Wow, what a ride! 

We have been so blessed to have this experience.  I know we are only around 4 months into our year, but I am just so incredibly happy to be here! Now that I have had the two teeth that were causing me the most trouble pulled, I can finally get going on the several jobs that have been laid before me. For someone that is rarely sick, I have been ill several times in our short time here. Teeth can really mess you up!

The most recent addition of my “Jeffy do” list is the Casa Padre Bertram. This is a retreat house the Catholic Diocese of Coroico allows the UAC-CP use for simply maintaining the buildings. The main house has 17 bedrooms, a kitchen, 3 big bathrooms, a large multi-purpose room, and beautiful sidewalks for contemplation with benched areas for small group activities. The smaller building is the big kitchen and eating area. The pictures that Susan will post will show you all what I am talking about as far as the outdoor stuff. What a beautiful setting for retreats! The lists of things to do were plumbing, carpentry, screen repair, and glass work. As some of you know, I hate plumbing. So, of course, that is what is giving me headaches. I managed to accomplish 2 of the 3 of the plumbing tasks, but one is still a mess. The glass was easy, and I didn’t cut myself once! The carpentry consisted of a board that I think had dry rotted. It was responsible for holding up a shower stall door, so it had to go! Taking it out of the wall revealed that when it had been put up, it had had nails driven into it on the back, and then the exposed nails were pushed into the wet concrete on the wall. I’ll use anchors, thank you very much.

We continue to find joy over most hills, and we also continue to share God’s peace with everyone we meet. We pray that you are all well, and if not, that God will make you well. Please continue to pray for us and those that we share with you.

Shalom!

Jeff

Hey guys!

A while ago, I was blessed with the chance to be able to run a library for the children down on the lower campus. It’s something that they all really enjoy, and it’s awesome to see them get an opportunity that they normally wouldn't! The library is open from 12:30-2:30 Tuesdays and Fridays for checking out/returning books, and 2:30-3:30ish on Thursdays for reading only. It took me a while to learn all of their names, but there are about 159 people who've ever been there to check out a book, and out of those, I normally get about 40-50 kids every Tuesday and Friday, and about 20-30 of the whole number are adults/parents/teachers/siblings. It’s amazing to see these kids checking books out for their parents! I have all ages, anywhere from 4 or 5 to grown adults. On Thursdays, the reading day, I try to get someone (other than me) to read, and these past few times, I’ve gotten one of the other volunteers to read for me. Her name is Mai, and she’s from Vietnam. She speaks both Spanish and English fluently, so we can talk, and she can talk to the kids fluently, which is something I sometimes have trouble with.

It’s amazing to come walking down the hill into the campus and start walking over to the library and hear this several times, “Vas a abrir la biblioteca?” Which, for our non-Spanish speakers, means, “Are you going to open the library?” I also hear excited screams and yells when they see me coming that make me feel very appreciated and gives me a good feeling about what I’m doing for these kids. I have several girls (Usually Valeria, Mayerli, and Melanie with the occasional show of Karen or Maria Fernanda) who like to help me clean up, and there’s an older German volunteer who likes to come and read, interact with the kids, and help me clean up afterwards. Ursula and the girls are a very big help, and I’m thankful for all we’re able to do down here, with help or without it.

Peace,

Delaney

Party, party

Hi everyone,

     It's been a fun couple of weeks. Last week was the Fiesta Universitaria -- always a fun week filled with competitions between the carreras (sort of like departments, except a student takes all of his or her classes within the carrera, so more like majors) and party after party. We enjoyed the dancing, singing, sports and more all week and had a wonderful time! The carreras gain points throughout the week based on their finishes in each event, then at the end, a champion is crowned. This year's champion is Agronomia! This carrera is here on upper campus, and one of my classes is there. Also, the boys from this carrera are the ones on the other side of the wall from our apartment that we have told you about a few times. They had a big celebration the last three days, including a pig roast, a formal gala dinner and dance, fireworks (at 5 AM!), parade and lots of singing and music. It has been a fun few days. Tomorrow I will post a video I took this afternoon of the "parade" in front of our apartment. All of my Agronomia students were there, and they were having a blast!

