Hello wonderful friends and family. As I'm sure all of you are aware from watching the news, the pound has been dropping like a stone in the last little while, with it now being at 1.35 to the dollar. It used to be two! So for all those who were jealous that i was living in a cheap country, while everyone else is struggling with the sky rocketing cost of living, I am beginning to feel the pinch! It hasn't left me penniless, but it does me that the university bursary which way back when I worked it out was supposed to cover all my accomodation costs and leave me with more than enough spending money is now not quite covering my accomodation on its own! I came here with a lot of savings so there are no problems, but it is extremely annoying. I would appreciate continuing prayers for the finances of the ministry which are really feeling the problem, and for the British missionaries here who have essentially just lost a third of their support through a poor exchange rate.
Last weekend the girls had the great experience of going to Kids Games, an event where various homes and churches come together to do a mini sports championship. Because there are not very many girls in the home who come in the under fourteen age bracket, four girls from the area came to play on our team, and it was lovely to have the girls interacting with different people. Despite not haivng done a great amount of training (we weren't sure until the very last minute if we were going to be able to go or not), the girls managed to come first overall in basketball, and second in football! I really liked seeing them encouraged by the knowledge that they can do something well and are able to win something through their skills!
Another enjoyable thing has been the presence of an outreach team from a Chilean school of counselling. Every morning they have been taking the girls through workships on inner healing, which is an obvious necessity for people who have gone through such difficult things in their very short leaves. It looks like they are learning a lot of things, and hopefully they will be able to talk more deeply with some of the counsellors in the week that comes. It has been really nice to have other people around, as ever, and on top of that having Emily and Caitlin settled into the home is really good. I don't know how to cope with having people about all the time to speak English with! But it has been wonderful having people to spend this weekend off with, and to be able to do normal friend-like things such as cook together. (Even if I did kill the macaroni cheese....)
I haven't been going to the dentist at the moment because we are now taking turns as staff to help out in the kitchen, and this week was my turn. It meant that I wasn't leaving so much, but it wasn't a problem as I enjoyed being able to learn a little bit more about how to cook Bolivian food. It also reminded me that I did learn how to manage a kitchen in Firestarters, and that I'm not as incompetant as I thought I was! Being there in the mornings also means that I've been able to help with their homework, which is another of my favourite things today: I have gone through the tables many times this week!
A piece of kind of sad news is that one more girl has left the home, putting us down to nine. However, it is not nearly as bad as the other times, as this was a thought through process and she has been reinserted into her family. She is going to live with her brothers in La Paz: who haven't seen her or her other brother since their parents died when she was very young. Prayers would be appreciated for her, that she will be able to use this as an opportunity to start again on a clean slate with people who don't already know her character faults.
I am aware that the week coming si going to be quite a stressful one, as Salustio and Yany are (finally) being forced to go on holiday, so I will essentially (with extensive support, obviously) be staying in charge of the home. Its always that bit more difficult when they leave, because the girls decide that that would be a good time to misbehave, but hopefully between the four of us we will manage to hold the fort well. I would really appreciate your prayers for this week though - I know that God is wanting to challenge me in more areas of leadership, but it is not a particularly easy challenge to take on. However, I do walk in the knowledge that God has always been faithful to me and will not leave me in the times when I need him most.
The most exciting thing that I have to look forward to is going to Peru next month! Much as I love being here, I am really looking forward to being able to take a bit of time off, and to be able to see the Herons again, and in their own land! Only twenty-four days to go. :-)
THats all for now, but keep in touch, and it shouldn't be too long until I update agian.
