Christmas in Bolivia

This past week the kids had the opportunity to participate in a Christmas "Spectacular" at the Municipal Theater. It was reminiscent of the days that Danny and I participated in the Miami Christmas Pageant as high-schoolers, an experience that was so fruitful for me, that for weeks, we skipped tennis and dance classes so that the kids could attend the bi-weekly rehearsals which took place at a midtown funeral home. I wanted them to have a taste of that experience. And I was also willing to make the late night drives to and from the downtown theater for performances despite heavy traffic, in chilling temperatures and torrential downpours. 

And by "I," I really mean my long-suffering husband, who doesn't quite feel my passion for the extraordinary and who, even in his exhaustion and ill humor, was able to contribute "Newt" to the animal alphabet game as we wound our way through Obrajes at 11 pm on the last night. "A Nefarious Newt?" Dominic offered. To go along with Gigi's Mutinous Manatee... Where is this vocabulary coming from???

For months, as the Northern Hemisphere enjoyed its summer traditions, the Bolivian winter just slugged along. I tried not to be envious of the Memorial Day barbecues and summer camps and day trips to the beach that filled my Facebook news feed as we went from day to day fighting the apathy that comes from cold, gray monotony. My life revolved around keeping order at home and keeping Gigi out of trouble. I wasn't challenging myself intellectually; I wasn't investing myself socially. Then I noticed that my short term memory was starting to falter. I was slowing down cognitively, and my rapid-fire multitasking skills were zapped. I couldn't keep track of things. Was it a lack of vitamin D? Was it a lack of sleep? Was it the long term effects of insufficient oxygen? Was it because I had allowed myself to become lazy in my mind and the effects were catching up? God allowed a few things to come into my life in the past few weeks that I feel have revived my brain. One, he brought a friend into my life who loves the Lord and loves philosophy. She works with prostitutes in the red light district, helping them to develop marketable skills so they can leave the sex trade behind. She also facilitates a nursery for their children. She was driving me home from church a few nights ago and we got into this incredible conversation about epistemology and relativism as it relates to individuality in our spiritual conditions, and about how that relates to the arguments against the Gnostics proposed by Tertullian, the Ante-Nicean theologian. My brain reminded me of an engine trying to fire up. It took a few minutes to get going but it was exhilarating to get that motor running again- the sparks lighted, the pistons were pumping....My brain was ON. My friend and I are actually going to be caroling at the brothels next weekend. How often can you say that?

The other thing that happened was that I joined the church's Christmas choir. They usually use only a worship band for their weekend services but the church leadership decided to create a choir for the holidays- something that had never been done in the church's eleven-year history. And, going only on hearsay regarding my skills in this department, the director made me his assistant director. I have spent the last two weeks learning the soprano and alto parts to seven different songs. Because we are relying only on audio recordings, I have transcribed parts on a few occasions. When we gather for rehearsals, I lead the ladies groups, pinpointing bad notes or pausing to correct rhythm patterns that were not being sung in unison. And, of course, we are memorizing lyrics. My brain is working again. I have been in choirs since I was in 7th grade, in school and in church, and had never realized how much exercise it was for my noggin.

The odd thing about preparing for the Christmas cantata is that winter has come to an end in Bolivia. (Though you wouldn't know it from the weather the last few days.) Last week it was unbelievably hot. My house, with all its skylights and no central A/C, would become an oven by mid afternoon. And, in that Southern Hemisphere kind of way that has me all turned around, the kids spent last week at summer camp...three weeks before Christmas. The school year here, like in the States, finishes in the summer. Which in Bolivia, is to say December. This means that all the end of the school year activities are crashing with all the end of the year-year activities. Our schedule has become very intense. The kids had their final equestrian exams on the same day as the girls had their flamenco performances.

Noemie absolutely rocked it. She is a natural. Or maybe she was extra motivated because she was so annoyed at the meanness of the other girls in her class.

Gigi did her thing. She was no standout but she enjoyed wearing make-up and parading in the spotlights with her friends. Olé!
 

