Sunday, 3 February 2013

I think I scarred some little kids

This is the view out my window. Not bad.

I did, indeed, get a bunch of parsley. BUT! Not all was lost. Basil was acquired by others, and it went into a delicious pesto sauce. Really, everything that night that we had for dinner was amazing. Some of Sarah and Scott's friends came over for a dinner party, and we ate pizza, pesto/noodles, other noodle goodness, garlic bread, and brownies. So good.

We also played some board games, which I always enjoy. None of them had to leave particularly early because there was no school the next day. That's the funny thing about Bolivia, and La Paz. You just never know when school is going to be cancelled.

You see, the city is trying to reforming the public transportation. The drivers (buses, minibus, trufi, taxi) will occasionally go on strike because of it. And it's not good enough to just not drive for that day, they also set up blockades so no one can go anywhere. Including teachers and students.

So Tuesday, what did we do? We put up curtains, ate some yummy food, played Ticket to Ride, and just hung out. It was wonderful, because really, the reason I came to La Paz was to see Sarah, and I got to do that all day!

Thursday I visited the school where both she and Scott work. Apparently her students had been anxiously awaiting my visit for the entire week. They are just so sweet. I got to be "Social Studies" for that chunk of time, showing them pictures of Australia (mostly the animals) and talked about farming there. Then they got to ask me all sorts of questions. One of them made the mistake of asking what I ate while in Australia. I told them I ate a lot of sheep. Sheep are pretty common here in Bolivia, so I thought that was a pretty safe one.

I was wrong. They were a little bit mortified, if being a little mortified is possible. And to add to their already distaught little minds, I added, "I also ate some kangaroo." Well, you can imagine how that went with a bunch of 9-yr-olds. Here I thought it would be somewhat okay since they eat things like llamas, but again, I was wrong. 

Other than that, it went really well. The also got to ask me questions about me personally. 

"What's your favorite color?"
"How many siblings do you have?"
"What Australian animal do you prefer?"
"What Australian animal was your favorite?"
"What's your favorite not-Australian animal?"
"What's your favorite animal pet?"

Sometimes they get in a rut. I think my favorite part was when they would throw their hand up in the air like they had a very urgent question, but then when I called on them they would have to think and think to come up with something. It was so fun. And adorable.

That night we went to get anticuchos. It was pretty good meat with some potatoes. And you know what kind of meat it was?!?! That's right, folks, cow's heart. La corazon de una vaca. Because I'm hard core like that. Haha. Seriously though, it was pretty tasty - a little greasy - but tasty. Also, the lady cooking it was using a hair dryer to build up the flames for the grill.



Friday we loaded up the Beast (a just-about-ancient Toyota Landcruiser) and headed down to the jungle again. This time to participate in the staff retreat for the school. They let me go, 'cause they're nice like that. Sarah and I hung out most of the time. We climbed through the jungle most the way up a mountain until the path went into the yard of a super random house. Then we laid out, read a bunch, went swimming, read some more, the usual. (She lent me this book called In the Time of the Butterflies. It was really good). 



Tomorrow I leave for Santa Cruz to visit my lovely friend, Rachel. It's going to be a fun, busy adventure for the next week. Feel free to pray for us as they are threatening more transportation strikes (not dangerous for us, but it could end up being very inconvenient). 



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