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!