Christmas in October

October 12, 2015 – Christmas Day in October

                It was so cold. It was as cold as that other random “winter day” we had or maybe even a little colder. It technically is spring here right now, but it is still blazing hot almost every day, except for this one random day. When I woke up at 5:15 I began to question if we would have a normal school day. Candace and I began to talk about it and she crawled in bed with me because it was so cold. One of the boys came to our house and told us that we were not having our 5:30 worship together, but just in our own houses. This was a start to a great day. Candace and I honestly continued to stay curled up in my bed to keep warm and eventually she had to go to the kitchen. I fell back asleep and right around 6:30 Kevin yelled to me that we would have staff worship at 6:30, so I finally got out of bed. With many layers of clothes on, I went to staff worship where slowly but surely all of the staff came. After worship Miguel told us that we would not be having class that day. For some reason it already kind of felt like Christmas. Miguel had his laptop and started playing Christmas songs. Miguel, Andrew, Daniella, Candace, Darian, and I all put our arms around each other and swayed back and forth to the tunes of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and other wonderful Christmas songs. When Miguel played “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” we had to bring out a roll of toilet paper because the emotions got real. After enjoying many Christmas songs together for a little while I went back to my house to check on my girls. I told them that we weren’t having class and that they all needed to put on more clothes because it was so cold. For breakfast that morning we had breakfast burritos for the first time (with real eggs) and hot tea. Something was more special about this morning too because Miguel had some kitchen kids serve all of the plates and cups on each table. After breakfast I went back to my house with my girls and let them come into my room. Mica and Joca got in my hammock, Keila got in my bed with me, Rosa got in Candace’s hammock, and I put out the mattress on the floor for Maria and Estefanie. I was so happy because literally just the day before I had downloaded some Christmas music to my laptop. All of the girls were in my room and I played my Christmas music, which they didn’t understand at all. Keila began to look through the pictures on my laptop (which all of my girls have done a million times) and I really noticed that I have a ton of pictures from the Christmas season. Honestly I had convinced myself that it was Christmas on this random day in October. We continued to hang out in the house for the rest of the morning and until lunch. At lunch Miguel said he wanted us to watch a staff only movie in English, which obviously ended up being a Christmas movie. Right before the movie Kevin brought over a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie that apparently some of them had made in Miguel’s house that morning. Miguel also brought stuff to make hot chocolate with it, so it was obvious that all of us were under the impression that it was Christmas. We watched two cheesy Christmas movies, The Heart of Christmas and The Christmas Shoes, as we sipped on our hot chocolate and ate our pie. Many of us sobbed throughout the Christmas shoes, but we all enjoyed it very much. Soon after our movies we had vegetable soup for dinner and then all went back to our different houses. The older boys had a little fire behind their house (compliments of Andrew) so my girls and I decided that we would have a fire too. Right there in our front yard we collected random sticks and leaves and things and made a little fire of our own. We all sat around the fire and eventually started singing hymns (in Spanish of course) and had worship out there. The next day turned back to normal with classes, work, and heat; but Christmas was good while it lasted.

Casa, Clase, Cocina

       A general update. There have been a lot of changes in my house recently. Some changes needed to be made with the houses for the girls to better accommodate Maribel, so Candace and I had to give the other girl’s house two girls and in return they gave us three different girls. It has been about two weeks now with the different girls, but everything is going well! They are adjusting well and I am continuing to grow closer with all of them each day. I started giving all my girls an individual hug when I put them to bed consistently for the past two weeks, and they also ask for a kiss. I’m not big on kisses because my family doesn’t do that much, so I was like nahh, just a hug. My roommate Candace on the other hand is really comfortable with physical affection like kisses on the cheek, so I give them all hugs and then she gives them all a kiss. Last week one night I was really tired and was just going to let Candace put them to bed herself, and right as I was about to get into my bed I hear the girls yell from their room, “Mami Courtney!! Abrazo!!” Aw, they really wanted their hug! I smiled and went over and gave everyone their goodnight hug. I’m glad that I live with these girls. Last week on Wednesday night/Thursday morning it was raining really hard, so we cancelled class because most of the classrooms were flooded. I really enjoyed that day! I hung out with my girls in the house for most of the morning and decided that I wanted to teach them how to play cards. It was a little difficult explaining a game to them in Spanish, but I was able to teach them a game I learned called Slap the Royals. It’s a simple card game, but can be lots of fun! One of my girls that I’m getting really close with, Joca, really enjoyed playing with me and in fact almost beat me. The other girls ended up leaving when they got out, but Joca and I played for about two hours together that morning! Joca has asked me if we could play a couple more times this week, and in fact even creamed me one night. I’m glad Joca and I are able to enjoy that together.

