Christmas in Moro Moro

Hello everyone, and Merry Christmas!
Well, it happened. Internet in Moro Moro is officially a thing of the past. The nearest working station is in Vallegrande (where we are now), a two-hour drive away. It´s amazing how strange it feels to not have the world at our fingertips just a short walk from the house. However, we´re not complaining, because this holiday season we´ve already received a half dozen calls from family to make sure we know that lots of people wish us a Merry Christmas. No doubt those calls were expensive, so we are extremely thankful to be in contact during the holidays.
Christmas in Moro Moro started Christmas Eve. Before that day, we had seen hardly any decorations, seen hardly any visitors in town, and heard hardly anyone talking about the holiday. There wasn´t even a tantalizing display of Christmas candy at the tienda! Due to this lack of external cues that we should be celebrating, we decided to get things started ourselves. We made a bunch of cookies, wrapped them in pretty paper and ribbon, and went to the homes of all the people we´ve met so far to deliver them. This process started the morning before Christmas Eve, and is still not completed. This is because every cookie delivery is accompanied by a 2-hour chat, which, if not adequate to boost our Christmas spirit, at least started to put us in a celebratory mood.
The first official festivity was a Christmas Eve mass at the Catholic church. The mass actually lasts from 9 to midnight, then most of the folks go home to a big family dinner after the service. We showed up at 9 (silly gringos), and the service started at about 9:30 with the singing of Christmas carols. Our favorite was Gloria en Excelsis Deo, which apparently has about 20 verses. It was our favorite because the chorus is the same everywhere, and we sang along all 20 times it came up as loudly as we could. I also noticed that most of the people didn´t know all the words to the songs and would kind of mumble the words they missed, so I started doing the same thing and was surprised to find myself not embarrased at all! We skipped out of the service early to attend a dinner in the house of a family that has been extra nice to us. That late at night, we were having trouble communicating in Spanish, so mostly what we enjoyed was the food and being around people who cared about us.
We woke up Christmas morning to booming and banging in the streets. Apparently all the kids spend their Christmas money on firecrackers, and the best place to shoot them off is in the ravine right by our house. We ate papaya for breakfast (a little too tropical to feel normal, but delicious nonetheless), then I opened my present from Andy. He got me a basketball so we can get some games going on the high school court. The only ball he could find with air in it has a giant picture of a nameless, angry-looking player dribbling on it. Kind of weird to put a basketball player on a basketball, but whatever. We had a big lunch, then hung out doing a puzzle with some of the neighborhood kids who kept wandering in our front door. More than twice I had to play the mean-lady and tell them to get out of my house with their lighters and bottle rockets, but it was fun anyway.
Christmas evening, one guy in town threw a huge party for about half the people in town (we haven´t figured out who gets invited and who doesn´t, but we were invited, so we went!). There was lots of loud music, food, dancing, and (too much) drinking. The host and a few friends kept coming around trying to pour us glasses, but we would just sip a little and offer the rest to the person next to us. I bet Andy said the word "poquito" ("just a little bit") about 30 times. He managed to drag me out onto the dance floor exactly one time, and I guess I can admit it was fun. We´re not sure what to do about drinking and dancing yet, so we didn´t want to overdo anything. It seems that about most of the people we meet think it´s great, and even culturally required, that we participate, but there are others that are against things of that sort, so we´re trying to balance that somehow.
All in all, it was a very festive day. However, I realized how tied to external factors (presence of family, favorite foods, certain decorations) that my feelings about Christmas are. I´m not sure what we´re learning from this experience yet, but it certainly has something to do with the realization that God --and the reasons that we celebrate things he´s done--should not be tied in our minds to places, people, customs, or culture (and certainly not to tiny Snickers bars with Christmas trees on them, which always put me in the Christmas spirit). We haven´t figured all these feelings out yet, but I guess you could say we´re thankful for the chance to do something different. Even so, I miss you all!! And I miss snow, and our family and friends, and everything!! Until next time - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Hey Friends,


Well, it finally happened. The internet joint in Moro Moro closed it´s doors. It seems the advent of cell phones has dropped the traffic to the internet-based phone service, and there´s not enough traffic to keep the doors open for just the computer users. It´s now a 90 minute drive by moto (much more by truck or bus) to find internet. All this as I´m trying to finish up thesis work - I´ve got a Jan 11 deadline. I have submitted my final revision, we´ll see what they say...


But there´s good news! We´ve figured out how to call our cell ophone with Skype, so if you´d like to call us, it´s super simple, and only $.17 per minute. Donñt try calling from your phone at home without some sort of calling card - my brother and I had a nice conversation at over $2 per minute!

So, if you want to call and deliver a Christmas (or post-Chrismas, really, anytime) greeting, we´d love to hear from you!

If calling from skype (http://www.skype.com/) - make sure you ahve some $ on your account.
Click "call phones"
Use the drop-down box to find Bolivia (+591)
Enter our phone number - 73692060
Click "call"
Enjoy how much the world has shrunk with technology.

After a month of being on assignment, we actually accomplished some real work. We´ve certainly done lots of relationship building, learning, and talking, but boy does it feel good to have mixed and poured some cement and seen a physical object as our completed work. A big thanks to Brian and Krista, the previous workers for getting the ball rolling on this project. With the help of the owner and an albanil (is it the same word in English?? Bricklayer maybe) we poured a toma (water intake structure) and built a brick structure to hold sand as a filter. The location is at the Don Ephrain´s orchard, so his family and workers can enjoy water that doesn´t contain pesticide run-off, and doesn´t have dead rats floating and frogs swimming in the tank. They currently drink out of an irrigation pond - not good. Here´s pictures of constructing the toma.



As always, thank you all for your prayers, words of encouragement, and support. We´re definitely feeling the distance from family, friends, and all things familiar as we get into the Christmas spirit here. Until now, there has been a bigger focus on the high school graduation than Christmas. The graduation fiesta was last night, so now we can really get into the Spirit. I´m searching for Christmas videos here - tough to find.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Andy

More video - coming home to Moro Moro

Ok, so we had some fun that day playing with the digital camera. At least we spared you having to watch the videos of Cassie yelling at me as she tried to turn a corner while I was looking through the viewfinder instead of paying attention to put my weight where she wanted it.

We have enjoyed 4 wonderful days in Santa Cruz, including the MCC Christmas party and having luch with our host family from a month ago when we were here getting language classes. We might be out of contact for a while. We keep hearing that the internet cafe is shutting down, but so far we´re 2 weeks past their original day for closing an they´re still open. We´ll keep updating when we have the chance. Merry Christmas to all!!

Andy

Hello again!

Here is a tour of our house in Moro Moro. Isn't technology incredible! Come hang out with us for a little while at our place!

Hi friends and family!
All is well here in Bolivia. We are staying wet and muddy, as it's the start of the rainy season, but are otherwise healthy and starting to feel a bit more settled. Andy filmed a video of our morning commute the other day. It should give you a good idea of what our little world here looks like. Enjoy! And happy holidays to all!

Photos from Thanksgiving

Marcinio - our Thanksgiving host.

We played too late chatting with family on Thanksgiving, and didn´t get the photos posted. Yes - Skype works here in our village - for now... We have learned the internet cafe is shutting down. We´re hoping to find a way to stay connected, but updates may be a bit less often for a while or from here on out.

A delicious and simple meal, enjoyed with a smile.

Cassie enjoying the relaxing day and ahard-boiled egg. It´s always a treat to meet the chicken who lent it´s offspring for your dinner.

Cassie rounding the las corner to the house after riding 20 minutes in a downpour wearing jeans and t-shirt.

Thanks for watching!

Andy