English Practicum 2016 and Another Visitor!

This past semester, I once again taught the introduction to our Culture and Language Acquisition (CLA) program.  It was the first time I have repeated a course here at Etnos, and I was excited to give it some tweaks and improvements!  On the whole, I think it was a much more solid class than the first time.  To end the semester, the students spent 3 weeks studying English here on campus to practice what they have learned and get a feel for how the program works.

Three student gals baking with Kaylee and the girls

This year was much different than the last time we did this practicum.  With all that has been going on the past couple months, we still haven't regained the stability we would like to have and on top of it all, we went into it with practically the whole family sick. Most of us recovered quickly, but Kaylee continued to suffer through the entire first half.  Thankfully, we had enough other English speakers on campus that it wasn't a hindrance to the program.

The practice is as much a reflection of how I have taught as much as it is about the students' ability, so of course now I have lots more thoughts about how to improve my class again!

The BIG highlight this year was that my nephew Michael joined us!  It was his first time travelling internationally and was quite the adventure.  He helped me with several projects that were not only helpful for me, but gave the students the opportunity to observe and listen to us work.  He was also Jilmer's language helper, spending an hour each day helping him improve his vocabulary.

Michael cutting back mango trees blocking the lights on the
volleyball court (and burning a wasp nest)

Frying donuts for breakfast

Building shelves for our house

In spite of the craziness of running the English program, we managed to get him some good Bolivian experiences, too:

Checking out a jaguar at the Santa Cruz Zoo

Visiting Santa Cruz's central plaza and cathedral

Grabbing a café con leche in the plaza

Dining "out," his last night in Bolivia

My favorite part of his visit was his last Saturday, when he and I went on an adventure to find a beautiful waterfall west of us on the edge of the mountains.  But you'll have to read more about that over at the Tinker Thinker blog:  click here for photos and video!

Michael taking a gander at the 295-foot drop!

Celebration!

I'm not sure whether our circumstances have improved, or just our outlook, but either way, things are going much smoother than the last time I wrote.  However, please continue to pray for the staff of Etnos - there are lots of health issues right now!!  Colds, flus, dengue fever, and two ladies with broken arms within 5 days!  Anne said, "I guess I started something."

We have important reasons to celebrate this week!  We celebrated Kaylee's birthday yesterday.  It turned out well, although not at all like we had planned.  One of our coworkers fell and broke her arm at the wrist and Kaylee spent a good chunk of the afternoon helping with that situation.  All in God's plan, right?

Instead of a birthday cake, she got an apple fritter with a candle in it!

Our other reason to celebrate is that our friend Eliana, an Etnos alumna from La Paz, is moving to Urubichá today!  A new missionary moving into a village to begin ministry is always a reason to celebrate, but for Kaylee and I, this is doubly special.  Eliana is the first one of "our" students to make the leap of faith into indigenous ministry.  So as she begins studying to learn the Guarayo culture and language, she will be applying the things we have taught her.  Yikes!  We are excited to see how the Lord uses her.

Please pray for Eliana as she makes this transition and begins an exciting new adventure!

At the bus terminal, ready to go!

Anne has an Accident (with a capital 'A')

After our first couple weeks back in Santa Cruz, we were starting to feel settled in and getting comfortable.  Then, suddenly, it all unwound on us in a hurry.

We had a rat in the kitchen.  Mice in the ceiling of the office.  I started working with the bookkeeper, so she can go on furlough this year.  It got hot.

A young family from the US was visiting Bolivia and we were their main contact.  Last Wednesday, I took a couple hours off of the bookkeeping to pick them up, get them some groceries, and bring them to campus.  Anne, Addi, and Lydia immediately set off with their kids to give them the Grand Tour while we helped them get their stuff into their room.

Then Anne started screaming.

Now, our girls have been trained that screaming is absolutely off limits except for two reasons:  you're hurt so bad you can't get help or a bad person is getting you.  

I ran out to the girls' favorite climbing tree, Kaylee right behind me, and found her laying on her back in the sand with a funky-looking shoulder, saying, "Daddy, I can't breathe."  Addi told me that Anne had fallen out of the tree, indicating a branch next to my head.  Kaylee called our coworker Judy, who is trained as a nurse.  We thought maybe her shoulder was dislocated from the way it looked, but Judy said we should go into town to our ER of choice.

So Judy bound up Anne's arm in a couple strips of Kaylee's cloth, we got her up into the Patrol, and she and I bumped and jolted our way, 5 miles into the city, to the best clinic in town.

