I made it!

I made it to Bolivia. After something like 26 hours of travelling, with a 6 or 7 hour layover in the incredibly hot city of Santa Cruz, where I had my first experience with agua con gas. Carbonated water was all they had--and it was terrible. (After I finally got to my family, I was pleased to find out that they much prefer agua sin gas. Normal water.) I don´t really know where to start with this. Traveling was a completely new experience for me. I haven´t been on a plane since I was like 7 years old, therefore my first trip out of the country to a place that doesn´t speak my language was definitely an experience. After we got on the plane from Miami to Santa Cruz, it sort of hit me then. There was practically no english spoken on the plane, and I wasn´t going to be speaking a lot of english from there on out. It gave me this unsettled feeling when I finally began to contemplate, "how on earth am I going to be able to communicate with these people, without driving them nuts in the process?"

But. So far it´s been great. My family is incredibly nice. Very soft spoken, (which apparently is common of Bolivianos), but they are some of the nicest people i know. By the 2nd day, I was already feeling like I was truly a part of the family. My dad´s name is Pastor Jesus, and my mom´s name is Silvia. I´ve got 4 brothers, but only 3 of them are living at home right now. The three brothers I live with are Samuel (22), Pedro (16) and Jorge(9). The other brother, Daniel(20) is doing some sort of mission work in Argentine, or with Argentine people (at lest from what I can gather. I could be way off.)

The missions coordinator, Kattya, is a super friendly person. She also knows a bit of english, which is very helpful when she´s around. Which, now, is not a ton. But it is a lot easier to communicate in half broken english\spanish when we can help each other out a bit, versus when I´m with my family and simply have to struggle to explain all of the things I didn´t learn in high school spanish. Which is a lot.

I have no idea how to describe the city. At the same time, it´s the craziest and the most laid back thing I´ve ever seen. The traffic is nuts. They have 3 ¨lanes¨of traffic where we´d have one or 2 in the states. And the lanes don´t really mean anything. People are all over the place. I´m relatively far from the main bases, so everywhere I go is on a ¨microbus¨, which is public transport. They fit about 20 people in smaller than a 15 passenger van, and just zoom around the town on certain routes. I have no idea how anyone knows what routes they take, because there is no maps or anything. People just seem to know. And they don´t have microbus stops. You just say, "en le esquina por favor" (at the corner) or wherever you want to stop. And you don´t get on a stops, you jut hail it, sort of like a pseudo taxi. The first day, mi hermano pedro and i were going to the mission base, and we crossed in the middle of the street (as does everyone) and a car flashed his lights at us and beeped his horn. He then slowed down and stared at us. I thought he was upset (because we crossed in the middle of the road, or something). Nope, he just wanted us to get in his taxi. There are no stopsigns. You just beep the horn near an intersection. There are stoplights. But they aren´t very important if there aren´t many cars around. People sort of slow down, and then go through the red. And through all of the chaos on the road, nobody seems to get upset when driving. They just expect it, and it´s common. And I haven´t seen one accident yet. I don´t understand how it works. I guess the people actually pay attention when they drive here.

I don´t even know what to talk about, because there is so much. It was almost too much to take in at first The buildings are beautiful and incredibly varied. There are people here that are like 100% indigenous, but at the same time, the person next to me in the internet cafe is listening to Daughtry or something and is on facebook. But the person next to him is listening to some mariachi music. My house is nestled at the foot of the mountain that goes up to the hill with "Cristo de la Concordia". There are mountains everywhere, and they are BEAUTIFUL. The weather is perfect. Every day, it´s been 70-75 degrees, either partly cloudy or sunny, and the nights have been about 45 or 50.

I think I´m running out of time here, so I´ve got to go soon. This cafe actually isn´t terribly far from my house, so I should be able to stop in here from time to time to update things.

There is a ton more that I´ve got to say, but I can´t.

I love you guys, and please keep praying. Thanks for everything.
Adios!