November... come and gone

Gigi is often told she has big eyes. She wrote this alphabet sampler on a whim and I told her to smile so I could take a picture to send to Danny.

When I sent it to Danny, his response was, "Where are her eyes?" Gigi responded thus:

I also sent Danny pictures from this gardening class day with the inimitable, superwoman Kendra. We each went around her spectacular garden choosing the specimens that fancied us most and we devised a few methods of propagation to test the efficacy of the different methods on different plants...

Jasminum officinale

Lavandula angustifolia

Fragaria ananassa

Dahlia pinnata

Sempervivum tectorum

We send pictures to Danny everyday. Pictures of lightning storms and super moons. Pictures of us building gingerbread-log cabins. Pictures of my king sized bed lined from one end to the other with sleeping little people. Pictures of us live-streaming a church service from back home because La Paz shut down the city for their elections. Pictures of Gigi sitting on my shoulders, her legs trying to squeeze my neck to my death while I try to finish the puzzle she insisted that "we" do.

Why all the pictures? Danny is in South Florida to replace his ACL. He popped the ligament in a soccer game last month and was "medevac-ed" (medical-evacuation) last week. We have spent the past month agonizing about the details for the procedure and for what the rest of us were going to do. How long could I handle living here solo, without a car? What if we couldn't be together for Christmas? Can we afford five international plane tickets during the holidays, three weeks before departure? In the end, we decided to join Danny a week behind him so we could finish out the month of tennis and instrument classes. And also, because Florencia cooks for me and I really don't want her to have to stop. The mental exhaustion of the process (plus Christmas cards, plus Christmas shopping) shut me down from blogging and personal correspondence. So if you have written me in the past month and I have not responded, now you know why. But I'm trying to catch up so just remind me that I've abandoned you and I'l get right on it!

One of those friends who I've abandoned emailed me more questions which I thought I would answer here for fun. (I already responded to her email personally and issued 100 insufficient apologies):

Has Noemie read all your books? 
Noemie hasn't read them all- my collection has 901 volumes (I have them cataloged on an app), plus her Kindle has another 130 books. The reason, however, that she hasn't read them all may be because she's kind of picky. She scoffs at non-fiction. She eyes historical fiction with suspicion. She's read The Princess Bride about five times; Anne of Green Gables she reads about once a month. And she reads the Hobbit and the whole set of the Chronicles of Narnia as part of a regular rotation as well. So she's actually not read that many of our books.

Do the music instructors come to your house?
Yes. In addition to the violin teacher and the viola teacher (you'll remember, the 12 year old), we have another new teacher now who instructs in "native music" lesson with zampoñas (pan flutes) a skin drum, and these maraca things made our of sheep's hooves. How interesting is that? This same teacher also gives Dominic and Noemie separate piano classes.

Do you have a gardener?
Yes, as a matter of fact I do! What we don't have much of is a garden. But I like having a gardener anyway. I make Dominic sit with him every other week or so to get some Spanish practice and some work ethic. Our gardener, Mario, has taught Dominic all the names of our plants, and how to cut the grass. A few weeks ago there was a garden fair and I bought several rose plants (they were 2 dollars each!). Dominic and Mario's next class was on how to transplant seedlings. Sometimes Mario does extra little things around the house. For instance, remember that hideous peach wall? It's now an electric peacock color. I totally didn't mean to get that color. But. I LOVE IT. I got lime green curtains custom made for the family room too... Sigh. My house is amazing.

As I was looking through photos to add to the blog, I realized how busy we have been! Besides 5 music classes a week and three tennis classes a week, plus an art class and occasional cooking classes and, of course, our regular academic schedule, we also attended a paint party, a mixed family barbecue, game nights, the Marine Corp ball, discovered a new park, shipped out over 100 Christmas cards, researched dog breeds, baked pies, celebrated Thanksgiving with friends, attended a luncheon at the embassy, and set up our Christmas tree. So that's where the time went!

Valle de la Luna

One day, Gigi was walking along a low wall at the German Club when her feet slipped our from under her. She landed on her chin, and then fell off the wall. Praise the Lord, she didn't break her jaw bone. It was a close call. We thought she would have learned her lesson but no- we still have to remind her not to walk on the wall.

