Beautiful Smiles

I am currently sitting at a little wooden table just outside of Roots cafe in Rurrenebaque. My stomach is happily full of yummy food as we just finished a late breakfast at Luz de Mar, a favorite restaurant among us SM's. Today has already been a long day. I woke up at 4:45 am to have devotions and prep for my day off. Then I headed out to water the garden at 5:30 before we left at 6:30. Somehow, I ended up in a day off group full of morning people, and I am consequently being forced to grow into one myself — at least for one day out of the week. Hope had gotten up to water at 4:30 am for an hour and then I was going to water at 5:30 for the second hour. We still do not have a good irrigation system since the sprinklers have been having some struggles, so we are having to water our ever-growing garden by hand with a hose twice a day. Unfortunately, the hose broke this morning, and Hope started watering by hand with a bucket. We were able to fix the hose temporarily when I arrived, only for it to break again. Around 6:20, I was running around the garden with a bucket trying to get everything watered before 6:30. Promptly at 6:30, we had two Toritos waiting to take us to town.

Below: A view of a part of the garden that the kids are working in.

Right now there is a blockade in Bolivia due to political strife, so there is a major gas shortage (and basically a shortage of everthing else too). As we drove into town, we saw hundreds of vehicles waiting in line to try to get gas. People had even set up hammocks because they were planning on being there for a long while. As soon as we dropped our stuff off at Hotel Takana (a hotel that very graciously lets us spend the afternoons there for just a couple dollars), my lovely “morning people” SM's and I went on an early morning hike up the mountain. We were all sweating buckets by the time we reached the top, and I felt like truly the weakest person on earth as I struggled up the hill. But I am so glad that I can start regaining cardio and muscle strength after having Dengue. The view at the top was beautiful, and after admiring it for a while, we headed down the mountain a different way. For some reason I did not think too much about my outfit today and was hence hiking through the jungle in long, flowy, light-colored pants. It was quite the struggle to keep them clean and to keep from falling off the side of the mountain, but we made it down. It was such a cool experience to be trekking through the jungle. Our hike down ended at a pool of water where we gladly cooled off our feet. Then, we headed to Luz de Mar, extremely hungry, and eventually, I ended up here, at Roots, to write my blog.

Below: A collection of pictures from our hike today.

Below: Portions of the hike were very steep on the way down as you can see in this photo.

This past week has been delightful and relatively uneventful. But I'd like to share with you a few highlights from it.

Sabbath was a good day! I enjoyed getting to have a nice SM Sabbath school and sing some of our favorite songs. Lauren's mom had been visiting since Thursday, so we all enjoyed getting to have her around. Pinkie fell asleep on my lap during church and slept the entire service. She was a little oven in that Bolivia heat and kept me VERY warm, but she was so cute and tired that I was fine with her sleeping there. Seinet on the other side of me promptly decided to try to go to sleep on my arm when she saw that Pinkie was sleeping. Before long, she also succeeded in falling asleep and I had two warm girls sleeping on me during church.

Below: Me with Azumi and Seinet awake and then asleep later in church.

Sabbath afternoon, a beautiful storm blew in, and I was so happy on behalf of my garden. I had been praying that God would water it for me on Sabbath, and He did. With the rain came some wind that blew part of our roof off in the bathroom in the clinic. Sophia and I now can have a nice view of a corner of the sky while we shower.

That evening, I came across a frog that was so huge that I would have needed both hands to try to pick it up. The girls also found a snake in the yard that looked venomous, so Emilie and Sophia bravely took care of it with a shovel and machete. That same evening, I stopped by the Guerreros house, and they proudly showed me their new pet turtle that they had found on a hike that afternoon. Apparently the rain brings out all sorts of new critters! For supper that evening, I enjoyed hanging out at the Flores house and watching the girls enjoy our garden cucumbers!

Below: The frog, the turtle, and the Flores girls enjoying cucumbers!

