dirt patches and life with hope

I went to San Jose a couple of weeks ago, on Feb 9th. It’s just over a two  hour drive from Villa Nueva, east and south maybe? Directions are hard here with no square miles! We had lunch at a couple from the mission team, walked around San Jose a bit, drove up a small mountain overlooking the city, went to the mission team’s ‘central location’/guesthouse, and visited the new settlement, Haciende Verde (Green Farm). A long day! Here are some photos…

An old church in San Jose, built in 1748 by Jesuits from Spain. I’ve heard both good and bad things that have happened from them, but their missionary influence is still visible in the culture today, especially in music. Some tribes that are very isolated nowadays will play baroque music as part of their culture.

This is the temporary school yard in Haciende Verde. This, along with a couple plots of land, are the only things cleared so far. People have been working very hard to get this school ready to go in this new location, hopefully they can start in the next couple weeks. This school was originally in a colony.

The road going up the mountain. It was raining quite hard so I don’t have any decent photos, but you can see the condition of the roads and the RED dirt.

There are 5-7 families living in Haciende Verde, mostly living in old buildings (with no doors, dirt floors, and multiple families in a small space), and this is their shower space!

One building that is serving as a house for 2 or 3? families while they clear their land and build their houses.

This is kind of a mission centre/guest house. There was a meeting happening, I just crashed it.

The view from the drive going up the mountain. Raining quite hard so you can’t see much, but it was still absolutely beautiful!

It was quite exciting to see Haciende Verde. These people have been rejected by their communities, usually because of choosing to believe in Jesus, and this new settlement will provide a safe place to live, farm, do business, go to church and school FREELY. Some of them toured us around, and really all that’s there is bush and some dirt patches, but they were SO excited, saying “the house will be over there by the tree, and here we’ve planted a garden, and over here my son is digging a trench for putting in water, etc.” I wanted to grab a shovel or some bricks and just pitch right in. They have a vision for a new, hope-filled life, and it’s amazing. God is amazing.

and this is a treble clef...

I’ve survived the first week of school! This has been an odd week of highs and lows. Some classes were chaos, kids all over the place and no common language. Other classes were full of learning music and even some talking where we understood each other. Lyn Dyck from Go Mission!, who’s out here with a ministry observation team from Canada, challenged our team here with the thought that perhaps success isn’t measured in the big things, but in little things. THIS IS TRUE. If I think of every single class and what I need to do, I am mentally drained. However, I have many many students who come up to me and hug me or just say hola, profe (teacher). I have the classes where we are ALL enjoying what we’re doing. I have the students who can’t understand a word I’m saying, but they try so hard to do what I’m demonstrating, so eager to please. There are many little high points and successes every day.

At my desk the first day of school (Feb 10)

- pray for good ideas of how to teach music and also cross the language barrier at the same time (that barrier is much bigger than I anticipated)

- pray for ways to connect with and/or mentor these students

- I’m thankful for meeting with the team from Canada, the fresh conversations they bring, and the encouragement

- also thankful that I finally got a phone here! It makes communication with people at home a lot easier. And for here too, obviously.

More words and photos to come, hopefully in the next few weeks, as energy and internet allows

election campaign promises: free first aid kits and hotdogs

Monday morning of last week was a meeting for all the teachers in the district. It was at a school in Pailon, underneath a giant roof (a sort of gymnasium here). It was all in Spanish, with no interpreter, so here’s what I think happened:
-          [Set the mood] As we all are milling around, waiting for it to start, there is very Latin American sounding music being played loudly
-          Greetings and prayer from a Catholic man, in the robes with the big arms
-           Literally every school was greeted by name (and there were probably 50 schools there)
-          Words from some people, they may have been on a board of some sort. Sounded like a pep rally.
-          Bolivian anthem, department (province) of santa cruz anthem
-          Every school gets a free first aid kit!
-          Very soulful music from a guy on a guitar
-          Everyone gets a hotdog!


This is Bolivia. Following this really informative meeting, some teachers from my school and I went to walk around and do some shopping. Along with the only other teacher who doesn’t speak any Spanish, we bought things like fruit, a fan, some thrifted clothes, for the first time INDEPENDENTLY. We’ve had babysitters with us all the other times, so we felt quite happy with ourselves, we even got ourselves back to Villa Nueva in one piece.

How meat is sold in the market!

One person I talked has seen the store owners spray Raid all over their meat, because they were tired of the flies. Needless to say, I do not buy meat in the market.

Bolivia Tip #4: Being female and white attracts a fair amount of attention (as in many places, I hear)

 More teaching workshops (at my school) on Tuesday and Wednesday. A team meeting with most of the missionaries with MEM in the area Thursday afternoon, this was a great chance to meet people that I hadn’t yet, a time to talk about what’s happening in the various areas, and a time to pray together. They are all very welcoming! Friday was spent mostly in Santa Cruz, signing more things at the lawyer’s place, going to Interpol, having one paper done incorrectly, back to the lawyer, then to Immigration, then back to Interpol. I believe my resident visa is in the last stages now, I’m just waiting now! Here’s one the photos from Interpol.

 Bought Mennonite cheese here in the village! It is wonderful. And so much cheaper than cheese in any store here, I paid 16 bs (bolivianos) for 1 kg. I will be eating this every day

Also bought this juice, we think it says green apple flavour. Like all juices here, it’s very very sweet.

It’s also very green.

I have weaned myself off of bottled water and am now drinking tap water, with no negative side effects! (Such is not the case with everyone.)
One fun thing here is that when a group of people aren’t happy with the government, they set up bloqueos. Blockades. Some taxes have been raised for transportation, so this week truck drivers were blocking any major road to most cities, including Santa Cruz. They go and park their trucks, for looong stretches. These are very angry men, violent enough that police won’t do anything, other than keep people away. You can walk through them, if you stay away from the fights. One taxi driver tried driving through and was shot. Some people went on back roads, doubling the travel time. Things like fruit and veggies and meat became quite expensive, or they simply ran out this week. Luckily for us, most of these drivers wanted to party this weekend (with Carnaval) so Friday morning when we were going to the city, a lot of the bloqueos were opened up.

This is a bloqueo in Santa Cruz, but the trucks on one side of the boulevard were gone. Our taxi is going the wrong direction down that lane. This bloqueo probably had 30 to 50 trucks in it, 3 lanes wide. Many of the drivers and families had hammocks and a little household set up underneath their rig (they’d been there for 4 or 5 days).

In between all this, I’ve been working hard on setting up my classroom, thinking of how I want my class to run, what I want to teach, academically, socially and spiritually, and now I’m down to T minus 2 days! Scary. And exciting.
Prayer for:
-          Clarity and wisdom and peace as I and other teachers prepare
-          That I would seize any opening to build relationships with students, teachers, and neighbours
-          That I would rely on HIM who is able – he is my strength
Thankful:
-          The guesthouse I’ve been in for the past week, it’s wonderful! And I now have a house, I will be moving there in March, and it’s even fully furnished. Perfect
-          Friendships that have already started
-          It’s really nice to find a common language with someone. I’ve found a few different people that are from Germany and I can have conversations with them in high German.
-          Team praying meeting and the encouragement from them
-           Cheese!!