Soon after her accident, Gigi caught a cold. Maybe she caught it at church. Or maybe she caught it when we were taken surprise by a freak hail storm at the rec club. Within 15 minutes, the ground was covered in a layer of ice pellets so thick, it looked like snow!

Either way, Gigi passed along her cold to me, and made the last two weeks extra difficult. Breathing in La Paz is hard enough without the extra burden of coughing fits and blocked sinus passages. I couldn't smell or taste anything. It was a solid two weeks of herbal teas, vitamin C supplements, essential oils, Nyquil, and sleeping next to a humidifier. But then again... Maybe it wasn't Gigi who gave me her cold. Maybe it was the dust from unpacking all of our personal effects.

Our household effects arrived on October 23. Seven thousand pounds of material happiness, mostly in the form of books... hundreds of books...and precious Coscto consumables like Ghiradelli brownie mix, Tide clothes detergent, and Bounty papertowels. Dominic helped track inventory while I directed the flow of items into the house. Florencia the Fabulous not only put away all our kitchen items and pantry goods, but also found time to serve snacks and lunch to us and the movers. 

We worked furiously that day and had unpacked about 70% of the boxes by the time we collapsed that evening. Our house is now mostly in order. Hopefully next week a housing services worker will come to hang all our mirrors and frames. Then I can focus on Christmas!

Our Christmas cards have come in and I have been hard at work updating contact information and addressing envelopes. We have also made two more trips to Calle Sagarnaga looking for Christmas presents. It's not an easy hike up to the "downtown" of the city. Transportation is always by taxi, a half hour ride, or by bus which can take 45 min or more. 

Petty crimes are common, so constant vigilance is a must. The climb from street to street is steep. The traffic fumes are thick and one comes home with all his exposed skin covered in a thin layer of dirt. It's a fun adventure, but a tiring one. 

The highlight of the last few weeks was Nov 2, the Day of the Dead. I don't know what the holiday is all about but Danny got the day off and we joined friends at Valle de La Luna, so called because the terrain is said to look like the moon. 

The views were amazing, and Gigi didn't fall down any of the deep chasms. Our new missionary friends are also pretty amazing. All in all a great day!

Bird's Eye View

October 31 marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's posting of his 95 Theses on the doors of All Saints' Church at Wittenburg, and the protestant churches of La Paz are fixed on making sure everyone knows it. Last week we visited a church where an hour was devoted to the history of the church. Someone I know seemed a little discouraged at the lack of Biblical exposition but I love history and found the lecture to be stimulating- a concise and well-supported narrative that seemed to be a continuation of Hebrews 11's "Hall of Faith," recalling the martyrdoms of, most notably,  Savonarola, John Wycliffe, and John Huss. It was a reminder that the battle for having God's Word in the hands of God's people was indeed a battle, and that much blood was spilled in the name of the false god of religion. The sermon was really an hour-long testimony to God's preservation of His Truth. Is it the church community we've chosen? Not sure yet. Danny still wakes up every Sunday morning and questions where to go. But we keep ending up there. The church is a plant whose "heritage" goes back to Parkside Community Church where my favorite radio preacher in the whole wide world (Alistair Begg) is the pastor. And this we discovered by coincidence. If you believe in that sort of thing. Which I don't. The Sunday School teachers speak in both English and Spanish which gives my kids a less intense immersion experience, for better or for worse. The praise and worship is a full hour, on our feet, which is pretty exhausting. But they play Chris Tomlin and Hillsong music in Spanish so the kids feel somewhat engaged even though they don't understand the words on the screen. And the playground has a zipline. So there's that.

Did the service prepare me for the week ahead? So-so. Pastor Hunter used to say a Christian needs three services a week to thrive and we have really seen how the lack of that has affected us here. One service a week makes you feel like you are checking off a box on the list of things Christians are supposed to do. It's a far cry from the emotional and spiritual investment of engaging with a community of believers multiple times a week, and the crafting of a lifestyle dedicated to living and breathing Scripture. We are going to start listening to Wednesday night podcasts from our old church to help with that void. We will nestle it between tennis classes!

The kids started tennis classes this week. Soccer was a flop but to my surprise, tennis was a winner. The kids loved it and, true to form, Noemie found the only kids at the tennis school that spoke English and they are the only kids Dominic and Noemie talk to. The kids are, of course, too happy to practice their English. My little Americans are resisting my immersion attempts without even trying. Gigi even speaks to our Spanish-only housekeeper in English and the housekeeper obliges.