     A couple of things to watch for this coming week: a link to the YouTube video of the volunteers and guest house residents dancing on stage last Saturday night (yours truly included! Watch for Delaney up front, and Jeff's new signature dance move near the end), plus we will be posting the English II student projects where they wrote to/about the future, for themselves, the UAC, and Bolivia. Also, this week my Education students will be baking banana bread on Wednesday morning, so taste test judging will happen that afternoon. I will post the winning team's photo and recipe as soon as I have it.

     The weather here is warming up, although it seems the rainy season may have started a little early. Prayer of the week: Lord, please let our clothes dry!!! But seriously, we would ask you to pray for our little 4-year-old neighbor girl Nathaly, who fell off the stair landing in the girls' dorm yesterday afternoon and hit her head. She has six stitches and a big bandage on her head. She fell about 10 feet onto concrete. Ouch! She is resting comfortably at home, apparently no broken bones, but YIKES! Thank God little kids bounce!

    We miss you all and may God's peace be with you~

     Susan

Cloud forest ruminations

     Two things that are fascinating about living in the cloud forest of Bolivia are the colors and the smells. The colors are hard to describe, being that I am a man, and therefore only able to see a limited number of colors. Those married men in our circle of readers will understand this statement without explanation. For those that are unmarried, men see red, blue, green, etc, while women see dusty rose/pink/fuschia/magenta/red, vibrant midnight/teal/baby/royal/electric/blues, chartreuse/forest/sage/pea/greens, and the list continues into oblivion. That being explained, I will begin my description! Looking out the window of our apartment, or the window of a bus to Coroico, one can see 300 different shades of green. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it seems as if each different plant you see is actually a different shade than the identical plant sitting right next to it. One can also see incredible reds, yellows, oranges, blues, and any other color that you can imagine. This is all before going to the market. If you go to the market in La Paz, you see flower markets with every color of the rainbow, and a whole lot more.  The fruit and vegetable market is a smear of colors that the human eye has trouble has trouble interpreting and differentiating. My words fall well short of the mark in trying to describe this to you all, so please look at the pictures that Susan posts to our Photobucket account. I have taken a bunch, and will continue to while we are here.

     The next items to fail at describing are the smells. The smells here are also of a wide spectrum, like the colors. Some smells are intoxicating, some are revolting. I will start on the revolting end first. Even though this country has changed so much in the past 13 years, it is still developing. Some homes here still don’t have indoor plumbing. Walking by can be a minefield. The nose cannot sidestep around the odor as the feet can miss the cause. Next in line would be the animals. Dogs, goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, cows, etc. add to the aroma as you walk through the countryside. The market place has the aromas of different meats and sometimes over ripe vegetables left out to the elements as the vendors hawk their wares. Dried beef, dried fish, beef, chicken, fish, pork, llama, papayas, mangoes, pineapples, bananas all mix into an aroma that sometimes smells like an exotic salsa, sometimes a smell that would have you leaving the market early to get some fresh air! The exhaust smells mingle with all of this to create an environment that keep you light-headed, and not just because of elevation. From here on out, the descriptions won’t be noxious! Walking around, you smell wonderful flowers. The trees here take turns blossoming. I say this because it is unusual to see identical trees waiting until the tree next to it blooms, and then fade before starting the process for itself. The coffee and orange trees are probably the most intoxicating. Simply walking through them can lift spirits, and make you crave the fruit, or the beverage! There is a section of the road to lower campus and the village that smells like there should be millions of bees in the air. The 20-foot section of roadside smells like honey. The smell is so strong, that Delaney and I investigated to see if they had hives behind the bushes. There is just something about the way that the different hedge flowers mingle that creates the intoxicating aroma of honey mead!

     The sights and smells of this country are incredible. I know that my descriptions are weak compared to the original, but I have given it my best shot. Next time, I will talk about the children around the campus.

Benedicion y la Paz!