Tovi and Noemie had their violin and viola recital last week as well. All of us (but Danny most of all) look forward to all these programs and exhibitions coming to an end this weekend. Then we can focus on the real Christmas, and on fixing our minds on enjoying the work to be done in the final months of our time here.

Found: Adventures!

In Spanish, you might say (in a literal translation) "Gigi is pegging Dominic with erasers while he tries to do his schoolwork." But sometimes another person may say, "The Gigi is pegging Dominic with erasers while he tries to do his schoolwork." Or "The Gigi is eating a tub of white sugar behind the kitchen door." Or "The Gigi is using the flower vase as a drinking glass." I'm not sure why the definite article is sometimes used for personal names, but it makes it seem as if the individual being referenced is that much larger in life. Not just any 6 year old girl named Gigi, no, she's THE Gigi. And perhaps there's something to that thought as Gigi has the distinction of having the definite article attached to her name more than any of the others.

The day she was caught drinking out of a flower vase, she was also caught straddling her bedroom window on the second floor. She scared our neighbor half to death. When the housekeeper was vacuuming and Gigi wanted to shout something across the house, she'd yank the cord from the wall so she could be heard. My patient housekeeper kept her cool, even when Gigi put her feet on her head as she tried to vacuum under the couch Gigi was sitting on. That same day, Gigi switched the power buttons on all our computer hardware and then punched her brother in a fit of rage when he pulled her away. But that was an unusually bad day. She just seems to have a lot of them these days. Which is why it has been a welcome relief to have two extra sets of eyes around for the past couple weeks.

My parents made it! After a rocky start, they found their bearings and are now practically Paceños (native La Paz-ians), taking the taxis solo to dinner at the Hotel Europa and picking up bread at the French bakery at the end of the neighborhood. They've been here for two weeks but it still doesn't seem real that they are here. My parents are globe trotters- Seattle, New York, Ireland, Russia, Spain, Austria, Chile... fine wine, river cruise, symphonic performance, necktie and pearls kind of travel. Seeing them huffing and puffing their way through Inca ruins is just not... them.

Sometimes, it's not me either. I always talk about adventures as if it's something I crave. But I forget that I'm not really good at adventures. For one, I hate being in a car for long periods of time. In the early years of my marriage, I made a deal with Danny that whenever we traveled, our stay at any destination would be equal to at least one day for every 3 hours of drive time. Therefore, if it takes 3 hours to get to Orlando, and 3 hours back (6 total hours drive time), then we had to spend a minimum of 48 hours in Orlando. This proportion has worked well for me and I'm really glad that I happened upon that stroke of genius. Another thing that makes me a bad adventurer, is that I get motion sickness very easily. I have countless stories of travel plans ruined by nausea - in planes, in boats, in youth group buses, in motorpool vans... So our highlight trip to Titicaca had all the makings of an adventure fail.

We spent about 11 hours total in travel to be there for just two days. I broke my rule.

And further, that travel included stop-and-go torture through El Alto, followed by literally the rockingest boatride ever across the Strait of Tiquina, and ending with a dizzying path through the hills into Copacabana.

I asked Toby to be photographer because I was not well.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, I could barely stand on two feet, much less climb up the hillside to our little cabin. I was set in a chair in the middle of the lawn in the middle of the property where I sat with my eyes closed, listening to the shrieks of the kids being mowed down by feisty alpacas.

It was a sad moment. We cancelled the Isla del Sol tour for the day as I tried to regain control of my lower esophageal sphincter.

Our hotel "cabin" was the best part of the trip - a conical, one-bedroom suite that looked like a snail-shell fairy house, with large flower-shaped stained-glass windows overlooking Lake Titicaca.  Lake Titicaca is immense. You can not see one side from the other. The next morning, we did take a private boat charter out to Isla del Sol (which is also immense) where we saw the Pilko Kaina Incan ruins.

 Pilko Kaina was a place of worship and meditation for the Incan emperor, built in the 1400s. Incan mythology holds that the Lake birthed the two children of the sun god who were sent to earth to teach humanity how to live decent, respectable lives. In the distance, one can see Isla de la Luna where privileged native community virgins were cast away to live a lonely life of devotion to the gods.

