Because I don´t have as many stories of me making an idiot out of myself.
But that´s besides the point. I´m still working at the orphanange. Which is good. It´s really hard sometimes but i still think it´s good for me. A group of us are going to the orphanage to day from the church to work with the kids and do some like. figner painting birthday things for the kids. It will be...interesting. The kids can´t eat without getting everything all over the place everwhere, so i´m only assuming about the finger paint. But it should be good.
We went to a Bolivia Christian camp. It was 4 days long. Really long. And we slept on the floor, so there wasn´t much sleeping. And all the kids spoke in slang and really quickly and were pretty much all like 14 or 15 years old, so it was sort of difficult to relate to...any of them. So for those 4 days, i was pretty much on my own. Which, as a result, I didn´t have a very good attitude. But the ironic part is that i managed to win, as far as i can tell, something along the lines of like...the person with the best attitude. It was sort of funny, because. well. It couldn´t be true. But I sort of think they wanted to give me a t-shirt. So I got a t-shirt, which i was severely coveting the whole time we were there. Who doesn´t want a t-shirt from a bolivian camp? So I was happy about that.
I would say my favorite part of the camp was translating text messages from one particular kid named Junior. For some reason, he has some girlfriend that speaks english. But her english is not good english. Quite bad. The texts usually said something along the lines of like, ¨tell me you love me. don´t kiss any other girls. I know you will me want to be in my dreams of you tonight¨. And other things like that. I can´t remember other ones, but they were all along those lines, and it was reall fun to translate that into spanish for him and what him sort of be like...¨uhhh.....¨.
What else. Oh yeah. I don´t think I´ve mentioned this. We managed to come to bolivia in the middle of this thing called ¨carnival¨. This basically means that people burn some sort of offerings to the devil, do dances to the devil, and other things in order to please the devil in the hopes that they won´t be cursed by him. It´s sort of crazy. it´s from like..the remnants of the incan culture. And it´s like 2 months of celebration. ¨celebration¨. Apparently they sacrifice llamas, and like. Someone told me that Evo, the president here sacrificed a baby when he became president. And him and the vice president drank the blood of the baby that was sacrificed. I´m seriously having a difficult time figuring out whether or not this actually happened. So if someone wants to check in on it for me, that would be helpful. But either way, it´s crazy. And also, somewhere in the worship of the devil, this means that they also whip waterballoons everywhere, at everyone. The day we got back from the camp, my family happened to not be home. And I don´t ahve keys, so I couldn´t get in. So I launched my stuff over the fence and walked out to the intersection taht I usually pick up a trufi to go by Jackie´s house. But apparently trufi´s dont run during certain days of carnival, and this was like a special holiday. And there were not many taxis. So i waited at this intersection for like 45 minutes while i got waterballons thrown at me from all 4 corners of the intersection, a little kid with a squirt gun shooting me from his yard, and while 3 or 4 trucks drove past filled with people in the back for the sole purpose of throwing water balloons at people. I finally got into the first taxi that drove past, 45 minutes later with a old fat bald bolivian smoking a cigaretted, and just sort of prayed, ¨God, let me stay alive¨. (Because the taxi service I call apparnetly was not operating on that day, either). It was fun. I showed up totally soaked at Jackie´s house like an hour later.
Um. What more. There´s a crazy Australian lady named Phoebe that´s a missionary here. She moved here from Australia like 45 years ago, not knowing anything about Bolivia. She just got on a boat with all of her stuff, and came to bolivia because she wanted to be a missionary. I´ve gotten to talk to her quite a bit, and helped her re-organize her house last night. I´m trying to imagine what that would be like. 1964 she left australia to start a new life in bolivia. Like, especially back then. I feel like the world was a lot bigger before the internet. And air travel being common. this is before my mom was born. Crazy. So she´s been living here and becoming bolivian for the last 45 years. That thought wasn´t organzied, but it´s fine.
I´m molting like a snake right now. I think i took too much sun. It´s pretty disgusting. My arms have almost completely peeled. And a layer or two of skin on my ears as well.
Um. I know i´ve had interesting encounters, but I can´t remember them. Especially because I haevn´t gotten online in two weeks, so I´m overloading my brain.
English is starting to become difficlt sometimes. I use spanish syntax when i speak english. Or i just completely mess it up. but I still completely mess up spanish, so I´m not really getting anywhere.
Out of time. There´s more i know that´s going on, but that´s fine.
Love!
7.2.10
More things in Bolivia.
So. I still love the country. And i´m sitting in an internet cafe next to a guy just jamming out to his Michael Jackson. bad. smooth criminal. the works.
anyways.