[When Joca fell asleep in the living room and I had to carry her to her bed]

                My class is going relatively well. Candace teaches the 3^rd and 4^th grade language and in late August she told me that one of her students, Fermin, didn’t really know the alphabet. I told her that one of my students, Rodrigo, does know the alphabet and can actually read a little bit. We decided to switch Rodrigo and Fermin for language, so every day after we give the kids a little twenty minute recess I have Fermin for the rest of class and she has Rodrigo. This works much better than whatever we were doing at the beginning because Fermin and Henry are basically at the same knowledge level when it comes to the alphabet and language things. We have worked on the alphabet a lot and they can almost say the whole thing, but they get mixed up when it comes to l, ll, m, n, ñ. I’m not exactly sure how to help them figure out how to remember these similar sounding letters, but we will get there eventually. As far as math goes, Rodrigo can add, subtract, and now multiply, and divide! I am very proud of him. Henry can finally add 1 to everything. For example, he finally knows that 5 + 1 = 6. I have been trying to teach him this for the past 8 weeks, so it is very exciting that he finally understands. Now we just need to work on adding 2 to everything. Maribel can count to 10 as long as I am counting with her. She has a problem with skipping the number 3 when she counts by herself, but recently she has been getting a lot better about knowing that 3 comes between 2 and 4. When she sees 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 objects on a piece of paper or something, she can say how many objects there are. Though teaching these four kids has been a struggle, I am very happy with their progress and love them all very much.

[Finding our names with the letters]

                Every week we have two staff members run the kitchen with a different group of kids. This was stressful for me because I really don’t know much about cooking. The first time I was in the kitchen the other staff member with me was our director, Miguel. Miguel knows how to cook really well, so when I was with him it was more like I was just one of the students helping out rather than actually running things with him. This past week I was in the kitchen again, but this time it was with one of the other student missionaries, Kevin. Kevin has a decent amount of experience cooking, but I was still really worried about everything. Worried about whether we would have all the meals ready on time, about if we would use our ingredients competently so we wouldn’t run out of something we may need later on in the week, and about if we would be efficient with our time so we would not be in the kitchen 24/7. Everyone kept telling me not to freak out and that it would be fine, and Miguel always says that the kids know how to make everything, so there shouldn’t be much to worry about. Well, I survived the week! Kevin and I had a good group of kids who did know how to make most everything and Kevin’s cooking skills really did come in handy. Almost all of our meals were on time and we were not in the kitchen 24/7. In fact, I learned a lot this week! I felt more like Kevin’s partner running the kitchen rather than like one of the kids. At Familia Feliz we make everything from scratch, and we are also vegan so we don’t use cheese or eggs. This week I learned a ton of new things about cooking and learned recipes for different things. One of the things I learned how to make is vegan cheese with carrots, garlic, oil, water, and salt and it actually tastes good when you eat it with pasta noodles, like Mac N’ Cheese! I am extremely grateful for all of the experience I am getting here with different things. Learning how to cook, learning Spanish, learning how to be a mom, learning how to be a teacher, and even learning how to machete! I am so glad that God lead me here to Bolivia.

Days in the Life of Courtney

Here are some interesting and fun stories of things that have happened to me over the past couple weeks that I wanted to share!