Sweaty and sandy, lots of pain, taking vitals in the ER

Anne was in a lot of pain, but she was amazing.  Between the ride into town, all the preliminary checks, and the x-ray, she was well over an hour without any kind of pain medication before they got the IV into her.  Maybe it was the shock, but she never complained, other than "It hurts!"

The x-ray tech said, "Fractured."

The ER doc said, "Can you afford an MRI at $XXXX?"

I said, "Let's pray the insurance will cover it!"

MRI:  That "ball" is supposed to be on the end of the bone!

It turns out that "fractured" in Spanish can mean anything from a hairline to a major break -- one of the many new things I learned through this experience.  Another is that you get to choose your level of comfort from 3 different classes of room -- "normal," "special," and "VIP" -- each more expensive than the last, of course.

Surgery was scheduled for the following morning at 11:00.  Our coworker Karla (the bookkeeper) drove into town to bring us some necessities and ended up feeding Anne her supper while I took the car to a secure garage and fed myself.

So Anne and I spent the night in the hospital together for the first time since she was born. :)  

Surgery went as planned and praise God the doctors were happy with how her arm turned out.  They did end up putting a temporary pin in it, which I had to pay for separately (by private courier).  

I was concerned that Anne was going to come out of the anesthesia all alone, as I wasn't given access.  However, just as Anne was coming out of surgery, while the anesthesiologist was giving me his report, Kaylee and the girls showed up for a visit.  As soon as I introduced them, the anesthesiologist rushed Kaylee into the recovery room and Anne opened her eyes for the first time just as she walked in!  Another reason to praise God!

With one arm broken and an IV in the other, she needed LOTS of help!

We stayed one more night in the hospital and were released the following day.  Of course, we had to pay before she was allowed to leave, which caused a bit of a fuss when my debit card wouldn't work.  A coworker ended up bringing cash for us, so we could go home!  Anna, yet another coworker, stayed with Anne while I got it all worked out and went to get the car!

Now for a week, Anne has been learning to make do with "one hand."

We went back into town this afternoon for her second followup appointment and they took another x-ray of her shoulder.  The doc said it looks great!

Before (broken)                                       After (fixed)

We thank God for all of our teammates that helped us both in physical ways and through prayer.  We are thankful for those of you who prayed as well.  We are thankful for a good clinic to go too, and a good car to get us there in.  We are thankful that Anne is recovering well!

The branch she was sitting on when she fell

Now we need to fix the office ceiling, which has been pulled down to reveal a terrible lot of mousy nastiness and termites. . .

Back in Bolivia!

After 8 fun, crazy months, we are back home at Etnos.  After a few days to catch up on sleep and start moving back into our house, I started teaching this morning.  This is the first time I am repeating a class at Etnos and I am excited for the opportunity to improve and adapt the material.

We want to say a big THANK YOU to all of our family and friends that made our time in the US special.  It means so much to us that you would take time to add us back into your busy lives for a short time.

In my last post, I mentioned the craziness of moving internationally and this time was no exception.  Our last full week in the States, we were at our home church for the annual Global Outreach Conference.  It was our first time since 2010!  It was a huge blessing, but a very intense and busy time, with activities every night and a few during the day as well. As a family, we had several opportunities to report on our ministry here and I taught a seminar on the importance of the local language and culture in cross-cultural discipleship.

The girls spoke about their life in Bolivia at Jr Church, their 4th presentation of our home assignment

We had packed as much of our things as we could before the conference started, but of course the two days we had "free" before we left were a little nuts as we packed suitcases to go and totes to stay.

We thank God that our travel went smoothly and that all of our stuff arrived safely.

Our house here had been cleaned before we arrived, thanks to our coworker-neighbors, but all of our stuff was packed into our office/classroom and a storage room.  The last 5 days have been a slow, fatiguing process of unboxing and cleaning everything so we can begin to live normally.  Kaylee finally finished the kitchen yesterday, so we can eat, at least, as soon as we get back up to speed on cooking here!

We still have quite a bit to do, so please pray for stamina.  As I write, Kaylee is in her classroom getting books and materials organized so she can start homeschool, probably next week.

Of course, the girls LOVE being back!  They have been chomping at the bit to return since around Thanksgiving and are so happy to be back in their home.

Lydia was overjoyed to have cuñapé again after 8 months of "famine"

Addi is happy to be back with Snowy

Anne has been devouring books she wasn't ready for when we left

And, naturally, they are spending as much time outside as they can!  We have been blessed with "cooler" weather with both temperature and humidity in the low 80s.

