The Southwest

We went to Santa Fe NM for our 2 year wedding anniversary. It was really neat. We stayed at a very homey and warm bed and breakfast. We also went to the historic plaza and went in art museums and visited some really old churches. One church has the infamous spiral wooden staircase that defies all science and logic. I was built by a mystery carpenter in the 1800's with just simple hand tools. It does 4 complete spirals before reaching the loft above. There is no center support pole and nobody really knows what holds it up and gives it strength. We also visited the historic Scottish rite mason temple museum, which was cool and weird.

porque yo tengo freezing

We have landed in the mother country. And its cold. The nature is somewhere near Santa Fe, look not one singe palm tree.

Party Time!!!

Its Party time in Caraballo. The kids had a special day they will never forget at our school Christmas party. We had an extra scoop of food and it had lots of meat!!! yum! We also had soda and the kids got a Christmas gift bag full of cake, candy, fruit and other yummies. They also put on a play inwhich they acted out scenes from the bible and recited verses. I'm afraid to say it but these kids have more scripture memorized than I do.

Our teachers also had a specail day. We suprised them with a evening of fine dining at a hotel resort and afterwards had a gift exchange. It was really neat being able to be with them on this special night.

El dia de Accion de gracias

We had thanksgiving too!! Wow it was amazing. We even shared the expirience with our closest Dominican friends. Alberto (our director) and his wife were there as well. It was a grand expirience for them. We had turkey, ham, real mashed potatoes, green bean casorole, carrots, corn, cranberry sauce, stuffing, home-made rolls, and pumkin pie, apple pie, and chocolate cake for desert. In the gringo picture from left to right is, me, Weston(from Vacarrios ministry) Candace(Kids Alive), Jessi, Rachel, and Jonathon(Runs the Art co-op), and Caitlin. Our friends pictured are Josue, Ben Hamin, and Perla. Josue learned English at the Univeristy of Kentucky. He is really good to practice English with.

A day in the village

While our friends the Youngs were here we went walking around the village visiting friends. Around lunch time our friend Santre invited us into his house for lunch. It was really good, and very gracious for them to share what little food they have with us.

Move

We moved down the street. The apt. we were in was HUGE. We went from 10 total rooms (including bathrooms) to just 4 rooms total. Wow its a big change. We are learning to simplify our lives in so many different ways. You don't really realize how many clothes you have untill you don't have space for more than half of them. Caitlin does laundry in the shower. The little boy is our friend. His name is Jaun, only we just call him little fat naked boy. He is almost always naked and running around. He was our little helper during the move. Please note that Jaun is NOT one of the children that our organiztion resucues. Ha, I think he is doing just fine. Caitlin has done a wonderful job picking out colors and decorating it and keeping it nice and homey.

Where does all the poop go?

So septic systems are a bit different here. A lot of times if the people actually have plumbing, the pipes just empty out into a river. A really really good septic is a hole dug all the way down to the water table, yum! But if your professional like we are, you build a 15'x15' two part decomposition chamber completely water proof. These guys dug for about 2 weeks what a back hoe could have done in a couple of hours. So... this is where the poop goes. Everything empties out into this tank which is right next to the bathrooms and into the first chamber where it sits and starts to decompose. Slowly the sludge enters into the next chamber and settles at the bottom while the liquid then passes through pipes run in the ground and empties into another hole where it will sit and filter into the ground. The other pictures are of our progressing classrooms and our beautiful gazeebo. The next two classrooms are under way!