Hola, everyone! :)
Well, I really did not intend to let a whole week go by before sending out another update... :)
Life has been pretty "normal" here. A lot of hanging out with the kids and the tias, a couple trips downtown...
We watched a movie with the tias on night duty the other night--Sister Act. It was in Spanish and there weren't English subtitles, so it was a bit interesting at times. :) At least I'd seen it before so I wasn't totally lost! (we watched "El Rey Leon" in Spanish with the kids one night; that one was easy because I pretty much have it memorized :) ). Another night we played a dice game with Tia Consuelo and Tia Yovana (pronounced Jo-vonna...strange, I know). It was actually very similar to Yahtzee and was lots of fun once we caught on to how it works and stuff. It would not have been nearly as confusing to begin with if it hadn't all been explained in Spanish, I'm fairly certain! :)
Saturday evening, Amber, Jennifer, and I went to a parade with a bunch of Jen's bridge kids because Juan de Dios (one of her kids) was dancing in the parade. Parades are a much bigger deal here, I think! It was all bands and people dressed up (many of them rather strangely, with a few downright scary looking creatures) dancing. But they shut down a whole section of one of the busiest streets for the majority of the day for this parade and there were like hundreds of people there. And since we were walking around trying to find Juan de Dios, we kept standing in people's way. At one point we're standing there, conferring I guess (they were talking in Spanish!) and suddenly I feel something hit my leg; I look around and this little old lady is yelling at us to move out of her way. She was throwing rocks at our feet/legs! It was crazy. I was like, "Um...I think they want us to move..." :)
Amber and I left the parade early to get to the church for "La Noche Andina", where a group called Alfa y Omega (that Edwin, one of the pastors at Cochabamba International Church, plays in) was playing traditional Bolivian Indian kind of music with Christian lyrics and they had dancers (more nicely dressed than those in the parade... :) ). That was pretty cool; though, we got there pretty late because Amber and Jennifer had figured it wouldn't start until nearly an hour late. (almost nothing in Bolivia starts on time. Jennifer refers to it as "the land of the mananas [tomorrows]") But, lo and behold, they started almost on time, so we caught one song before intermission and then the second "half". But I really enjoyed the part we saw! They did a great job.
Sunday, we just took 3 kiddos to church--Fabiola, Jhosie, and Carla. Next week, apparently, we're going to Elena's church, so it was our last Sunday at CIC and Amber wanted to be able to talk to people afterward (people she knew from her previous trips here). So she had Fabiola and I had Jhosie and Carla (the tias gave her a hard time about the fact that I was taking two 2-year-olds and she was just taking one baby :) ). Kaley came home from church with us, and after lunch out and getting the kids home and to bed the three of us went to the store. Then it was off to the stadium to watch a soccer game with Jennifer and several of her bridge kids. It was a good game; Wilstremmen (or however it's spelled--a Cochabamba team) tied the other team, 2 to 2. "We" scored in the first half, and then there was nothing for the longest time, and then in the last 5 minutes, the other team scored twice and we scored again. The police were beginning to show up in force to prevent a riot should we lose...
After the soccer game, all the volunteers (Savannah, Elena, Kaley, Amber, and myself) gathered at House 1 for a "homecooked dinner". Jennifer got back at almost 8 pm, just as we were getting ready to eat without her. But we had fun anyway, just hanging out, getting to know each other better. Elena and Savannah got to talking about "Bon Qui Qui", and on discovering that the rest of us hadn't ever seen her (though I saw some pretty good copycats this summer... ;) ), they found YouTube videos and we all enjoyed a laugh together.
Today...Amber and I went to La Cancha (the market) and spent most of the morning and early afternoon shopping around there. Pretty cool place! We have Jonathan and Micah's birthday presents and Christmas presents for everyone...record-setting for me! :) Then we were going to eat at the Silpancho Palace, because they're supposed to have the best silpanchos (a delicious Bolivian dish that we've Americanized back home), but we couldn't find it, so we ended up eating silpanchos at a different restaurant, instead. They weren't the best, but they were HUGE plates; neither of us came close to finishing. We were wishing we had split one!
So that's really all that's going on here...since this one is a shorter e-mail...first I'll give a quick update on my Jhosie, and then maybe I'll pick a couple random kids to "introduce".
