A Full Day

July 30^th – Wednesday

                This was a full day. We started with devotions, which were good. We then went into the main building and handed out the bags of hair things and candy for the boys that Mom and Stacia sent. The girls and boys all say thank you! After that was the normal course of events leading up to and following lunch.

               

                                                                Roseta, Citlaly, Roxann

 

 From left to right: Carolina, Xochitl, Humana, Leo, Citlaly, Loopita, Rosita, Martha

                After lunch we had a nice down pour that cooled everything down. Arielle and I and some of the children watched Disney Channel while it rained. Other went and played in the rain. While we were watching Arielle and I put corn rows into Dennisse hair.

                As the rain was dying down Arielle and I went to clean up the craft room from all the quince preparation. We were just finishing sweeping when Lilia and one of the neighborhood ladies walked in. The lady is expecting a little baby girl, and had just asked to have the baby shower here on Saturday. This meant we needed to get invites made and out tonight. So we set everything up and made adorable invites for the Baby Shower.

                This led us right up to Wednesday night service, so Arielle and I grabbed some puzzles and coloring books and set them out. The children did a great job at first but eventually they decided to do their own thing and chaos started to reign. We had had enough of trying to control the chaos and having things thrown at us and doors slammed in our faces so I went and got Lilia and she straightened them out. Sometimes it’s enough to make me rethink working with children! But I have to remind myself that it is only a handful that winds everyone else up and the language barrier really is an issue.

                After service we sat around and hung out for a little bit and then ate dinner, cleaned up and went to bed. 

Here is a picture of all the beverages involved in our continued good health

Tuesday

July 29^th – Tuesday

                We woke up feeling much better! The day got off to a lazy start. We eventually went to morning devotions, I have to say this was one of the longest and it was my fault. I had decided to teach on spiritual gifts and I had a good half hour worth of stuff to share. Well add in the translator and the side conversations and I think we were at about two hours. This included a couple songs and everyone sharing a verse. It was pretty much lunch time when we finished up devotions.

                After lunch we started our rounds of normal heat avoiding activities. But there wasn’t anything good on TV that anyone wanted to watch and we didn’t feel like spending more time in our room. I went and sat under the tree with one group as they drank coke, burped and sang What Does the Fox Say. After a while I went and joined Arielle and her group which was sitting under a different tree discussing different Spanish words. The best we can figure the words mean to choke someone or to punch them. We discovered yesterday that some of the Spanish we are learning is slang and not in the dictionary.

                As this conversation progressed one thing led to another and the result was me up the tree with one of the girl’s flower burette (it used to be mine). And a couple of girls at the bottom of the tree with Arielle’s bobby pin. After about a half hour of negotiating we worked out the trade that Arielle and I had been brokering from the beginning. Ie they give back one of our precious few blonde bobbies and we would return the flower burette. After all this was sorted out they invited us over to their house and then kept telling us to nap. We were a little wary that we were going to lose our carefully guarded bobbies so we left. But as we were leaving some of the girls met us out front and ask if we wanted to go to the store, so we walked to the store.

                Later we were again sitting under the tree, a lot happens under the trees when it’s over a 100%, and I was trying to rebraid Arielle’s hair when someone tried to once again take the blonde bobbies. This led to them trying to tickle us which led to me wrestling with two of them while someone else fixed Arielle’s hair. The girls in question then tried to tell the older girls I was beating them up but no one bought it for a second since there was lots of witnesses that they kept jumping on me. It seems the girls were determined for us to use the new vocabulary they taught us.

                We then sought safer company with the young ladies and the ladies in the craft room. We all had a great time and many laughs. Although a lot of the time, for Arielle and I, it feels like that awkward laughter when everyone else gets the punch line of a joke you just don’t get. But some of it was Lilia was trying out two Japanese phrases that Arielle taught her.

                It started to rain so everyone came alive and we had a game of volleyball followed by dinner. While all the older people were playing Volleyball Arielle and the little children got into a mud fight. Later that evening we had some evening prayer, Arielle and I almost missed it again but we caught it this time!

Package, River and Bad Water

July 27&28 – Sunday and Monday

                Today started as a fairly typical Sunday. Arielle wasn’t feeling the greatest but she was up and around. We decided on a craft for the children and got that all set up. Bill, Fayth and Gloria joined us today, Bill was preaching. They brought a package from Mom and a few items I asked them to pick up. The service was long and we ran out of stuff for the children to do, but we just played at the playground and other than the muddy clothes this worked fine.

                Most the church stayed for lunch which was good. after everyone left and clean up was done Arielle and I went to open our package. Mom and Stacia had picked up a bunch of hair pretties for the girls. As well as candy for all and M &M’s for Arielle and I. We had been waiting a couple of weeks for the M& M’s. We were diving the hair things to hand out when Lilia came and said we were heading to the river. When we got out there it became apparent that people were planning on getting wet so we ran and changed.

