145. Baseball

Friday, 4/26/13

School was a barrel of monkeys today. I had fun, the kids had fun. And…our director triumphantly returned after a two-week “business” trip.

My students enjoyed their spelling test. They also enjoyed the fact that they only had one test on “Examine Friday” (we usually have 2 or 3 tests each Friday). Then, I taught them about baseball. To my surprise, they loved it…and were quite skilled at it as well. Anytime I have a chance to reminisce about the States and educate the kids at the same time, I jump all over that opportunity. We played a 3-inning game and then concluded as always with soccer.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

144. Anteater

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Wednesday, 4/24/13

Anteaters are cool. Picking one up is cool x1000!!

Today started off normal enough. I taught class. One kid acted up so I stuck him in a chair outside for an hour. The kids barely passed their spelling test. The kids enjoyed their math like usual. The only thing unusual about classes today was that my timid Josue really understood his assignment. That never happens. As long as each kid learns something each week, I am a happy camper…especially if Josue learns something!

Lunch was good as usual. We had pumpkin goop on top of rice. Does not sound so enticing but is a party in the belly.

For work project, we fixed the entrance to Familia Feliz. The workers had agreed to build us an entrance after they ruined our last one to pave the road, but now they do not want to. Then, Juan, Chad, and myself went to get the new desks and a few other things.

We stopped by the gas station to put diesel in the truck. After waiting half an hour it was our turn. Boom. The power went out. Bummertuski! So we went to town. The carpenter was playing soccer and could not give us the desks. Bummertuski number 2! So I purchased flour for the evangelism bread and some shampoo. We checked e-mails and returned home after some ice cream.

After supper, I was walking to the big house to take a shower. “Teacher Eric, come with us, come with us. It is urgent!” Ephraim, Missy’s boy was quite ecstatic. He is a nature lover, and so am I. We have this deep bond because of it. He dragged me to his house where he showed me his prize: AN ANTEATER!!!!

Reality took a while to set in. The nature documentaries were becoming real life. Five feet in front of me was a gorgeous striped anteater. I knew right away it was non-aggressive because Missy’s baby was playing 2 feet from it. Unfortunately, it was probably this docile because a dog had punctured his right shoulder muscle so it could not move to well.

I was mesmerized. I finally got my muscles moving and touched it, took a picture with it, then picked it up for a hug. Curiosity always wins with me when I am with animals. Ask my nature students from camp. It tried to defend itself with its powerful claws since it could open its mouth no more than a centimeter (it only eats ants so who needs a big mouth for that). We saw it stand on his hind feet and lick his wounds with his half-foot long worm-like tongue.

A work of art!!

Step 1: Keep distance

Step 2: Intimidate each other

Step 3: Hug

We hung out at Missy’s house then headed home. I am now feverishly blogging about the experience in pure adrenaline. Bolivia is extremely saturated in wildlife. Fantastico!  Now all I need is friends, family, my university, an 8-foot long bed, a Democracy instead of communism, and American Football—then I could live here forever.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

143. Moto Mania

Friday, 4/19/13

I rode the moto today. I also got to play doctor. Thankfully, the two incidents were unrelated.

69% of my class aced their English exam today. As a reward, I showed them a documentary on anacondas. While they watched, I sat outside and did some thinking. Benjamin, a 7^th grader rudely interrupted my thought—I am glad he did. He wanted to teach me how to ride a moto (dirt bike). I patted him on the back and said, “Let’s go!” Going fast was the easy part. Starting and stopping took a while to get used to. Ironically, Chad learned to drive the moto yesterday and this kid randomly taught me how today. I gave the young man a handshake and called it quits before I broke something.

