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.