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

Thanksgiving in Bolivia

It's the day after Thanksgiving. Normally we would be enjoying family, shopping, football, turkey sandwiches, and leftover pie. Most likely we would be feeling warm, cozy, loved, grateful, and of course full. Yesterday morning we woke up in Bolivia and realized that we would have none of those things this year. In fact, the fourth Thursday of November is just another Thursday in Bolivia, and for us, a day of work awaited us. An 83-year-old man named Marciano had stopped us on our ride home the day before and asked for help finishing his latrine that had been built by our organization, but wasn't quite ready for use. We had the next day (Thursday - Thanksgiving) free, so we said we could come then. As we've already come to expect, he told us he would make us lunch.

On Thursday morning, we left the house on two motorcycles (we were carrying a load of bricks for the latrine, and one moto couldn't handle all the weight). Partway through our ride, one of the motos refused to climb a hill, and we had to leave it and go together with only half our load of bricks. Like he said he would, the old man was waiting on us, and had already started preparing lunch in his one-room, dirt-floor house. By lunch time, we had worked up an appetite laying bricks and shoveling dirt. Marciano invited us in, laid a rug on one of the brick benches lining his room, and brought us our Thanksgiving lunch: one bowl of boiled, unpeeled potatoes, a bowl with boiled corn and four hard-boiled eggs, a pitcher of sugar water, and a bag of salt. Having no table, he laid all this on the floor, and we ate with our hands while he busied himself around the room, occasionally asking us questions about our home towns, and often saying "Eat! Drink! If you're still hungry, we'll make more!" Other than the conversation, the room was completely silent, and partway through the meal, when we had potato peels and egg shells under our fingernails, we both looked at each other and couldn't help but comment on just how peaceful, simple, and satisfying the meal and our surroundings were. Due to Marciano's persistent pleas that we eat and drink as much as we wanted, we both got full.

After lunch, Andy went back to work on the latrine, and I went with our one good moto to fetch more bricks from the broken one. It was a warm, sunny day, so I was wearing pants and a short-sleeve shirt. However, by the end of the 15 minutes it took me to get back to the other moto, it was cloudy and getting cooler. I hurried to load the bike, and ended up spending a good 15 minutes loading bricks, dropping the moto while trying to turn it around, unloading the bricks so I could pick the bike up again, and then reloading the bricks a final time. Just as I got on my way, I felt raindrops, and a few minutes later, it was pouring. Within minutes, my clothes were soaked, I started shivering, and my arms turned red from the raindrops stinging my bare skin. As time went by, the dirt road got more and more slippery, and by the end I was riding in first gear with my feet down, fish-tailing into town. I arrived back at Marciano's house to find both he and Andy peering out his front door, obviously anxious for me to make it there. Andy ran to help me inside, and when I came in dripping and shivering, Marciano came out of the corner with his coat and two old, torn-up blankets. Since I had basically no other option but to sit in my wet shoes and clothes, the guys piled the blankets on, and the three of us sat in the dark room listening to the rain. After a few minutes, Marciano stood up and said, "I'll make some food," as though this was the obvious thing to do when you're stuck inside anyway. I thought about my full stomach and started to protest, but he was already pulling out potatoes and peeling. Thirty minutess later, it was still raining, we were still cold, and my feet were freezing inside our backpack (Andy's idea to keep me from having to put them on the muddy floor while I tried to let my shoes and socks dry). Marciano poured us each a huge bowl of steaming soup made from ground corn and diced potatoes. The soup had sort of a brownish, gelatinous, and not very appetizing look to it. To our surprise, however, it tasted just like popcorn, and I felt warmer right away.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. The rain stopped, we finished our work on the latrine, said our goodbyes, and headed home on muddy but passable streets. As we laid in bed that night, we couldn't help but think about the simple things that made what could have been a miserable day into a day that was pleasant, memorable, and full of reasons to give thanks: new friends, work worth doing, basic food, old blankets, a leaky mud roof, and sunshine. Thanks to all of you for thinking of us and praying for us always, and especially during the holidays.

