Fuego En Octubre
One thing that is for certain, I have a lot more jobs and titles then I ever expected I would. Even though my day-to-day job is to care for kids, a whole lot more is involved in this full-time job then I ever expected.
Here are a few of the current titles I hold:
-
Parent
o
Wake up my kids each day and provide the
necessary advice/observation that any parent would give.
-
Teacher
o
To the kids, I am quite literally “Teacher
Collin”.
-
Chef
o
I make meals for the everyone in my house because kids need to eat.
-
Sous-chef
o
I help my co-parent make meals when necessary.
-
Garbage man
o
Garbage must be taken care of somehow.
-
Pastor
o
Our campus doesn’t have a pastor, therefor all
of us preach, teach, and live the Gospel to our kids every day.
-
Organizer
o
I organize the days for the kids and help
organize events on campus.
-
Student
o
A huge part of being here is learning Spanish.
This involves being in tune with the conversations I am having as well as studying outside of my typical comfort zone (podcasts, reading, writing, and more). I am also taking a class from Southern, so that too.
-
Lifeguard
o
When the kids go swimming, someone has to make
sure they’re safe. (and no, I'm not certified)
-
Missionary
o
I came here as a missionary.
-
Gringo
o
Had to include this one haha.
-
Carpenter
o
Chiseling away wood to modify our broom-sticks is
a constant job.
-
Stoneworker
o
There are always projects around campus that involve
brick laying.
-
Fundraiser
o
I write and send out the monthly newsletter
for Familia Feliz. (Let me know if you want to be added to the list!)
-
Decorator
o
I decorate my house on occasion and enjoy making cakes look cool whenever I make them.
-
Audio technician
o
Each weekend, I turn into an audio guy because there
always seems to be problems with whatever speaker we use.
-
Musician
o
Not so much anymore, but before the other SM’s
got here…I played the guitar for church on occasion. It wasn’t pretty.
-
Singer
o
I sing for the kids throughout the week and
plan on making a quartet with 4 of our volunteers!
-
Tourist
o
Each Wednesday I turn into a full tourist in the
town of Rurrenabaque. I search for the best internet and the coolest spots
around. It is quite a fun break.
-
Farmer
o
Every day, I have a chicken that lays 3+ eggs
in my house! Its fun to have the kids find them.
And the latest addition
Firefighter
When I say
Firefighter, I quite literally mean it. On Sabbath, October 7 one of
Familia Feliz’s neighbors decided it was a great day for a controlled burn. That
day was about 103°F (feels like 110°F) and very windy. On top of that, we had not had a drop of
rain in about 3 weeks. Perfect conditions for to burn something right?
At about
3:00pm our campus was notified of the situation. We were told that it was out
of control and that they were in need of help. If the fire kept on spreading, it
would definitely cross the road and be a threat to our property. We immediately
sprang into action and sent several volunteers, workers, and even older kids to
help out. The kids retrieved water buckets and the adults threw the water at
the burning branches.
While all
of this was happening…I was terribly sick, but that is a story for later. Several
of us stayed back in order to keep an eye on all of the kids back on campus. We
played games, rested and prepared everyone for worship.
At around 6:00pm
they had finally contained the fire. Everyone came back to campus for worship
and dinner. Even though it had been a terribly complicated day, it ended on quite
a unifying note. Everyone went inside, ate dinner and had a very normal Saturday
night. I watched “Avatar: The Last Airbender” in Spanish with all my boys while
the other houses carried out their activities. Once our episodes were finished,
I sent all the boys to bed and went downstairs to have some personal time.
Suddenly
at 9:45pm one of the new SMs, Aron, ran into our house and said, “You guys
ready to fight fires again?” He frantically went through his stuff and was
clearly preparing to go out again. He had a drone and flew it up in the sky to
see what the situation was like. “The fire has jumped the road and is on its
way toward our property.” This meant it was my time to become a firefighter.
We
gathered a few of the older boys, tried to put on protective long-sleeve clothing
and ran out to the road. I was in a foreign country, with 5 teenage boys,
running toward the orange glow of a burning fire in the night sky. We were only
armed with water buckets and the clothing on our backs. I had NO idea what I was
getting myself into.
Once we arrived, I just stared at the flames for a few seconds before chucking buckets of water to the places I could reach. The river where we got water was about .3 miles away and took each kid 4 or more minutes to get a new bucket to me. With some quick math, I could tell that our water method was worthless. After a while, it was obvious that all we could do was watch the inferno take over tree after tree after tree.
As time
went on, more and more people started to come out and watch the fire burn alongside
the road with us. Eventually I sent all the boys back and the few of us that remained. Right then, we decided it was time to say a prayer. We bowed our heads and simply prayed for
protection over our property. Even during our prayer, the crackle of a newly ignited
palm tree was a disturbing sound. At that time there really was nothing we
could do. We were helpless.
About 20 minutes later, a miracle happened. One of the local farmers pulled up with a massive tank of water, 10 adults, a hose, and a water pump. I was shocked. I had just stood and doubted that any help would come, and then THAT happened.
The men asked me to help and I jumped on the truck to assist a friend with the
hose and the tank. They fired up the pump and sprayed the whole fire alongside
the road completely away! Once the tank was empty, the fire continued to burn,
but in an area that was not as dangerous. I stood on the road until 12:30am when one
of the older Hermanos decided it was time to leave. One of my good friends, Charlie, and I walked back to campus and talked about everything that had just happened. That night I showered and slept with one eye open just to
make sure nothing would happen to our campus.