Our housekeeper is my new best friend. God has always placed rational, calm, solid people in my life to help keep me grounded. Emily, Estera, Holly, Danny... perhaps you know one of these amazing individuals. He has come through again in Bolivia in my housekeeper. Take Tuesday for instance. I was wrapping up the last of our (late) breakfasts when Noemie's new viola instructor arrived half an hour early, at exactly the same time as an internet installation crew. I had strict orders to keep eyes on the installation workers at all times, but I had to introduce myself and Noemie to the viola instructor and his dad... because I didn't know the instructor was only 12 years old when I made the appointment. The men charged up the stairs on their mission to set up their internet things while the musicians stared at me expectantly, and... I still had an egg frying on the stove top. My housekeeper arrives at this moment, assesses the situation quickly, and offers to clean the bathrooms that are closest to the workers so to keep an eye on them. She says she'll take care of the breakfast dishes when she's done, which is technically not part of her duties. I pause the egg frying operation and check out with the viola teacher's father. I finish off breakfast in between bursts into the music room to encourage Noemie with kind words, smiles, and death threats through gritted teeth because the look of contempt on her face is obvious regardless of language barriers. Our instructor does not speak English and is trying to look composed under Noemie's glare. I offer my assistance, "Pulgar is thumb, Noemie"... "Muñeca is wrist, Noemie. Arco is bow? Ok, Noemie. We learn together. La is A... Oh right. You have to learn the solfege..." Sigh.

How are we adjusting? I'd say rather well. There are no libraries but I downloaded over 100 titles on Noemie and Dominic's Kindles for free from gutenberg.org so that keeps them from being bored. Now if I can only figure out how to get the Kindles to stop advertising steamy romance novels with suggestive cover art, I will feel like I'm winning. We try to get out of the house when we can. There's a playground a few blocks away, and the weather has been really great. The joke around town is that a person experiences all four seasons in one day here in La Paz. It's not unusual in the spring for the weather to fluctuate within a 30 degree range. There is snow on Mt Illimani but we are sweating in tee-shirts as we take a bus past the llama fetuses hanging from witch-shops in El Alto.

Last weekend we sampled the full gamut of public transportation. We took a taxi to the closest teleferico station, where we met up with friends. Then we took several teleferico lines into the mountains. The views were spectacular. We ate lunch in a Cuban restaurant, but the food tasted like Bolivian food. Can't fool me. We tried to buy Christmas presents on Calle Sagarnaga, a street known for its native handicrafts, but by this point we had already spent most of our money. So we took a bus back to our part of town.

The buses are kind of small and suspicious. We still don't have a car and, for now, don't plan to get one. It's rather impractical given the exorbitant cost of automobiles here, the affordability of taxis and public transportation, and the fact that the driving conditions would deteriorate the condition of any car pretty quickly. The uneven cobblestones are just the beginning. The driving here is also pretty interesting. People here drive the way one might walk in a crowd... they seem to just sort of "go", and try not to crash into things. Forget turn signals. Forget right of way. It's your turn if you feel like it. The horn communicates all sorts of things. Things like, "I'm going to go in reverse now so watch out." Or "I'm an empty taxi and you're a-walkin and I think we're a match waiting to happen." Sometimes it's a warning, "Run faster; I don't stop for pedestrians." Or "I'm tired of waiting and I'm crossing this intersection, ready or not." On the plus side, the garbage trucks play tinkly lullaby music like ice-cream trucks. The streets are, as one might expect, pretty noisy with all the honking and lullabies. And I'm ok not driving here.

Danny took the boys to a World Cup Qualifier soccer match to celebrate Dominic's birthday while the girls and I stayed behind to bake cupcakes for the boys that came over Friday to play video games and soccer.

Bolivia tied Brazil 0-0 but it was still a good game!

This weekend was much less eventful. I was set on riding a burro somewhere but alas, I failed to get more people on board with my idea. Maybe next week!

