the cake...which we had made...which was a whole 'nother adventure (I'll tell the story of that in a minute :) ) So, it wasn't really much of anything compared to our cakes stateside, but THEY thought it was pretty cool. So we sat on their beds under the bridge and they set up their little "table" (which was some kind of metal container turned upside down). They were so cute...they spread a sort of tapestry hanging or blanket over it like a "table cloth". They sang happy birthday...in Spanish and then English, multiple times because it took them a little bit to find a lighter for the candle. :) And they all wanted a "foto" taken (I had my camera with me) --with the birthday girl, with the senoritas, with their girlfriend/boyfriend, with one of the ladies' baby that was being passed around... :) Anyway, after they ate all the cake (big cake; we gave them big slices :) ), a bunch of them + us piled into Jennifer's car, which is only meant to hold like 5 people but we had, um, 11 in there. :) And we drove around for a while...this person wanted to go here, another wanted to go there, a couple were just along for the ride...actually, we had 12 in there because we also had the baby. So, anyway, that was pretty much the extent of the party under the bridge.
And...the cake. Jennifer actually baked it; she did two white layers and two chocolate. Well, when she did the white ones, she didn't grease and flour the pans very well. SO, they were falling apart when she dumped them out. Then, she dumped them while they were still warm, so they stuck to the plates they were on, so they were basically crumbles. So trying to layer it...well, it wasn't working. The weight of the icing and the other layers was just pushing the crumble part out. :P So we ended up putting it in a glass bowl sort of thing and just decorating the top (Amber's brilliant idea!). But it was crumbly, there was no way to ice it smooth or keep crumbles out of the icing...so we used sprinkles to help cover that up. It ended up looking like a giant cupcake, really. Kinda cute, considering the disaster it started out as. :)
Monday was a pretty normal day; we spent the morning with the kiddos while the tias made bread (the making bread part isn't normal; they only do that once every 2 weeks), fed them lunch, got them all tucked in for a nap, had a couple of hours to ourselves, then they were up and eating supper at 4:45/5 pm. I am soooo not used to eating that early; come bedtime every night I am really hungry! But there's pretty much always bread and fruit in the kitchen, so I find something to eat.
The "older" kids went to bed at 8, then I was hanging out in the playroom with Santiago (one of the baby babies) and the triplets (who are almost 8 months old) keeping them happy and quiet until they got their bottles at 9. THEN I got to start on making the birthday cake for Benito, one of the boys here. There was only one pan and I was doing 2 layers, so it took about an hour and a half just to get the cake baked...so I just iced it Monday night and decorated it Tuesday. It's certainly a bit of a challenge to decorate a cake without any of the stuff I'm used to having to do it with, but it was simple and cute. Benito's favorite thing is "autos" (cars!) so it had little cars on it and of course it said "feliz cumpleanos!" The worst part was probably my lack of artistic ability with the "cars", though they were at least recognizable!! :)
Then on Tuesday, we had the birthday party in the afternoon. It was also the birthday of the one of the tias' son, so we went to her house to party. We took 8 of our kids; we got them up from their nap at 2:30 (considerably earlier than they usually get up!), got them dressed and ready to go (apparently, people dress up for birthday parties here. Like, really dress up--like for church. Even if the birthday party is for a 3 and 4 year old) and left about 3. We didn't get home until 7:15. When these people throw a birthday party, they do it in grand style!! There was a ton of Jello; soda; other sweets, and of course cake. They also served us a chicken and rice dinner which was really good. With all that sugar, though, our kids were pretty wound up! :)
There was also a clown at the birthday party. A couple of our kids were afraid of him, but at least they were OK as long as they were right next to a tia...in our lap or holding onto us in some way. The clown was quite interesting! At first, Savannah (the other volunteer here at the baby home) and I were the only "gringas" there; Amber and Jennifer arrived right before we ate dinner. So he (the clown) was making the most of our presence! Most of it was just stuff like "how do you say ------ in English?" (nose, ear, hello, counting, etc.) and asking us what our name was. There were a few times, though, when he was talking about one of us, and everyone was laughing or shaking their head, and I had NO idea what he was saying. And I wasn't sitting close enough to Savannah to ask. Then later, after Amber and Jennifer got there, he came over to where we were eating and told us that whichever of us couldn't finish our food (which we had just been talking about how much food there was on our plates and how we couldn't eat it all), he was going to marry (he said all this in Spanish, of course). A little later, he gets up and starts talking and he has a ring and I don't really understand what he's saying until all of a sudden he says, "Haley!" and I was like, "what?!" The other girls are laughing soooo hard, and Amber and Jennifer were saying, "go ahead, go over there." So I walk over and he picks a flower and goes down on one knee, says something, gives me the flower, gives me a hug, and that was it. It was funny, really, but kinda weird...since I had no idea what he was saying at any point in time!!! But all the tias got a real kick out of it; the ones who were there and the ones we told when we got back. So, anyway...that's the story of how I got married (or engaged? I have no idea!!) to a clown at a birthday party in Bolivia. :) And Jennifer has the pictures to prove it. :) (and, as those of you on Facebook will have seen, I thought it would make a great Facebook status. ;) )
So that's the rundown on days and events...Amber and I both are, of course, in love with all the kids here. We each have our own special one, though; Jhosie is "mine", and Amber has "adopted" one of the little babies, Fabiola, as "hers". Fabiola is 3 months old, but she was a preemie, so she's just now at about newborn size. However, she is much more awake and alert than a usual newborn! She's the cutest thing...she has a TON of hair, and we think her face kind of looks like a little monkey, which just adds to her adorableness in our opinion. :) When we first got here, she was a very fussy little thing, but Amber figured out it was her formula that was making her tummy ache, so they switched her formula and now she's a happy baby most of the time.
We took Fabiola, Jhosie, and one of the sets of twins (Pedro and Angel [pronoucned Ahn-hel, emphasis on the 'ahn']) to church with us on Sunday. They were all really good; Jhosie LOVES the music! It's so sweet to watch her sway and clap her hands and stomp her feet to the music and kinda hum along sometimes (Jhosie doesn't actually say words yet).
When we got back from the birthday party last night, Jhosie made my night. I walked into the room where she was and started talking to other kids. Jhosie was all the way across the room, just sitting on the floor folded over like she has a tendency to do if someone isn't intentionally involving her in something in some way. But when I started talking, she raised her head and then started crawling toward me. She crawled all the way across the room, pulled herself up by my arm/shoulder, and gave me a kiss--and a huuuuuge smile. :) She's SO precious and I love her SO much....she's the one kid I want so badly to take home with me!! She needs a defender and a whooooole lot of love--she really needs a family.
And...one last kinda interesting thing to close out this reeeaaalllyyy long e-mail. At least I think it's kinda interesting to take showers with mosquitoes... :) The mosquitos are actually pretty bad in other places, too, at night, but in the morning when I go to take a shower, there are hundreds of them (it seems, anyway) in the bathroom and the shower. :P The first time I was like, "this is sooooo gross". Now I just think "this is soooo funny..." :)
Well, I better run...my computer and camera finally finished moving all my pictures over (more than 400 from one week... ay, yi, yi... :) ) so maybe I'll get some posted on Facebook at some point. After I make sure it's OK with Jennifer, that is. :)
May the Lord bless each of you with His great love and grace! We love y'all!
Comments