After touring the temple, we cruised to other stops around the east side of the island, including a fountain of youth of dubious report, and a small restaurant (two tables) where we had Aptapi, a traditional Andean fare served in the traditional al fresco, lay-it-all-out-and-get-what-you-want manner. 

The tiny fried fishies are called Ispis. Gigi kept trying to pluck out their itty bitty eyes before eating them.

We headed straight home from the island - 6 excruciating hours of travel. But, we got to see the Andes. I love the Andes Mountains. After living in La Paz for a while, you get to know the individual mountains like friends: Huayna Potosi, Chacaltaya, Cerro Mururata (the headless one), and my favorite, Illimani. Incan mythology explains how Illimani decapitated his brother, Mururata.

Isn't he handsome?

My parents enjoyed a flamenco show put on by the girls' dance studio, walks to the Achumani market, and lots of trips to see the boys practice tennis. We also toured the Flor de Leche dairy.

And Valle de la Luna.

It was a close call, but my parents traveled to La Paz and will live to tell the story!

And By tommorow I'll have The Gigi to myself again. 

First week of school. Check!

Danny went to training in D.C. last week and left Gigi in Miami on his way. They returned on Sunday, and on Monday we kicked off our school year. Like, official school. As in wake-up alarms, morning assemblies, schedule charts, textbooks and due dates. We make a similar transition every September, but I don't remember there ever having been a more chaotic one than this one. This year, I had planned to begin full-on, standard academic classes with the two youngest kids despite certain behavioral dysfunctions in one child and attention difficulties and immaturity in the other. It was not entirely unexpected that beginning a spelling curriculum for Special Needs Child #1 would cause a nervous breakdown. Without the resources available for behavioral therapy, we have found guidance in a book called The Whole Brain Child. The meltdowns have since gotten shorter and a little less frequent. But our first day of school was the biggest trial of all- I think we had a record number of mini-meltdowns that day. They were resolved according to the book's instructions which meant I didn't have a child lock himself up for 3 hours to sulk. But, the new approach to handling the episodes is really exhausting for me! I am learning that empathy is not my strong point. Just kidding... I have always known that. I just actually have to care now. 

Tuesday was the first class with a new Spanish teacher, a young lady I met at church who had agreed to come to the house twice a week to converse with the children. Dominic was offended. "Yo sabe Español! No necesito clases!" he protested in Spanish so broken that it would have been funny was I not appalled at the disrespect. I left the kids with their teacher while I took advantage of the structured time to pick up the school room. I was putting away a jar of Q-tips that had mysteriously appeared in the family room when I tuned in to some unusual noises for a Spanish class-  Noemie was practicing her Hanon piano exercises in the middle of Giannina's attempt at an oral report on cats in Spanish. Gigi was giving said presentation over the sound of the piano, while jumping from one piece of furniture to the other (because the floor was lava.) Dominic meanwhile was numbing the chaos by banging his head into the nearby drum. While wearing headphones that weren't plugged into anything. The teacher had a blank expression as she tried to process the situation. I was mortified.

We also discovered on Tuesday that Gigi had broken a tooth. Her one week in Miami included a trip to the dentist, who discovered an abscess, and resulted in another trip to the dentist for an extraction and installation of a brace. So the discovery of the broken tooth less than a week later was exasperating. And to make matters worse, the new Bolivian dentist insisted that Gigi needed (another?!) cleaning, and that there was a cavity on the backside of the broken tooth as well, and that he would not repair the broken tooth without also filling in this elusive cavity which somehow evaded our American dentist. I came home from the dentist to see the boys had shattered a window in my brief absence. They had decided to play soccer in the foyer of the house instead of the empty carport. First week of school? More chaos, please. Let's buy a house!

One Tuesday evening we received a counter offer on a house we had been eyeing in North Carolina. Danny scrambled to put our financial records in order while I made shopping lists. On Wednesday, our third day of school, we attempted "First Day of School" pictures. That's just the way it is sometimes. I had the boys put on polo shirts because I want to remember my children as respectable young people, even though they had so far done everything that week so as to deny me that sentiment. The kids were all relatively compliant. Except for one.