August 21, 2015 - The Rat

                Friday night. After a crazy week of being in the kitchen, having no free time, and finding the snake and many tarantulas in my house, I was ready to be alone and journal. I sit on my bed, get comfy, open up my journal, and literally as I start to write ZOOM. Something scurries across my room. Oh goodness, please tell me I did not just see a RAT run across my room. Yeah, that was definitely a rat. I put my journal down and walk straight out of my house to go to the big house. I know that I need to tell my roommate Candace and probably have someone come over to get rid of the rat. It’s kind of funny because my roommate had been saying how she isn’t really afraid of tarantulas or snakes, but that she is terrified of rats. Well, I walk into the kitchen where Candace and Kevin are and tell Candace not to freak out.. but that there is a new creature in our house. She instantly knows it’s a rat and basically freaks out. Jancy, one of our staff members from Venezuela, walks into the kitchen and I tell him about it. He says that he will get one of the older boys and that we will go into my room to kill it. I didn’t really want them to kill it, but I guess as long as it’s out of my room. Jancy, Josue, and I travel back to my room and I show them where the rat went. I honestly wasn’t scared. It’s just a rat. Well, as Josue is moving things around and looking for it on the opposite side of the room the rat bursts out of Candace’s unzipped suitcase and runs straight towards me. Oh my. So what I said about not being scared is no longer valid and I start screaming and screaming and trying to find something to jump up on. In the process of me trying to find higher ground the rat brushes over my foot! It all happened so fast. The guys look at me and we all laugh. They continue to search the entire room and the rat is nowhere to be found. They search and search and search and this rat is not showing up anywhere. This was a little unsettling because I definitely don’t want to sleep with a rat, but at the same time I guess it’s nice because we’re pretty sure it ran out of my house. The rat never showed up again so I guess in all of the excitement it did run out of the house. We can now add rat to the huge list of creatures that have been in my house, and let’s keep in mind that I’ve only been here for 6 weeks.

August 25, 2015 - The Brave Roommate

                One night Candace and I are in our room chatting while all of our girls are getting ready for bed. They are being kind of loud and crazy, but then they all scream! These kids don’t really get freaked out by too many things, so we quickly rush over. They all scream and point and there is a tarantula quickly scaling the wall in the kitchen. I guess as an adult of the house I am supposed to be brave and get rid of it, but as soon as I see it I start screaming too. I literally join right in with the girls in freaking out, but thank goodness for Candace! She grabs a broom and dustpan and tries to scoop the tarantula into the dustpan to take it outside. Well, what ends up happening is Candace knocking the tarantula onto the floor on accident and the tarantula charging straight for me and all of the girls. Oh my word did we scream and run. We all ran into the girl’s room and I even jumped up onto one of the beds for extra precaution. Candace continues to be brave and chases the tarantula until she actually gets it into the dustpan and takes it outside. I’m not sure how long it will take me to get used to the tarantulas, but maybe one day I’ll be the brave one. Maybe. 

 [The first tarantula I saw at Familia Feliz]

August 29, 2015 - Sleep talking

                I sleep talk a lot. My roommates in high school and for my first year of college would often have funny stories of me sleep talking. Well, one Friday night here my roommate stayed awake a bit longer than I did to type up some things on her laptop. Apparently she hears me yell, “LIBRO LIBRO LIBRO!” in my sleep. Libro is the Spanish word for book. She starts laughing so hard, but obviously tries not to wake me up. Why I was yelling book in Spanish I have no idea, but yeah that happened. Then later that night she said she woke up to use the bathroom and hears me angrily say, “Maribel, it’s the same! Mismo!” Maribel is one of my students, so I guess I was getting upset with her in my dream which is very accurate to real life. Also I think it’s quite impressive that I said “it’s the same” and “mismo” because mismo means “the same” in Spanish! Haha, so yeah I’m speaking Spanish in my sleep! I’m glad my roommate was able to catch that.

 [Here is a very angry Maribel in class]

August 31, 2015 - RIP Phone

                It was just another normal Monday in class, or so I thought. At recess one of my students, Rodrigo, grabbed my cell phone off of my desk and asked me if he could use it for math. Sometimes I let him just mess around with the calculator on my phone during recess, but I told him no because he had been acting up in class that day. He continued to try and unlock my phone, but I just ignored it because I knew he would never figure out my password. I got preoccupied with who knows what, until Rodrigo later comes running up to me showing me my phone screen that had a little android bot on it and said “erasing” at the bottom. Erasing. No no no no. Apparently Android thinks it’s a good idea to have your phone delete everything when someone gets the password wrong too many times. Why?? Yeah that’s a great idea, let’s just give whoever stole the phone a clean slate as if they bought a brand new phone. Well, since I’m in Bolivia it’s not exactly easy to just re-download all of my apps because the WiFi is awful. Thank goodness that the previous week I put most of my photos onto my computer, so my photos aren’t gone. But I lost all of my contacts, music, and apps. Hopefully I will be able to at least re-download Facebook messenger and things so that I can continue to communicate with my friends and family. But for now, RIP phone.

