Baseball and other ruminations...

Hi everyone!
      I missed you all last time. We have been having so much fun in English class, though. Our Halloween party was a roaring success, and next comes the baseball game this week. I am really looking forward to this, and so are many of my students. It is a shame we have to hold it while so many others are in class, otherwise, I think we would have the whole campus there! We hunted and hunted for a ball, since they don't play baseball or softball here at all. We have found some wiffle ball style ones that will do the trick. Jeff came up with the idea of re-purposing a piece of PVC pipe for the bat -- turns out it is just the right size and weight for wiffle balls - and no gloves needed. I will try to get some pictures posted next weekend, depending on how fast the Internet connection is (sometimes I have to wait until our infrequent visits to La Paz to upload photos because the connection here is so slow the upload times out).
     We are official now -- we finally have our national ID cards, so we can stop carrying our passports everywhere. This is a relief because the ID cards are MUCH easier to replace if something happens to them.
     The weather has been so beautiful this week -- it is definitely getting to be summer. Every day has been warm and sunny, and the evenings are pleasantly cool (thanks Uchumachi!). We have been thinking of doing some stargazing, since we have no idea what we are looking at in the night sky here. Jeff found a great piece of software to download, but we haven't tried it yet. I'm hoping it will be clear again Sunday evening and we can go take a look then. In the meantime, six days of dry weather means the road to Coroico is MUCH better, which was nice for market day today. Most of the washouts are dry now and so you don't have to get all muddy everywhere you go. It's nice. We will be hanging all our bedding on the line tomorrow to freshen it (provided it doesn't rain!), the only downside to that is that the dust from the road has to be shaken out before we bring it all in. Can't win 'em all, I guess.
     Speaking of market day today, I saw an interesting sight this morning in Coroico -- a woman with a pet capuchin monkey on a harness, sitting on her shoulder prim as you please! It was quite a sight, and unusual enough around here that it wasn't just me staring in fascination -- I looked around and saw many of the Bolivians surrounding me were staring as well. It was a pretty cool thing to see.
     I know the holiday season is rapidly approaching, but it is kind of surreal to think about it here, with summer weather and NO MARKETING. It is quite nice that it is mid-November and no one is really even talking about Christmas. I think I like it, but I haven't decided yet. Stay tuned! Speaking of the holidays, I will make a shameless plug for donations. If you are considering making a charitable gift this year, please consider either the Carmen Pampa Fund, which directly funds scholarships and food for students here at the college, or our Bolivia Fund at St. Andrew's. Those funds go to support the three of us during our year here, including class supplies like markers, posters and baseballs. Thanks so much for thinking of us here in the sunny Southern Hemisphere, and may God's peace be with you~
     Susan