After helping Thea get checked in at
the airport last week, I knew it would be strange not having her
around, but I didn’t expect to feel so incredibly DOWN the
next morning. I moped my way through the day, tearing up whenever
anyone asked, “Did you ride along to take Thea to the airport last
night?” It’s not like we’ll never see her again! But, I think,
I’d been caring about and for her so much, that it was such a
let-DOWN to not have to stay UP for her. Sunday
evening, Ana Melva’s mother (who’s been staying with Ana, caring
for her as she heals from surgery) wanted to go to church with us, so
we all hopped on the colectivo (public bus) and went together.
Even the Sunday night church service was difficult; I understood very
little of the service and it seemed to last longer than usual.
Monday night there was una
tormenta, a huge storm, typical in that it began with lots of
high winds, but unusual in that it kept raining all night; we got
very little sleep under this A-frame metal roof! The weather was
quite a bit cooler on Tuesday and it was a good thing we stayed busy
in our offices, as tired as we were. By late afternoon, we were on
Skype having our online Spanish lessons from Costa Rica, followed by
Skyping with one of our Mission Coaching candidates and then another
session with our youngest daughter Erica, to catch up with mail and
stuff at home. (While technology is wonderful, I’m looking forward
to seeing some of these people in person, not just on a screen!) We
slept pretty well that night!
By the end of Wednesday, I had finally
gotten on an even keel emotionally and I’d gotten home from work
before Dan did. As he passed the pool on his way home, he said that
Patricia was in the pool and had asked if I would join her (she’s
Argentine and is the Coordinator of Sunday School ministries for the
South America region). So I quickly changed into shorts (I knew the
pool would be cold so I wasn’t really interested in putting on my
swimsuit!) and headed over there. Patricia and her daughter and a
friend were swimming so I sat on the side, legs in the water, and we
visited while I practiced Spanish and asked her about her recent trip
to Peru. She knows some English, so we used both languages – as
needed! How nice it was to have been invited – this was definitely
an “UP” – for fellowship and Spanish practice!
In my Spanish textbook, I’ve
progressed beyond using simple, present-tense verbs. I’ve started
learning the conjugations for past-tense now – and it’s HARD!
(One small “UP” was that, in seeing these new word
endings, I had started to hear them in conversation around me, now
that I knew what they were.) But the volume of all this seemed to
pile up on me and, by Friday, I was totally overwhelmed, and felt
like I couldn’t even remember how to conjugate in present tense
anymore, much less past tense. It was simply difficult to even think
– I really felt DOWN! I explained all this to Gaby, our
profesora, and told her I had even looked up the word for
discouraged - desanimada. She told me to try not to worry,
that it was quite normal to get to a hard place when trying to learn
a new language. She said she just wanted to give me a hug! While
that was comforting, I still felt depressed and exhausted! I had
really done OK with the current homework, but we decided on some
easier past-tense exercises from Dan’s Level One book for homework
for next week. (By the way, Dan also gets frustrated with the slow
pace of learning Spanish, but he takes it out by griping to his
textbook book and his computer!)
After the lesson, Dan sympathetically
suggested that, after dinner, we should just relax and forget about
homework for the evening and go walk around Las Palmas, the nearest
shopping center. What a great idea!
 |
| 'pique a lo macho' |
In the meantime, though, he was
on his computer, IMing with Ireneo (say “Ear-ih-NEH-oh), a Bolivian
fellow on the Seminario campus in charge of technological
stuff there. And he suggested that he and his wife and son would
love to share a meal with us – when? Well, how about mañana?
Just like that, we had a social get-together to look forward to!
And they said they’d bring Bolivian food over to our house! Things
are really looking UP! And we did go to the shopping center
and strolled, finishing up at Jumbo, the grocery store, for a few
things. Guess who was also there getting what they needed for a
Bolivian feast!
Saturday morning, we straightened up
the house and moved stuff to places out of reach for a two-year-old.
Dan did the breakfast dishes while I peeled apples and made a
Streusel Apple Pie. About noon, Ireneo and Graciela and Josué
Samuel were walking up the road in our compound, loaded with a
backpack and several bags. With Josué being a VERY active little
guy, they’d even thought to bring an inflatable “house” for him
to play in (pretty funny watching Dan and Ireneo wrestle with it and
even funnier to watch them deflate it later!)! 
Although Ireneo has
lots of English skills, we used this as a good time to practice
Spanish too. Graciela unloaded her containers of food and we got
busy putting the dish together in my tiny kitchen (after I finished
hard-boiling some eggs and baking some French fries as part of this
enormous meal). What a good time we had! The guys finished first, and
Josué wasn’t really interesting in food, just more activity, so
they took him to the playground across the way. Graciela and I talked
and, when she was finished eating, I asked if we should go join the
guys. Her answer was a definite negative – she needed a break from
that active little boy! We kept enjoying our conversation and she
told me that she’d been careful to speak slowly enough for me to
understand – what a compassionate lady! That way, we could both
participate – and we both shared my dictionary! We traded lots of
family information and, when the guys returned and after they put
Josué down on our loveseat for a nap, we swapped how-we-met stories.
They hope to travel to Bolivia soon to visit family members. After
a bit, we enjoyed the apple pie with vanilla ice cream and continued
to talk until the little guy woke up.
THIS was just what we needed –
fellowship and practicing Spanish! What special people!
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