My even-keeled, sweetest child was convinced that it was a crime against humanity to perpetuate this disingenuous, false impression... this LIE!... that he ever wears anything but ratty t-shirts to do his school work. By Wednesday, I was tired to the depths of my soul. Two days to go before the week was over. Gigi dropped her violin and knocked its bridge out of place. And I don't remember that crack in its body being there before...

Remarkably, the kids had all their school work in on time Friday. Noemie finished a newsletter she had been working on all month. And Dominic fell in love with his new cello. There are no cello teachers in Bolivia but that's a problem for another time because I'm at capacity this week for problem solving.

Here's to a waaaaay better second week.

What's an Interlude, Larry?

I came across this scene a few days ago which stopped me in my tracks.Two things caught my attention. One, Giannina was actually focusing on a math worksheet. 

Two, was the pencil she was using. I have no idea where she found it because I haven't seen it in oh, about 25 years. That makes this pencil one of our oldest material possessions. Isn't it odd, the things that surface when you move?

 I haven't written since we got back from Israel because there's not much we could do around La Paz that wouldn't pale in comparison. I was going to begin writing on Monday, but I was so tired as I began writing, that I fell asleep a few times at the keyboard and eventually gave up.

Monday, the kids' piano teacher came late in the evening; the kids were tired from tennis, but it was the only time he was available to record some of Dominic and Noemie's piano pieces. So between bites of potato and trucha the kids were darting to the piano to try one take after another of their performances. So it was already a disorganized evening. When we finally did make it to bed, Danny and I stayed up till 11 pm house shopping in North Carolina on realtor.com, a new therapeutic interest, before we turned out the lights for the night, to stare into the blackness.

One of the effects of living at this altitude is that it is difficult to go to sleep. Most nights, we rely on essential oils and bed-side water-bottles for extra hydration in order to help sink our consciousness within an hour or two of laying in the dark. And that night we were just on the verge of sleep when Dominic came in to let us know that Tovi was puking. Awesome. Danny took care of the mess while I took care of the child. A drop of DigestZen oil in his water did the trick after an hour of vomiting, heaving, and stomach cramps. What ailed him? We don't even try to figure out what causes digestive troubles here. The opportunities are just too many. At about 1 a.m. there was silence and we turned out the lights. Not 15 minutes later Dominic again came to our room, this time to tell us about the dream he was having. An hour or two later Gigi came in because she had wet the bed. And at 6:30 we were all up to get ready for their 8 am horseback riding class. 

Tuesday I cancelled our play date with a friend because I was part zombie given the events of the night before. Or so I thought. By Tuesday night it was my turn to spend the evening bent over the toilet. So we cancelled our lunch guests for Wednesday. Our empleada had come early to help with the lunch preparations. Instead, she helped with vomit control. Dominic took down the kitchen with his expulsions. At least Noemie made it into the toilet. Meanwhile, I stayed hidden in my room. So much for tennis. Thursday was Danny's turn. Flamenco classes would have to wait till the next week. Friday, we couldn't attend our meeting with Samaritan's Purse. Last one standing at the end of the week was Gigi. No surprise there.

In some ways it's been a typical week, in that there is no typical week. Some weeks we make it to all our extracurricular classes and spend the rest of the time reading and playing Twister. Some weeks we puke the whole time. Very rarely, (as in it has only happened once so far,) we spend our week with a guest!

Danny's mom came to visit in late June. Danny took me to Santa Cruz in southeast Bolivia for my birthday. It was humid and not-so-cold and it was glorious. Guys, it's winter. The day warms up to 60 degrees in the afternoon. (Which, come to think of it, was rather like it was in summer as well but at least in the summer the sunshine hung around a little longer.) And I feel like Christmas is around the corner... (of course no one else feels that way because none of the other Americans around here know what it's like to live in Florida, which is to say, 60 degree Christmases). If it's so cold I need to wear two pairs of pants, I feel like the least winter could do for me is offer some carols and candy canes and twinkly strings of lights.

We lived and breathed the World Cup for the month of July. Every television set in the country was tuned to the same channel; restaurants, social clubs, in every home... La Copa Mundial was everywhere. Sticker albums were filled. Much geography was acquired. Even Gigi could be overheard yelling at the screen, "Get up, you Belgian FAKERS!" Our brackets were all busted early on but we enjoyed the tournament nonetheless. 

In other news, Danny grew a beard (or most of one anyway) and Gigi lost her first tooth. We also transitioned into summer school mode with the kids- this year that means that the kids are assigning themselves their school assignments. They have done rather well, but the schedule being all loosey goosey has made for disorganization in other ways (as it always does) and I am SO ready to begin a very intense school year, with the big kids tackling Pre-algebra, Institute for Excellence in Writing's program, Jr. Analytical Grammar mechanics, ancient history with Mystery of History, and an extracurricular line-up that is just incredible... and totally untenable in the U.S. Gigi will finally be joining our ranks (as a first grader). Tovi will continue with Saxon Math 3, and we are going to use a new curriculum, The Good and the Beautiful, for reading and writing. One of the things I am most excited about is that another homeschooling family will be joining the embassy community at the end of the month! She has a music education background and a couple strings players herself... yes, we are forming a mini youth embassy orchestra!!! 

On a related note, changes in school voucher restrictions for the upcoming year will make such fabulous trips such as Israel an impossibility, but we do have plans to take some interesting trips around Bolivia as family begins to come for visits. One cousin arrives next week, my parents are booked for September, and my sister is putting her stuff together. Inca ruins, the Amazon, llamas... Hopefully we'll have some adventures to share with you soon that don't involve body fluids.

But first...
Gigi's narration of the story of God's relationship with man:
God made Adam as a person in His own image. Adam liked himself. But when sin came into the world because Adam sinned, everything was bad. Adam was sad and he realized his ribs were missing (because God used them to make Eve.) So, Adam and Eve put on clothes so people wouldn't see them naked. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Now when we love Jesus, we feel good about our bodies. In heaven, we will  have baby skin.

Now you know.

Israel Adventure

For the girls' birthdays in March we decided to take a family trip to Israel. Not your typical birthday present, I guess. Our oldest had taken a solo trip to Seattle for his 10th, and we fancied ourselves starting a new tradition. I failed to take into consideration that our lifestyle might put a little dent in those plans for future celebrations. Instead, all of us boarded a plane for an 8-day whirlwind tour of Israel with a high-school friend and his parents, who now host tours to the Holy Land. I learned that you can take a whole lot of pictures in just 8 days. Especially in Israel. I also learned that as a full time mom/ homeschooler, eking out a moment here, 5 minutes there, to tackle sorting the photos, and trying to make a photobook and a post to the blog, is crazy frustrating. There's just no time. I have actually started waking up an hour and a half earlier to incorporate answering email and working on the photo album into my daily schedule at a time when the kids aren't awake to wreak havoc in my absence. (Although, as is to be expected, all kids are up early today as I type this, Noemie is fussing at Gigi and Gigi is wailing in response. And cabinets are slamming down in the kitchen meaning that Toby is down there helping himself to the last of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, only available by 4 week mail order. Why???  And I just realized I forgot to put Dominic's tooth fairy money under his pillow...)

So here are my favorite photos of every day from our trip. 

First stop, direct from our 12 hour flight, we went to Caesarea Maritime, Herod's seaside resort on the Mediterranean. 

We drove a little ways away to find one of the remaining portions of the aqueduct that supplied fresh water to Caesarea from the Carmel Mountain area.

Mt Carmel had a church with a rooftop observatory. This was Toby's favorite stop.

The next day we visited Tel Megiddo. A tel is a mountain made of the remains of civilizations that have built on top of each other. 

From Tel Megiddo we went to Mt Precipice overlooking the gorgeous Jezreel Valley on one side, and sprawling, modern-day Nazareth on the other. 

The eternal, perfect God would send his Son into the world to redeem us from sin by being the ultimate, spotless sacrifice, laying down his life, suffering death on a cross. An angel announced to a young Israelite girl that she would be the vessel that would carry him into the world. To commemorate this occasion, the Catholic Church built a massive church complex to worship.... Mary.