Putting Down Roots

It's hard to believe we've been here less than three weeks- it seems like ages have passed since we left the familiarity of friends, family, church, and summer. There's a lot to love here. Our house is gorgeous, even if the stairs are a death trap. The slick wood floors from top to bottom have made us all slip down a few steps at one time or another, Danny taking it the worst of all last week in his suit and dress socks, getting a nice bone contusion on his elbow on the way down. But the wood is so lovely! The only eyesore is an accent wall in the living room. This being a rental property, there is not much we can do to personalize the space, though I've bought some paint to cover over the peach wall in the living room. Our couches are mustard-pea and the color combination is more than I can stomach. I haven't painted the wall yet because we haven't gotten approval to paint. (Isn't that just like me, to buy paint and then ask if I'm allowed?) I've also gotten to do a little digging in the green patch I call my garden. We made a friend, Kendra, who has an exceptionally green thumb. She gave us strawberry runners from her strawberry patch to plant in our garden. She gave us a tour of her chicken run as well and put a damper on that dream of mine quick. I will probably speak of her again since I think we are going to be good friends. We have a bread-baking science day at her house on Monday! And I'll leave the chickens till I have my dream farm.

Our adventures this week have been tame on account of the rain. (It's been an unusually cold and rainy spring.) One of our adventures was to attend a fair at the local American school. This was a fund-raising event, and we attended in support of our friends who go to the school.

Another adventure was to hire an "empleada" to help with the upkeep of the house and with the cooking. She stuck with us despite an awkward interview and things have settled into place over the course of the week. I don't know the first thing about polishing wood floors and, after three days of her culinary offerings, I've decided I don't know how to cook either. Her name is Florencia or, as the kids call her, Flower. I think she likes us. I've only seen her panic once, and that was when the littles decided to have a pillow sack race in her freshly laundered pillow cases, and she was running behind them yelling frantically. The floor wax left its mark on the white cases and Flower was mortified. Perhaps it was on account of a such a lax week that homesickness started to hit, Noemie in particular. We went out for pizza on Thursday night and she sat forlornly, thinking of friends back in FL and VA. But considering that many others in our shoes have been fighting tummy bugs this week, I think I'll take homesickness instead.

Our church search has been disappointing. Our first week, we failed to make it to church because we failed to plan. So Danny hired a private driver early the following week to be safe. But that driver didn't show up last Sunday. After waiting for a while, we called a taxi. For the first time ever, the taxi was a no show as well! So we started walking to the nearest Christian church in the area, an interdenominational church 2.5 km away. We weren't passionate about that church and left looking forward to visiting some other area churches this week, but now it looks as if protests will block all the routes out of our area tomorrow. So. Maybe it will be another week of "church at home."

One of my favorite people sent me an email last week with lots of questions that I've decided to post answers to here in the form of a Q&A.

What kind of bad weather can we get? Earthquakes, though there have never been any serious ones in anyone's memory. Also, flash floods and mudslides happen occasionally in La Paz but where we live, we should not experience any problems.

What is our sponsor family like? We were given a sponsor in preparation for our arrival. Her name is Julie, she has four kids, and she's from the western US. They are a wonderful family that has gone above and beyond to make our transition here seamless, stocking our fridge before arrival, accompanying us from the airport at 4 am (with snacks!), checking in on us periodically, and making sure we are aware of all American community gatherings. Like the school fair.

Did I find a piano teacher? No, but I did find Tovi a violin teacher! She looks to be about 20, and speaks broken English and it's kind of funny to watch them try to figure each other out. Props for Tovi for being brave!

Did Gigi get her hair cut? Yes, I took her to a salon in Sunrise before we left.

Do I have a back yard? Not exactly. Our house is walled in. Most of the space between the house and the exterior wall is tiled. The kids use the carport as a large, tiled soccer court. There's a tiny patch of green by the front door where we have some fun droopy flowering plants that attract hummingbirds. I call this our garden. I bought a rose plant today. I don't know where to put it. We also have oregano and rosemary which Flower used to make a slam dunk roast chicken on Friday. 

Are there fast food restaurants here? Yes. Rey Porky, Don Pollo, and Toby. There are a lot of roadside shacks that have food but I'm allergic to diarrhea so we haven't visited them.

Are there libraries here? I don't think they have public libraries here.

Malls? Yes, but not big and trendy. 

Movie theater? There's one in the mall. It offers 5 movies, two of which are rated "14+", like Steven King's It.

Are there playgrounds? Yes. The kind from the 80s that might lose you a finger or a set of teeth. I am all about dangerous playgrounds. Danger teaches kids to be cautious. Cautious people don't need the government to tell them how to do everything. Cautious people are thinking people and thinking people are safe people! Most of the time...

