How about that! 12 weeks in Bolivia! Well, it’s back to the normal routine of weeks at Quebrada Leon~ Vacation is over officially and time to get back to hard work. (:
I slept in until 7am. I was very tired from our trip. There is a change: no bible studies in La Guardia after church service. Instead, we are visiting our neighbors in Calera, a town 15 minutes away by car and an hour walking. Edward preached at San Jose and I played the piano during service. Oh how I missed playing hymns, let alone the piano. I am always playing so many songs that I have never heard of. Four flats aren’t too daunting now; I’ve improved! Christina and Alana taught Sabbath school for the children. Alexandria, one of our guests, brought her violin and played along for song service and did special music. Seeing and hearing a string instrument was great. Ah home and my cello~ As we visited Calera, we saw a mango mansana tree loaded with large mangos! Awesome! The people are very welcoming and friendly. Some said that it’s about time that we get to know each other. XD Franz Cruz came back and he’s staying with us in our room. So when Edwin gets back, it’ll be him, Franz, Greg, and me. :D
Our bible studies were a little interesting. I felt bad in some way because we were gone for such a long time. I did not pray for them during the trip and I believe that really made it more difficult to reach them. One family separated/divorced around New Years and other families were very busy with other things and did not have time to study. We met another fellow whom we spoke to for a good while. He said that he would come to the Wednesday night meetings. He did not show up.
Cece asked Greg and I to accompany her to Calera when there wasn’t anyone but us on campus. I didn’t want to go. It’s about an hour walking in the heat (~3pm). Well, I was playing piano before and as I was about to say that I didn’t want to go, I looked at the title of the hymn that it was open to: Living for Jesus. K.O. Okay, thank you God. I ended up learning a lot and really enjoying the visits. If I stayed back, I would have probably been napping or writing my blog. We received gifts of peanuts and mangoes from the grateful neighbors. It was very nice to walk in nature as well. (:
Our room is very hot all the time.. well, Bolivia is very hot. When Bolivians are sweating, you know it’s hot. J We are in the back room of the dorm, facing the forest and we have poor air flow. It gets difficult to fall asleep at night besides the mosquitoes with our faulty net. The floor is quite dirty as well because of all the dirt that comes in. We also get plenty of insects like cockroaches, ants, flies, and of course mosquitoes.
We went to the waterfalls again! I rode in the trailer (chata) and that was quite the bumpy, dusty, and uncomfortable ride. I cannot lean on the sides because that just hurts when we go over a bump…which is the whole way there. The dust from the car in front of us covers everything behind in a nice coat. I did not take any pictures. ;) The red truck had way too many people on the top, around 8 people. It nearly tipped over and then some went down. Haha We crossed about 15 streams and it made for a muddy ride. At one point, we all had to get out and walk. The road was way too steep for the truck to pull us and the trailer. That was from a recommendation made by a local. It was about 30 people total, us people from Quebrada Leon and the visitors. We had 2 guides with us. I took many pictures before going in the water and got many good ones. That was a lot of fun and quite relaxing! There were many beautiful butterflies floating around and I was able to catch one too. I thought it was dead until it suddenly flew away.. I was tricked by a butterfly. HAHA Some people made a raft of logs and tree bark: that was really neat. Jose threw me in the water later, when I didn’t have my camera. I tried to get him back but he’s too fast. Mango papaya, popcorn, and dried bananas for some simple foods before we left. We also played some soccer on the sand besides the water. I got a bruise on my shin and Victor got a cut on his heel, but it was too fun. Itwas the South Americans versus other continents.
Justin was having some issues with the leaders here and he decided to leave Quebrada. I really didn’t feel like stopping him or getting involved for the most part. It’s quite complicated. It’s called internal strife.