 I love this picture because Mary is clearly saying, "What the heck, you guys? Don't you know you're only supposed to worship Jesus?" 

Falafel or Schnitzel? Those are our lunch options. Every. Day.

But it's delicious so it's ok.

Hello, Sea of Galilee. Aren't you looking lovely this evening?

Favorite spot for sure!

The next day we went to another church. In their effort to mark and preserve spots of traditional significance, Franciscans and Carmelites bought a lot of land and built churches on top of the locations. This church commemorates the teaching of the Beatitudes.

Toby was really excited because he saw some real monks like in Age of Empires. Noemie scrambled to keep up with her experiences in a journal.

At Capernaum we saw ruins of an early church that some believe to be the home of Peter. This synagogue was built some time later. Is that sky blue or what?

Someone is feeling very Zaccheus as we admire the remains of the industrial town center.

Notice the menorah on the capital? A rare archaeological find.

Not so rare- buildings made out of the black basalt stone of the region. 

We took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, complete with Chris Tomlin blasting on the speakers. A little kitschy considering the profound history of the location. Nevertheless, it was Noemie's favorite part of the trip.

Stop. Hammertime.

My favorite part of the trip was this brief stop on the Jesus Trail. Perhaps it was my favorite because there were no other tourists. There were no gimmicks or giant churches or people trying to sell us prayer shawls or Phoenician glass or olive wood crosses (all things we did eventually purchase elsewhere.) Just the slopes and the kinds of flora that Jesus himself would have seen as he walked from Nazareth to Galilee and back again.

We went to a clean part of the Jordan River where some from our group were baptized. On another day we would go to a part of the Jordan River that was probably closer to the place where John the Baptist would have baptized Jesus. (It wasn't as pretty.)

Bet She'an was a hit for sure. The tel hides over twenty sandwiched layers of past civilizations. The city was inhabited over 3500 years before the Philistine inhabitants hung King Saul's dead body on its walls. King David would conquer it and King Solomon would establish it as an Israeli city. 

The remains of the Roman Decapolis city at the base of the tel was destroyed by an earthquake in the 700s. It was left more or less untouched and today is the biggest archaeological park in Israel. It is overlooked by the tel which you can climb. This makes for really cool aerial views of the Roman city or, in Tovi's case, and excellent spot for throwing rocks to watch them explode. 

From Bet She'an we traveled south through the Judean wilderness, in which Jesus spent time during his temptations immediately following his baptism. 

Just outside of Old City Jerusalem is the David's Tomb complex which houses David's sarcophagus  and, directly above it, the Upper Room site of  Last Supper and Pentecost fame. But who is buried in David's Tomb? David's buried in Bethlehem! Speaking of Bethlehem...

Of all the churches, the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was one of my faves.

If you have an interest in Orthodox iconography, this is the church for you. I may have been geeking out a bit.

People wait in line for hours to touch the silver star in the grotto. The star is situated on the spot where Jesus was born, according to tradition. The very spot. No other spot but this one. 

Luckily, our wait wasn't that long.

Bethlehem has new art too.

And goats. Noemie found a goat.

There's even a holy site made of the "Shepherd's Field." There's not much left to the field. But, as you can imagine, there's a church there.

This pretty rocking chapel is small, meant to look like a nomadic tent. Noemie sampled the great acoustics by singing a Christmas hymn. Some Italian tourists were impressed and shouted "Bravo!" She was delighted in that ten-year old embarassed sort of way.

Love this boy.

Up at the Rehavam Observation Point at the top of the Mount of Olives, we found a camel inclined to give kisses.

 Fortunately, the camel was also inclined to carry cute kids in circles around the promenade. The kids loved their camel ride, courtesy of our sweet tour hosts. The view was pretty spectacular.

They loved the camel, Kojak, as well. 

From the Mount of Olives we descended down the "Palm Sunday Road" (incidentally, less than a week before actual Palm Sunday), passing the oldest Jewish cemetery in the world, and stopping at the Garden of Gethsemane. 

The Church of All Nations, located at the Garden, is another example of the best of human artistic genius dedicated to the construction and adornment of a building meant to honor God. 