From D.C. to La Paz

We have officially packed out of our townhome in DC. We spent everyday that week preparing for one set of movers or another, or handling the house cleaners etc, while Danny alternated between days of pack-out assisting and days of work-training that included wrestling and defensive driving tactics, which he would endure with only 4 hours of sleep. When he arrived home that Friday afternoon after another day of his brain sloshing around, he looked close to death. But we survived and met some colorful characters in the process.

Wednesday night was the night before our pack-out. We were so wrapped up in the washing and organizing that we totally forgot about church evening service. We worked through the night until our movers showed up at noon, 3 hours later than we expected. Of the four "men" who showed up, three of them looked about 15 years old and they didn't speak English. Danny was a head taller than all of them! Two hours into their work, they looked at each other nervously and called for reinforcements. Three additional guys showed up, guys who were much bigger, louder, and covered in gang tattoos. When two hours later two more guys showed up, it became absolute chaos. They all played for the same soccer team in Maryland and they were trying desperately to get out to an evening game. Their work was sloppy. Danny's abuela was with us and she wasn't having any of it. She sat on the mattress and would point and say, "My love, that is not good enough. Do it again. Dear, the corners of that frame are still exposed. Fix it." All in Spanish of course. The smells of body odor and cigarette smoke were pervasive. Rain ruined boxes that Danny had to recall so that they wouldn't arrive at post with mold. Praise God x 1000 that Danny was given the day off at the last minute and was able to be present. Praise God for a lot of things, like the fact that Danny's mother and grandmother had bought plane tickets to be there that week, not knowing that our pack-out would be scheduled for that time! Praise God that we had enough Marriott points to cover both ours and Danny's mom's hotel rooms for a week! And for a neighbor who threw our kids an impromptu going-away pizza party on the cleaning day. Our cleaning lady was left at our door by her boss. We expected three workers, to take three hours. Instead we got one worker, an undocumented 25 year old girl from Honduras, who worked alone for five hours without a moment's break. My heart hurt for this weary girl.

With our personal effects off and on their way to their various destinations, Danny and I took to living out of luggages in hotels. We began winding down our activities in North Virginia. Dominic went on his first sleep-away camp with the church youth at the end of July. The youth had spent a week of intense ministry work in South Carolina assembling Bibles and attending church services. As the day approached for the night where testimonies were to be given, we kept reminding him to think of one or two memorable moments to share, and we bought him a stop-watch to help him keep track of time. Without notes or outlines (against our advice), and with the help of his wristwatch, Dominic introduced himself, articulately described the Bible printers at Beacon of Truth Ministries, he described his love for mechanics, and how cool he thought it was that someone in the Philippines would be getting a Bible that he helped to make, and concluded promptly when his two minutes were up. We were so proud of him! 

We were hosted for dinner by Noemie's AHG Coordinator, by friends from college, and by families from church. The church also held a going-away fellowship pot-luck in our honor. It was a welcome respite from restaurant meals. We got our yellow-fever vaccines. The kids and I attended a safety seminar with Danny's department that was the equivalent of a worst-case scenario handbook, except it's not as fun as the handbook because I might actually need to know how to identify the symptoms of typhoid or the evidence of espionage or ricin exposure. We picnicked at the Washington Monument, grabbed lunch in Annapolis, and spent a beautiful day at Hershey Park. And, as a final epic finale as far as I'm concerned, Danny dusted 20 years of dust from his violin and played in a violin quartet for our last Sunday service. It was practically a miracle. And done almost entirely, I am sure, for Tovi's sake as much as the Lord's.

In mid August, the kids and I flew down to south Florida, leaving Danny in Virginia to finish his training. The evening of our arrival I had to cut out from dinner early on account of a migraine. Before the week was over, I had a severe sunburn and the consequential fever blister, followed by a bad cold that I would eventually pass on to Danny and my parents who, three weeks later, were still recovering. But when I wasn't feeling like death, I was thrilled to pieces to be "home." We had three weeks of park meet-ups, pool play days, birthday gatherings, lunch dates, and going away parties with our favorite people on the planet. We spent our days hopping from Hutchinson Island to Plantation, to Miami, to Boynton Beach, to Sunrise, and back again. The pastor at our Florida church asked Danny and I to substitute teach the third - fifth grade Sunday School class and I was able to sing in the choir. It was glorious. The question we heard over and over, "Are you excited?" And the answer was usually the same: "I'm excited to be right here, right now." It wasn't that we were anxious or disinterested in the big move, we just had no idea what laid ahead. We had no expectations- not of joys or troubles, positives or negatives, sights or sounds or smells. I asked Dominic on our way to the airport, our little family with over 600 lbs of checked luggages and carryons moving to a country we have never been in and knew so little about, what did he think of it all? He laughed nervously and said, "It's ridiculous." And I rather agree.

