Christmas in Bolivia

Christmas greetings to all on this fine summer day!

Well, it's summer here in Bolivia, anyway... :) Warm, sunny mornings and afternoon showers and thunderstorms are the pattern for our weather this week. Unfortunately, this means that our power and Internet have been even more on-and-off than usual, so we apologize if you haven't heard from us when you hoped to.

It's very pleasantly cool in the evenings, when it usually clears off and we can see every star in the sky. Seems like it, anyway! Very little light pollution here makes for fantastic stargazing. We hear our friends and family in Iowa had a snowy Christmas -- we miss you all! We never thought we would miss snow, but Delaney in particular has had trouble "feeling Christmas-y" with no snow. She is definitely an Iowan.

Our Christmas was delightful here. You'll have to forgive me if I double up on some of what has happened, but our posts have been hard to get out with the Internet being on the frizt so much this past couple of weeks. We walked down below to spend the night, then spent a little while filling the flour, sugar and rice bags for the village families. Then we hung out and ate yummy homemade pizza for supper before the Christmas Eve mass -- we have to thank Ursula, the current volunteer from Germany, for the pizza. She says she used to make it for youth group stuff for her kids all the time, so she got pretty good at it. It was delicious! Then we went over to the chapel to wait for mass to start, and I realized I knew a Christmas carol in German, so Ursula, Delaney and I spent a wonderful few minutes singing Stille Nacht. Once mass started, there were village children all dressed up who marched and danced up front in the traditional style. It was a nice start to the evening. Then we had our mass, led by the local seminarian, Fr. Alejandro. He did a good job for his first time, although he was visibly nervous. He was smiling by the end, though!

We all went back to the guest house and had a great time playing cards and singing carols in several languages. Cookies, fruitcake, leftover wine and Jeff's homemade Bailey's were all served, and it was a fun night for us all. We got up fairly early on Christmas morning. Delaney did have a couple of presents to open (thanks to Nana and Sally for sending those!!), so she did that over Hugh's Christmas bread, more fruitcake and leftover pizza. A little bit later Delaney and I made Christmas cookies by rolling sugar cookie dough balls in chopped Brazil nuts, then pressing them flat and sprinkling little candy Christmas trees on the tops. Everyone liked them, and we left a big plate when we went home after lunch. Lunch was prepared by the students who stayed on campus, it was a yummy traditional meal with potatoes, chicken pieces, bananas, etc.

We hung around playing games and socializing after lunch, then eventually Hugh loaded us up in the campus SUV and gave us a ride home. It was nice not to have to carry our stuff back up -- thanks Hugh! We did receive a wonderful Christmas gift the next morning -- Sr. Cris, Hugh, and some students showed up with our new fridge! The Volunteer House had a newer, bigger one donated, so we got the one they had before. It will be very nice to have all that extra space, since it is twice the size of the little dorm fridge we had before. We are very thankful.

The rest of this week has been quiet, as we are gearing up for our trip to the Bolivian Amazon, which will probably happen next week. Thanks again to St. Andrew's for the wonderful Christmas gift, and we love and miss you all ---

Susan