“I’m tired like an astronaut.”

“Do bugs toot?”

“Mom, I really need some ale right now!” (This was said at 4:15 in the morning after waking me out of a deep sleep. I wasn’t sure what she was saying at first, but then I realized she meant aloe. She had a sunburn and we had put aloe on it right before she went to sleep.)

“I want to wear my jump rope tomorrow.” (She meant jumper.)

“Oh, smash that!” (She meant “Scratch that!”)

I have been trying to teach her to touch things more gently, to “pat”. One morning this week she said to me, “Don’t worry, Mom. When I’m at school today, I’m going to tap!”

We don’t blog as much these days because there aren’t as many new cultural experiences as there used to be when we first moved here, but the last few days have afforded some new fodder for blogging.

As of last Thursday, Avery had had a fever for almost a week. So we did the usual here, called her pediatrician that we love on her personal cell phone and she was at our house within a couple hours. All for $20! But as I suspected, she couldn’t find anything wrong with her. So Friday brought a day at home with Avery dreading the “lab visit”. Here the labs are not connected with any one doctor or hospital, so it’s quite a process to get the tests you need. Thankfully, the lab we went to was clean and the staff was nice and professional. After gathering a couple of “samples” from Avery, it was time for the blood draw. Let’s just say it it was kind of like those movie scenes where people in doctors’ waiting rooms hear kicking and screaming and wailing and moaning from inside an examining room and decide to get up and leave. Only we were the ones inside the room and our daughter was clearing out the place! It took Tom and I using our full strength to hold her down. The small Bolivian man looked very nervous that he was going to stab the wrong place (or the wrong person!). Thankfully he was very good and got the job done fairly quickly. Avery milked her staus for all it was worth, claiming she couldn’t feed herself, etc. (even though it was her left arm and she is right-handed!). After three trips back to the lab, we finally had all the results in hand. Avery and I walked to the doctor’s office and waited until she could see us. After the customary repeated hugging and kissing , we sat down and she informed me that Avery has salmonella.

I realize that in the States this would cause general panic and a CDC investigation, but here’s it’s pretty commonplace. We were just relieved to know what was wrong. So we walked on to the pharmacy and gave them Avery’s antibiotic prescription. Thank goodness there was a lady there who spoke English because they didn’t have what we needed and they had to call the doctor to ask about a substitute. Once that got worked out, they had to explain to me how to mix a powder and a syrup to make her medicine. There’s no way I could’ve understood all that in Spanish! So after two doses of medicine, Avery’s fever is gone and she’s much better. Not sure what the big deal is about salmonella

Today was another first. Avery and I were in a taxi on the way to Highlands, and our driver was stopped by a policewoman who wanted to check his license, etc. She wasn’t going to let him continue for some reason, and he tried to convince her that he should be allowed to go. When that didn’t work, he pulled out some coins and offered them to her. At first she tried to look offended, but as soon as her fellow officers turned away, she took the money and sent us on our way. I know this stuff happens all the time here on a much larger scale, but I hadn’t actually watched it myself.

- Taxi driver says something to me in Spanish, I tell him I don’t understand. Avery pats my leg and says condescendingly, “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay that YOU don’t speak Spanish.”

- At a local restaurant, while watching the President’s inaugural limo drive down the parade route: “I think they have too many people in there and that’s why it’s going so slow.”

- Before going to get her blood drawn for a lab test, while holding her swimsuit, “If I have to have a needle in my arm, then I get to go swimming afterward.”

- After screaming and kicking throughout the blood draw, “Is there any blood left in me?”

- Later that night, while letting her arm hang limp and swearing she can’t move it, “Mom, have you ever had these kind of problems that I’m having?”

We had a great, if rather unorthodox, week of Thanksgiving festivities. It started last Saturday when the American (and Kiwi) staff from Highlands gathered at Amy and Christian’s home for a wonderful meal and time together.