September 11, 2015 – Not as much RIP Phone

                Kevin and Ashley had to go back to Santa Cruz this week to finish the rest of their year residency stuff so I sent my phone with them. The WiFi is much better at places in Santa Cruz, so I gave Kevin a list of apps I wanted back on my phone and hoped for the best. They just returned from Santa Cruz today after about 4 days and he gave me my phone back with most of the apps that I asked for on it! I am so incredibly happy! I don’t have everything that I want on it, but I at least have the necessities. I also hooked my phone up to my computer this evening and put my pictures back onto it. My phone may not be quite the same, but I am much happier with it now than I was on Monday! Now I will just have to work on slowly getting my contacts back when I get the chance.

September 7, 2015 - The Tarantula During Worship

                So, we are in a circle having worship in our house. It’s just a normal little house worship with our 5 girls. Worships in my house usually consist of 3 or 4 Spanish hymns, prayer, a Bible story or devotional in Spanish, and then another prayer. Literally while our oldest girl, Victoria, is reading a Bible story a tarantula just falls from the ceiling RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR CIRCLE. Okay I almost died. Every single one of us screamed so incredibly loud and we all ran for our lives. It was so close to landing on me it’s not even funny. What would I do if it landed on me? I think I would drop dead right there. Anyways, we all freak out and run and scream and then one of the girls grabs a broom like she is going to get the tarantula out. But no, as she’s about to try she hands the broom to my roommate Candace and Candace saves the day again! I don’t know what I would do without my roommate. Yeah now I’ll always be looking up in my house because I guess you never know. I’ve learned that the snakes and tarantulas like my house. As long as no one gets hurt, it’ll be okay.

September 10, 2015 – The Oreos

                So in the town that we go to on Sundays, Rurrenabaque, there are places we can buy Oreos and this week I happened to get some. They come in a big package that contains 6 smaller packages and each smaller package has 4 Oreos in it. I’ve been slowly eating them throughout this week, but making sure not to eat them all at once so that I will basically have 1 package each day. This morning I wake up to find only 1 package of Oreos left when there should be 2 and also the remains of an empty wrapper for the package. I thought maybe, just maybe I ate more packages than I thought I had eaten and that I left the wrapper there. I figured it was okay. Well, this evening my roommate says to me around 9pm that she is missing an entire package of M&M’s that she bought in town. I began to think the same thing I did when I first saw my empty package this morning, one of our girls came into our room and ate it. I quickly go over to where my last package of Oreos is and THE PACKAGE IS OPENED WITH ONLY 3 OREOS IN IT. Castigo. Okay for real though why would one of our girls come into our room (which they know they are not supposed to do) and steal our food?? By the way, “castigo” means “punishment” in Spanish.  So yeah seriously castigo. We had all of our girls go outside and machete right then and said they would machete until someone confessed. Finally one of our girls came crying and said she ate my cookies. They macheted until 10:15pm, which is really late for Familia Feliz considering we wake up at 5 every morning and usually go to sleep at 9pm. It kind of sucked for Candace and I as well because we got eaten alive by bugs while we were holding our lights for them so they could machete. We still don’t know who ate the M&M’s, but I think they learned their lesson not to steal from us. As for the girl who ate my Oreos, she will have to work all day tomorrow in any free time she would have had. Man, this all sounds really harsh. These aren’t my rules; these are the rules of Familia Feliz and kind of just how things work here. Last week the older boys had to machete late into the night for eating Andrew’s granola, a couple days ago the middle aged boys had to machete at midnight because someone took some of Jonatan’s food, and earlier this week all of the girls in the other house had to machete late at night because someone stole all of Karol’s chocolate. I guess it was only a matter of time for my house..