Jhosie has completely captured my heart (in case y'all hadn't figured that out already). She is walking better; she just has to hold one of my hands, and she's learning to navigate the stairs by holding onto the rail and one hand. She loves walking--she's just not confident enough to take off on her own yet. :) I don't remember if I mentioned her love of balls before...but she loves them! And she's getting really good at playing "catch" with some of the other kids. She doesn't do too well if she has to wait too long for them to roll it back to her, though. :) She's also eating better, at least usually. She doesn't like new foods (reminds me of someone else...) and she's not a fan of anything that isn't fed her on a spoon...but she's in luck, because they eat a LOT of soup here, so *shrug*. Jhosie's other love is music; she's quite the jammin' girl, and she is almost always perfectly on beat--clapping her hands, stomping her feet, bobbing her head...the cutest is when she starts to "sing" along with a sort of combination of humming and grunting. :)
So...how about "meeting" las trillizas (tree-yee--zas)? The triplets are about 8 months; they came here back in February, I believe, amid a LOT of media attention (surviving, natural triplets are apparently rare in Bolivia). Looking at pictures of them then, it's hard to believe they're the same babies! They were such tiny, preemie little things; now they are fat, chunky babies. :) They are usually a happy, laughing, squealing little bunch, unless they're hungry or someone is trying to get them to crawl. Their mom actually comes every afternoon, and some nights, taking care of them. Eventually, once she has a place to live (which someone is fixing up for her), she'll take them home. She's great with them, too!
Speaking of babies who don't want to crawl...Faviana (Favi, for short) is a major favorite around here; she's a year old, one of the happiest babies I've ever seen, but completely content to just sit and watch the world go by. She has absolutely no interest in moving--crawling or walking. So we're working on that. She was the only baby for quite some time, so that has probably contributed to the problem. :)
And...Carla. I believe I mentioned Brayan last time? Well, Carla is his younger sister. She's absolutely adorable, and usually pretty well-behaved. She is, however, quite the tattle-tale. She's only 2, so she doesn't always have words to say what it is someone has done or is doing that she thinks they ought not, but she will definitely call it to your attention! And of course, she thinks anything she can't do no one else is allowed to do, either, so it's a bit humorous when she's telling on other tias. "Tia! Tia! Tia!" she'll shout until you finally acknowledge her, and then if you don't do something about whatever she's pointing out to you, she'll keep bringing it up. It's kind of funny, but it gets irritating after a while. :) She and Brayan are one sibling set that don't act as much like siblings as the other sets...in fact, I just found out the other day that they go together!
So, those are some of our kiddos. :) We only have a little over a week left here...that's hard to believe! On the one hand, I'm excited about going home--I miss everyone SO much! On the other...it's kinda sad to think about leaving. I'm going to miss everyone HERE so much! But I know God's got it all under control, so I'm leaving these precious kids in very good hands. :)
Love y'all! May the Lord richly bless you in all that you do! :)
Well, I really did not intend to let a whole week go by before sending out another update... :)
Life has been pretty "normal" here. A lot of hanging out with the kids and the tias, a couple trips downtown...
We watched a movie with the tias on night duty the other night--Sister Act. It was in Spanish and there weren't English subtitles, so it was a bit interesting at times. :) At least I'd seen it before so I wasn't totally lost! (we watched "El Rey Leon" in Spanish with the kids one night; that one was easy because I pretty much have it memorized :) ). Another night we played a dice game with Tia Consuelo and Tia Yovana (pronounced Jo-vonna...strange, I know). It was actually very similar to Yahtzee and was lots of fun once we caught on to how it works and stuff. It would not have been nearly as confusing to begin with if it hadn't all been explained in Spanish, I'm fairly certain! :)
Saturday evening, Amber, Jennifer, and I went to a parade with a bunch of Jen's bridge kids because Juan de Dios (one of her kids) was dancing in the parade. Parades are a much bigger deal here, I think! It was all bands and people dressed up (many of them rather strangely, with a few downright scary looking creatures) dancing. But they shut down a whole section of one of the busiest streets for the majority of the day for this parade and there were like hundreds of people there. And since we were walking around trying to find Juan de Dios, we kept standing in people's way. At one point we're standing there, conferring I guess (they were talking in Spanish!) and suddenly I feel something hit my leg; I look around and this little old lady is yelling at us to move out of her way. She was throwing rocks at our feet/legs! It was crazy. I was like, "Um...I think they want us to move..." :)
Amber and I left the parade early to get to the church for "La Noche Andina", where a group called Alfa y Omega (that Edwin, one of the pastors at Cochabamba International Church, plays in) was playing traditional Bolivian Indian kind of music with Christian lyrics and they had dancers (more nicely dressed than those in the parade... :) ). That was pretty cool; though, we got there pretty late because Amber and Jennifer had figured it wouldn't start until nearly an hour late. (almost nothing in Bolivia starts on time. Jennifer refers to it as "the land of the mananas [tomorrows]") But, lo and behold, they started almost on time, so we caught one song before intermission and then the second "half". But I really enjoyed the part we saw! They did a great job.