Butterfly hunters: we bought Addi and Lydia their own nets

They have been excited for RAIN and God provided today!

Chikungunya

In our house, it has mostly been referred to as the Chicken Goonies.

Funny name, unfunny disease.

Since February we have been hearing about chikungunya, a mosquito-borne arthritic virus that causes fever, rash, and joint pain. (Learn about it here)  It had been spreading in Santa Cruz and we knew several people that had had it.  We were doing what we could to control the mosquitoes in and around our house, but God saw fit that we should experience the darker side of the tropics.

It started Friday, May 15th, late at night.  Kaylee thought she might have food poisoning.  She made it through the night pretty well, but the next morning, she couldn't get out of bed, because it hurt to stand up.  Not exaggerating.

For 5 days, the girls and I took over the household responsibilities and tried to make Kaylee as comfortable as possible.

Then on Wednesday, as I was preparing my lecture for the next day's Church History class, my chest and back started getting stiff and sore.  By nightfall, I had gone from running the household, to being completely useless.  Kaylee made supper and washed the dishes while sitting on a stool, because she still couldn't stand up.

In the morning, I felt as though I had spent the previous day playing pickup football.  My back, chest, and shoulders ached, my feet hurt, and my legs were incredibly stiff.  My head was okay, so (foolishly) I taught my class.  I was fine for the first hour, but the second was less than heavenly.  I returned to the house feeling totally wiped out.  That night, the fever hit.

I spent 3 days in bed with fever.  Saturday, I woke up with the granddaddy of all rashes.  It was so bad that the girls didn't want to hug me when they got up.  Our resident nurse said she has never seen anything like it in her life, most of which has been lived here, dealing with tropical oddities.

I know most of you don't want to, but you can click to enlarge

That night, we couldn't get the fever under control.  I had already maxed-out on Tylenol and Ibuprofen is off limits.  I was shaking uncontrollably (again) and poor Kaylee was already so wiped out that she didn't have the energy to nurse me through the night.

A coworker took me to the ER around 9pm.  I was given an IV with Dioxadol, another fever killer, and waited an hour.  No change.  They gave me another Tylenol (oops) and sent me to a cold shower.  That didn't stop it either.  The nurse couldn't believe it when she took my temperature!  After waiting around for another hour or so, it finally dropped to about 101F and they released me.

Now, 3 weeks later, I can almost walk like a person.  I can hold a cup of coffee, too.  It affects each person differently; for me, the worst has been concentrated in my feet, shoulders, and hands.  The stairs have been the biggest challenge; even yesterday I couldn't walk down them normally, rather one at a time, holding onto the railing for balance.  This afternoon, it still hurts a little, but I can actually walk in a full stride.  Yesterday, I played my bass again in our morning devotional.  Still, you couldn't pay me to play volleyball or soccer today.

Thankfully, through it all, we have managed to keep our spirits up.  We knew what to expect and Kaylee and I shared some good-natured laughs at the way we both hobbled around.  We appreciate the help of coworkers that ran errands for us.

The biggest blessing of all was our girls.  They were incredibly helpful, running little errands for us and doing extra work in the kitchen.  They got along and played quietly so we could rest.  I think they were a little shell-shocked, honestly, to see us so weak.

They did find out that sometimes it is a good thing that Daddy and Mommy can't move much:

They say the symptoms could linger for weeks and months.  Thankfully, Kaylee is mostly pain-free, but my improvement has been very slow.  Please pray that we will be able to get everything done that we need to for our return to the US in two weeks and that we have no trouble traveling!!

Lomas de Arena

One of the places we have recently heard about here in Santa Cruz is a place called Parque Regional Lomas de Arena (Sand Dunes Regional Park).  Donya, who came for the CLA English program and stayed an extra 3 weeks, was getting ready to leave that night, so we decided to have one last adventure before she left.

It was an adventure just finding the place.  Although it is on the map and I had my Garmin GPS, it is on the southern edge of the city and you have to go through some very under-developed barrios to get there.  We finally got to the park and paid $6.50 for all of us to get in.

Then the fun started.

The sign at the gate said "4x4 and 4-wheelers Only" and it was no joke.  We spent half an hour going 4.3 miles on a sandy track with lots of mud holes and we still didn't know where we were going.  Here's a short summary video (720p) of the drive in, complete with music (from Christian parody band Apologetix) and charming conversation:


As I said, it was the most fun I've had in a long time.  Even better than going to the store.

