Here are a bunch of pictures from Christmas. Stacy and I went hiking in Bolivia, then camping in Brasil with Tracey and Luiz. I've never seen christmas decorations like I did in Gramado, it was literally vomiting decorations! Enjoy the photos!

I wish I had some hi tech sound equipment so that I could record the sounds I wake up to each morning here in Bolivia. It is like I have pitched a tent in the middle of a bird sanctuary. There must be 20 different birds flying around my yard in the morning. Some I really want to see because they don't sound real. They sound like noises made by a bird whistle, the kind that hunters use. I'm up earlier that usual for a day off so I'm going to head outside in a bit to see if I can spot some of these birds. It really is such peaceful music to wake up to each morning.

Today is Monday of Carnival so no work. It is actually cold here!! I slept with my wool blanket last night and need to go put more warm clothes on right now. It has been raining here for about 3 weeks straight only it hasn't been cold. The cold front hit this weekend, it is a nice change. It sort of messed up the carnival festiviities. The big corso, parade, that was suppose to start Saturday night was postponed until Sunday afternoon. So many people have so much fun here during this carnival weekend. I'm holed up in my house avoiding the water balloons, foam and whatever else is going on. I'm not bothered, it is nice to just be at home for a few days.

BACK TO SCHOOL

Today is the first day back to school after a nice long vacation. Our vacation was actually extended a bit. Yesterday was suppose to be a civil strike (the 4th one of the year). It was cancelled last minute but the school had already sent out a parent email cancelling school. So while we didn't have the day off, we had a second, much needed, work day.

I won't lie, it was hard getting up for school this morning. But I'm ready to be back and looking forward to a new semester.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Vacation has been good so far. Stacy arrived on Sunday after a ton of delays on LAB. Whatever you do, DON'T FLY LAB!!!!! They are slim shady! We have been just relaxing and running errands. I've attached some pictures from the end of the school year. Rebecca has headed off to Rio and will be getting married on December 29th. We took the students to Aqualand on the last day of school and had a blast. Even my glamour girl students (in the glasses) hit the waterslides. I haven't been on waterslides in ages so that was a good time. The next batch of pictures and posts will be iin the new year. Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and wonderful New Year!!!!!!

I had the chance last weekend to play mom. My church supports several orphanages and one of them wanted to close for two days to plan for the upcoming year. That meant that all of the kids had to have a place to stay. So I had two girls, Juana (15) and Yeraldine (7) come and stay with me. It is usually a family that takes kids but I thought it sounded like a neat thing to do, so I was my own family.

Now I have stayed with kids, babysat, nannied, hung with my nieces and nephew, but none of that compares to having your own kids so I have to give props to all the moms I know. Their job is never ending. I only had their job for one night and it shed a whole new light on things.

I picked the girls up after work on Friday. We came home and I was beat to say the least. A week before the semester is ending and I had about as much energy as a dead battery. Go moms, I know you are tired way more than you realize or admit! We did our nails and talked. I have a fooze ball table downstairs and that was a hit. Then Julie called and invited us over for Harry Potter. She had the projector from school so we watched it on the wall in the living room just like the movie theater. Big hit! The girls slept late on Saturday and when they got up we had pancakes and continued the conversations. Even Yeraldina, all 7 years of her, bless her heart, helped me find words I didn't know in our talks. We spent the afternoon at the zoo and then had a picnic in the plaza. All in all a great two days. The girls are so polite and enjoyable to be around. Just cute as can be. It is hard to imagine they come from families who are unable to appreciate such loving little girls.

My time with the girls got me thinking about adoption. Don't worry, I won't be coming home with new kids this summer or anything, but I'd really like to provide a home for kids that need it. Yes, kids, I realize two might be a little easier than one. Maybe it is because I come from such a big family, but I can't imagine just one kid and me. Two for sure. The single biggest challenge was language. I know I have learned a lot in the last year but I'm nowhere near fluent. I'm like a 4 year old, if that, more like a 3 year old in my vocabulary. But I'll tell you, not an ounce of impatience passed from Juana or Yeraldine. Patient souls for sure. I think the sweetest thing was Juana praying at bedtime, thanking God for opening up my heart and home to her. Now if that doesn't make you want to keep them, I'm not sure what would!

