Our current intern in Ixiamas, Bolivia, is 2008 Practicum graduate Becky Forrest. Becky served on short-term mission trips in 2007 and 2008 in Ixiamas. She is now in her second year as an intern.
The joys of having power on a regular basis after the blockade opened up and the arrival of fuel was short lived. One of the generators went out of service, and we now hove power on a day and off a day. We are not sure how long this will take or even if they plan on repairing the generator because we have power headed this way from the big hydro plant near LaPaz, which we have been told will be here before the end of the year. This also brings water shortage because we are not able to pump water up to our holding tank. In the United States, we take so many things for granted.
Winter is almost here with the cool south winds. I never realized how cold 65 to 70 feels when you are accustomed to the 90’s, and suddenly you have 15 to 20 mph winds and then the temperature drops 20 degrees. Two walls of my room are screened windows, so I close the curtains, duct tape them to the wall to keep the wind out, and pull out my wool blanket and fleece. In a few days, it will be 90 again. You can imagine how good that cold shower feels good on those days! That is winter in Ixiamas.
English classes are going well with the Internado students. We are working on greetings for the mission team coming in July. Computer classes are learning to use Word now; they enjoy using fancy borders and word art on the assignments. The group from town will finish seven chapters in our book before we break for winter vacation on June 19.
One of my English students works with an animal rescue organization, and she asked us to help out with a 4 month old baby capuchin monkey that will one day be released back into the wild. Everyone is really enjoying Chas (named after the intern we had last year). Monkeys are very entertaining and loveable.
May 27th is Mothers day in Bolivia. We had a dinner for all of our students’ mothers. The entire meal was cooked in our brick oven we use for baking bread. We had chicken, potatoes, plantains and yucca cooked in the oven along with a salad. The yucca, plantains and lettuce for the salad were all grown here at the Internado. The students all helped with the preparation and served their moms and families the meal. It was a great way to honor all the mothers.
Bolivar Sanga has made arrangements for the water project to begin in two communities. Intern Troy Weatherholt (from Huntsville, Ala.) will be assisting him. They will be staying in the community of Puerto Ruso (about two hours by truck from here) in the jungle for a few days. Troy will soon be blogging about this project. We all ask for your prayers and support with this project to provide clean water for these people.
May God’s grace cover you with love,
Becky
