My Family, the Guinea Pigs

You've probably already noticed that I love visitors. Out-of-town guests, dinner guests, party guests, even drop-in-while-you're-walking-your-dog guests. But, I've just learned there are some significant differences between all of those and out-of-country guests. Especially when it's four family members who've never been to South America, let alone Bolivia or for most of them, any developing country. My mom, dad, aunt, and sister sacrificed the comforts of familiarity to spend a week with me sharing a little bit of home.

For better or worse, my philosophy was that they would more likely regret not seeing everything, than not sleeping much, because who knows when they'll visit again. In hindsight, when they'll visit again may be determined by how long it takes them to recover from this first trip. Now I know you're thinking I ran them full speed from start to finish, but there was a lot to see, and it turns out a lot of souvenirs to buy, but we worked in some down time. Driving counts as down time right?

The car jostled us all a fair amount, and the endless winding she did over those 20+ hours on mountain "roads", caused some extra nausea, but overall I think she took the worst beating. (Note the mutilated tire we had fun replacing on a mud road through a jungle cloud.)

The combination of car sickness, stress, malaria antibiotics, unfamiliar/sometimes questionable water, nerves, strange food, and possible parasites makes for some very uneasy stomachs. The combination of the unknown, driving on the edges of cliffs, constantly meeting new people, having to have everything translated for you, being deprived of conventional rest areas, and experiencing so many things for the first time builds character right? I know I made a lot of mistakes in preparing them and taking care of them, but it was an adventure and I hope a learning experience for us all. I'm glad it was family that got to be the guinea pigs for the rest of my North American guests, since they have to forgive me for my failings. And beyond the lessons they taught me their presence and their U.S. presents were a huge blessing! I pray that their stomachs recover quickly and that they can process what they saw and experienced through eyes wider open to a whole new part of God's world.

Speaking of family, there's now one more member of my little household here. While visiting Cochabamba we picked up Ruby, the seven month yellow lab puppy, that may very well be my future first foster failure. I agreed to keep her for awhile in between homes, but I'm already beginning to wonder if I might have to find a replacement pet for the couple that wanted to adopt her next year. Molly and Brian, if you're reading this, I'll start looking for an even better addition to your brand new family...