Pictures:
-Yeraldina playing with Jake (Julie's dog)
-Standing on my patio
-Lighting the barbeque with Julie
-Watching Harry Potter on the big screen.

Sucre for Thanksgiving

Clearly it has been a while since I've posted anything as I'm about to put up some pictures from Thanksgiving. Even in my second year running, it is odd to have a hot Thanksgiving. We celebrated the weekend before over here at the compound I live on. Three turkeys and all the fixings. Yum, makes me hungry just thinking about it. It is nice to celebrate the holiday with my family down here. All of us away from home but give us a little turkey and nostalgia starts flowing. It is like we are all back with our families eating, it was a lot of fun.

For the actual time off, I headed to Sucre with Mike and Julie. It was my 4th time there and I just can't imagine ever being sick of it. It is a small college town with old colonial history. The small cobble streets are lined with white buildings and it is a nice slow pace of life. People even talk slower which is great for me. It makes me feel like my year and a half of spanish is paying off! We went out to see the dinosaur tracks but it was really dissapointing. When I went in June with my parents, you could walk right up to the tracks. I'm sure that made archeologists around the world just sick! Now there is this view point but even with binoculars, you can't see how big the tracks really are. Having seen it before, I could still appreciate it. But if it was your first time, like Mike and Julie, I have to agree that it was a bit lame.

Aside from the dinosaur tracks we didn't do a whole lot. Long meals, naps, books and TV movies. It was a nice time. I can't wait to take Tracey there.

Strike 3

Today is the 3rd strike of the school year. Five states, not just Santa Cruz, are involved so this one is pretty big. There are a lot of issues in Bolivia at the moment, land reform being probably the biggest. This is what today's strike is about. Evo's land reform act involves taking private land and giving out to the indigenous poor of the country. Obviously the people who currently own the land do not want it siezed and given away. Can't really blame them. This is also causing a lot of serious environmental problems. In an effort to make their land look used, in hopes of not having it taken away by the government, thousands of acres of land are being deforrested. It is all a very sad and devastating business. So as nice as it is to have the day off work, it isn't worth it when it means bad news for the country as a whole.

Halloween


PICTURES:
-Wendy and I
-The snake picture minus the snake. Lucas, Michael and Jonathan instead
-Rebecca and Heath on gate duty
-Maureen
-Lucas and I before the 8th grade dance (can you see his wig?)
-Analia, Ximena, Heath and I watching the dances
-7th grade girls

I'm sure I have mentioned before what a huge event Halloween is at our school. Dance competitions, costume prizes, dunk tanks, food, animals......

We had perfect weather this year. There wasn't an ounce of humidity in the air (Ok, so that isn't possible in Bolivia but there wasn't the normal amount for sure) a light breeze was keeping us cool and overall it was a pleasant night. Much to my 7th graders disappointment, the 8th graders won the middle school dance. It was fun to see the kids dancing and performing on stage. Some of them are real naturals, others simply try so hard it is a kick to watch.

The National Junior Honor Society, the club I sponsor, was suppose to have a big fundraiser. We arranged to have a boa constrictor from the zoo come to the event. We spent last Saturday paining a jungle scene and for 10b's ($1.50) you could have your picture taken with the boa. Sounds fun, right?? Well, the snake never made it to the party. We aren't sure why, could be the flaky zoo guy or could be one of my flaky students. I need to get to the bottom of it. We were all very disappointed that the snake didn't come. It would have been a hit for sure. Oh well, maybe next year.

Speaking of next year. I have no idea where I will be. Tracey and I are waiting to hear about available positions at my school. My director has said that if a position opens it will be Traceys for sure. We just need an opening. Hopefully we will find out in a few weeks.