During P.E. class, I was urgently called over to the playground. Before my eyes, on the cement, was little Miguel calmly kneeling in a little puddle of his blood. I sent everyone away including the attacker who had gotten heated after Miguel pushed him too hard on the swings (he will be working with Warren all day today and Sunday). I looked for fractures and lacerations from the punches. It turned out to be a fairly normal nosebleed. I was most impressed by the composure of this little fella. All the girls around him were screaming which increase my heartrate at first, but he was breathing calmly and his primary concern was the location of his flip flops. He is quite the toughy. Lesson learned: stop pushing when the person swinging says so. The puncher is new to Familia Feliz and is still getting used to the conduct we expect here, but I am sure moving large timber will teach him a lesson or two.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

142. Happy Times

Thursday, 4/18/13

Three Happy Moments:

The first moment last the whole morning. My students were angelic and hungry for knowledge. I almost felt their foreheads for fevers. We sang 5 songs for worship sans problems. They liked my worship thought about zebras. They studied hard for their spelling test. We then drew houses that we wanted in the future only with pencils and our imagination. Then after recess, they finished math and science with no problems. They finished so fast that there was time left for English class. To top it off, the kids who sweeped finished in 5 minutes so that I could play marbles with them.

Number 2. We were filling the holes we dug with dirt since the cables were already laid. David finished.

            David: “I am done. Can I go home and play?”

            He had the biggest smile on his face from pride and accomplishment. My response?

            Me: “Only after you smile?”

            I am giggling as I write. This kid was straining to make the already big smile on his face even bigger. I was worried he was going to pull a muscle. I quickly let him go play before he hurt himself. What a kid!

Number 3. We were putting the dirt next to the whole into the hole. Daniel apparently ran out of excess dirt next to his hole. So, he dug, and dug, and dug. When I looked over, the hole was filled, but he had made an even bigger hole because he dug into the ground to get more dirt. Now we have another hole to fill.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

141. Pampas Trip Day 2

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Monday, 4/20/13

Day 2 of our Pampas trip began with a great breakfast of pancakes, cheeseballs, and chessy donuts. We had one more adventure left before we made the 5-hour journey from our cabins back to Rurre—Anaconda hunting!

Anacondas, as you might know, are the largest snakes in the world. They grow up to 27 feet. They have been known to consume cows and humans with relative ease. I wanted to give one a great, big hug. Fortunately, they are abundant in the pampas. Unfortunately, we did not see any. Bummer. Nonetheless, searching for them in muddy plains was quite exhilarating…and slightly exhausting.

Our whole gang returned to the cabins, packed, and departed for the mainland. Chad and I made sure to enjoy the heavenly breeze as we sped through the pampas counting turtles on logs and looking for more monkeys. We would not have complained if the boat trip lasted 10 hours. We arrived back at the dock, crammed back into the Land Cruiser, then sped towards home.

In the car, we talked about the Jewish religion, what we would do with 1,000,000 shekels, saw a capybara (the largest rodent on the planet), and broke down. The capybara was cool—the broken drivetrain axle was not so cool. After 1 hour of fixing the car we returned to the tour office to celebrate and take a group photo.

Pepito

He could barely lift his fat head off the water

Lookin' for anacondas

Happiness

The trip was a memorable one. Both for the incredible nature and for the eccentric personalities with which we shared our memories. I would do it again in a heartbeat, but I would rather trade the Israelis for you guys. What do you say?

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

140. Pampas Trip Day 1

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Sunday, 4/14/13

It’s jungle time. Yes, Familia Feliz is in the jungle. However, Chad and I went into the JUNGLE!

Today and tomorrow we went on a jungle tour into the pampas of Bolivia. The pampas are the swamplands that hide most of the wildlife in the Amazon rain forest. Since the tours are 2 days long and fairly cheap, we decided to use our day off plus an extra day to check out the really wild side of Bolivia.

We all met at the tour office at 9:00 a.m. There were 36 in total. There were 34 Israelis. There were 2 Americans—guess who? Each group was divided by car. We had 7 other people in our Toyota Land Cruiser. After an Israel culture shock—these Israelis are quite open and boistrous—we began our 3 hour car ride towards Santa Rosa where the pampas are. Chad and I had fun trying to understand these wacky people sitting in front of us, and they had a lot of fun bothering Chad and myself. Good thing we are good sports.

