December 24th,
Christmas Eve! Well, there isn’t snow
here and the weather isn’t thinking about Christmas. Everyone was getting the day off and going to
the waterfalls, about 45mins away by car.
It boasts many falls as high as 120m!
I was planning on going but unfortunately I wasn’t feeling quite up to
par that morning. Greg had a stomachache
as well as diarrhea so I decided to stay back and keep company. At first, I thought I would regret my
decision but it ended up being a very relaxing and wonderful day. It was just the two of us, Greg and I. Practically had the entire kitchen to
myself! So for lunch I made white rice
and potato/onion stir fry, and we had seaweed, red pepper paste, kimchi,
perilla leaves, sesame oil to add, and mango mansana for dessert! It was sooooo delicious! I couldn’t stop smiling and same with
Greg. Obviously the food wasn’t up to
any Korean standards but for us, it was just so wonderful to have rice (white)
and the type of foods that are simple and tasty. I didn’t burn the rice at all (over the
stove) but the potatoes came out a bit weird.
I didn’t have the type of slicer that I wanted and used a large grater. Haha!
The potatoes just sticked onto the surface of the wok and I had to
scrape it off. Oh yeah, we had
noo-roong-je with the rice on the bottom.
J We just
relaxed under the panaderia (bakery) roof and thought about home. I was able to skype with my family for the
first time since arriving in Bolivia!
Talk about a moral booster.. I was happy for the next few days. :D
For the people that
came back from the waterfalls, about the same time they arrived, trucks
containing 350 bags of concrete came to be delivered. Obviously Bolivians work on Christmas
Eve. Each bag weighs 42.5kg. That is heavy!! Anyhow, I couldn’t help due to my back pain
but I just shone my headlamp as it was getting dark. All the guys working, including Greg, looked
like heroes or something. Covered in
concrete powder, they moved all of the bags into the common area in our
dorm. I was determined to help and took
one bag in. That was all I could do
really. Take care of your back! It’ll affect your life in many and big ways.
December 25th,
Christmas Day! We got to sleep in and
not wake up at 5am. The original plan
was for everyone to work today and get the following Sunday off, but everyone
wanted to rest. :/ Why! I
worked after breakfast to help make lunch.
I learned how to make vegan burger patties and of course I cut all the
amazing potato wedges. :D I thought we had too many potatoes but they
were too popular for that. Success!
I had time to practice
playing hymns on the piano: well, I should say keyboard to be exact. I have to play for church service. Eeek!
I also have to play everyday for worship services in the morning and
evening. Since there are only 4
lightblubs in the classroom, at night I use my headlamp to read off the
hymnal. I promised Johann, the oldest of
the Chamber’s children, that I’d teach him to play the piano better. He’ll be my first piano student. XD
Should be fun, we’ll see. Christina
wanted me to play some hymns for her. I
discovered many many beautiful hymns that I have never heard or played
before. Some I heard but are not in the
English hymnals. Time to get working on
those!
This week was pretty
rigorous considering the work schedule.
I was involved in cleaning out and organizing the storeroom, cleaning
the bathrooms (6 stalls), cutting branches, gathering and throwing away rotten
mangoes, lay bricks, tiles, and concrete, cleaning windows, measurements for
new doors, mopping, and helping out in the kitchen. With cutting the branches, this particular
tree has massive thorns coming out everywhere.
Though I was being very cautious, one thorn went clean through my gloves
and into my finger. I didn’t bleed until
after taking the thorn out with a knife.
That hurt. While cleaning the
storerooms, we ran into plenty of giant spiders, cockroaches, and even a
centipede. We tried to kill the
centipede with a machete. You’d
understand if you had seen it. Haha! Andres cut part of it but it managed to get
away. Cuidado! With laying tiles, I realized that Bolivian
tiles are not all the same. It made
tiling very difficult as the +/- differed by up to 3mm. Also, the floor isn’t exactly level… Considering how many factors were not ideal,
the place looks very nice. ^^ Mangoes, mangoes, and more mangoes. I never thought that I’d say this but one can
get sick of them, especially when you see and smell hundreds and probably
thousands of rotten mangoes. We gathered
them in wheelbarrows and took them to the place where we burn all the excesses,
including trash. Incineration. I’ve done so many dangerous things here,
things that I would not do back at home.