 [My family for 10 and a half months]

                That’s about all I had time to type up for these past couple weeks! I hope you all enjoy and thanks for reading!

Tuesday, the craziest day in the jungle

           Tuesday, one of the most eventful days of my life. Okay so my head had started getting pretty itchy on Sunday and was super itchy on Monday and continued being itchy on Tuesday morning. I was pretty sure that I had…. lice. On Tuesday morning after staff worship, I asked Daniella if she would check my head for lice. All of the staff crowded around and sure enough, I had lice. It’s kind of funny that I ended up getting it because I had literally just said in my previous post that I my roommate had lice and I hoped I wouldn’t get it too. Anyways, Daniella and Andrew searched through my hair to pick out the lice and their eggs which was so incredibly nice of them. Having lice is awful! I had scratched my head so much that it started to hurt in different places from scratching it raw. Also, hearing that you have eggs and living creatures on your head is honestly quite disgusting. I already use lice preventing shampoo and conditioner, but Karol also gave me some stuff to pour on my hair that night to kill them all. I desperately felt the need to go wash my hair and on my way back to my house I saw a lovely tarantula hanging out next to my front door. And as if a normal tarantula on my house isn’t bad enough, this one was pregnant. Ew gross!! I do not want baby tarantulas in my house!

My day continued to be eventful. After lunch I had to wash all of my sheets and things because of the lice and as I walked across campus to the one staff washing machine, I saw a goat standing in my way. Familia Feliz does not have a goat. Actually on Monday apparently this goat showed up and even chased Andrew and Kevin. So anyways, as soon as I saw the goat I froze. I don’t know if goats are friendly or not, but I didn’t really want to take my chances. The goat began to just stare at me. So here I am, lice in my head, tired, standing in the hot sun, and having a stare off with a goat. I decide that I don’t want to get attacked by a goat in Bolivia, so I began to walk backwards. The goat begins to walk towards me. I take a step, he takes a step. This goat is pursuing me. I began to walk faster and faster and so does the goat. Miguel, our director, was walking to his house and sees this happening and just yells across campus, “He can smell fear!!” Haha, thanks Miguel. I remembered that Andrew was close by working on the motorcycle so I started calling out for him. “Andrew. Andrew. ANDREW” The goat and I are practically running at this point and I continue calling, “ANDREW! ANDREW!” I finally make it to where Andrew is and the goat just stops. I had no idea what to do. Two boys show up and say that they have it under control. One of them distracts the goat with a stick and the other one grabs the goat’s horn. They dragged it away, Andrew and I laugh, and then I go do my laundry. Man, there is no way that anything else abnormal can happen to me today. What a crazy day.

Well, as I am putting some of my laundry away and messing with things in my room later I look around to see if there are any tarantulas or anything. No tarantulas, thank goodness. Wait, why is there something directly above me that looks like a snake pattern? Is that a…? Oh my word, there is a huge snake lying on the rafters in my ceiling. How long has that been there?? Is it going to fall on me?? How are we going to get rid of it??? I get really really freaked out and run over to the kitchen where I know Miguel and Andrew are. I was literally so frantic and emotional when I told them that I thought there was a snake in my room. I think I almost burst into tears. Miguel laughed a little bit at how freaked out I was and said that everything was going to be okay. Apparently I got super pale because I was so freaked out. Miguel said that we would send some older boys over to my house to go check it out. We all go over to my house together and all of the boys honestly got slightly freaked out as well. They ended up getting a huge long stick and the plan was for one of them to hit the snake down with the stick and then another boy was going to chop its head off with a machete when it fell. The plan commences. As David is trying to hit the snake down the snake begins to slither its way to a different part of my ceiling. It did not want to come down. David keeps jabbing and jabbing (and putting holes into my ceiling) and the snake keeps dodging. Finally the snake ends up somehow going through my ceiling and getting onto my roof, so we all run outside to get it. It turns into this process of the snake going back and forth between my ceiling and my roof. During this process we also discover that I have a hornets nest in my ceiling because every time David hits the ceiling with the stick, a bunch of hornets fly out. Anyways, the snake finally comes out onto the roof and slithers over to the edge. It tries to get onto a nearby tree (which is actually really cool) and it falls off in the process. Literally as soon as it hits the ground there is so much chaos and screaming, but Carlos is able to cut the snake’s head off!

