Home and Away

 Home and Away

Fun fact about me: I love to travel. This little hobby comes directly from my Dad. In our free time at home, my brother, dad, and I would scroll around Google Earth just to see what the rest of the world looks like. Over the summer, a lot of my Google Earth time was spent looking at different locations all over South America, especially our little town of Rurrenabaque. In the past 2 weeks, my dad came to visit and I finally got to travel! 

Home:

I am very happy to say that a lot of our family Google Earth time paid off recently because my Dad and Ally's Dad (Calvin) decided to come visit Familia Feliz in October! I had known of their visit for about a month before they flew down from the states. This visit gave me something to look forward to and a promise of a little break. 

On top of these reasons, I was extra happy because they were bringing a bunch of donations from home. These donations were medical equipment for the clinic, veggie meats and special foods from the United States, and (in my opinion) most importantly, games and toys! For the past 3 months, our boys in the house have had NO games or toys to play with. For about 3 months all they had to play with was a suitcase that we brought down, and it is no longer functional, even for a toy. They played with rocks, sticks and occasionally knives...I never let them, but they always found a way to get them out of my room. So a restocking visit was GREATLY needed for multiple reasons.

There had been a plan to mail supplies to us, but it was soon discovered that each medium sized box would cost between $700 and $900 EACH!  So the dads became pack mules and brought 400 pounds of supplies in 8 suitcases.  

 If you look at a map, Rurrenabaque is about 200 miles north of La Paz. For any tourist, you must go through La Paz to get to our town if you want to fly. A plane is supposed to go between the two cities on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However...that is a rare occurrence. We have a little saying that, "nothing goes right here in Bolivia." If it has a way that it should happen, it will most likely not at all happen in the way you expect. After a few complications with flights and a whole day delay, my Dad was finally on his way to Rurrenabaque.

Ally and I found people to cover our houses and made our way over to the town to greet our dads. We stopped to grab veggies for the campus and then made our way to the airport. Parked under a huge mango tree, we patiently waited for the jet to land. Finally we heard the sounds of rumbling engines and saw a plane land at the airport. We watched the passengers quickly walk through the brand new and completed terminal (that nobody can use for some reason), and make their way over to us in the 100+ degree heat.

My dad was finally here. We took a picture and then went into town to drop off suitcases and buy some fruits and other necessities for Familia Feliz

While we were very happy to spend some time together, there was a lot to do. I had to get back to campus to start distributing the donations and we wanted to do quite a bit of work around the campus while some extra hands were available. Immediately we started working on the donations. Everything was placed in the church and we separated it into piles. That day the "feels like" temperature got up to about 120°. The dads were simply sweating on the church pews while Ally and I took a look at the stuff. 

After everything was separated, we walked to the houses. As soon as my boys saw my dad they ran up to him. Little Jose-Elias clung to my dad and would not let go. All of my other boys were asking tons of questions and inspecting the new faces on campus. Finally I had to pry Jose-Elias off my dad, put him on my shoulders and show the boys all their new goodies. I took my portion into the house and my boys were shocked. They were so happy to see all of the toys and exciting new things.

After teaching them to throw a Frisbee and organizing some of my stuff, I went back into town with my dad to spend the night in a hotel.

For the first time in 3 months I sat on a real bed in a hotel that had AC. I sat under the unit and was SO thankful for this little break. My dad and I also talked quite a bit about travel. The bottom picture is of the gondolas in La Paz which I would be traveling around on the next week.

The next day we got working on several projects around campus. After many trips around town for pipes and supplies we started working on drainage for 2 of the houses and building a kitchen for Ally's house. Here is some pics of the projects.

Lilas Kitchen and drainage: Before

After:

Calvin helped hire a carpenter and the two of them did most of the work on the kitchen. This just goes to show how you get things things done around here...lots of determination and a bit of money. That's all!

More pictures from the visit:

Thanks to some donations from home, we were able to get a new 3-burner stove for our house. This has been life changing. The first one was half this size and only had two burners. We use this 3 times a day to feed 17+ people. It was a very difficult task that is much more simple now.

My airpods broke my 2nd week here. Now I can finally listen to music in peace again :)

You can see pipes under the sinks. For the past 3 months there have been no pipes, so water ran across the concrete and made it very slippery and dirty. 4 pipes were the solution to this problem.

We bought 2 brooms for our house. We were able to put better sticks with screws on them so they don't break as easily. Now that the boys have toys to play with, we have not had a problem with the brooms in over 2 weeks. (we used to have problems with the brooms breaking almost daily)

Fidget spinners became the talk of the house for the entire week. They were put to use and only lasted about 2 weeks.  They came from Batson-Cook, one of the contractors my dad works with at the hospital.

The Dads bought watermelons for each house. The boys were shocked by the size of this one.

These pictures were taken on a Friday night. Usually the boys would try to sprint around and wrestle, but this time they had toys to play with and nobody got hurt! Zoro and I also got to sit and watch them play instead of breaking up a fight which was a welcome change of pace.