Jeff

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This week's update

Delaney has decided to make Snickerdoodles this afternoon, and she has lots of short help. She came home from working at the Children’s Library on the lower campus to find children from here on the upper campus waiting for her. They wanted to exchange their books because they missed their storytime yesterday for a school event. By the time she had opened the library for them, a few more kids had shown up, so she spent a little time with all of them. Then the boys took off to play, and one at a time, the girls have shown up at the door to ask if they could learn to make cookies. So right now there are three little girls “helping” Delaney bake, chasing the cat, and generally making a joyful noise. What fun it is to have an apartment full of happy children’s voices!! And it is a real treat to listen to Delaney interact with them all, as they chatter along in Spanish and she does her best to keep up. Since I have the most contact with people on a daily basis, my Spanish is improving much more quickly than Jeff’s or Delaney’s, so she occasionally calls out to me to ask for a word. I really enjoy listening to the children speak, because they speak more slowly and clearly than many adults, and they make the same mistakes I do, so we understand each other! The girls’ names are Nathaly, Oriana, Sara, they range in age from 4-7, and Sara’s big brother Sergio just showed up to join the fun. He’s 8, and is just fascinated by all this. There is much laughing because Delaney drew Sergio in to help and he dumped about 5 times too much vanilla into the dough! Baking with small children is an adventure no matter what language they speak…

We have been concerned about Cookie because he is so painfully shy around any other humans besides us, but he is tolerating the kids just fine. As a matter of fact, he allows them to pick him up and carry him, pet his tummy, and even approach him while he’s relaxing. Amazing that he likes kids, when the mere sight of most adults sends him flying under the nearest piece of furniture in terror. I told Delaney we need to have the kids in to visit more often, so that Cookie can work on getting over his fear of people.

This week has been a little bittersweet. There has been a lot of fun as everyone practices whatever they are performing for the big fiesta next week (it’s the 20^th anniversary and there are competitions of every kind, including dancing, sports, acting, poetry, and even Miss/Mr). Sadly, however, it was rainy for days and that causes rock and mudslides. It makes traveling especially dangerous on our mountain roads, and we lost a student on Monday. A large rock came down and crushed the driver of the bus, killing him instantly. The passengers tried to get out, but I gather only one made it. 19 people died as the rest of the landslide took the bus over the edge while they were trying to escape. The survivor was hospitalized for a couple of days, and she was a UAC student. Another UAC student was among those killed. So we held a mass for her on Wednesday afternoon here in the upper campus chapel. While Mariela was not one of my English students, many of my students were friends of hers, so they were pretty subdued this week. This is usual a very vocal, joyous group, so it was very troubling to see them so down. With the big fiesta coming next week, I told them all their homework was to have fun, and I sincerely pray that they will.

Blessings to all!

Susan and company

Hello great big world!

Well, things have been interesting the past couple of weeks. First, I had a tooth pulled 2 weeks ago. I have another one that gets the same treatment Thursday. The alternative was root canal and crown for both, but that was a bit out of our budget. The dentist I have is awesome. He studied dentistry in Boston, so his English is great, and he got addicted to classic rock and roll, so instead of hearing Kenny G’s version of some pop song, I get to hear Bob Seager sing “Turn the page!” He is good at what he does too, which is a bonus!

Second, I had another QBE event. We are gearing up here for the 20^th Anniversary of the UAC. During this time, we will have activities every day for the 1^st week of October. Alumni, Donors, Fund Board members, and friends of the UAC, will be here seeing what has become of the campus, and celebrating the past, present and future of the UAC. The students have a competition with the other departments, or carreras. There are athletic events, talent shows, and many other events, like theater.  The reason that I point out theater is another amusing story of locking the dorms at night. I went up to quiet some of the Ag students that were practicing a tradition Bolivian song that they will perform. This involves a big Bass Drum, a Snare Drum, and a number of various sized Pan Flutes. These kids were playing and singing so loud that we could hear them through the wall and feel it in the floor. They were sorry for being so loud, but they were really enjoying themselves. So I locked up that dorm and came back to our apartment. I had just gotten into bed when I start hearing shouts and noises from that same floor. I thought the band had reformed. As I walked to the door, I realized that it wasn’t the band but the room next door. I heard the Spartan cheers from the movie “300.” I would hear the movie version, and then I would hear students copying it. When I pounded on the door, it swung open. The first thing I saw was a student standing on a wooden foot locker, waving a machete. I thought that I had gotten there just in time to see bloodshed. Then everything slowed down as my gaze moved about the room to see where the nearest threat might be. Being observant, I took in that everyone had a machete, or a wooden sword. I also noted that everyone was wearing a cape of some kind.  But when I saw the painted on beards, that was when I decided that there were no threats here. They were thespians practicing for their production of “300.” I actually laughed out loud in the room as I told them to quiet down for the night. Never a dull moment!