Such as holding tiles while they’re being cut by a diamond saw. I’m pretty sure I had some hearing loss
there. But I’m okay!
They say that this is
the rainy season. So I should get used
to all the rain, hopefully. It’s just
more of a constant tempo that lasts the entire day and night. Once in a while, it’ll pour on us. But that constant cool wetness with wind
makes it miserable. The one thing really
bad about rain here is the depth of rivers and condition of the roads. Too much rain and no traveling in or out of
Quebrada Leon; if you do, you’ll get a fine for further damaging the
roads. The roads can get treacherous and
traps for cars with the mud.
Greg is really funny and
random at times. We had some time before
supper and he took a bunch of photos of himself with his DSLR before
shaving. It was almost ridiculous
considering how much “turf” he has to shave.
Haha! He definitely can make one
laugh. XD I’m glad we’re together at the same
place. I think I would’ve had a much
tougher time here, and it’s very nice to know someone so close in a place so
far from home. We try to see who can eat
more mangoes in one sitting.. I ate 6 mangoes after lunch. Greg ate 8.
-_____-;; What a fatty. They taste the best straight off the
tree. Not bruised from the fall and not
rotten in the slightest way. I’m getting
to know others here much better, but none will take Greg’s place. I mean, who can look as tired as Greg or be
so caring as such. Haha! You the man Greg.
We finally got our day
off Sunday! Originally, the plan was to
leave at 9am. Due to truck problems, we
left after 10am with a trailer attached to take additional personnel. The trailer was covered with a tarp (for the
rain) and a mattress to cushion butts. .
you know what I mean. :D The road was super muddy and the people in
the trailer were getting splattered. The
truck did stop unexpectedly and we had to wait for over an hour before we got
going anywhere. We thought that we had
run out of gas and so Jose went to a nearby town and got 6 2L bottles of gas in
sprite and coke bottles. The car still
did not start despite the gas. We
hitched a ride on a truck heading out to town for 6bs. We were already very late and everyone was
anxious to get to his or her destinations.
From El torno, we got on taxis to Santa Cruz. It cost us 5bs for a 45-hour ride in. So cheap and so much faster than on bus. We found out that the taxis here run on
natural gas. Cheaper and smarter way to
save money. The plan was to get my iphone unlocked and
activated to get service in Bolivia.
Also, I wanted to upload pictures onto facebook, and to exchange my
American dollars into Bolivianos. Well,
Greg and I had to wait for someone to show us where to go and what to do. We waited in front of an internet café for
more or less than an hour. Santa Cruz is
very dirty, noisy, and crowded. The
longer I stayed, the more I disliked it.
I cannot exactly describe the filth and stench. I think pictures might do some justice for
that. Police and soldiers with shotguns
and handguns outside occupy the banks and government offices. Countless buses and taxis honk and spew their
exhaust as they whiz by. Pedestrians do
not have the right of way here! Vendors
sell downloaded files of pirated music, programs, videos, games, etc… They are able to sell them since the internet
in Bolivia is so slow and most people are unwilling to wait for that. I was developing a headache and a reoccurring
back pain as well. :/ Long story short, I was not able to get my
phone unlocked or get service on it, not able to exchange money because all the
banks are closed on Sunday, and did not have time to upload any pictures on
facebook let alone use the internet.
Fail day. One store was offering
me 600 US dollars for my iphone. Eh,
sounds good but I need it for the time being.
All electronics here are so much more than in the states. That’s because they are imported. We went to HiperMaxi to get something to eat
before heading back to Quebrada. I
bought the Korean aloe drink. That was
amazing though very very pricey. 35 bs
or about 5 dollars. It isn’t the largest
size either. -_____-;; oh well.
Back at El Torno, Greg bought 12 mango mansanas. Now these are amazing mangoes. And for 10 bs (~$1.50), that’s a deal. Pick up time was delayed by almost 2 hours
before heading back in. I was so glad to
be back! I never want to go back to
Santa Cruz. Haha Major back pain, headache, and now a stomach
ache…
Dec 24-30
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