The next morning there were still scattered fires all across our area. The smell of smoke filled the air and we could no longer see some of the tallest trees that boarder the foothills of our property. At around 10:00am we were blessed with rain! This rain cleared all of the fires around us and allowed us to start the week with clean surroundings.
Even now,
I can't believe all of that happened. So much could have gone wrong, but not a
single person got hurt and no flames touches our campus. The story of our “Fuego
en Octubre” (fire in October) will go down as a very memorable night. While it is
a scary story, it is one filled with miracles, friends and patience.
Your Familia Feliz Volunteers:
Before the whole fire situation happened, this blog was going to be dedicated to our Student Missionaries (SMs). However, the fire is not an opener I will get to write about all the time...I hope.
Our volunteer team is complete! We are so excited to welcome a whole new group of SMs to Familia Feliz. Everyone has a journey of getting here and Memo (Andrews), Sahyii (Southern), and Aron (Southern) all had quite a complicated story behind arriving. You can read their journey at this link (https://www.andrews.edu/life/student-movement/issues/2023-10-06/news-sparks-fly-for-student-missionaries-in-bolivia.html).
We have all wanted a group picture since the first weekend we arrived back in August. There was one problem, not all of us were here yet. Therefor, we wanted to snap a picture with all of us together as soon as we could. There's one problem. All of us are NEVER together. We knew it would be complicated to take a group photo, but here it is.
Often times, it truly does feel like the work we put into these kids lives can go unnoticed. Parties and events like Melissa’s quince help remind me that the kids really do notice our work, even though they seem ungrateful at times.
Food Problems:
Food here does not last. One
of the things I am the most grateful for at the moment is
a refrigerator. For the past few weeks it has been HOT outside. There have
been only a select few times that the temperature has gone below 90°F. With the
intense heat that comes with being here, food expires VERY quickly. One day I
made cornbread. I served half of it for dinner the next day and planned on
serving the rest for the following breakfast. The next morning, the bread was
bad! The food I had made a day before went bad in about 16 hours. It can be
extremely frustrating when you plan meals around leftovers, and those leftovers
don't exist.
The night of the quince,
all of the leftover food came to my house. I was beyond thankful because that
meant that I didn’t need to make lunch the next day. The next day came (which
happened to be Earth Day in Bolivia) and I had an extremely busy morning. The
government wanted us to make videos to see what life at Familia Feliz is like
as far as agriculture goes. I was the videographer. At about 10:30 I went in
the house to take a nap when I smelled a disgusting scent coming from the
kitchen. Sadly, it was ALL the food I was going to serve for lunch in an hour
and a half. This meant I had to throw together some rice and arepas in an hour
and a half. Even though I was disappointed, I can’t say I was surprised. Shockers
like this one happen almost every day.
Something that I now
understand the importance of is a simple Zip-Lock bag. WOW. They save
everything. If you keep anything with sugar out for longer then 20 minutes, it
is guaranteed to be CRAWLING with thousands of ants. Zip-locks are the 100%
effective solution to this. I had brought a ton of them thinking I would use
them to store goodies or organize clothes. Nope! They all go to storing any
kind of food that has sugar in it.
Another cornbread story.
One night I made a delicious cornbread. It was far too hot for me to put in bags
when I took it out of the oven, so I simply decided to keep it next to my bed
so it could cool down. In the middle of the night I woke up and decided to
place my cut corn bread in Zip-lock bags. I got out of my bed, washed my hands and
picked up the baking tray in the dark. I started to walk toward the kitchen
when I felt a sleeve of crawling ants climbing up both of my arms. No lights
were on, but I could imagine what I would see if any were on. I put the bread back
down and ran to the shower. The sleeve was past my elbows now and nearing my shoulders.
I put both of my arms under the cold shower and cleaned every last ant off my arms.
After that I carefully placed the bread back in the oven and killed all of the ants.
It was a very creepy-crawly night.
From then on, I will always
use Zip-locks to keep my food safe!
I got sick!
Yep! You heard that right.
I finally got sick. No, of course this is not a good thing. However, I have
been waiting for 7 weeks to get sick. Every SM I had talked to had told me that
it is not a matter of “if” you will get sick, it is a matter of “when.”
Therefore, I was rather relived when I woke up and didn’t feel right. Honestly,
I have been trying my best to see getting sick as a positive thing because of
how much of a negative experience it truly is. I had no idea how difficult it
would be to take care of 13 boys while feeling absolutely terrible.
The worst of it was last Thursday
(Oct 5). I woke up that morning with 0 energy. On top of that, it was my
co-parent's day off as he had to do teaching work in town with internet, so he
had to be gone the whole day. I truly have never felt that kind of exhaustion in
my life. Feeling like I have absolutely nothing in me and having to put effort
into the day is quite the experience. On top of that, I didn’t want the kids to
know that I felt bad. I thought that if they were aware of how I was feeling, they
would try to use it to their advantage. So, I ended up staying in my room quite
a bit and waiting to hear my name being called. The kids watched quite a bit of
TV on my computer that day!
Even though I really did struggle through the past week, I am grateful that it happened. I now understand what it is like to be sick here. It was a shocking experience, but I know what to expect a little bit more.
Eyes Behind my Head:
For a while now, I have felt like my brain has always been on. I feel like it is always running, and now I know why. My first grade teacher Mrs. Finch had a specific saying, “I have eyes behind my head.” Now that I am constantly around 13 kids, I feel like I have the same blessing/curse. I always can feel when something is wrong with one of my kids. I always can know what they are saying when I turn my head around at the table. It is an odd phenomenon, but I now completely understand what Mrs. Finch was talking about.
What's Next?
Pictures from the last few weeks:
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