Saturday 24 January 2009
Saturday 10 January 2009
Oops
Well, I would like to start this blog by saying that I accidently left my last blog in draft form and didn't actually publish it - sorry about that, just in case some of you thought that I had been eaten alive by some kind of monster unique to Bolivia. On that note, this week I saw my first snake in El Alfarero! It was a green one, so it wasn't poisonous, but it was cool! It was slithering across a bush. On another interesting cultural note, I have eaten two new things: sopa de pata de pollo (chicken foot soup) and sopa de nervios (nerves soup). The figure is... the soup that comes with the chickens foot is amazing, the chicken foot less so. Its just really skin and cartilidge on the bones, so its not particularly tasty. Nerves soup was a different matter: its a soup made of the juices of cows feet with all the nerves still attached to them, with the foot left in the soup and a couple of onions added. Its not that great, and frankly made me want to vomit a little bit, but I ate it all up like a good missionary! Apparently its extremely nutrisious because its such an intense dose of calcium, but that does also mean that it made me incredibely sleepy.
Interesting news from Bolivia land is that we have two visiting teams at the moment, a DTS outreach team from England (Marjolein, I love you, you're the best person in the whole wild world!) and a team from a school of counselling in Chile. I helped Gabi make majadito (ricey meaty cruceño speciality) for the dts team today - I fried the bananas, which is always fun. It is also always nice to have a few more people around who speak English!
Its been another week of going to the dentist, probably the most traumatising experienc was having to sit with one of the girls through what looked like an extremely painful root canal, which still remains unfinished due to the complication that are added because of her pregancy. I feel like I'm beginning to know slightly more what I'm doing when I help Sergio, which always helps to make me feel like less of an idiot. Occassionaly I even know what he wants before he asks for it! But that doesn't happen that often.
Sandra and I did have one really bad day last week when Salustio and Yany left for the day. Not only did the water cut off the evening before so that we had to go to the neighbours to collect water in buckets to wash, but the girls where a total nightmare the next day. They were filled with the most unbelievable laziness which is always quite difficult to snap them out of, especially when I know that it only seems to come on when Yani is not there... Funny that. They started to get extremely mouth, and after managing to go almost four months in the home without this happening, one of the girls made me cry. Still, I think that four months is a sign of some level of strength of mind, as they do have a habit of saying reasonably horrible things when it takes there fancy. But I still believe that love is something that goes beyond all the horrible things a person can say or do, I still have huge amounts of compassion for my girls: who knows what my character would be like if I had grown up in the same situations that they have. She asked my forgiveness the next day (with a tiny bit of coersion!) and we are certainly friends again - at least until the next time she loses her temper.
The rains have started in a major way here: its making me glad that I decided to fly to Peru instead of get the bus, as it seems that all of the bridges on the moterways to Cochabamba have fallen down, and a similar situation on the way to La Paz! My room-mate just travelled to Oruru (another department of Bolivia) and they were waiting for a full day on the side of a river with no way to cross, and no way of getting anything to eat. Being here makes me realise how incredibely destructive that rain can be, but it does always amuse me that even the slightest amount of rain seems to make life stop, and no one leaves their homes!
Yani and Salustio went to visit a few of the girls who have left the home recently. Yani told me that when she went to visit the girl who was smuggling drugs into the home (to give her her 'libretta' the sheet proving that she passed the year of school), she was so angry that she couldn't even look at her, just gave her her sheet and left. However, the good news is that she is still living with her mother, and has not left to go to the street. They also went to visit the young girl who was living at the home with her son, again good news, as she is still living with her grandmother. There have been conflicts between her and her aunts, but her son appears well cared for. One of the other girls who left in the middle of the drugs scandal, is attending the church of an English minister who used to be the director of the home, which is great as it means that she's still staying in contact with the ministry. However, the location of the last girl who left, as I mentioned before, is still a ministry. One of our neighbours thought that he saw her in San Jose (the village we live in), but her family are following some kind of a lead to try and find her in Cochabamba.
Well, thanks for thinking about me enough to have kept reading this blog after being out of the country for four months! I hope that you are all still praying for me and for all the people we work with her in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
Interesting news from Bolivia land is that we have two visiting teams at the moment, a DTS outreach team from England (Marjolein, I love you, you're the best person in the whole wild world!) and a team from a school of counselling in Chile. I helped Gabi make majadito (ricey meaty cruceño speciality) for the dts team today - I fried the bananas, which is always fun. It is also always nice to have a few more people around who speak English!
