happy easter! i hope you all had wonderful and relaxing weekends. we had a wonderful weekend. thursday very early in the morning we left bogota at the bus terminal to head to ibague, a city about 5 hours from bogota, for holy weekend. Miriam, the participant from Canada, is going to be living and working in ibague, so that was one reason we left. also learned that down here, basically all of holy week is vacation and it is rare to stay around…so we, too, took a little vacation. although we visited the communities where Miriam is going to work, the weekend was mostly relaxing. we did a lot of hanging out, watching movies, throwing Frisbee, etc. it was really great. i found it interesting, however, that easter weekend is not such a huge deal in the Anabaptist churches. some have told me that it is a reaction of the protestant church to the liturgical calendar of the catholic church, which has activities galore all week long. the churches in both bogota and ibague didn’t do anything for the weekend…good friday is just part of holy week, etc. and sunday definitely wasn’t the celebration we’re used to in the states. it was interesting because all of the north American girls in our group brought an “easter dress” – without having talked to each other – and it was just interesting to see how it is a much bigger deal in the states.
i was really glad, however, to have a Maundy thursday service with ver aguas (my church) on wednesday night before we left. they said they’re the only Anabaptist church they know of in colombia that practices footwashing and celebration of Maundy thursday. again, surpised me a lot. it was great, though, and made me feel, again, very grateful to be able to be part of their community for a few months.
on saturday, in ibague, our group, accompanied by chepe, our fascinating friend and guide for the weekend, drove an hour or two outside of the city and hiked up about an hour to get to hot springs. it was marvelous. much of the afternoon we lazed around in a number of different pools, had lunch, and hiked up a bit further to a great waterfall, where alejo and i dared to bare the ice cold water and get closer. for those of you worrying, don’t. i was careful and not stupid. and i wasn’t even close to falling down it. ☺
on the hike back, we got poured on. not an inch of me was dry. seriously, people wiping out all the way down the path and mud and rain all over us. it was a great time…i don’t think everyone enjoyed it quite as much as i did, but o well. ☺ it did make for kind of a miserable 2 hour ride back to town since no one had dry clothes to put on and we were all 14 of us squished inside a 12 passenger van. ha.
on sunday morning we got up and went to two different church services. i had every intention to get up early and watch the sunrise, but i woke up at 5:11 and it was pitch black and i had no idea when the sun was coming up and i didn’t want to wait an hour to find out. so i went back to sleep. next time. anyway, we had been asked to lead music at the Mennonite church in ibague, which has guitars and a keyboard and drums, so saturday night we had practiced some and sunday we lead music. interesting. for those of you who know music and care, they play chords by the solfege scale. so instead of playing C, they play do. and of course, these are all songs they know by heart, so there is no music. so, thank god for jd schmucker, i guess. haha. i played the keyboard all morning to songs i didn’t know and hadn’t really practiced the night before because they had the guitars and drums so loud i couldn’t hear what i was playing, so i didn’t play half the time on saturday night. but we had a good time. basically, i kept my eyes on johan, who was playing guitar, and i read the chords he was playing by looking at his fingers and played along. if i didn’t know what he was playing, i’d wrinkle my eyes (can you wrinkle eyes? my forehead i guess…) and he’d mouth the solfege chord. then i’d translate it in my head and keep playing. haha…it was a hoot. really confusing, but i don’t think the congregation knew how clueless i was. they were really into it, and it was so wonderful to touch keys, albeit keyboard keys, which i hate.
we intended to come home sunday but seeing as though all of bogota traveled for the week/weekend and all came home on the same day, we didn’t get any tickets. so, we went to lunch and i ate a whole plate of rice and beans before i noticed that i had a small cockroach dead in my beans. some of my friends were ready to puke they were so disgusted. o well. we got a whole three dollars off the bill for it! ha.
sunday night a bunch of us went to bed not feeling well and we left early this morning with more than half our group with serious diharrea or vomiting. not totally sure what it was…possibly the contaminated cockroach beans, possibly the water at the hotsprings. either way, it was a rough afternoon listening to a speaker who i think we would have loved had we not been so sick. i’m doing quite a bit better. a few of the others are worse of than i, so hopefully they’ll be better soon. this week we’re talking about development and i’m excited about a number of the speakers we’re going to hear. can’t hardly believe its three weeks and we’ll be saying goodbyes and heading to our locations. seems like time is flying. i’ve downloaded a whole bunch of pictures from this weekend…enjoy. i love you all and dearly miss your faces and voices. stay in touch! much love…