Even though Bolivians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, we decided to make it a special week at school. For Spirit Week, each day was a special dress-up day. Make sure you look at the photos below of how Tom and I dressed up as book characters! Thanksgiving ended up being pajama day, so it worked well since we all felt lazy and full after a meal of fried turkey and lots of casseroles. You can’t buy pumpkin here, so I brought some canned pumpkin back with me from the States. My pumpkin crisp was a big hit with the Bolivian staff.

Yesterday was our first Team Day of the year. On Team Day, our whole school is divided up into four groups, and the Kindergarten class through Seniors compete together at crazy games. This time it was an egg theme, which was messy and lots of fun. The game at my station involved dropping eggs from a balcony into buckets on the ground.

We had a lot to be thankful for this week, but most of all, we were grateful that we picked up our visas at 5:00 Wednesday evening. We are now legal residents of Bolivia for the year, and we have our passports so that we can leave the country at Christmas. And we hopefully never have to set foot in the Bolivian immigration building again – yahoo!

Although we are pretty used to living here now, every once in awhile we still have days where it’s very apparent that we are not in control of our environment!

Today, like every weekday, I called the taxi company that serves our school to pick me up so that I could go get Avery from her preschool. Unlike every other time I have called, no one answered. After repeated calls, I asked our secretary if she knew what was happening or if she could call another company. She told me another company would charge me a lot more, so she said she would call the owner of our usual company to see what was going on. She got a hold of him, and he explained that today was the taxi company’s anniversary. Therefore, they were all partying and not working today. She explained my situation to him, and he agreed to send someone to get me. Meanwhile, I called Avery’s school to tell them I’d be late since I was stuck at Highlands. The taxi never came, so I ended up getting a ride with one of our teacher’s assistants who was leaving for the day. It all worked out, and Avery didn’t mind the extra play time at school.

This afternoon, seven of us who still do not have our work visas were told to go to immigration to pick them up. When we arrived, they issued two of our visas, but not the others. They said that the paperwork still had to be signed by the director, and that we should come back next Tuesday. Apparently he can only manage to sign his name a few times a week!

On our way home, we drove by the Curves that I joined earlier this school year. It is still closed. While we were in the States, the toilet in the apartment above the Curves leaked for so long that it flooded their floor, which meant the ceiling of Curves fell in. Thankfully, it happened at night so no one was hurt. However, it pretty much ruined the place and equipment. So about seven weeks later, it is still not open and I don’t know when it will be. Although it’s kind of nice to have a legitimate excuse not to exercise, I really was looking forward to working out there!

In order to counteract our feelings about Bolivia today, we went to our favorite Tex Mex restaurant for dinner and topped it off with Italian gelato for dessert!

We have said goodbye to Barkie twice in the last two days. Yesterday, we had a day off of school for All Saints Day, a big holiday here. Tom took out the trash, and I wasn’t able to close the door behind him quickly enough. Barkie ran out behind him and then took off down the street. Tom hunted for him for about a half an hour, but he didn’t have any success. Barkie seemed to have a major burst of energy and initiative once he got outside. He apparently explored the whole neighborhood. Avery and I went out a little later to look for him. After about ten minutes, I was ready to go back inside when Avery said she saw him about two blocks away. Sure enough, there he was. We got within a couple of feet of him, but he acted like he had no idea who we were and quickly went off on his way.

Just when we had accepted that Barkie seemed to prefer freedom to a nice safe place to eat and sleep, eagle eye Avery spotted Barkie out the window. He was trotting down our street. We put some food outside our door, and he eventually came over to it and came in the house. He was quite tired after his adventures so he slept for most of the day. He seemed very restless after that and started barking often for the first time. This scared Avery and frustrated us since we try to keep him quiet for our neighbors’ sake.

Our friends who found Barkie in the first place said that a family with a large yard had agreed to take him, so they picked him up tonight. We were glad to say goodbye under better circumstances than yesterday. We think Barkie will be happier with more space and Avery will be happier without the barking.

We have decided that we might like our cat better than we thought we did. . .