I´m about as red as a lobster. And it really hurts. But I guess that´s worth it. Because I got to go to the mountain park thing "Pirumani". Don´t ask me what it means or anything, i think it´s some sort of Amayran or Kechua name. Which are the names of different indigenous groups in Bolivia.
This was probably the coolest place I´ve ever seen in my life. Like no lie. After we got a little lost, and wandered past probably like 30 cows, (which they just tie to a stake in athe ground, and let them graze...even just along the roads. They just stand on the shoulder of the roads eating whatever...weird) we finally got to the top of this plateau. And this comparatively little plateau was definitely taller than anythaing we have in wisconsin. So it was pretty awesome to be able to look down from this plateau onto cochabamba, looking down off of this like...200 foot sheer cliff down to the river below. It was sweet. And then we noticed a pack of alpacas or llamas or some other sort of mountain dwelling animal, and we watched them go from the moauntain to the valley.For like a half hour. I´m not sure why, but it was intriguiging to watch like 20 llamas and a boy wandering around the mountain to go to the river to drink, or do whatever llamas or alpacas do. (p.s. this keyboard has like. cigarette burn holes in it and a bunch of the keys are broken. that´s my excuse for the spelling errors).
So then after that, we walked through this underground tunnel, and when we came out the other side, we could see this waterfall in the distance. The people here considered it a little one. It was definitely the bigget one i´ve ever seen.a So we walked along this cliff side trail to the water fall, and got to sort of play in the rapids a little bit. Which was amazing. The water was so crisp and clear. Which felt really really good on the really hot day. I took a drink of it--i´m pretty sure that water is a lot better to drink than the tap water here. At least I haven´t gotten sick yet since I drank that water. So then we went up a little further to, what was then the 2nd largest waterfall i´ve ever seen. It was a little smaller than the first, but relatively calm. So I got to walk under it. Or more so in it. It was kind of like being at the water park in six flags where that big bucket of water dumps on you in the kiddy area....except constantly. It was pretty awesome.
And then after that, I did, what I think might be one of the stupidest things I´ve done. Jackie things it was fridge sledding, but I think this wins.
So, they take some of the water from this river and they pipe it...somewhere. I don´t know where, or what for..maybe irrigation or something. But anyways, this water happens to pass through a tunnel. It´s maybe... I don´t know...a quarter of a mile? Maybe less. Maybe more. It was a lot longer than it intially appeared, because it was straight. And I could see light at the other side. So, Jackie, Kattya and I decided that we wanted to go through the tunnel. Because it would be cool to do. So we were going through the tunnel, and we got maybe. I don´t know, a quarter of the way through and i´m like. Oh crap. Bats. I don´t like bats. So. We turned around and went back out the way we came in because...we decided bats were not a good thing to try to crawl through.
So, as we were leaving, there was another group of people, like a family that were going into the cave. We were like, hay murcealagos!...which means, there are bats. They were unphased, and still decided they wanted to go in. So we left, and walked maybe 5 minutes. This is when kattya decided that she really wanted to go through the tunnela. I didn´t. But she did. So Kattya and I turned around to enter into the bat tunnel, while Jackie went to the other side to wait for us. As we got to the tunnel, the other people had decided that there were too many bats. So we waited for them to get out, and we dropped in.
This tunnel is less than 5 feet tall. And probably had about a foot of water in it. and about 3 feet wide. So that left 4 feet of space for us and the flying bats.
So, as soon as we enter the tunnel, I can see about 2 or 3 bats flying around in the tunnel. And as we start going, it just looks like there are 2 or 3 bats.. maybe a couple more. Then, we get about half way, and the number of bats are steadily increasing. The further we go, it seems like the morae we wake up. And the more wake up, the more the others wake up. And, they do not seem to like to go near us, so they just get more and more dense. Once in a while, I´d see the reflection from the water above my head on the roof of the tunnel. Until I realize there´s not really any light to be reflected. The bats are flying above my head.
I´m freaking out, because I don´t like bats. Kattya just closed her eyes and kept saying, "God, you made bats. Keep them away from us please!!!!". The closer we get to the end, the more bats are flying around, like just inches off the water. At my face. And then flying up like when they are super close. I already had my plan--i was going completely undaer water to get the bat off of me if one happened to hit me. I was already on my elbows and knees crawling, as to give the bats as much room as possible. When we were lik 50 feet from the end, there was at a minimum of 20 bats just whipping around the tunnel, because, apparently, they really do not like the light. And when I could see in the light, I could see them just dropping...guano...everywhere. When we got to like the...15 or 20 feet mark, I decided it was just time to go for it. So we just dropped our heads and sprinted, as well as yoau can on all 4´s out of the cave. I didn´t see it, because i had my head down, but Jackie said that a cloud of bats exploded out of the tunnel with us. So. I didn´t get bit. But i was probably covered in bat poop. So that´s more experience with fecal matter for me.
That was a really long story. And probably doesn´t sound as exciting as it was for me. But it was.
My family is fun. My little brother and i were doing some sort of wrestling. I called him a little girl, but he said that he was valliant. I said if he was valliant, then I´m santa clause. He´s been calling me Papa Noel since.
Um. Also, I´ve been letting my brothers use Jack, my iPod. It was sort of a shock to me, because I had to teach them how to use an ipod. How to turn it on, how to find the music, how to play a song, and how to pick something else. And how to turn it off. It took me by suprise, because we take stuff like that for granted. Everyone has an ipod. Everyone knows how to use one. It´s common knowledge. Nope. It was sort of a wake up call. Not everyone in the world has as much money as I do. And I am so often blind to that. But it´s a good lesson.
The orphanage has been going well. Mostly. They are little kids though, and they don´t like toget put in a time out. So as a result, I got called Tio Caca the other day. Uncle Poop. They thought it was funny. I thought it was too, but I don´t think it would have been very good if i laughed at their nickname for me. At least when they were in time out.
This will only make sense to the people of Harvey´s Halfway House and a few others. I was riding in a trufi to church yesterday, and the trufi driver had a Triple H air freshner in it. I really wanted to buy it off of him, but only had 50 centavos. One Fourteenth of a dollar. And the trufi was really really full and really really busy. So i passed on the conversation of asking the driver to buy an air freshner from him because I knew it wouldn´t go smoothly and decided not to keep the other 20 people on the trufi. Sorry guys.
I´ve spent so much time talking about stuff, I haven´t really shared anything meaningful. And now i´ve only got 4 more minutes. 3. But I have been learning a lot. And it´s been really good. Difficult at times, painful at times, but overall good. And I know that.
And. There´s been like a ridiculous amount of rain in Santa Cruz. which is another city in Bolivia. And there´s been problems with food and people haven´t been very happy about it. There´s been a few problems with that in Cochabamba too--like lack of natural gas and food too in some places. I haven´t been affected by it, but when there´s problems in the same country--the same city as you. It hits home a little more. So if you could be prayin for that situation, it´d be good. I´m sure there´s something on google news if you search cochabamba or bolivia or santa cruz or something along those lines if you´re interested.
Thanks all & Love!
kyle
anyways.
I´m about as red as a lobster. And it really hurts. But I guess that´s worth it. Because I got to go to the mountain park thing "Pirumani". Don´t ask me what it means or anything, i think it´s some sort of Amayran or Kechua name. Which are the names of different indigenous groups in Bolivia.
This was probably the coolest place I´ve ever seen in my life. Like no lie. After we got a little lost, and wandered past probably like 30 cows, (which they just tie to a stake in athe ground, and let them graze...even just along the roads. They just stand on the shoulder of the roads eating whatever...weird) we finally got to the top of this plateau. And this comparatively little plateau was definitely taller than anythaing we have in wisconsin. So it was pretty awesome to be able to look down from this plateau onto cochabamba, looking down off of this like...200 foot sheer cliff down to the river below. It was sweet. And then we noticed a pack of alpacas or llamas or some other sort of mountain dwelling animal, and we watched them go from the moauntain to the valley.For like a half hour. I´m not sure why, but it was intriguiging to watch like 20 llamas and a boy wandering around the mountain to go to the river to drink, or do whatever llamas or alpacas do. (p.s. this keyboard has like. cigarette burn holes in it and a bunch of the keys are broken. that´s my excuse for the spelling errors).
So then after that, we walked through this underground tunnel, and when we came out the other side, we could see this waterfall in the distance. The people here considered it a little one. It was definitely the bigget one i´ve ever seen.a So we walked along this cliff side trail to the water fall, and got to sort of play in the rapids a little bit. Which was amazing. The water was so crisp and clear. Which felt really really good on the really hot day. I took a drink of it--i´m pretty sure that water is a lot better to drink than the tap water here. At least I haven´t gotten sick yet since I drank that water. So then we went up a little further to, what was then the 2nd largest waterfall i´ve ever seen. It was a little smaller than the first, but relatively calm. So I got to walk under it. Or more so in it. It was kind of like being at the water park in six flags where that big bucket of water dumps on you in the kiddy area....except constantly. It was pretty awesome.
And then after that, I did, what I think might be one of the stupidest things I´ve done. Jackie things it was fridge sledding, but I think this wins.