Its been another week of going to the dentist, probably the most traumatising experienc was having to sit with one of the girls through what looked like an extremely painful root canal, which still remains unfinished due to the complication that are added because of her pregancy. I feel like I'm beginning to know slightly more what I'm doing when I help Sergio, which always helps to make me feel like less of an idiot. Occassionaly I even know what he wants before he asks for it! But that doesn't happen that often.
Sandra and I did have one really bad day last week when Salustio and Yany left for the day. Not only did the water cut off the evening before so that we had to go to the neighbours to collect water in buckets to wash, but the girls where a total nightmare the next day. They were filled with the most unbelievable laziness which is always quite difficult to snap them out of, especially when I know that it only seems to come on when Yani is not there... Funny that. They started to get extremely mouth, and after managing to go almost four months in the home without this happening, one of the girls made me cry. Still, I think that four months is a sign of some level of strength of mind, as they do have a habit of saying reasonably horrible things when it takes there fancy. But I still believe that love is something that goes beyond all the horrible things a person can say or do, I still have huge amounts of compassion for my girls: who knows what my character would be like if I had grown up in the same situations that they have. She asked my forgiveness the next day (with a tiny bit of coersion!) and we are certainly friends again - at least until the next time she loses her temper.
The rains have started in a major way here: its making me glad that I decided to fly to Peru instead of get the bus, as it seems that all of the bridges on the moterways to Cochabamba have fallen down, and a similar situation on the way to La Paz! My room-mate just travelled to Oruru (another department of Bolivia) and they were waiting for a full day on the side of a river with no way to cross, and no way of getting anything to eat. Being here makes me realise how incredibely destructive that rain can be, but it does always amuse me that even the slightest amount of rain seems to make life stop, and no one leaves their homes!
Yani and Salustio went to visit a few of the girls who have left the home recently. Yani told me that when she went to visit the girl who was smuggling drugs into the home (to give her her 'libretta' the sheet proving that she passed the year of school), she was so angry that she couldn't even look at her, just gave her her sheet and left. However, the good news is that she is still living with her mother, and has not left to go to the street. They also went to visit the young girl who was living at the home with her son, again good news, as she is still living with her grandmother. There have been conflicts between her and her aunts, but her son appears well cared for. One of the other girls who left in the middle of the drugs scandal, is attending the church of an English minister who used to be the director of the home, which is great as it means that she's still staying in contact with the ministry. However, the location of the last girl who left, as I mentioned before, is still a ministry. One of our neighbours thought that he saw her in San Jose (the village we live in), but her family are following some kind of a lead to try and find her in Cochabamba.
Well, thanks for thinking about me enough to have kept reading this blog after being out of the country for four months! I hope that you are all still praying for me and for all the people we work with her in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
Thursday 1 January 2009
Happy new year!
Well, its very exciting to be writing a blog post on the very first day of 2009! I love new year, with all the hope and fresh startiness that it brings. I hope that this year is a wonderful one for all of you: if 2008 was a bit rubbish, that you can put it behind you, and if it was great that you can continue in that vein!
I spent last night, once again, at the girls home, and it was certainly a really good way to see the new year in. As with Christmas, it involved the most enormous amount of work in terms of getting the place decorated and food prepared for the night. Because we were doing a talent show to celebrate, we had to put up a stage and set up the sound equipment, and use all kinds of balloons and streamers to make the area look beautiful.n One of the things that always impresses me about Yani and Salustio is that whenever they do anything, they do it really well! In terms of food, the girls prepared a whole bunch of delicious desserts! For the main meal, we had barbecued meat which was AMAZING. Seriously, probably the best meat I have ever tasted in my whole life. Our lovely neighbour gave us vast quanities of limes and passion fruit to make juice with, which I did also enjoy.
The church that we go to in El Torno (nearest town) joined us for the evening, which did mean that there was 15 more people to cook for, but it was really nice to have guests, and the girls really enjoyed it too. I had to judge the talent show with the minister of the church, who is really quite a scary shouty person, which was frankly a terrifying experience. He took it all very seriously, and obviously wanted his daughter to win! I took it all a bit more as a joke, and it was hilarious! Three of them together did one of the funniest dramas I have ever seen, which they wrote themselves and everything. One of the little ones whom I would always have described as being really quite slow has the most fabulous comic timing. There were also songs, including a few from members of the church, and a couple of dances. The entry of the new year was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life though, as people began to set off fireworks seemingly without thinking about age or place. We started eating at roughly one o'clock in the morning (I was absolutely starving) and it was great! Mmmm food. I didn't get into bed until half past three though, which possibley explains why my grammar may be failing a little in this blog - apologies for that!
Other than new year, things have basically been continuing on as normal, although I would like to fill you in on a few of the problems that have become more notable in the last week. One of them is quite simply, a problem of lies. I'll give you a quick example of what this may look like, with the little ones who are especially prone to lying. They have to do some constructive activity every morning, and I told them that they couldn't go and play until they had made at least one bracelet. I later found them playing basketball, and they told me that Sandra had said they could go because they had finished: this was a lie, and when I went to check it with her they ran away and hid in the mango tree. This would probably be funny if it was just the once, but its all the time! They lie about anything and everything,, and there is absolutely no way to tell by there faces and voices that they are lying. Lately, even the older gils have started to lie, which is extremely irritating as it means that I have to check up on everything they say. Its a problem, and it is definately something to work on.
Well, thats all the news I can think of for now. Happy new year once again, and I hope to hear from you soon.
I spent last night, once again, at the girls home, and it was certainly a really good way to see the new year in. As with Christmas, it involved the most enormous amount of work in terms of getting the place decorated and food prepared for the night. Because we were doing a talent show to celebrate, we had to put up a stage and set up the sound equipment, and use all kinds of balloons and streamers to make the area look beautiful.n One of the things that always impresses me about Yani and Salustio is that whenever they do anything, they do it really well! In terms of food, the girls prepared a whole bunch of delicious desserts! For the main meal, we had barbecued meat which was AMAZING. Seriously, probably the best meat I have ever tasted in my whole life. Our lovely neighbour gave us vast quanities of limes and passion fruit to make juice with, which I did also enjoy.
The church that we go to in El Torno (nearest town) joined us for the evening, which did mean that there was 15 more people to cook for, but it was really nice to have guests, and the girls really enjoyed it too. I had to judge the talent show with the minister of the church, who is really quite a scary shouty person, which was frankly a terrifying experience. He took it all very seriously, and obviously wanted his daughter to win! I took it all a bit more as a joke, and it was hilarious! Three of them together did one of the funniest dramas I have ever seen, which they wrote themselves and everything. One of the little ones whom I would always have described as being really quite slow has the most fabulous comic timing. There were also songs, including a few from members of the church, and a couple of dances. The entry of the new year was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life though, as people began to set off fireworks seemingly without thinking about age or place. We started eating at roughly one o'clock in the morning (I was absolutely starving) and it was great! Mmmm food. I didn't get into bed until half past three though, which possibley explains why my grammar may be failing a little in this blog - apologies for that!
Other than new year, things have basically been continuing on as normal, although I would like to fill you in on a few of the problems that have become more notable in the last week. One of them is quite simply, a problem of lies. I'll give you a quick example of what this may look like, with the little ones who are especially prone to lying. They have to do some constructive activity every morning, and I told them that they couldn't go and play until they had made at least one bracelet. I later found them playing basketball, and they told me that Sandra had said they could go because they had finished: this was a lie, and when I went to check it with her they ran away and hid in the mango tree. This would probably be funny if it was just the once, but its all the time! They lie about anything and everything,, and there is absolutely no way to tell by there faces and voices that they are lying. Lately, even the older gils have started to lie, which is extremely irritating as it means that I have to check up on everything they say. Its a problem, and it is definately something to work on.
Well, thats all the news I can think of for now. Happy new year once again, and I hope to hear from you soon.
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