I had the honor of being a "tourist" for one of tourism students. Eddy had to give me the tour of the upper and lower campus. I dressed for the part, as you will see in the pictures that Susan posted. It was a great honor to be selected by Eddy, and I appreciated the effort that he put into showing me the campus, and telling me all the ins and outs of the UAC!

I have been working on a new project. Susan will post pictures of it the next time we are in La Paz. I am building a railing that is attractive, with ferns and flowers planted in 2 liter bottles and old gutters. It will keep students and children from falling 5 feet onto the concrete floor below, and be aesthetically appealing at the same time!

Things have changed here so much in the past 12, years that I have seen. I can’t imagine what the first students would think of us now! I am just so glad, and blessed, to be a part of this wonderful mission. The students and faculty here are just so thankful for the assistance that we provide. It is always a good feeling to know that you are making a difference.

It is also very comforting when I am having a bad day, fighting with the projects I have, or being sick, to feel a light but solid weight in the middle of my chest. The cross given to me by our home church has been a wonderful touch of home.

That is all for now, but know that each and every one of you is in our prayers, as we hope we are in yours!

Peace,

Jeff

Mail call

Today I am going to tell you about mail call. It was very reminiscent of my days in the Army when Sal (the mechanic/driver here on campus) knocked on our door to deliver some mail. He sorted through a whole handful of postcards, airmail envelopes and assorted other items. I felt like a little kid waiting for my first letter from the grandparents! There were items for everyone in the Guest House, which we took to pass along, plus a note for Sister Jean, but nothing for us. I was a little let down that we didn’t get anything. I didn’t realize I missed getting mail. I think most American adults would agree that we don’t really look forward to receiving mail usually, because it’s often just bills and advertising circulars. That got me to thinking about mail in the US versus mail here. At home, we kind of take our mail for granted. The carrier brings it to the door (or at least to our mailbox) every day, and then we glance through it and, if you’re like me, throw most of it in the recycle bin. Here, mail is nowhere near so routine. For one thing, we only get it when someone goes and picks it up in Coroico, which is 30 minutes away by car at best (one way). On a rainy day like today, it’s more like 45 minutes because the drivers have to go slower on the muddy, slippery road. For another thing, nobody in our whole area, even in Coroico, gets mail delivered to their home. All of the mail for our area goes to this lady’s living room, where you go and pick it up whenever you have time and space, and she has to be home for you to get it, which is not always a given either. The mail is not really much of a service here, and people don’t use the mail the way we use it at home. Most people don’t even really have an address, even in the city! This makes finding a new place interesting, to say the least. But think about the implications for communication when everything is done either by phone or in person. For example, we have to go back to La Paz in a couple of weeks to pick up our visa cards (these are permanent ID cards sort of like a green card in the US). This is a 6-8 hour round trip that costs about $10 per person. At home, these would just be mailed out to you. Heck, they even mail your passport! In Bolivia, very little seems to travel by mail. No advertisements, no party invites, no political leaflets, no bills! It is a very good example of just how different life here can be from home. And I’m not saying it is necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, just different. That’s your nugget this week – each day, when you get your mail, think about it. Just stop and be intentional about it for a few days. Think about your mail while you’re handling it. Maybe you will experience some sort of epiphany, maybe not, but it is certainly an opportunity to change how you think about the ways in which we communicate with each other. And, while we are thinking about mail, please consider sending us a note or a postcard, if you feel moved to do so. It would be very cool for there to be a few items for us the next time there’s mail call! Here’s how you address it:

     The Cornforths

     UAC-Carmen Pampa

     Coroico, Nor Yungas

     La Paz, BOLIVIA

     South America

Blessings to you all and peace,

Susan