Oh my goodness it was crazy. Really though how long was that venomous snake in my room for? I could have died. We called the other staff over afterward and took some pictures and videos with the snake. Man what a day. The rest of my Tuesday went relatively normal thank goodness, but that Tuesday was a memorable day for sure.
           For the record we ended up trying to get rid of the goat 3 times and it continued to come back, so we just tied it to a tree for about a week. Kevin and I gave it water a couple times and it tried to bite us. It ended up ramming one of our younger kids, so Andrew took it to town on Thursday morning and sold it for 70 Bolivianos (about 10 bucks). RIP goat.
           Anyways, I have a million more stories to tell, but no time to type them all out. But, something interesting is that I was sleep talking in Spanish the other night. Good stuff. It's almost time to go back out into the jungle! I hope you enjoyed reading about my wonderful Tuesday!!

It has only been 3 weeks but Bolivia has already been a crazy adventure. Let’s start with the basics. I live in the jungle in a small house with 6 Bolivian girls and another SM. I have already seen 4 tarantulas here and 1 of them was in my room. Scratch that. I just saw another tarantula last night on my bathroom ceiling while I was on the toilet. So make that 5 tarantulas. We eat completely vegan food here which is very new for me, but I am getting used to it. Most of our meals consist of some type of bread such as banana bread, carrot bread, corn bread, fruit bread, garlic bread, or wheat bread. We also eat a lot of rice and beans. I am learning a ton of Spanish but need to learn a lot more. The kids don’t speak any English, so it is very difficult to teach my class and also to be a “mother” of my house. All of the kids here have their own machete and use the machetes to work almost every day. I have been learning how to use a machete to work in the garden, but I am getting a lot of blisters on my hands. All of the water at Familia Feliz is cold, so showers are always fun. When it rains here it rains super hard. Recently it has been raining a lot at night and it is very difficult to sleep because it is so incredibly loud. I am actually very surprised that my little house is able to keep us safe and dry. Right now it is winter here, but it is still very hot all the time except for in the middle of the night and early in the morning. The mosquitos are terrible here and I am getting eaten alive. Right now my feet and ankles are covered in bug bites because I always wear my chacos. Most of the kids here frequently have lice and actually just the other day we discovered that my roommate Candace had lice. I have been using lice shampoo and conditioner every day since I got here, so hopefully I don’t get it.
August 6 was Independence Day for Bolivia and we participated in a parade. On the night of August 5 an army truck came to take us to the base and we marched with the soldiers in our Pathfinder uniforms. We marched again on the mornings of August 6 and 7 and also participated in a gymnastics show. It was a lot of fun, but also one of the weirdest things I have ever done. There were tons and tons of people all over the town for the parade so it was very chaotic. It was extremely tiring marching in the hot sun and never being able to sit down. Oh and since the soldiers are not used to seeing American women we got whistled at a couple times and were stared at very frequently. But overall it was very cool to be a part of their parade and to see the whole town.
I am still getting the hang of things here, but overall am really enjoying it. This week we finally had a normal schedule because there was no Independence Day parade or anything. I really like my house and the girls that I live with and I think we are all getting closer. One of my girls had a lot of disciplinary issues here in the past and continued to have problems over these past 3 weeks. She has a huge problem with stealing other people’s things. Sometime last week she stole something from one of the girls and tried to give it to one of my girls as a present and also buried someone else’s soap behind our house. When we found out about this we had a staff meeting and tried to find a punishment for her, but apparently they have tried every punishment possible for her and she’s still not changing. We brought her in to have a meeting with all of us staff and from that she made the choice to leave Familia Feliz. So, now I only live with 5 Bolivian girls and Candace. But, ever since she left on Monday there has been more of a family-like atmosphere in the house. Everyone is getting along and the girls are hanging out with Candace and I more!
Last Sabbath we told our girls that we could take a walk in the afternoon and they all got really excited. We were thinking that it would just be a little nature walk or something and then we could have them read some verses from the Bible and then we would go back to the house. Well, we start walking and decide that we should just let them lead. We begin to leave Familia Feliz and get on the road and start wondering where they are taking us. After walking and walking and walking we attempt to ask them where we are going and did not understand their response to us. We know that they aren’t going to do something that they’re not supposed to do, so we aren’t too worried. After some more walking I ask them how far or how long of a walk it is. They say, “Una hora.” Una hora. ONE HOUR!! Okay I did not want to walk for an hour, but I felt like we had already gone too far so I guess might as well keep going. I was actually having fun though because Candace and I were singing fun songs in English with lots of hand motions as we were walking. Eventually Candace stopped but one of our girls, Angelica, really enjoyed the songs so I continued doing camp songs with Angelica for the entire walk. She did all of the hand motions with me and tried to hum the songs as I sang. It ended up being really fun for me! But also really tiring. Eventually we made it to our destination which ended up being where the grandparents of 2 boys from Familia Feliz live. Their grandma was very nice and she brought us a papaya to share and we sang more songs in English and in Spanish. When we walked back to Familia Feliz Angelica wanted more songs so her and I continued to do camp songs the entire walk back as well. It was quite the adventure!
Apparently if it is your birthday at Familia Feliz you get thrown into the river. I have already seen a couple different kids get thrown into the river at different times, but last Thursday was a little different. One of the older boys, Josue, turned 16 on Thursday. Josue has a little bit of a problem with always having big crushes on one of the volunteers and apparently I am currently his big crush. So for Josue’s birthday, our lovely director Miguel wanted me to throw Josue into the river and all of the other staff loved that idea. When we were all in the “cafeteria” for lunch, right after prayer and before anyone gets dismissed to get their food I grab Josue from behind and just hold him. A bunch of the boys die laughing and apparently Josue’s face was priceless. Everyone immediately knows what is going on and Andrew and another volunteer Yancy rush over to carry Josue. The 3 of us lug Josue down to the river and throw him in. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when we all get back into the cafeteria Miguel says that no one eats until every single person at Familia Feliz kisses Josue on the cheek. Oh my word. So that’s exactly what happens. Everyone gets in a line to kiss Josue and Andrew says we have to save the best for last. It was quite the experience! Honestly it was really cute how happy Josue got when I grabbed him and when I kissed him. I told him that he reminds me of my little brother though, so hopefully that clears up any misconceptions he may have had.
My 3 students are the cutest things in the world, but oh my word they are such a pain. I give them work to do in class and they’re just like, “No quiero. No quiero.” Okay excuse me it doesn’t matter if you want to do this work or not, but you need to do it. I teach all subjects for 1st and 2nd grade from 8:00-12:00 on Monday through Friday. I have a 5 year old girl and two 8 year old boys. I am learning that it is very difficult to teach them when none of them are on the same level of knowledge or the same level of maturity. Maribel, my 5 year old, is finally able to write her name. She is learning the vowels and I am also trying to teach her how to count and write her numbers. Henry knows the song for the Spanish alphabet, but he can’t quite recognize what each of the letters look like. He can count really well and I am beginning to teach him how to add and subtract. Rodrigo is really smart! He can actually read by sounding out the letters and words. He is also very good at addition and we are working on subtraction. I really want to do my best to teach each of them at their own level without holding any of them back.
I am very quickly picking up on a lot of Spanish, but really need to focus on learning a lot more. It will be so much easier to teach when I can fully speak Spanish and understand everything that my kids say to me. When my girls are upset I will actually be able to comfort them and talk with them. I am really looking forward to being good at Spanish!
At Familia Feliz there is absolutely no service or wifi. Every Sunday the staff drive to the nearest town to hang out and get internet. We do not all get to go every Sunday though. Since someone obviously has to stay at the orphanage with the kids, we have a rotation where 3 of us stay for 1 Sunday of each month. Being in town is really nice because it’s a pleasant little break from the kids and there is a restaurant that I go to with amazing ice cream and decent wifi! The wifi isn’t very fast, but it at least allows me to communicate with my friends and family back at home.
That's it for now. I don't really know how to blog so I hope this is okay! Going back into the great and wild jungle!