Barkie & Avery

We have a new, but temporary, member of our family. Our friend Faith found this Collie a little over a week ago near her home. He was scared, and they were concerned he might have been hit by a car. After a couple of days and a trip to the vet, they realized he wasn’t injured, but just old and deaf. . . He was obviously well-trained and good-natured. After getting our landlords’ permission, we said we’d keep him for a few days until our friends found the owner. Avery named him Barkie, which is ironic, since he almost never barks. He isn’t much trouble. In this picture, we had dragged him in the living room, but on his own accord he never leaves the kitchen. He pretty much just stays on his blanket unless he’s eating. He does liven up a bit when you take him outside. He is very sweet with Avery, letting her pet him and brush him. We are doubtful now about finding the owner, but we’re hoping another family with a nice yard will take him soon

One of the funniest things about having Barkie is that you realize it’s very hard not to talk to a dog, even when you know he can’t hear you. So Avery I have this conversation several times a day:

Me: “Come here, Barkie. How are you, Barkie? Are you hungry, Barkie?”

Avery: (said with some exasperation) “Mom, he can’t hear you. Remember, he’s deaf!”

My friend Heidi and I have always been interested in personality types. She’s more knowledgeable about it than I am, but through the years we have read books to examine our own personalities, then we focused on the best personality match for a spouse, then it was figuring out our “mom” style. Now of course, we have thoroughly analyzed our children to try to figure out their emerging personality types.

I pretty much suspected what Avery’s was from the get-go, but a comment she made last night kind of sealed it for me. She announced to me and Tom as we were walking upstairs, “I’m going to be the leader, and I’m using a pogo stick”" (while jumping up and down). If that’s not a choleric/sanguine comment then I don’t know what it is!

Sorry we haven’t posted, but there isn’t anything we do while in the US that we feel like people would be all that interested in! We have enjoyed seeing family and friends, but definitely miss La Paz and having a place to be settled. Avery is handling this time very well, thankfully.

We feel comfortable enough with the situation in La Paz that we have booked return tickets for Oct. 11th. It’s an overnight flight, so we’ll arrive on the 12th. We are flying American Airlines, so we will hope that they do not cancel the flight. They are supposed to resume flights on Thursday of this week, so we should have a pretty good idea if there will be any problems with the flights by the end of the week.

Highlands continues to be open and according to our friends there, life in La Paz is peaceful and fairly normal. We are following the peace talks between the President of Bolivia and the opposition leaders. Although it doesn’t seem like they’ve made a whole lot of progress, just by the fact they are still negotiating and the violence has ceased, they are moving in the right direction. We pray that they can continue to work through the many sensitive issues on the table. This process could go on for a long time, so it doesn’t make sense to us at this point to try to wait until there is a final agreement.

The US and Bolivia continue to trade diplomatic insults, and the relationship between our countries is definitely at a low point. Evo Morales is following Hugo Chavez’s lead in courting Russia and Iran to try to provide assistance that the countries previously sought from the US. We don’t sense that this issue is going to affect our immediate safety, but is a major concern for American Christians serving in Bolivia over the long haul. Public perception of Americans can be strongly swayed by the government’s statements and positions. We would appreciate prayers for us to be gracious as we may be treated poorly at immigration when we return to Bolivia as well as in other situations.

We also ask for prayer as we continue to feel unsettled away from our home, routines and work. Please pray for all of us to be able to jump back into our ministry and relationships there easily. We are praying that the country will remain stable enough for Highlands to continue to thrive and for us to finish our school year.

We arrived back in NC this morning. We had a few stressful moments during the process of trying to return to the States, such as waiting three hours at the Bolivian immigration office for no apparent reason to get our passports back. Then when we arrived at the airport in La Paz, the man at the ticket counter said I didn’t have the right information and so he could not locate our reservations. Thankfully, our “travel agent” is a friend from school who I was able to call immediately and he located the correct numbers on his computer. We got to our flight there without a moment to spare, but all of our travel actually went pretty smoothly. No flights were delayed and our luggage made every leg of the journey from La Paz to Lima to Bogota to Miami to Charlotte – amazing! Avery was a real trooper, but we are all pretty worn out today.

We are communicating with our friends in Bolivia and keeping up with the news reports online, so we hope that a week from now we can determine if the situation is likely to remain stable enough for us to make flight reservations to return.