Day 79

DR Day 9 (Saturday): The main thing I don't like about blogging is I don't know how honest to be. :) I mean, anyone in the world with internet can read this. But if you know me, you also know I tend to be WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get. Not all the time, but a lot. With that in mind, I hated being here Saturday. The group was gone. The missionaries were gone. The power from the city was down. The generator wasn't working. It was hot/humid. Nothing to do. I didn't see it coming, but all I could think about was what I could be doing if I was at home and how bad I had it here.

Long story short, the missionaries came back. The power came on. I realized how much I was just feeling sorry for myself. Did take the opportunity to make these mental lists:

What I Miss-
* Sal and Carson
* Consistent electricity/water
* Yo querro Taco Bell
* Ease of communication
* Drinking from a faucet
* Sweet tea, milk, cereal, BBQs
* Cadie, our Terrier

What I Don't Miss-
* Cell phone
* TV (OK, its not football season so I can put this down)
* Pressure for "more" ("More" anything- money, things, keeping up with the Jones)
* The pace of American life

What I Like Here-
* The food
* The friendships
* The sun
* The lizards
* The beach

But all in all, I'll be ready to go home next weekend and ready to be back at Church. Can't replace my families- First fam being Sal & Carson and second fam being everyone at Church.

DR Day 10 (Sunday): Went to Central Mennonite Church at 9. Service lasted till 11:30. Couldn't understand everything, but I know the Pastor spoke out of Revelation about everything we do being worship. Then the kids did a recap of their week at Bible School. The country of focus was Ecuador. They recounted the story of Jim Elliot and how he gave his life to reach the tribes there. For each day of the week they had a kid get up and share what the Bible story was. Focus was the early life of David and his relationships with Saul and Jonathan.

This afternoon played basketball with the older guys. A lot like noonball in Hesston, but not quite as organized. They had some guys that could play pretty good.

Couple random stories before I go:

LIZARDS- They are like squirrels around here. They chase after each other. Jump from tree to tree. The missionaries' dog chases after them like our Cadie gets fired up about squirrels. Main difference is the dog can catch lizards. Cadie hasn't caught a squirrel...yet.

DOLL- Last week one of the gals on the medical team bought a stuffed doll from a local merchant. She had been told to microwave the doll to make sure it didn't have bugs in it. After microwaving the doll, she took it back to her room. Shortly after, someone was walking by the room and smelled smoke and looked in. She microwaved the doll for a minute and the stuffing in the middle started on fire. Now that's a hot babe.

TRANSLATORS- It is so cool to come back to San Juan and see the translators from previous years. Some of these guys are language professors (French & English) at the the Christian School. They work with the mission to continue to improve their conversational English. And they return the favor by helping us with our Spanish.

L to R - Moises (Joshua's brother), Olvis, Marino, and Jhonny

EXERCISE- I didn't get a picture today of the gym, but they have a pretty nice complex. The picture below is where we ran in the mornings. Rubber surface. +100 people there each day. There was a group of people that jogged slowly and would grab the walkers and "force them" to join the group. I dubbed them the "Track Bullies". One day they even took my lunch money. JK The complex also includes the gym where we played basketball and a couple baseball diamonds.

BUGS- This gets its own topic since Cassidy counted her mosquito bites last night and she has 47 from her knees down. I've got a ton too. Each night we go through the room and swat as many as possible. This afternoon I grab one out of the air with my ninja skills. Cass was very impressed. Another surprise we had took place last night when she found a wolf spider in our window sill. This comes under the topic of bugs for two reasons: #1 spiders bug Cass and #2 I talked her into letting the spider live since it eats bugs.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE- Last random topic for the day. Saturday night when everyone was gone and there was no power and I was feeling sorry for myself, Cass and I ate rice and beans at the counter. The cool part was that a lot of times at home we eat at 6:30 pm and watch Wheel as a family. Well it was about 6:30 here, so we got a sheet of paper and made up puzzles for each other. I pretended to spin the wheel (which by the way she thought I was rolling dice. Geez.) It was a ton of fun and I think is part of what turned my attitude around.