Our group of crazies

We arrived in Santa Rosa starving! They had food ready for us: delicious semola soup, rice, corn, and French fries. Our whole table turned out to be vegetarian and we each had to ask for special plates. The difference being that Chad and I politely asked the waitress as if she was human. The other people at our table spoke to her like spoiled brats. Chad and I felt awful for her, so we made our sympathy towards her quite obvious. Glad we did. Out of all 36 people with us, Chad and I were the only two to get seconds!!! Niceness pays. After we got our seconds, the others at our table asked for more and got firmly denied.

With stomachs satisfied, we rode fifteen minutes to the drop site where long boats were waiting for us. As we waited for the guides to load the boats with supplies for camp, the nature already emerged from its hiding place. Pink river dolphins started playing 100 feet from where the boats were docked. We were allowed to swim to them, but…no one else was doing so. And they are scary looking!

All 9 of us from the truck jumped in the boat along with our tour guide, Yuda (who was phenomenal and amazingly tolerant of the behavior of the other hooligans on our tour). We began weaving in and out of the dense wetlands. Out of nowhere, Yuda would spot birds, owls, turtles and alligators. The simple pleasure of cruising in this boat with the breeze, perfect weather, and jaw-dropping nature was overwhelming. If we were not instructed to “go ye forth INTO all nations…” I would totally set up my home in this place (at least for half the year—I’m my father’s son, so I’m a huge mountain man).

Our tour guide, Yuda

Big bird

 My ears were suddenly attacked by screams from the Israelis. I have learned to expect this all trip long. I assumed a mosquito had landed on one of the girls. Nope…they spotted monkeys! Gnarly! To me, monkeys are the definition of the jungle. You have not been in the jungle until you see monkeys. I had seen two from a distance at Familia Feliz, but these little guys came right up to you. They wanted bananas. How cliché. Yuda strategically placed a banana on our backs as we enjoyed having them jump all over us. Their color pattern was vibrant, but their quirky personality was the main event. I could have stayed there all morning.

Monkeys!!!

Monkey attack!

Don´t worry, they were eating the banana...not the beard

I wanted to catch it

Super  cool to see an owl like that. It seemed out of place.

Our home for the night

Relaxing

After the lovely three-hour boat ride, a tiny village on stilts popped out of the greenery. We would be sleeping amongst these 7 cabins, with a dining hall and hammock area. It was perfect. We grabbed popcorn and api (a Bolivian purple corn hot drink) and then relaxed in the hammocks. Then it was go time…

One hour before sundown, Yuda summoned us back into the boat. We voyaged to a grassland area to watch the sun recede into the shrubbery. Breath-taking. The main event, however, was the alligator hunting once it was dark.

In the pitch black, we shined flashlights looking for the red eyes of the alligators. We were slightly hopeless because Yuda had told Chad that we would be lucky to see one. Within 5 minutes, though, Yuda spotted one, then I did. But they were all too big to get near to and try to catch. Then, Chad found one. I have no idea how he did, because it was a baby, which is really hard to spot. He was not too far away! Yuda quickly positioned the boat close and grabbed the baby. Go Chad and Yuda.

I was in bliss. Reptiles rule. This was my first gator. We took turns holding it. If I was not in public I would have talked to it and given her a big ‘ol hug. Without warning, Yuda took the baby and popped it in his mouth! He had an ALLIGATOR in his mouth! An ALLIGATOR!!! I soo had to do that…and did. I felt slightly cruel but was careful not to chew her. It was an incredible feeling. Then Chad tried it too. We finally let her swim back to mama and went on to find three or four more.

Serene

Add caption

Gatortito

I held it, but then...

...I put it near my mouth...

...tasty!

