Thanksgiving Tacos

I know, I know, Thanksgiving and tacos don't have a single overlapping ingredient, but neither do Thanksgiving and Bolivia, well except maybe a few displaced gringos. Last week five of us displaced North Americans ventured to Cochabamba to join with other pilgrims in celebrating all that we have to be thankful for with overpriced turkey and all the traditional fixings that we either had brought down from the US or overpaid for here.

However, while I was indulging in my favorite food of the year with some of my favorite people, one friend in particular was avoiding all normal Thanksgiving foods like the plague. My dear friend Savannah accompanied by her sister Alison, who was surprise visiting from the US, went out for barbeque chicken wraps followed by movie theater popcorn to avoid the customary feast. I don't think we'd ever been seen in dresses together outside of church so after our late night viewing of HP7 we had a guard document the occasion with a photo. The next night, after visiting all the old Cochabamba hotspots, we made Thanksgiving tacos with our beloved language school director, Mauge. Don't worry we had pumpkin bread and apple pie to make it truly Thanksgiving-y.

I'm also so thankful for the Wolheters with whom we cooked, ate, played Settlers, and hiked to a "waterfall." Their boys are growing up way too fast! I'm thankful for my traveling companions Taylor and the Janeckes who made our Thanksgiving trip into the type of family-vacation that makes it nearly impossible to miss a "normal" Turkey Day. And so thankful for Skype that makes it impossible to miss my "real" family. But as life-like as Skype is, it has nothing to compare with the long awaited hugs I'll be sharing with so many of you that I'm thankful for in 2.5 weeks!

"Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness." - Colossians 2:7 NLT

A Weekend of Talita Cumi Fun

So, I know I talk about Talita Cumi a lot, but I really can't help it, for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. -Matthew 12:34. This time I thought I'd show you, more than tell you, how I got to see the kids from TC every day this weekend, and tonight I'm going back to Skype them to their Auntie Kim who's currently studying in Canada, while we impatiently await her return!

Friday, was the kids' last day of school before their summer break, so they had a little fair of sorts. They loved having a visitor to show their classrooms and projects to, even if it was someone as old and uncool as myself.

Saturday, five of the teenagers were baptized in my friends' pool.

Among the five, were Cesar and one of his sisters, my sweet Jenny.

I'm so proud of the gentle, nurturing, beautiful young woman she's becoming.

And then Sunday, because I just couldn't get that fabulous pool from the baptisms out of my mind, I hauled all sixteen girls back for an afternoon of jumping, sliding, swimming and squealing at the Adjei's lovely home.

I'm not sure how I'll survive two weeks in the US without them...

Girl Time

Over the weekend I got to spend some time with some lovely ladies. On Friday, I invited the women from our growing vet school ministry over for our second viewing of H2O. The first night a week ago was such a success that they immediately wanted to make copies of the videos, which I took as a sign of their approval, but was not so sure about City On A Hill's approval. I jokingly shared with Kyle Idleman their interesting manner of demonstrating their appreciation; which is sometimes also referred to as "stealing". And was shocked to find that he was all for it! In a country where EVERYTHING is pirated, I wonder if they've ever once had permission from the producer. Unprecedented! Now the goal is to keep getting the ladies together to fellowship and study, even though they won't need me and my originals anymore. New cupcake recipes should do the trick...

Then on Saturday we had a birthday party for some of the girls with b-days in this season. The party was specifically for Adreana who turned the big 3-0 on Friday, but the little crowns came 4-to-a-pack, so we were able to extend the celebration to some Sept-Dec birthday girls as well. There was one poor (or lucky) guy at our fiesta, and one husband who stopped by briefly, but for the most part it was, as many of our reunions are, estrogen only. And that's increasingly just fine with me.

As much as I really am enjoying my time with the ladies of my different circles, none of them have proven particularly helpful in my ongoing car fun. At least not nearly as useful as some of the men who've gone out of their way to ease my frustrations. I especially wanted to give credit and thanks to Bill Janecke without whom I'd be even better friends with the tow truck driver. For a guy, Bill is pretty cool!