The highlight of Monday was when Emilie texted me to ask if I wanted to go on a hike with her and her girls. At first, I was tempted to say no as I was really hoping for a nap that afternoon, but I decided it would probably be a cool enough experience that I could miss some sleep for it. When I initially showed up to the Lillas house in flip flops, the girls told me I needed different shoes because there were thorns. At first, I thought they may have been thinking that I was a soft American who needed cushioned feet all of the time. Stubbornly, I was about to brave the thorns in my flip flops until I saw that all of the girls had closed-toed shoes on as well. I then figured it might be a good idea to put on different shoes, so I did!

With machetes in hand, we started our hike into the jungle. I quickly realized that the "thorns" were more like 2 inch long spikes that were all over the ground. After getting one stuck all the way through the bottom of my croc shoe and into my foot a little bit, I was sure glad that I had changed shoes and not tried to wear my flip flops. We hiked for a while through thick foliage and tall, beautiful trees.

Below: One of the beautiful trees we saw on our walk.

Then, it was time to head back. At one point, we were all trying to figure out if the way back home was through the left or right trail. After picking one, I was still skeptical, but Emilie assured me this was the correct trail. Partway down that trail, I was becoming almost certain that we were on the wrong trail. When I looked back at Emilie hesitantly, she nodded and said, “yeah, this is the wrong trail.”

After a few nerve-wracking moments of feeling lost, the girls thankfully found the trail again, and we headed back. I unfortunately got stung by a big bee on my ear, and then two of the girls got into a wasps nest. At this point, I had been gifted Santi, the resident two-year-old, to walk with on the way back. It is not an easy thing to carry a 40 lbs baby while running away from wasps over tall logs all while trying to dodge 2 inch spikes on the ground. However, we all managed to make it back safely with only a few thorn pricks, and I thoroughly enjoyed my jungle trek.

This week, we got a lot of garden work done and are now harvesting at least 100 cucumbers every other day. God is truly blessing! I harvested our first zucchinis too! I was also able to get a lot of our tomatoes staked this week using branches the kids cut from the forest and string from town. We’ve had the sunflowers really take off recently and the kids LOVE to come to the garden just to stare at them.

Below: Garden Photos!

Below: Me with my zucchini and Soledad.

Below: Beautiful sunflowers started blooming this week!

Below: Staked tomatoes.

On Tuesday afternoon, I helped Kelsey out at the Flores for a while since her co-houseparents were on their days off. I love those girls so much, and they loved sticking stickers on my face throughout the evening until I acquired quite the collection. Earlier this week, it was Mariana's birthday, so I gave her a doll that she was very pleased with. She even took it with her to the shower -- gotta make sure the doll stays clean too! Raica enjoyed teaching me how to roll my tongue into a little roll and stick it out of my mouth. She was so thrilled when I finally learned how to do it. Then on Tuesday, Ticiane lost her tooth! So many exciting happenings at the Flores this week!

Below: Mariana at her birthday!

Below: Ticiane showing off her lost tooth.

Below: My face full of stickers from the girls.

I want to end this blog with one last story: yesterday evening, I stopped by the Lillas to grab my laundry basket that I had left there. While I was standing outside, Sarita, one of the girls in the Lillas started talking to me. She was telling me about her smile. She said, "Teacher, my teeth aren't straight. I don't know why. I don't like it." And as I looked at her, I realized that I had literally never noticed that her teeth weren't straight. But I've always thought that she had a beautiful smile! I proceeded to tell her that I thought her smile was so beautiful. I'm not sure she believed me, but she seemed a little bit comforted when I insisted that I was not lying and genuinely thought her smile was beautiful.

Below: Me with Sarita.

Something I have been amazed at since being here is how much joy God gives these kids even when they've been through so much. All of them have had so much loss in their lives, and yet, they keep sharing their smiles and laughter. What beautiful testimonies to God's goodness are these kids' smiles. God can amazingly give us joy and help us heal even from the worst circumstances. And truly, I think the kids at Familia Feliz have some of the most beautiful smiles in the world!

Below: A beautiful sunset we saw tonight over Rurrenebaque.