Dean and Ruth's Diary

To celebrate reaching half way in our marriage guidance course “Love and Respect” we decided to have a party with our group of couples. We have been reading one chapter of the book and meeting once every two weeks to discuss the questions. We have been “facilitating” the discussion in our limited Spanish. It has been really good and such a blessing to see these young couples developing and opening up to talk about things.

The party was great fun. We had a “bring and share” dinner – a new concept to most of our friends. Then we had a few games … the most hilarious being hugging balloon popping and blindfolded newspaper ripping!! Just don’t ask?!?!?

We also celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary this month. We usually take it in turns to organise a special restaurant or trip, but this year will be memorable as we spent the day looking for a dentist!!! Not very romantic! Ruth had a minor emergency and needed a tooth repaired… but finding a nice / clean / safe and qualified dentist in Sucre is not so easy.

Sadly we have both been a bit poorly in the past few weeks. The Bolivian bugs have caught up with us again and we have been feeling quite weak and drained. Both of us are on the mend now.

We have loads of things in the pipeline and are feeling really busy. We are looking forward to our trip to Puno with a group of students from the church and presenting dramas. We will also be involved with meeting a group of STEP missionaries from the UK and Ireland and helping them travel and get orientated, which we are looking forward to.

We had the wonderful opportunity to visit some of the other LatinLink members last week as we traveled around the country. We stopped off in La Paz first, where we organised our onward trip to Apolo. Apolo is not a very well known town in Bolivia but definitely worth a visit. The journey was 12 hours north on a small cramped bus. We left La Paz at about 7.00 am just as the sun was rising. We got an amazing view of Mount Illimani as we climbed out of the basin up to the Alti-Plano. Driving through El Alto (a huge district of La Paz ) at that time of the morning was freezing cold and our hearts were touched as Caz and Judith told us about the street boys who have to live out here and are taken in by various rehabilitation projects. We passed groups of children huddled together surrounded by the desperately sad signs of glue sniffing, which they do to try and numb themselves from the cold. After traveling for about an hour we were surrounded by beautiful mountains on one side and the deep blue of Lake Titicaca on the other side. It is awesome. The bus began to climb even higher and soon we saw llamas and snow either side of the road. The Apolobamba mountain range is really remote and therefore unspoilt with just a few communities dotted around. The road ( untarmaced and constantly bumpy) began to twist and descend down in to the jungle. At times I was so scared to look over the edge as the drop was so deep and we were so close to the edge. But the views and waterfalls were spectacular. Arriving in Apolo at about 8 pm we pealed ourselves out of the bus and had a long needed stretch, before being hugged and kissed by Hannah and Karin who we were going to be staying with.

At their house we presented them with our “goodies” we had brought from La Paz…. marshmallows, butter, cornflakes, jam and cheese. The supplies are pretty basic in Apolo and the girls were delighted. Most of all because the cheese allowed us to make pizza the next day to celebrate Hannah’s birthday. Thanks Linda!

We went for a lovely walk one morning to a river, where we could swim. It was quite deep, but they assured us – no crocodiles. But there were lots of mozzies and we got bitten to pieces. We spent two amazing days with our Latin Link hosts and together we lead a drama workshop and a games night for the young people of the town.

It was a really nice few days and we are so glad we went to visit Apolo. But also glad when we arrived back to Sucre …and have a shower.

Here is our latest newsletter for May. Hope you enjoy reading it and looking at all the latest photos. You need to open each page separately and click again to enlarge it.

As you may have seen from our newsletter we have been working on a project on the outskirts of the city with a team of Brazilians. It has been good to have a focus, as we have been painting brightly coloured murals on the walls… Noah, Jesus and the feeding of 5000… ready for the opening this Tuesday. It has been hard work, cleaning up and painting the outside of the building too. The conditions these families live in is terrible. They have pigs and chickens living with them and no running water. The water they have is delivered by a tanker once a week and stored in barrels outside.

We will be working there two days a week. Dean is probably going to work with the teenagers and Ruth with the junior age children. They will have time to do homework, play games, art, music and have some bible teaching. A big part of the project is health education and basic hygiene. The children will be taught about healthy food, keeping clean and preventing illness. The project has also constructed a toilet and a shower so that the children can be washed.

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We took a short break last week and went to La Paz. We met up with our friend Caz and she decided to join us on our 3 day walk along an ancient Inca Trail from La Paz (Choro) to Croico. It was amazing. We started at 6 am and were taken up above the snow line by a 4 x 4 truck. We climbed to the summit at 5000m and then it was all down hill for three days. The path followed a powerful river falling over rapids and huge waterfalls. We saw llamas carrying things to market and small houses perched on the hillside in the middle of nowhere. On the first day we descended over 2500m and walked through many different eco systems. We camped each night and our guides managed to cook us delicious food, (sometimes trout caught fresh from the river).