                After the normal craziness involved in getting two vehicles and over 30 people to the same location we arrived. The road that we took was really narrow and rough, it reminded me of driving the van with Dad. In fact they have the same van so it was very similar! The river was a small muddy stream. We all found a place that we could sit and be about neck deep and play in the water. It was very refreshing. Arturo threw Maria and Christopher into the water. Maria then decided that since she was wet she should belly flop into the water. It was a epic belly flop! She jumped off the 2 foot embankment and  landed the perfect spread eagle flop.

                Arturo, Lilia, and Alex took off further up stream. But since the pushing fun had begun it could only stop when all had been pushed in. Arielle and I had already been swimming so we just climbed in of our own free will. Other were stripped of their Sunday clothes and electronics and thrown in. One person they had everyone pose around for a picture and when the person said three they all grabbed her and dragged her to the water. It was amusing to watch, Arielle were in the water most this time and would grab the young ones before the writhing mass hit the water. Unfortunately in the midst of all this water play and splashing Arielle and I consumed some of the river water.

                We started walking back to the van and people ate some Mangos, Limes, Ice and Chilli spices. The truck that had come with us wasn’t there, I assumed it was coming back. But soon we all went and started loading up, we fit 30 people in the van. When we got home everyone went to shower because we were VERY muddy. Arielle and I then finished sorting the hair things. We had started not feeling the greatest the last little bit of the outing and had continued to get worse and decided to call it a night and go to bed.

                Well as I mentioned earlier we had accidentally consumed some of the river water which led to a very unpleasant night. I started throwing up at 9:45 and continued every couple of hours (or less) until 2 in the afternoon on Monday. Arielle developed the runs and has spent more than her fair share of time in the bathroom. She has also become rather possessive of the toilet paper and might have scared some of the girls. Humana has also been sick today so she came and laid down with us in our room. We put two mattresses on the floor and have spent all day lying in front of the fan or running to the restroom. Arturo and Lilia offered to take us to the doctors but it seems to be finishing running its course now. They also went and bought us electrolytes, lime and salt drinks and water. The most unfortunate part of this whole thing is we have been unable to eat the M & M’s :-( 

A Sabbath Day

July 26^th – Saturday

                Today began in a lazy fashion. After I got up and took a shower Arielle asked me to do a lice treatment on her because her head was really itching. She blames me because I made the beds yesterday, and every time we make the beds we have a problem. The nice thing is we were able to use the stuff Jamin sent us so there is no grease hair involved. While doing this we worked on uploading pictures and talked to Mom on Skype.

                After getting all the pictures uploaded and the blog posted, it was a lengthy process due to the volume of pictures. We headed inside and had brunch and chatted with everyone else. Lilia read the blog to the youth and they all noticed my misspelling of their names… I have been spelling them phonetically using the English alphabet and well they are supposed to be spelled using the Spanish alphabet.

                As is the case following any large birthday party there was a pile of gifts to be opened.

                After opening the gifts we went into the church for devotions. It was rather warm in the church. After devotions we were told it was nap time for the next hour or two. We didn’t need to be told twice! After are nap we went out and everyone was hunkered down to survive the heat. Eventually Arielle and I went to the ladies house and played a variety of games with Martha and Citlaly (formally SicklaLee). Arielle and I had been discussing making grass whistles before we were invited over so we had grass with us and started making whistles. Well we then showed them how, but then they showed us how they whistle. I’m telling you I have never seen so many different ways to whistle! Arielle and I picked one form that we thought we could figure out and worked on it, I’m happy to announce I can do a decent job with that whistle now. The rest of the afternoon was spent in heat avoiding activities.

                While we were serving up dinner Xochitl (formally Suchee) asked if we would like to go on a walk. We said YES! We had a nice relaxing walk, there was a monsoon coming in so it had cooled off and was pleasant. This time we went right out of the compound and saw what was that way. When we got back we helped with dinner clean up.

                There was a ton of lightning, almost continues. So Arielle and I sat and watched it for a while. But it wasn’t long before Martha and Citlaly came over and indicated they wanted to give us piggy back rides. After going back and forth we gave in and got on their backs. After they gave us a ride it was of course our turn to give them a ride. Which led to races, and eventually, to chicken fighting on the cement instead of in a pool. It was fun, except for the chicken fighting, and we switched back and forth on who was carrying someone. Near the end Humana came out and Arielle and I started carrying her because it was safer and she is a lot lighter.

 

                We then called it a night and fell asleep to the bright flashes of lightning, the rolls of thunder and the pounding of the rain.