Race Etiquette

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." - 1 Corinthians 9:24

Maybe I should have read this verse as my devotional this morning before I ran in my first race since leaving the US. Wearing, of course, the same shoes I wore in my last race, a mini-marathon in July of 2009 in Oregon, because they don't have shoes here large enough for my feet. But I can't complain about the shoes, they were fine, better than others' apparently as there were at least three runners carrying their shoes and finishing in socked feet. Who knows?

However, the heat might merit a complaint or two. Does anyone remember the Chicago Marathon of 2007, where they had to cancel the race because of the heat, it was 88 degrees. Here, today it is 99℉. I carried a frozen bag of chocolate milk in my pocket to stay cool, I couldn't find the little bagged waters in the store, turns out the race must have bought all of them in the entire city. BTW, chocolate milk--not so thirst quenching.

I really had no idea what to expect going into it. I almost never see runners around the city, so I had unrealistic visions of prize money dancing in my head. Little did I know, just how unrealistic. The newspaper this morning said there were 5,000 runners signed up. I guess in a city of 2 million, 1 in 400 people would sign up for a free race. Free meant more runners, no safety pins, no chips for the shoes, and t-shirts for only the first 200 finishers.

So, you're dying of suspense I know. Did I get a t-shirt, did I win prize money, did I even finish? Turns out, not wearing a watch for over a year is not a good way to train for a race, nor to know how you did in one lacking a finish clock. I thought to look at my phone a bit after the race, and estimate that I finished in about 50 minutes, which I'm happy with because we didn't cross the starting line for a couple minutes and an 8 minute pace isn't bad when you've been training at about 12-13 minute miles.

However, my running comrade Misty, says she talked to one of the womens' finalist who finished in 35 minutes, oh my! Even if I hadn't made the mistake of starting in the middle of the pack, behind a couple thousand runners/walkers who've had little opportunity to run in races and learn running etiquette like where to start based on your expected pace and how to maybe get out of the way when you decide to stop and walk in front of a stampede of runners. But passing people is a lot more fun than being passed, and I only got passed by one female the entire race, so that's something. Next time I'll know what I'm up against and be better prepared to follow Paul's advice in 1 Cor. Maybe I'll even update my footwear, or get a watch!

Now, back to the real race: "...my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace." - Acts 20:24

Happy Halloween/All Saints Day!

While you guys were off electing on Tuesday, we were also enjoying some free time for All Saints Day. Just as All Saints Day probably doesn't bring many traditions to mind for you, nor me, Halloween has just as little significance to the locals here. It's doubtful Halloween ever made my top 3 list for holidays, but pumpkins, costumes, and CANDY are not customs that any child should miss out on regardless of her nationality. So, I took some candy over to the Cristo Viene Girls' Home on Sunday night and innocently enough told them "Happy Halloween!"

Little did I know that they would immediately extract from me all the details of trick-or-treating and within minutes be loading into my car to experience this novelty for themselves. Completely against my better judgement I hauled 22 people back to my house to pick up plastic grocery bags and hit the streets, costume-less.
My neighborhood is a bit heavier on gringos than most, so there were actually a few families prepared for the squealing young mob of estrogen running from house to house screaming some attempt at "Trick-or-Treat!" After about half an hour and a quick stop at the playground they contentedly climbed back into my car and counted their loot = 4 pieces of what might as well have been pure gold! In their utter ignorance of the fact that they should have had 4 kilos of candy, they were ecstatic!

Making sure to take full advantage of my car while my new friend, Hernan, the tow-truck-driver's not monopolizing it; Tuesday we hauled 17 people to the botanical gardens for a day in the sun, and shade whenever we could find it. Toyota's 10 passenger design is really just a loose guideline.

Highlights of the day: While the lagartos (alligators), and ñandú (rhea) who joined us for lunch were fun, the feature attraction was the sighting of the ardillas, wait for it...get ready...SQUIRRELS! Does it get any better than this? Other highlights: the Talita Cumi kids who joined us didn't all pace themselves and therefore some wore out mid-morning, but a quick restful piggy-back ride and another new American tradition -- PB&J -- and they were back to full strength, and ready for the playground. Where we close with one of my favorite moments; Angélica teaching me how to swing, as if it was my very first time...