Bolivia Bound: December 2007

(The lovely ladies of SALT: Aubrey, Dovanna, Wendy - our coordinator, and me. Francis just had to get in on this one too!)

Some Christmas thoughts I suppose, right? Well, here we are, December 20th... I think... Thursday, almost the weekend. I've been shut up in the dining hall at the Children's Home for the last three weeks, first scraping all the paint off the walls (cement walls, oil paint... not good) and then painting, so the weekend coming is a good thing. Unfortunately, if we don't finish the job in time, it will only become Saturday's job, which would be largely inconvenient for me, since I have some hardcore Christmas shopping to do. It's hot too, man, seriously not Christmasy around here. I am expecting my parents and sister to come and visit the day after Christmas - that's funny: refering to it as if it's not a set thing.... haha. I mean: my parents and sister are coming on the 26th and staying until the 3rd of January, so I have a lot of stuff to get ready this weekend. Pack some things to send home, wrap some gifts, buy some gifts, and make Jam-Jams for the Bolivian host family.

(Dovanna and Aubrey - looking lovely for the Christmas party.)

I don't have a lot of very exciting news right now, but here are some pictures from the Christmas party that we had for MCC. The SALTers really brought the heat at the dinner: all you can eat buffet, and lookin' flawsy, flawsy. Oh yeah. It was really great for all of us to be together, since we are not often all in one place at the same time. Stephen is rocking out to a hopping social life, Aubrey lives in Santiago, and I am currently just about always working. Of the SALTers , I see the most of Dovanna, who got to go home for Christmas! Lucky. Gets to see snow. I do have to share one wonderful experience that I had last weekend though, that may seem just a little too far left of center to some people. But bear with me. One thing that a lot of us miss around here as North Americans is hymn singing, since music in church here is a whole lot of 7/11 on high volume, out of tune. That can be painful for Mennonites. So when we have our MCC English Potlucks every Wednesday night, we usually sing a few hymns, currently lots of Christmas ones. And if you know Mennonites, you can imagine the lovely four part harmony we fall into... Especially if both Aubrey and Wendy are there, since they are both more musically educated and inclined than the rest of us. Aubrey was in town this weekend, but she missed out on Wednesday night, and really wanted a chance to sing Christmas songs. We went for a walk on Sunday night (she headed back Monday) down to the plaza central where an orchestra and choir from one of the poorest barrios in the city was performing parts of Handel's Messiah in the Cathedral. Although even I could hear the imperfections in the execution of this music, it nearly moved me to tears just because it brought me so close to home, I could feel it in my chest. Aubrey and I couldn't help but join in on the "and he shall reigns". Afterward, we walked all the way to the cathedral and back to MCC singing Christmas songs in the empty streets of Santa Cruz, Aubrey singing alto and me with the soprano parts (mostly cause I can't harmonize. That makes me only half-Mennonite). It was lovely to be able to sing together, however strange it is to sing in English in public, late at night, I think it was strange and wonderful. There weren't that many people, and in any case,everyone stares at two gringas walking down the street: might as well give them something to stare at.

(Me and Stephen. We're pretty much models. I sunburned that day. If you can't tell.)

Here are also some pics of my kids from the Biblioteca and the kids from the Children's Home from when we had a day camp style end of the year thing about a month ago.