i have now come to live in zambrano for good. no more traveling back and forth ever 4-5 days, and i’m thrilled about that. it seemed a waste of money and an annoyance. furthermore, i haven’t really started to do much work in zambrano because i’m always coming and going. so now i think i’ll have a little bit more to do. today i start the first music lessons…which is part of my job…teaching how to play piano. i’m going to have 4 students, i think. we’ll see how it goes. i want to teach by ear, but they can’t match pitch so they don’t know when they’re playing the right notes and when they’re not. music here is a whole new thing and i’m not exactly sure how this is all going to work out. i’m thinking we’ll go trial and error these first few weeks.
last week Jordan (co-seeder…close friend, working outside of bogota)’s parents came to visit her, and they all came up to the coast for a few days, so torin and i went to spend a day with them in cartagena. we went to the islands off the coast of cartagena. it was beautiful. relaxing. a day away from everything else. then, in celebration of torin’s birthday, went out in the evening and ate like kings. great day.
jordan and i, chatting in the hotel room before heading out for dinner.
this is what you will see/experience if you come visit me.
chillin in the water
on the boat ride...
choices, choices...
and delicious dinner...last friday norvy (pastor’s daughter…good friend) graduated from college. it was a big deal – she studied social work – a five year degree. so we all went to sincelejo to celebrate with her. she had a bunch of people over to our apt and wanted me to make ‘different’ food…stuff that she doesn’t eat every day. so we made potato salad, fruit salad, tortilla wraps (all hand-made tortillas, thank you), banana bread, chai, and hot fudge pudding cake. it was good times. the next day when we got back to zambrano, then, we had another celebration for her with the church. played the noun game (both nights, actually) which was hilarious and they loved.
william helping out in the kitchen
ester and rodrigo (pastors) on the balcony eating...
william and i preparing for the entertainment.
novy, me, and sylvia (good friend of norvy's...works at sembrandopaz)
working hard in the kitchen...
norvy helping me make sure everything tastes good.
much of the youth/young adults in the church, outside our patio celebrating with norvy
gaming.
while we were there, we taught norvy and William (pastor’s son…also good friend) how to play settlers…torin (fellow mccer…working on the coast, also) has his game out here. and they loved it. so this week, torin came to visit me for a few days and spend some time in zambrano and they were so disappointed that he didn’t bring the game that we decided to MAKE a settlers board. i was two full days of work for the four of us, but we got cardboard and cut out hexagons, posterboard for cards, rocks for settlements and cities….painted everything. it was sweet. is sweet. so now i have settlers down here. and its great.
the other thing we did with torin was go to the cienega. the cienegas are like small lakes that are created from overflow rain-water around the rivers. zambrano has the Magdalena (colombia’s largest river) running right past/through it, so there are a number of cienegas around. and one of the guys from church fishes so he has a few canoes. its my favorite place in all of zambrano. out on the lake, in a canoe. its beautiful. this last time 8 of us went, but hilder (boat man) only had one paddle. so four went out and first and in the mean time William and i convinced ourselves that we could paddle the other canoe with our hands. so when they got back, we convinced hilder for the keys to unlock the other boat and William, torin and i went out paddling with our hands. it was awesome. and difficult. and everyone thought we were crazy. but they already think we’re crazy. then we jumped in. which was even crazier. the water is like 3 feet deep with nasty muck on the ground, and it was so hot it was almost body temperature and you couldn’t even really feel the water. but it was great times. and i plan to go once a week. for my well-being.
right now the sister of Rodrigo (pastor…esther’s husband) is here visiting with her daughter (marta, 24) and marta’s son (Christian, 4). Christian is my buddy. we are great friends and play together all the time. he has a phenomenal imagination and i love hanging out with him. everyone else thinks i’m crazy because i spend time with him – child rearing is really different here and i’m not thrilled about how much they threaten and lecture kids. they are all amazed at how much time i spend with Christian and how little i get sick of him or like never yell at him or hit him. such a different mindset.
two nights ago i experienced a Colombian Pentecostal tradition – all night church. started at 8 and was supposed to go till 6 am. intense. luckily the pastor got tired, or something, and we were done at 230. so i got to sleep. i wasn’t thrilled about it. but it wasn’t as bad as i had expected, either, since it finished early. basically just a lot of worship, testimonies, a REALLY LONG sermon, an alter call, a few hours of prayer, and a billy graham video. it was interesting, to say the least.
yesterday i had a motorcycle accident. i went with a number of young adults from the church to cordoba, about a half hour away. on the way home, the guy i was riding with was going reallly fast and a curve came up he wasn't ready for, i think. the road got kind of sandy on the curve and he tried to brake but we went off the side, to the right. could have been way worse. i scraped up my shoulder and forearm pretty bad, but really had very little damage. i was angry that they made me go to the hospital. fought it pretty hard because i knew it was nothing. but after like an hour of fighting, i finally gave in, and went to the hospital in zambrano. which is basically a tiny, very dirty clinic. and they made me pay money to put some dumb cream on it, which i could have done myself. they wanted to give me an injection, too, but i didn't let them. o well. it was way better than it could have been. the whole thing is just kind of frustrating, though.
a few fun facts for you:
an average meal of mine, eaten with the family (aka: not prepared by me) consists of one meat and three starches. two starches would be reasonable, four optional, but average three. example: fish, chicken or beef, accompanied by potatos, yucca, ñame, rice, or pasta. generally juice comes along, too. greens? yeah, we don’t know what those are here.
mom and dad sent me a thermometor. some of you have been asking, when i say hot, what does that mean? well, this week the average temperature has been around 104 i’d say. right now its 10 in the morning and its 96. so that is what i mean by hot. humidity is generally in the “normal” range, on my humidity gague. like right now its at 56% humidity. just fyi. that’s a long enough update, i guess. hope you made it through. i miss you all. love you tons. hope to talk to you/hear from you soon. with love from Colombia…
I'm giving this link to a few die-hard settler's friends of mine-- I think that's amazing that you made your own board...I think I've done that with playing cards but not a whole involved game like that...and, I think Christian is a very lucky boy to have you in his life-- I know another 4yr old boy who would agree :)
ReplyDeleteJES!! Great update. So good to catch up with your life a little again. It's hard to believe I was relatively close to you in June - I was about a half hour drive from the Ecuadorian/Colombian border at one point.
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo, your settler's board looks phenomenal and I'm glad you made it through your accident with minimal damage.
take care of yourself!