We had the place entirely to ourselves.  Unfortunately, it was super windy (welcome to Santa Cruz) and it was too late in the day to stay long, but we had fun anyway.  Here are a sampling of photos (see the rest by clicking here).

  I took some more video on the way out, with the GoPro on the hood, where it got a good soaking (1080p this time!):


We will definitely be going back!

There and Back Again (Adventures on the Road)

Kaylee already posted about her thoughts and feeling regarding our trip to Urubichá, but we decided that we should also write about the trip itself, as it was very stressful (especially returning!).

We set out from Cochabamba on the 15th of February, headed for Santa Cruz.  It was an uneventful trip and we felt quite comfortable on the road, since we had been over the same 300 miles just five weeks earlier.

On the morning of the 17th, Kaylee and I said goodbye to our girls and my parents and got on the road to Urubichá.  The first 185 miles to Ascención de Guarayos is on one of Bolivia's major highways and is paved pretty well all the way.  Then you turn off the main road and go another 25 miles on dirt.

I recently purchased a GoPro camera and have had a lot of fun filming our latest driving adventures (more about that in this post, including the video of me getting the Patrol very stuck in a big mud hole).   Take a drive-through look at the town that is going to be our shopping headquarters and the first part of the drive to our future home:

There is a gas station in Ascención, but it didn't have any gasoline!  We had filled up in San Ramón, 150km back, but thanks to a wonky gas gauge, I thought we had less than a quarter tank left.  By the time we actually got out to Urubichá, it was reading empty.  According to our coworkers and the people in the village, the fuel truck would come on Tuesday (the day we planned to leave), but there would be a huge line of cars waiting and not all would get gas.  So we purchased 50 liters from a friend, enough to get us back to San Ramón.


Here's a video of Urubichá, taken as we left town:

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, other than never being sure about how much fuel we had and a couple of problems due to my international driver's license.

Uneventful, that is, until we reached Villa Tunari and were on the last leg of our trip home to Cochabamba.  We got about halfway up the very steep climb out of the lowlands and ran into a huge line of trucks, buses, and cars.  We weren't sure what was going on, so we decided to stay wait and see what happened.

During rainy season, that particular road is fraught with landslides and unstable areas.  When there is a problem, the truck traffic starts to get backed up and the little cars and even the coaches start to pass them, often packing up 3 lanes wide!  Even after the roadway is passable again, it takes forever to get the traffic mess untangled!


We waited for 2 hours and, since it was already 4pm, decided to turn around and find a place to spend the night in Villa Tunari.  The idea of spending the night on a mountain, in the car, with 3 little girls and limited food and water did not appeal to us.  This is what happened when we turned around:

Thankfully, I was able to get through to my brother on the cell and find out where they have stayed in the past.  We ended up in a very nice bungalow-style hotel with a great pool, a good restaurant, and nice rooms with AC.

The next day we tried again in the morning.  This time, we took a chance and followed some other cars up the wrong lane as far as we could.  We didn't even get to the same spot as the day before!  Kaylee asked a trucker how long he'd been there and he replied, "Since 3am!"  A police officer was coming through the traffic on his motorcycle, informing everyone what was going on and it didn't look promising, so we turned back, checked back into the hotel, and enjoyed another afternoon in the pool!

On Sunday morning, I went down to the roadside restaurants near the hotel and talked to several truckers about how the road was.  They all said that the problem was fixed for the time being and traffic was slowly making its way through.  Sure enough, we made it home, with no trouble!

We didn't know until later, but when we turned around on the second day, we were 14km (8.7 miles) from the actual problem!!  That's a lot of trucks!  This is what the situation looked like (click photo to enlarge):

Roadtrip!

Just a couple days after Christmas, we had to go to Santa Cruz for a conference. We jumped at the opportunity to take a roadtrip for the first time in about 2.5 years! Poor Lydia (and maybe Addi too!) didn't even remember what a roadtrip was!

From Cochabamba to Santa Cruz is about 300 miles, but it took us 11.5 hours to get there! If you watch this video we made along the way, you'll see why!  It only covers the first half of the trip, which is the most exciting anyway, as we make the climb to 12,100 ft and then make the rapid drop to 700 ft.  It was made even more exciting by the fact that I had no clutch for the worst part!

We also took lots of pictures, of course!  They include some from the road, the zoo, and other things we enjoyed in Santa Cruz after the conference was over.  Click here to see the full-size photos, or enjoy the slideshow below: