I´ve got extra time today.

Because, apparently, the bolivian trufi-taxi drivers decided that it was time to have a strike. I guess it happens every once in a while, maybe like. Every year or so, but when they decide to do it, it has quite an effect on the productivity of their society. I´d say like. 50 to 51% of the vehicles here are some sort of trufi or public transport. Apparently there is some sort of law that went into place that the trufi drivers don´t like. So they decided to go on strike for 2 days. I called the orphanage this morning and the director was like. Don´t worry. There´s no transport. But the interesting thing is that this strike means that they take all their trufis and block all the roads. I´ve got like. 2 pictures of it, but I don´t want to do anything to tick off the angry trufi drivers in mass, so i´m scared to take more photos. Apparently, in certain places they will light fires in the intersections and throw rocks at like. Taxi drivers, (who are trying to make a killing when there are no trufis taking people everywhere). So, for that reason, I´m a little scared to just like blatantly take pictures about it. And today is a little more interesting, because there are trucks of policemen driving around and motorcycle gangs of policemen going around with shotguns. which isn´t really rare, but they are just doing it in mass today. So, if the trufi drivers don´t get what they want, I´ll have nothing to do tomorrow. I did make the 45 minute walk into downtown today. I was wearing a gray shirt. It´s about 80 degrees out. It was visibly nasty.

What else is new with my life. I still have not been able to go to the yuquis. And it´s still up in the air whether i will or not. Because in the lower lands, it has been raining a ton. I think i mentioned the flooding earlier, and it hasn´t really subsided where the yuquis are living, and i think the river is still a bit difficult to navigate. So I´m really hoping that it...subsides. So i can go, because. I want to. One of the elder yuquis passed away last week from something preventable. I´m not sure what it was, but apparently it was pretty preventable, but no one could get in or out to give him any treatment. so he died. Which sucks. So for that reason I´m still not able to go there.

At the orphanage I had my first real experience with baby diarrhea. It was the nastiest thing I have ever experienced. The kid smelled. So I carried him into the room where the babies get changed. Upon picking him up, i realized that his pants were damp. After laying him down, I smelled my arm. And gagged. It was so bad. I rinsed my arm off and then went to the business of changing bladdy. I pulled down his pants to see that the liquid poo had leaked out of his diaper. Down his leg. Onto his socks. I know that babies legs aren´t very long, but the fact that it leaked all the way down to his feet was just incredible. It was so terrible. One of the other tias came in and was like.¨woohhhhhhhh bladdy, what did you dddooooooooooooooooooo!?!?¨. It was really terrible.

I rode in a volkswagen turtle (beetle) driven by a man named ChiChi. No lie. I only thought that was a made up name for a restaurant. But his name actually is chichi. Half way home, we stopped for an emergency. His little daughter had to pee. So his wife set her out of the car, pulled down her pants, and she peed. Right on the street. Then we continued home. There is no room in the back of those things. Like. The way that girls sit on the ground when they are wearing a dress is the way i had to sit, because there was literally no way for me to put my feet in front of me between my seat and chichi´s. So i had to put my feet to the side. I never knew how little it was inside of those things.

Last weekend, we visited the world´s largest statue of Christ. It was big. and you get to climb inside of him! But the staircase stopped at like. His armpits. So i was able to climb to the armpits of the world´s largest statue of Christ. And at the entrance of the Cristo, there was a plaque from pope john paul commemorating the Cristo. So that was thrilling.
We also went the palace of some really really rich dead guy. I don´t really remember his name, but he had a tttooonnnn of money because he owned a ton of mines. During like the 40´s or something he was among the 10 richest men in the world, and so he decided to build a huge house to show how rich he was. He´s even got like a 5 meter statue of a condor in his garden. Yeah, kind of like the marble elephant in Lucky. But bigger. But the interesting thing was that this house is like massive ginormous humungous. And he never got to live in it. When he was building it, he had a heart attack. And then wasn´t able to return to cochabamba after his heart attack due to business or health, or whatever else. So there is this absolutely massive house sitting there that no one has ever lived in before. It was like the ultimate lesson in storing up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. Or, moreso, of the man with the barns who built more barns. but then had his life demanded of him. So he wasn´t even able to use what was in his barns.

I still hate doing laundry by hand in sinks. You have no idea how nice it is to have a washing machine and dryer. It´s incredible.

I´m not sure what else I´ve got. There are certain things here that are easier and certain that are harder. In a couple weeks, my schedule is going to change a lot and I´m also going to be spending 7 hours a day at the orphanage, half of it with the 11 kids, and the other half of that with like 23 kids. So i´m a little concerned for how that´s going to affect me. sometimes it´s difficult to walk in the spirit with kids that not only don´t listen to you, but do the exact opposite because it seems fun, and then get all of the other kids to do the same thing. Because that´s even more fun. So that is something to pray for. I guess also that I would just be able to consistently follow Jesus in whatever situation i´m in, and that I would learn to deny myself. And that I would just listen to the Spirit and what he has for me, whether it´s easy or hard.

I think that´s most of what´s going on in my life. Eric, I´m not sure about any of my paradigm shifts, but I have finished the Shack, so that should have changed them. Right¿ It was actually pretty good.

That´s pretty much it for now. I know more happens in my life but I can never really seem to recall it when I´m sitting in the internet cafe.

I love you guys, whoever happens to read this.
You´re wonderful and i miss you.

P.S. we did not feel the earthquake.