Eventually it was time to say goodbye to my dad. I truly am enjoying my time here, however it was a difficult farewell. I was trying to think why I was struggling so much and came to a simple conclusion...it was everything. Thinking of leaving, thinking of staying, knowing how different the two different lives I have lived truly are. It hit me again that these boys truly don't know anything about the lives we live in the States.  I asked the boys about their homes and only 1 of my 13 said that their home has electricity. Hearing that makes my heart hurt. In America if power goes out, it seems like a national emergency, while here it is a way of life. For the 20 or so hours that my dad was on our campus, power was only on for about 10 of them. Adapting to life here has been hard, but I fear it may be harder (in a different way) to adjust back to the comfort provided by our country.

After a few tears were shed it was time for him to fly away.

Miss you dad!

In-between:

After my Dad left I had 3 days of being at the Orphanage before Sean and I headed out on our adventure to get our Bolivian IDs in La Paz. Before I left some fun things happened.

Storm clouds covering Familia Feliz for the first time in months. Sadly it did not rain.

One of the men fighting the fires came to a local restaurant with a baby sloth!  They find them crawling on the ground when their trees burn up.

I had to hold him.

Truly adorable.

Sean and a few of the Harding girls.

The evening before leaving for La Paz.

The morning of our trip! We saw a Toucan in our tree.

Away:

La Paz is an INCREDIBLE city and is one of my favorite places I've ever visited. I'm not sure if that is because of the modern day amenities we got to experience or the amazing culture of this Bolivian City. Either way, we had an incredible time.

Follow along on the trip in the following pictures:

Entering the airport!

Sean and I heading to the plane.

Far off in the distance is Familia Feliz. In the morning (when we left) there are very few fires, however they tend to pick up in the evening.

Landed in La Paz!

Drinking the famous "Coco" tea after having a Sorochi pill to cope with the intense altitude of the city. La Paz is the highest capital of any country. The airport sits at 13,325 feet...more then twice as high as Denver.

This city is so beautiful and unique. It sits in a valley, however every part of the hills, valleys and mountaintops are covered in homes, skyscrapers and roads. I didn't know anything like this existed.

Due to the altitude and terrain, there is no easy form of public transportation, so the city decided to build a gondola system (Telefetico) all over the city. It felt like I was sitting in one of the Disney gondolas!

I was incredibly impressed by this mode of transportation. 

There was no availability at the Government Identification Office, so we scheduled an appointment for 7:30am the next morning. 

We wanted to eat at "Cafe del Mundo" which was an 8 block walk. Easy right? Nope! Sean and I had to grab a taxi after 2 block of walking. The altitude is no joke.

Incredible food at Cafe del Mundo. We made some friends from the UK as well.

Found our hotel and were very happy.

Real bed. Real hot water shower. Possibly good running water. No power outages. No mosquito nets. No kids. This picture is the definition of relief.

The all famous "Witches Market" Such cool things here.

Sunset in La Paz

The view from our room. Night lights here were completely different from what I was used to.

Sean and I ate at the top of our hotel. The restaurant was incredibly fancy. Our meals were about 75bs...extremely expensive for here (about $10.7)

View from resturant.

The next morning.

Breakfast was served at our hotel and we had to try it out. How can you beat that view?

Sean getting his ID picture.

Officially Bolivians!

Carrot Tree Cafe

Another incredible restaurant. 

Witches Market during the day!

It is a tradition to sell llama fetuses in this market for good luck. Unique for sure.

Spent about 4 hours on the gondolas today.

All to end up here! Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon)

It felt similar to Bryce national park...just...Bolivian.

This is in the South area of La Paz called "Sur". Everything here is extremally fancy and more American priced. They even have a Hard Rock cafe!

Ice cream in "Sur" district.

An impressive lookout up the hill from our hotel.

Some fun pictures with our Carnettes (ID's) and our new Ponchos (Bolivian dress).

Sean and I wanted to eat in this restaurant called "HB Cafe". Apparently this is the fanciest restaurant in town and we had no idea. We walked in with hoodies and jackets with shorts and saw that everyone in the restaurant was in suits or dresses. However, I was determined to eat here. This was the nicest restaurant I've ever eaten at. My meal was 100bs ($14.8). They also had the best avocado I've ever tried.

Next morning getting ready to depart in the airport.

I love planes and have never seen anything like this one. Due to the high altitude, it nearly takes the entire runway to take off...

Andes mountains

Leonardo greeting me once I got back!

I got all of the boys little llamas in La Paz and they all love them. Now my nickname is Llama because apparently my hair makes me look like one!

Conclusion:

I defiantly consider this time to be my fall break. I realize every day how blessed I am to have these experiences and be in a new place. Perspective is always changing and I always get to see a different side of life while living here. Thank you all so much for keeping up with my story. If you have any interest in helping us provide for these kids or assist with a project on campus, I would be more then willing to talk.

Joshua 1:9

"Have I not commanded you,

be strong and courageous,

do not be afraid or discouraged,

for the Lord your God is with you

wherever you go."