We hurried home to change the taste in our mouths with the fantastic dinner offered. Then snoozed in the hammocks. Then slept in our beds. Then woke up to the loud laughter of our compadres. Then plugged my ears. Then slept for 10 hours.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

139. Dia de Niños

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Thursday, 4/11/13

Dia de Niños! Day of the Children! I thought it was going to be hectic—it was a blast for all!

Being a social event, I was supposed to be the boss. I weighed heavily on everyone else. The result? Success.

We played games from 8:00-9:30.

Translating for Warren

Assigning each kid to a team

Sac race

Lime-on-a-spoon-without-falling race

We played soccer from 9:30-11:00.

We went crazy with water balloons from 11:00-12:00.

We ate a mountain of food from 12:00-1:00.

We cleaned up for a while.

I napped for a bit.

Chad did electrical work. I went down the road to pick up timber in the truck.

I slept like a log weighed down by 100 anvils. Definitely a good thing.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

138. Last Rice Day

Wednesday, 4/10/13

Enough is enough. Today is the last day dealing with rice. If we harvest the rest or if we do not, we have agreed that today is the last day.

We canceled school to spend the whole day in the rice field. From 8 until 11:30 we harvested rice in teams of five. I had two good workers and two…workers. We each had a quota of 2 bags to fill. My group was given two BIG bags. While I am convinced we worked swiftly, we had to return in the afternoon for two hours to finish up.

I am glad we were able to gain more rice to save more money for Familia Feliz. However, I am glad I will never have to blog about rice again. Granted, when I return to the USA, I will gladly help all of you with your rice fields (I feel like that is a pretty safe promise).

Tomorrow is Dia de Niños (Day of the Children). Instead of school, it is a big party day for the kids. Here is a hint of the upcoming festivities: I am going to spend all night tonight filling up  2,000 water balloons for the festivities.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

137. Erin's Surprise

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Sunday, 4/7/13

Erin, you sure made quite the impression on Familia Feliz because everyone loves you! And you are lucky to have great friends such as Mia and me to surprise you! :D

Mia, Erin’s roommate, wanted to plan a surprise for Erin. So today, I brought Miguel, Juan, Jose-Carlos, and Juan-Carlos into town to Skype Erin. They were so excited. The kids and I first went to the playa where we bought cheese bread, corn juice (quite delicious actually), and apples. We sat on the bank of the river while we ate. It was a nostalgic moment.

We returned to the hotel room that Chad and I always get to use internet. We had to wait 3 hours before Erin would be ready at 12:00 her time. I remembered that we were an hour ahead of Erin so I would call her at 1:00. Great! Four kids trapped in a hotel room. They went nuts! The tackled, hugged, and even jumped from the window sill. Finally I got smart and showed them a nature video on snakes.

Before I knew it, it was 12:00. I was about to get more food for the kids, when Chad reminded me that Daylight savings was over. That meant Mia was ready to Skype. Whoa! That was close. Good save, Chad! So, I called Mia on Skype. Sure enough she was ready to go. We got the boys ready, Mia placed her computer with us on it in front of Erin and she….was happy! J So were the kids. They had a great time talking and being silly. The plans were worth it. And hey, we did not get thrown out of the hotel. We all talked for about an hour and then said good bye totally content.

We sent the kids home in the big truck around 2:00 when the rest of the volunteers returned. Chad and I wanted more internet time to talk to the family so we stayed until 10:00. Then we called up our trusty chauffeurs, Carlos and Fernando. I look forward to these motorbike rides. The open air is thrilling and the conversations are always jubilant. Chad and I are trying to get them to come to church. We also plan to give them some clothes when we leave.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

136. BUSY SABBATH

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Saturday, 4/6/13

Hello. Today you can call me Mr. Beaver, as in Busy Beaver. Let’s see, did I sit down today? All I know is that all the energy I exerted today was well worth it and that this Sabbath was filled only with constant blessings.