Whether or not the building is used for worship of the Creator or the created, is difficult to tell.

Gigi ponders these deep insights from a pew.

Caiaphas' house was not as picturesque. It had a dungeon-like holding cell where Jesus would have been kept while awaiting trial. Danny stayed outside with the littles. Their peaceable behavior and attention span had reached the limit.

A statue of Peter outside Caiaphas' house depicts the moment where he denied Jesus. I'd hate to have a statue made that commemorated my biggest failure.

Day 6! We have arrived at Masada. We took a cable car to the top of the mesa. Masada is located in the desert near the Dead Sea. It certainly felt like a desert at the top, especially with the sun reflecting off the light colored sand as far as the eye could see.

At the Masada fortress, Dominic was selected to demonstrate how a system of channels and dams collected rainwater into cisterns for the use of the residents at this outpost. With a capacity of 40,000 cubic meters, 1000 people could have lived off of such a supply for 5 years!  

The caves of Qumran were not far away. A history buff's dream!

And then Gigi's favorite stop, the Dead Sea! 

Why was it her favorite? "Because it was all muddy and floaty."

We learned quite a bit about the Dead Sea. For instance, it's not just a lot of salt. There are high levels of chlorides, magnesium, and bromides as well. You are not allowed to swim on your tummy- a drop on your tongue burns! And ingestion requires immediate medical attention. 

The sand feels like clay. Getting out was difficult because your legs would sink into the muck- as deep as half way up your calf. Now imagine trying to un-shmluck your foot out of that without losing your water shoe!

The next day we visited the Temple Mount. The area is patrolled by armed Jerusalem Islamic Waqf guards. Danny was not allowed to put his arm around me for photos. We had to make sure not to look at all in love. It was very difficult. 

Solomon built a temple. The Babylonians destroyed it. Herod rebuilt a bigger one. The Romans destroyed that. In the 600s, Muslims built the Dome of the Rock shrine on this spot, the third holiest site in Islam, to mark where Mohammad reportedly visited heaven on a winged horse. The Crusaders turned that into a church when they came marching in in 1099. When Saladin took Jerusalem in 1180, he removed all traces of Christian worship from the Temple Mount. In a twist of irony, the golden dome of a Muslim shrine has become a symbol for the capital of the Jewish state.

This panoramic shot was taken from behind the Dome building.

We had the opportunity to visit the wailing wall but only Gigi and I took that opportunity (on the ladies' side of course.)

I don't remember where these gardens were except that there were some bathrooms nearby where Gigi and I hid while a Palestinian man was taken down by police for being belligerent. 

At the French church located at the pools of Bethesda, Gigi and Tovi led our tour group in song with "Jesus Loves Me."

On the Via Dolorosa, we walked through the Convent of the Sisters of Zion which stands over the place where Jesus was scourged and condemned.

Did I mention I took over 3000 pictures?

It's just such a fascinating place.

And colorful.

And look! A hidden Mickey in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher!

And a hidden Jesus of course.

And light coming into shadowy places and reflecting off the incense smoke.

And Gigi bouncing off the walls perhaps from too much incense smoke. 

These were amazing adventures. More meaningful than Milan. More powerful than Paris. I hope someday we can go back. And we are thankful for the sweet Bagwell family who let us join them on this adventure.

Prior to our trip, we said goodbye to Luna. As in, goodbye forever. We sent her to a lovely family in Santa Cruz. She can go eat someone else's walls.

When we flew back in through Miami, we stopped for a birthday party with friends. 

We flew back to Bolivia at the end of the month and jumped right back into school. Within a week, we found out we would be losing our precious Florencia. Her daughter has been in therapy for a weak eye for over a year. Her evaluation revealed that very little improvement has been made so she needs more intensive therapy. We have all shed our tears. We are definitely more sad at her parting than we were with Luna's. In May, we lose our art-gardening-sewing teacher (and one of our best friends) to the cruel cycle of job advancement; her family moves on to Switzerland. And at the end of that month we lose our other closest friends here to Denver. These next few months may be a bit of a bumpy ride but that just makes us hold on a little tighter to the Lord. It's all good.