Santa Cruz in pictures

Hello friends and family. It's been a while since we got serious about posting anything of real interest to you folks (that is, pictures). So, we devoted this weekend to a photo tour of Santa Cruz, the city that has been our home for the last month. We'll be leaving here soon to head back to Moro Moro, our little pueblo in the mountains. We've adjusted pretty well to city life, but are looking forward to more tranquil living. It's been very hot during our time here (summer is approaching, and Santa Cruz is in the lowlands), so we're also looking forward to chilling out a bit. Okay, here's a little taste of Santa Cruz:

Cassie hanging out on the yard of MCC's compound. When MCC arrived in Santa Cruz in the sixties, they built the buildings on this property, which is located just outside the first "ring" (Santa Cruz is organized in concentric rings - with the first ring being the smallest and nearest to the center. Each ring is maybe 1-2 kilometers outside the one before). At the time the compound was built, the road in front of it was unpaved, and the property was very close to the edge of town. Now, fifty years later, the radius of the city is 8 rings in some locations, and pavement is more or less constant from the center to just outside the fourth ring. Obviously, this geographic growth was accompanied by a major population boom that was (so we've heard) driven by migration from the then more densely-populated highlands of Bolivia to the lowlands, and particularly to the city of Santa Cruz. When MCC came fifty years ago, the city had a population of something like 50,000. We've heard current population estimates of over 1.5 million.

Andy and Cat, also hanging out on the MCC grounds. This is taken just in front of the Unit House, where most of our time is spent when we're on the grounds.

Cassie, suffering terribly.

The soccer field on MCC's grounds. In the background is the office of Centro Menno, the branch of MCC Bolivia that works with Low German speaking Colony Mennonites.

Andy and a really bulbous tree that I can never remember the name of.

Intersection near the indoor/outdoor market closest to MCC headquarters. In the background is a Micro, one of the buses you can hop for around 20 cents to get you around town. Some of them are shorter than this one, so us tall folks (people over like 5'6") have to crouch down for our entire ride if we don't manage to get a seat. This street, as packed as it is with people browsing the many vendors, is one of the main routes through downtown for Micros, whose drivers are quite skilled at squeezing through micro-sized openings.

Jewelry shops. Businesses here cluster together with others of their kind. So, it's normal to find 8 jewelry shops in a row followed by 8 paper shops in a row, followed by 8 fruit stands all selling the same types of fruit. This system has a lot of advantages, especially for us as newcomers. If we think one vendor's price includes a gringo tax, we know (and she knows) that we can just walk three feet and get another price quote!

Used clothing for sale. We have been amazed at the number of entrepreneurs in Santa Cruz. There seems to be widespread knowledge of how to start a business without investing much capital.

A store composed solely of things "as seen on TV." From what we can tell, the mail system wouldn't really accommodate a lot of on-line, mail-order, or TV purchases. So, some brilliant person opened a store to provide the masses with special space-saving clothes hangers and the like.

If you want to sell your house, by far the most common way to advertise your intentions is with spray paint.

A cell phone tower that someone decorated to look like a tree. We've been walking by this corner for a month and only just noticed it!

Cool statue: Andy was especially fond of this statue, as it was built out of plow parts and the like.

Newly-renovated public park. Here you can ride paddle boats, rent a three-person bicycle, and enjoy the very wild-westish murals seen in the background here.

Fence and gate typical of houses in Santa Cruz. Notice the giant spikes on the section of fence on the right, and the broken glass keeping intruders off of the section of fence on the left. EEK!

Giant house!!

Andy and Other Cat, hard at work. Which of them do you think understands more Spanish?

And...not quite so hard at work. Notice the "look, I WAS studying" pile of books next to the hammock.

Coming up next....photos from our armadillo dinner. Don't miss it!