The second and third days were all downhill (our knees were, by this stage, beginning to ache… feeling our age) and we walked through dense jungle, saw the most beautiful butterflies, ate fresh mangoes and bananas, climbed over waterfalls, gazed at the stars, saw amazing coloured flowers, chatted, laughed and generally had an awesome time. It was really good to relax and spend time in the middle of nature. In Crioco we had a night in a hotel and went horse riding with Caz. We returned to Sucre (14 hours on the bus) feeling completely relaxed and ready for work.

We are fast approaching 6 months in Bolivia, we were told that this can be quite a hard time for missionaries emotionally. Some days are quite tough, we are a bit homesick, missing all our buddies back home and sometimes feel frustrated with our Spanish (so please send us lots of encouraging emails). But we are getting more and more involved with the community here and the projects we have been planning are starting to get going. We worked in the library this week and did a puppet show and games for the kids.

This weekend we went on a walk with the youth group into the mountains. It was decided on the spot without any police checks / risk assessment / permission slips…. has the world gone crazy! The way things are done here are quite different to the UK. The plan was to sleep out under the stars after a bonfire and songs, but it started to rain at about 3.30 am and the boys gallantly gave up the only tent for the girls… 24 girls in one tent … and the boys had to find shelter under the spindly trees. We were asked give a talk about boy/girl relationships. We were amazed how willing they were to take part in the discussions and how fervently they expressed their views. Ruth was happy because we camped next to a river… the closest thing to the seaside for 6 whole months …. (feeling serious Gower withdrawal symptoms.) We got a lift back to Sucre in the back of an old VW camper van – a great way to see the view!

We are also doing the second of our married couples course at our house – talking about “Love and Respect”. This is a real challenge for our limited Spanish but we’re going to have a go!

We got our visas – so we are now legal thanks to our friend and lawyer Grover! He wants us to say that he is charming, single and available and has his own motorbike!

On the instruction of LLink we are taking a few days off next week. We have decided to visit La Paz and do a walk through the jungle to Croico on an Inca trail. We start in ice and walk down through 6 eco- systems to the jungle.

Well, we’ve been busy in the past few weeks. The first week of February is traditionally time for Carnival in Bolivia which means that there are never ending parades and bands marching down the street at all times of the day and night. People throw water balloons at each other …. and some even tip whole buckets of water from their balconies onto people walking down the street.

Our church runs a camp at this time and we were asked to help organise the games, ice breakers and the “Olympics”. We formed a team of helpers and shared lots of ideas. Our Spanish just about held up … with a bit of help from Becky and Chris. We discovered that Bolivian’s are very competitive when it comes to scoring “points” and winning is very important to them. The atmosphere at the camp was very different to the kind of camp we would run in UK, but we learnt a lot about Bolivian culture and their way of thinking. Dean was asked to preach on “faith” via a translator and we were involved in various drama presentations.

One lovely Bolivian tradition is that the girls “chicas” go to the window of the boys bedroom and seranade them on the last but one night. On the last night the boys “chicos” return to the girls and sing for them. It was so lovely, lying in bed ( you’ve got to be really quiet and not get up) whilst there are people declaring their love and friendship for each other. Dean ( never the one to be shy ) decided to sing a solo version of Elvis Presley … Love me tender.

Happy New year to you all. We were thinking of you all at 8 pm (our time) as you clinked glasses and celebrated 2008. Things were a bit different here. Our church organised a supper for everyone on the evening of the 31st December of traditional Bolivian soup. We welcomed in the New year together and then we invited all the “young” people of the church back to our house to play games and have a party. It was Pastor Phil’s idea to give them an alternative to going out onto the streets and buying cheep, nasty alcohol called cheecha. It was good fun. We got them playing lots of silly games… all the Crossover / Big Crunch favourites and a few new ones too. We managed to explain most of them with our limited Spanish and lots of sign language.

On the 3rd January we went to Trinidad with Chris ( LLink co-ordinator). The bus journey was up and over the mountains and into the jungle. We had a bit of excitement when the driver told us that the bridge had collapsed because of the floods and we would have to carry our bags across. This meant a 1 mile walk in mid- day heat (35 degrees), clambering down a mud bank and crossing a river on no more than a few planks of wood tied together with a couple of shoelaces. Then getting on a different bus the other side. OIB – only in Bolivia…

Trinidad is in the Beni jungle, it was hot and humid and full of creepy crawlies. So thankful for our mozzie net. We visited a church and a few future projects. Dean now has 800 acres of jungle named after him … just don’t ask how…. Dino’s Place!

We arrived back in Sucre today and are getting ready for our workshops that start next week and re- starting language school on Friday.

Thank you so much to all those who sent us parcels and goodies for Christmas, they are beginning to arrive and it is a lovely surprise to go to the post office and have Christmas spread over a few weeks. Thank you… muchas gracias.

Images: Ruth in her birthday poncho, last cups of English tea, new year party games and the river crossing.