Blessing #1: Chad

Chad may not like public speaking, but he sure excels at it. He gave the Sabbath School lesson. It was on Hosea. Talk about a tricky task. However, he captivated our attention despite the added difficulty of making his big words smaller for the sake of translating. I am next week. A year has passed since my last sermon of any kind, so I look forward to oiling my rusty public speaking skills. Juan has asked me to say it in Spanish. Don’t get your hopes too high, Hermano Juan! J

Blessing #2: Lunch at Jerry and Jenny’s

The younger volunteers were all invited to Jerry and Jenny’s house today. They treated us with good Mexican food. It was reminiscent of home when we would have guests over, chat, and play Christian music in the background. Chad and I thanked them over and over for the good memories.

Blessing #3: Project Reach Out

Today was the trial run for our outreach project entitled “Project Reach Out”. Our goal is to literally reach out and provide physical needs like Jesus did. He healed people and provided food all the time. Our method? Band-aids and bread.

At 2:00, we rounded up just 6 of my boys and 5 volunteers into the truck. Uh oh! We could not get out of our driveway, the roadworkers blocked us in. So…we walked!

We went to 6 houses and shared some of the boys joy. We started with an introduction. Thankfully, we knew most of the locals. One of the old guys is my best buddy. He always wears his white boots and has a exhuberant face covered in wrinkles and smile dimples. I can never be unhappy around him. We then gave each person two loaves of bread, and then sang them 3 songs, and concluded with a Bible verse and prayer. The locals dropped everything they were doing to socialize with us. Both them and us really seemed to enjoy it. They often invited us on a tour of their home and fruit trees. I look forward to next week with the much shyer girls. Please pray for the ministry and that our visits will turn people towards Christ.

Singing to my best old pal

The sugar cane juicer

Bossman and me

Blessing #4: Bon Fire

After circle time, it was bonding time. All the kids and volunteers gathered around a large fire. We then made bread dough and put it on a stick to roast over the fire and poured the kids chocolate milk. We even gave them more bread from the outreach leftovers. The kids loved it, and so did the volunteers.

I look forward to planning more cool activities next Sabbath. So far so good. And tomorrow is the big surprise town day that us and four boys have been looking forward to all week!

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

135. Double Duty

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Friday, 4/5/13

Correct me if I am wrong, but teaching is supposed to be a desk job, right? Not today, I taught two classrooms, in two different buildings.

Samuel had to leave, so I was the boss for 2 classrooms (4 grades) for the day. I got quite the workout wandering between classrooms. Thankfully, I have my classroom decently trained and they behaved quite nicely. However, the 3^rd and 4^th graders tried to destroy the classroom while I was gone. I was always expecting an interesting scene when I reentered the classroom. We then played soccer in P.E class for two hours which was a lot less stressful.

After lunch, Chad and I were back to our baking ways. We made 100 loaves of bread for the door to door ministry tomorrow. It was a nostalgic moment since we had not baked in more than a month. The bread came out perfect! We owe all of our success to Master Champion Guru Baker Steve!

After circle time we must of done something…but I only remember a good nights sleep.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

134. Vacation Ended

Thursday, 4/4/13

School resumed.

After a week of vacation, everyone returned excited for school. It was nice to see them again. I taught my class and Sam’s class English names for fruit and eating utenzils. The difference was, I wrote the names of the fruit for my class and drew pictures of the objects for the younlings. I liked the picture method the best. Yup, I definitely drew cool faces on all the fruit. The pineapple guy looked radical with his fancy spiked hair.

All 5 boys from Kikebe returned without problems. Edwin’s mom brought them all down in a bus and will spend the next three nights with us.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

133. Rice in My Hair

Wednesday, 4/3/13

Rice. All day long.

I went to sleep today with rice in my hair, socks, and dreams. Chad and I spent a good 8 hours cleaning and drying the rice we harvested the past month. It is now ready to be brought to the mill to be processed.