Sunday, we just took 3 kiddos to church--Fabiola, Jhosie, and Carla. Next week, apparently, we're going to Elena's church, so it was our last Sunday at CIC and Amber wanted to be able to talk to people afterward (people she knew from her previous trips here). So she had Fabiola and I had Jhosie and Carla (the tias gave her a hard time about the fact that I was taking two 2-year-olds and she was just taking one baby :) ). Kaley came home from church with us, and after lunch out and getting the kids home and to bed the three of us went to the store. Then it was off to the stadium to watch a soccer game with Jennifer and several of her bridge kids. It was a good game; Wilstremmen (or however it's spelled--a Cochabamba team) tied the other team, 2 to 2. "We" scored in the first half, and then there was nothing for the longest time, and then in the last 5 minutes, the other team scored twice and we scored again. The police were beginning to show up in force to prevent a riot should we lose...
After the soccer game, all the volunteers (Savannah, Elena, Kaley, Amber, and myself) gathered at House 1 for a "homecooked dinner". Jennifer got back at almost 8 pm, just as we were getting ready to eat without her. But we had fun anyway, just hanging out, getting to know each other better. Elena and Savannah got to talking about "Bon Qui Qui", and on discovering that the rest of us hadn't ever seen her (though I saw some pretty good copycats this summer... ;) ), they found YouTube videos and we all enjoyed a laugh together.
Today...Amber and I went to La Cancha (the market) and spent most of the morning and early afternoon shopping around there. Pretty cool place! We have Jonathan and Micah's birthday presents and Christmas presents for everyone...record-setting for me! :) Then we were going to eat at the Silpancho Palace, because they're supposed to have the best silpanchos (a delicious Bolivian dish that we've Americanized back home), but we couldn't find it, so we ended up eating silpanchos at a different restaurant, instead. They weren't the best, but they were HUGE plates; neither of us came close to finishing. We were wishing we had split one!
So that's really all that's going on here...since this one is a shorter e-mail...first I'll give a quick update on my Jhosie, and then maybe I'll pick a couple random kids to "introduce".
Jhosie has completely captured my heart (in case y'all hadn't figured that out already). She is walking better; she just has to hold one of my hands, and she's learning to navigate the stairs by holding onto the rail and one hand. She loves walking--she's just not confident enough to take off on her own yet. :) I don't remember if I mentioned her love of balls before...but she loves them! And she's getting really good at playing "catch" with some of the other kids. She doesn't do too well if she has to wait too long for them to roll it back to her, though. :) She's also eating better, at least usually. She doesn't like new foods (reminds me of someone else...) and she's not a fan of anything that isn't fed her on a spoon...but she's in luck, because they eat a LOT of soup here, so *shrug*. Jhosie's other love is music; she's quite the jammin' girl, and she is almost always perfectly on beat--clapping her hands, stomping her feet, bobbing her head...the cutest is when she starts to "sing" along with a sort of combination of humming and grunting. :)
So...how about "meeting" las trillizas (tree-yee--zas)? The triplets are about 8 months; they came here back in February, I believe, amid a LOT of media attention (surviving, natural triplets are apparently rare in Bolivia). Looking at pictures of them then, it's hard to believe they're the same babies! They were such tiny, preemie little things; now they are fat, chunky babies. :) They are usually a happy, laughing, squealing little bunch, unless they're hungry or someone is trying to get them to crawl. Their mom actually comes every afternoon, and some nights, taking care of them. Eventually, once she has a place to live (which someone is fixing up for her), she'll take them home. She's great with them, too!
Speaking of babies who don't want to crawl...Faviana (Favi, for short) is a major favorite around here; she's a year old, one of the happiest babies I've ever seen, but completely content to just sit and watch the world go by. She has absolutely no interest in moving--crawling or walking. So we're working on that. She was the only baby for quite some time, so that has probably contributed to the problem. :)
And...Carla. I believe I mentioned Brayan last time? Well, Carla is his younger sister. She's absolutely adorable, and usually pretty well-behaved. She is, however, quite the tattle-tale. She's only 2, so she doesn't always have words to say what it is someone has done or is doing that she thinks they ought not, but she will definitely call it to your attention! And of course, she thinks anything she can't do no one else is allowed to do, either, so it's a bit humorous when she's telling on other tias. "Tia! Tia! Tia!" she'll shout until you finally acknowledge her, and then if you don't do something about whatever she's pointing out to you, she'll keep bringing it up. It's kind of funny, but it gets irritating after a while. :) She and Brayan are one sibling set that don't act as much like siblings as the other sets...in fact, I just found out the other day that they go together!
So, those are some of our kiddos. :) We only have a little over a week left here...that's hard to believe! On the one hand, I'm excited about going home--I miss everyone SO much! On the other...it's kinda sad to think about leaving. I'm going to miss everyone HERE so much! But I know God's got it all under control, so I'm leaving these precious kids in very good hands. :)
Love y'all! May the Lord richly bless you in all that you do! :)
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