So, they take some of the water from this river and they pipe it...somewhere. I don´t know where, or what for..maybe irrigation or something. But anyways, this water happens to pass through a tunnel. It´s maybe... I don´t know...a quarter of a mile? Maybe less. Maybe more. It was a lot longer than it intially appeared, because it was straight. And I could see light at the other side. So, Jackie, Kattya and I decided that we wanted to go through the tunnel. Because it would be cool to do. So we were going through the tunnel, and we got maybe. I don´t know, a quarter of the way through and i´m like. Oh crap. Bats. I don´t like bats. So. We turned around and went back out the way we came in because...we decided bats were not a good thing to try to crawl through.
So, as we were leaving, there was another group of people, like a family that were going into the cave. We were like, hay murcealagos!...which means, there are bats. They were unphased, and still decided they wanted to go in. So we left, and walked maybe 5 minutes. This is when kattya decided that she really wanted to go through the tunnela. I didn´t. But she did. So Kattya and I turned around to enter into the bat tunnel, while Jackie went to the other side to wait for us. As we got to the tunnel, the other people had decided that there were too many bats. So we waited for them to get out, and we dropped in.
This tunnel is less than 5 feet tall. And probably had about a foot of water in it. and about 3 feet wide. So that left 4 feet of space for us and the flying bats.
So, as soon as we enter the tunnel, I can see about 2 or 3 bats flying around in the tunnel. And as we start going, it just looks like there are 2 or 3 bats.. maybe a couple more. Then, we get about half way, and the number of bats are steadily increasing. The further we go, it seems like the morae we wake up. And the more wake up, the more the others wake up. And, they do not seem to like to go near us, so they just get more and more dense. Once in a while, I´d see the reflection from the water above my head on the roof of the tunnel. Until I realize there´s not really any light to be reflected. The bats are flying above my head.
I´m freaking out, because I don´t like bats. Kattya just closed her eyes and kept saying, "God, you made bats. Keep them away from us please!!!!". The closer we get to the end, the more bats are flying around, like just inches off the water. At my face. And then flying up like when they are super close. I already had my plan--i was going completely undaer water to get the bat off of me if one happened to hit me. I was already on my elbows and knees crawling, as to give the bats as much room as possible. When we were lik 50 feet from the end, there was at a minimum of 20 bats just whipping around the tunnel, because, apparently, they really do not like the light. And when I could see in the light, I could see them just dropping...guano...everywhere. When we got to like the...15 or 20 feet mark, I decided it was just time to go for it. So we just dropped our heads and sprinted, as well as yoau can on all 4´s out of the cave. I didn´t see it, because i had my head down, but Jackie said that a cloud of bats exploded out of the tunnel with us. So. I didn´t get bit. But i was probably covered in bat poop. So that´s more experience with fecal matter for me.
That was a really long story. And probably doesn´t sound as exciting as it was for me. But it was.
My family is fun. My little brother and i were doing some sort of wrestling. I called him a little girl, but he said that he was valliant. I said if he was valliant, then I´m santa clause. He´s been calling me Papa Noel since.
Um. Also, I´ve been letting my brothers use Jack, my iPod. It was sort of a shock to me, because I had to teach them how to use an ipod. How to turn it on, how to find the music, how to play a song, and how to pick something else. And how to turn it off. It took me by suprise, because we take stuff like that for granted. Everyone has an ipod. Everyone knows how to use one. It´s common knowledge. Nope. It was sort of a wake up call. Not everyone in the world has as much money as I do. And I am so often blind to that. But it´s a good lesson.
The orphanage has been going well. Mostly. They are little kids though, and they don´t like toget put in a time out. So as a result, I got called Tio Caca the other day. Uncle Poop. They thought it was funny. I thought it was too, but I don´t think it would have been very good if i laughed at their nickname for me. At least when they were in time out.
This will only make sense to the people of Harvey´s Halfway House and a few others. I was riding in a trufi to church yesterday, and the trufi driver had a Triple H air freshner in it. I really wanted to buy it off of him, but only had 50 centavos. One Fourteenth of a dollar. And the trufi was really really full and really really busy. So i passed on the conversation of asking the driver to buy an air freshner from him because I knew it wouldn´t go smoothly and decided not to keep the other 20 people on the trufi. Sorry guys.
I´ve spent so much time talking about stuff, I haven´t really shared anything meaningful. And now i´ve only got 4 more minutes. 3. But I have been learning a lot. And it´s been really good. Difficult at times, painful at times, but overall good. And I know that.
And. There´s been like a ridiculous amount of rain in Santa Cruz. which is another city in Bolivia. And there´s been problems with food and people haven´t been very happy about it. There´s been a few problems with that in Cochabamba too--like lack of natural gas and food too in some places. I haven´t been affected by it, but when there´s problems in the same country--the same city as you. It hits home a little more. So if you could be prayin for that situation, it´d be good. I´m sure there´s something on google news if you search cochabamba or bolivia or santa cruz or something along those lines if you´re interested.
Thanks all & Love!
kyle
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