We took a red-eye flight on the eve of my and Danny's wedding anniversary, arriving in La Paz at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday. Toby was green as he got off the plane. He sat perched on my rolling carryon bag as we dragged our way through the exit terminals. Noemie was making use of her airplane barf bag before we reached customs. We were greeted at the gate by two of Danny's co-workers and by our incredibly sweet and tireless sponsor. Our little team was ushered through the entry stops and we took a van in the darkness of early morning La Paz down the winding stone paved roads from El Alto (elevation 14,000 ft) to our neighborhood 2000 ft below. Toby made use of his own airplane bag as well. El Alto is a poorer part of La Paz and we were impressed with the amount of trash on the street corners, piled chest high. We were also impressed with the number of dogs that roam the streets, living in a sort of parallel dog society, and the extensive network of telefericos used as a means of public transportation here.

Our motorpool took us directly to our house in the much cleaner Zona Sur where our sponsor gave us a tour of our house and  demonstrated how to use our water distiller and how to clean our produce with bleach. Tovi and Noemie crawled into the first bed they found and spent most of the morning throwing up. Nico suffered from headaches. Gigi, predictably, was entirely unphased. Danny and I had been taking an altitude sickness prevention medicine called Diamox. Having seen the reactions of our kids' bodies to the altitude, I have concluded that I would never fly into La Paz without it! The effects for us were limited to being short of breath with very little exertion. If I blew my nose, for instance, I had to take a moment to catch my breath. We took our first foray into the neighborhood shops that evening, walking to the local grocery store a block away- just Danny, myself, and the irrepressible Gigi. Our fridge was now stocked with eggs, carrots, strawberries, and cheese. Not sure what kind of meals we could make with that but none of us were hungry anyway. By evening on the first day, I had unpacked about half of our luggages and Tovi was picking fights with his siblings, so we knew he was back to normal. 

The second morning Danny was off to work. The kids, minus Noemie, found ways to keep themselves entertained in the immense house while I went from room to room identifying how each room would be used. We ended up with 2 separate guest rooms, each with its own bath. Noemie continued to wander the beds aimlessly, listlessly. She had already thrown up the single strawberry she'd had for dinner and said she was really thirsty so I gave her some water, which her body rejected a few minutes later, at which point I got concerned and called on a driver from the embassy to take us to the med unit. At the embassy Noemie was treated for mild dehydration and was given some oxygen. Since we were all present, they went ahead and gave us all our mandatory post medical checkups and safety briefings. Noemie was good as new when we were all done. 

The rest of the week went well- waking up each morning with a clearing of our bloody nasal passages, enjoying the incredible mountain views from our bedrooms, visiting new restaurants (since carrots and cheese can only take you so far), attending a meet-and-greet potluck for embassy families, keeping our eye on Hurricane Irma whenever possible, and venturing out on longer walks including Sunday's Achumani market. We received our air shipment remarkable early, so we now have barbecue tools, sandals, board games, and a crock pot that looks like it was kicked by a steel-toe construction boot. In retrospect, I wish our air shipment had included bath towels and toothpaste. We've made several good friends including those who accompanied us to the market. They have been showing us the ropes- which carnecerias to avoid, how to hire a cook, where to buy egg laying hens, and what not to eat in the local restaurants. Ultimately, most of the advice is centered around avoiding diarrhea. 

Noemie and I stumbled across a festive little parade which we greatly enjoyed.

Tomorrow we will start school! This is the longest we've ever gone without formal academic studies and Noemie is practically jumping out of her skin she is so eager to get started. In the next few weeks we will be establishing our community by finding a church (we hope!!!) and deciding on which extra curricular activities we will be involved with. 

So did you take notes? Please pray that we find a church. Then, get your visa, yellow fever vaccine, Diamox, a good chapstick, and come on over for some incredible adventures!