We did see the world’s largest tarantula in our backyard!

The end.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

132. Meeting, Digging, Spicy?

Tuesday, 4/2/13

Hello loyal readers. I am soooo glad you stopped by! You guys motivate me to make these typings spicy, but…today was not too spicy.

We had a staff meeting for three hours in the morning. I presented my plans for social gatherings and my outreach projects. Everyone seemed on board with my evangelism plans, and we shared some good ideas. Our house to house visitations begin Saturday. We will sing, share bread, and bring bandaids to witness like Jesus did. It should be a good way to get the kids involved. Our first social activity is a bon fire on Saturday night. I look forward to that.

Then the kids and I dug for 4 hours. One hour of that was spent solving a problem. One of the boys pick-axed right in a water pipe. Water burst everywhere. Edgar finally patched it up with a rubber tube, and we continued digging. We are almost done! I might even be slightly sad when finished because I honestly enjoy this brainless manual labor. It is a great time to meditate.

Then I cooked food for the boys since Chad, Juan, and Emy were in town. Rice and lentils. Easy-peasy. Then the boys and I had fun with the camera before everyone else returned.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

131. Monos and Emy

Monday, 4/1/13

Two huge things happened today. One was awesome and the other was tear-jerking. Let’s the start with the emothional one.

Emy and I spent most of the day in charge of the boys. Juan and Chad were in town working on the truck. After lunch we chatted for a couple of hours. All of a sudden, she started telling me her testimony. I had heard that she had one and that it was quite a sad story, but was never going to ask her to hear it. It was unbelievable. If Hollywood got wind of this they could make millions. I do not feel comfortable sharing the details, but it is a miracle she is alive and a great Christian woman.

Then it was nap time. The kids and I had dug all morning and I was tired. I was asleep for 15 minutes when the kids went wild. They hammered on my door and were yelling at the top of their lungs through my window. I finally awoke and realized what they were shouting: “Monos, monos, monos!” Monkeys! I ran out of the house shirtless and looked for these rarities. I had not seen one yet and would not be content until I did. Sure enough, I spotted two of them off in the distance! Light brown things with white faces. My jungle experience is now complete!

I woke up today and thought it would be quite uneventful. You just never know do you.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

130. Pool Day in Town

Sunday, 3/31/13

BAD NEWS: Today was SCHORCHING!!

GOOD NEWS: Today was the day we planned for our pool day. It worked perfectly!!

Emy prepared lunch and we packed 9 boys in the pickup truck: 5 of ours and 4 of Missy’s. We headed straight for the pool. We were almost denied by the owner! He said that our boys have the tendency of changing the color of the pool water. I do not doubt it. He let us in only after Chad and I promised to be alert and keep things under control.

After 3 hours of giving turtle rides, rocket launches, and submarine dives I left the pool and reserved Chad and I a hotel room to use internet (that is how desperate we are for internet!). I brought Missy’s kids to the market to buy lunch and then we all met at Narguila’s.

Juan, Emy, and I brought all the kids to a soccer field out of town to eat and play a little ball. It was a nice, full size soccer field. I bet Juan $100 US dollars that he couldn’t score a goal from the other side of the field. He knew it was a joke, but the kids did not. The kids got so excited when he kicked a perfect shot that was heading towards the goals. The ball literally stopped 2 feet from the goal thanks to slightly tall grass. The kids were disappointed—Juan and I laughed. After 2 hours, we met at Narguila’s and Juan took his boys shopping.

I was left with Missy’s boys. I did a few errands with them and got them ice cream. We chatted with the owner then headed to rest at the hotel. I had just put a nature video on for them when I was called and told to send them to the bus station to get picked up by the truck. They went there way quite satisfied.

Chad and I enjoyed 4 hours of internet time and a nice Italian meal. Then we returned on moto’s of our favorite taxi drivers. We call them up whenever we want and they always deliver.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**