making it count...

In the spirit of the my Peruvian experience, I will give you the roses and thorns of the week (this is dedicated to Shannon, who forced us to play roses and thorns incessantly over FBT. But I will say most of time it was quite enjoyable when the girls were not excluding all males from joining in.)


kat and I hanging out


So, some of the thorns of the last week have been losing my wallet, trying to get fingerprinted for my msw certification (a process which took an entire morning in lima, and another afternoon running around chosica and chaclacayo), completely losing the ability to speak Spanish for large sections of time, and clogging the sink while shaving off my beard. Needless to say it has been an interesting and trying week.

Some of the roses that have still made this week enjoyable and exciting were being able to have someone to pray with in the mornings, a bible study of volunteers, chocosoda (a delicious chocolate covered cracker), jumping pictures (where you jump and look like you are suspended in air. I will post some pics later), long weekends (three days thanks to Peruvian Independence Day!!!!), banana pancakes, mail, and good emails from friends and family.

practicing a dance for a presentation-me and james paying attention during another presentation.

Another exciting event of the past week was my niece’s birthday party! Her birthday was last week, but all the gringos were off doing field based training so they thought we were important enough to suspend all celebration activities until we arrived back home for the fiesta. I will say I am quite happy they did. The party started off slow, after the first hour and a half of taking pictures of the birthday girl with all of the other children they decided to let us eat. By eat, I mean attack the three table spread of chocolate candy bars, gummy bears, rice pudding, jello, and ice cream. Yum!! My total was 5 candy bars, 3 ice cream sandwiches, 1 small bowl of ice cream, and many gummy bears, candies, and gum drops. This was then followed by a 3 hour show by “hi-5” a children’s pop rock entertainment group that lip-sink all kinds of songs. When the kids did not want to pay attention to the show, they were able to climb and slide down the 40 ft. inflatable slide or jump on the trampoline that were set up for the party. Not shabby for a 6 year old’s birthday party. For the record, I think the first party I had was my 16th. It was in someone’s basement.


yes, those are monster bananas in my right hand and normal sized bananas for a contrast. whoazzaa!

hope all is well,
peace,
tim.