I worked on building a concrete wall, picking corn at the chaco, moving furniture and clothes, putting together closets, fixing toilets,planting seeds (94 papayas, 50 maracuyas, and 40 others), digging irrigation ditches, watering plants, cooking in the kitchen, playing piano, picking plums by climbing a tree, and many other things. Well, it was my first time building a concrete wall, picking corn,planting tropical plants, and climbing a tree for fruit. ^^ Monkeys destroyed a lot of the rice as they were going after the corn in the chaco. As an asian, seeing all the rice on the ground was painful. Why people in Bolivia plants rice, corn, bananas, and papayas together, I don’t know. :P
January 31st. The last day of the month. Well,I know I shouldn’t be thinking like this but it’s just getting closer to going back home! I barely have time to write my journal and transferring some of that for the blog (this thing). I haven’t been taking many pictures either due to the heat or work schedule. It’s very repetitive from working every day, all day. But honestly, I can’t wait to go back home butthen I am really liking Bolivia more and more. I will miss Bolivia, that’s for sure. I could really eat some Korean food right now though. Haha! Anyways, it’s the rainy season, supposedly, and I really have not seen too much rain. As a matter of fact, it’s very dry here. So dry and hot that some of my shirts dried in the shade in an hour. Haha Still getting bit up by mosquitoes though. I really need to properly hang my mosquito net. XD Such a fail considering that I’ve been here for about 3 months now.
I thought Koreans were terrible at keeping on schedule/time,but people here are just as bad. And it’s Americans, Jamaicans, Columbians, Bolivians, Jamaicans, etc. Haha! I’ve been doing many things that I have never done or would do before coming here. Hanging on the outside of acar, looking over a cliff, climbing trees with church clothes, playing soccer barefoot, etc. Time to go outside my boundaries, so to speak of.
I decided to add February 4th here since I want to compile all the mission trip stuff together, like I did with our vacation. This blog is not really week 12: more like week 12 plus a few days. =)
I got to “command” the kitchen today, Feb 4th. Boy, I was nervous but very excited. I have never cooked before, especially for almost 30 people. Eeek! Well, I made a Korean soup called Soojaebee. It’s basically a potato soup with simple handcut pieces of dough in the soup. I added some thin sliced green peppers for color. Very simple but everyone loved it! I had the ladies cut and wash the potatoes while I prepared the peppers and watched the stove. The Chambers’kids liked the “dumplings” a lot. We made two large pots of it but only a bowlful was leftover at the end! There were many 2nds, 3rds, and even some 4ths. I have to admit, I added a packet of maruchan mushroom powder to add some flavor. Not that it did a whole lot, but I think it helped. XD Well, after a successful breakfast, we went straight to work on lunch. I had the rice going in a large pot on the stove before working on the stir-fry and salad. Just the cutting and washing took a very long time. I kept checking on the rice. It was very frustrating because I did not know how much water to add, being on a stove with a flimsy lid. The top part of the rice wasn’t cooking and I was worried that it would cause indigestion. Good thing I was going to fry them. Anyways, I asked Brenda and Christina to make tofu to use for the stir-fry. That took until 11am. I cooked the various vegetables separate before missing them in a large bowl for the stir-fry. The wok was not large enough. For the fried rice, I had chopped carrots and onions with peas. I had to fry 5 separate times for the rice. The stir-fry took a long time to finish. Again, I had to cook all the vegetables and tofu separately. I used a sauce made from mixing soy sauce,garlic, sugar, water, and sesame oil. I wish I had more vegetables to work with. I had broccoli, green and red peppers, onions, string beans, garlic, and tofu. I used high heat/short time for the vegetables with some of the sauce. This helped keep the vegetables fresh but cooked. Christina fried the tofu before adding it to the stir-fry. Lars and Brenda made the salad. We finished on time! It was actually fun to cook. Adrenaline. :D I had to make additional sauce but it was very popular and had nothing left at the end. First time cooking full meals and of course, I wouldn’t have been able to make it without the help of my friends. ^^
Jan 26- Feb4
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