Voting from Bolivia



Thanks to the help of my voting guru Brian Cavagnolo, I was proudly able to send in my absentee ballot this week. I suppose I was a little in the dark about the low voter turnout in the states. Being friends with Brian meant that almost everyone I knew was a registered, active voter. Boy was I living in a bubble. I was the only absentee voter at my school. How crazy is that. No worries though, I really gave everyone a good talking to about the importance of our vote. I think what drives me the most is that there was a time in our country when so many people didn't even have the right to such a thing as voting. So many people have fought for so long to bring about voting changes. It just seems irresponsible not to do it.

My message to all of you:

REGISTER!
VOTE!

Olimpiadas Especiales



I had the chance to take a group of students to the Special Olympics last week. We went as volunteers for the day and it didn't take long to realize what a truely special event it is! All of us were amazed by the excitement, happiness, encouragement and sense of community we felt.

We were not sure what our volunteer experience would be like. It was an overcast, rainy morning when we arrived at the stadium and there was garbage EVERYWHERE. There was a big soccer game a few nights before so the place was a mess. The first job we were assigned was the long jump pit. It didn't sound like too hard a job until we actually saw the pit. It looked like a small pond and our job was to get it ready for the jumpers. So we gathered some helpful garbage (2 liter coke bottles) and began getting the water out. It seemed an impossible job but an hour later, with the help of some buckets we found, the pit had been cleared and was ready for jumping (see the pictures). I was so impressed with the good attitude my students had. I admit, we thought that our job would be timing kids or something similar, not cleaning out a dirty long jump pit. But even that turned out to be a fun time together and we all talked about how we prefered pit cleaning to a day at school. I guess we all needed a break from school!

We decided that we are going to put together a team for the next special olympics. My students said they felt they could help better by coaching a team and spending the time to get to know a team of kids. That is the plan, I think it is a great one so I'll keep you all posted.

The pictures were taken throughout the day. At one point, one of the althletes asked Karla what place he came in. She told him last place. He asked his coach if this was true and his coach said "You didn't come in last silly, you came in fourth". There were only 4 runners but it didn't matter, the comment made the little guy beam with delight!

More News from Santa Cruz
I can't believe how fast this school year is going! We just finished our first quarter and so much has been going on. Tracey came last week for her October break. We had a week of relaxation and catching up. It was cool for her to come back here as she came last October as well, so the city was familiar to her.
We spent a night up in Samaipata, this tiny little town about 3 hours away. We layed around sancking and having a movie marathon.

In school news, the middle school has been having a cleaning supply drive to support a local orphanage. Our goal was to collect a years worth of supplies in one month. It was a really successful event. The highlight was taking a group of students to deliver the goods to the orphanage. It was a real shock for most of the students who ahd never seen such poverty in their own city. My students are pretty sheltered so it was good for them to get out.

This year I am the rep for National Junior Honor Society. We have adopted the local zoo as our community service project. The students will be translating all of the signs into English making it a more international zoo. I saw my first sloth that day. The central plaza use to be full of them but when they redid the plaza they put the sloths back into the jungle. One of my students put this one back in a tree. Cute little things. We all got a laugh out of the uncaged horse at the zoo. We thought they were being really humanitarian like and letting it roam. We were informed by the director that, no, they were not aiming to let more animals roam free but that the horse was jaguar food. They go through a horse a week. We all got a kick out of that.

We celebrated Santa Cruz day last month. Rebecca, Analia and I got into the spirit with some Santa Cruz iron on patches. Reminded me of my tshirt making days with Tracey.

I will never get sick of the produce here. It is all so juicey and fresh. And have you ever seen such big basil leaves? I was so shocked I had to include a picture.

This month marks a big decision to be made. Contracts have to be resigned for next year. In a few weeks I'll know what my future plans are. I will either be here for a while longer (with Tracey) or we may be heading to Asia. Either way will be a great adventure.