Monday, June 18, 2007

Mountain Folks

Hey all you city folks, you don't know what you're missing! We and our students just have a few days left in our tiny town of Paxot II and Xepocol. Life has been interesting, but fun. Dinner is always a family affair, and in our case, at least 18 people and up to 25 all sitting around the room with a little table at your knees to set your bowl on. We have eaten 2-3 eggs a day in varieties we didn't know exisited (scrambled, scrambled with tomatoes, fried, torta (like an egg patty), boiled, poached in soup, scrambled in soup). This would be a good time to test the whole egg/high cholesterol theory, Dr. Dickerson! We have also had tortillas and tamales too numerous to count (we actually had a MET student (go Jared!) do a tortilla total for his month 2 years ago and topped 300).

Probably the thing that gets the most dicussion each morning among the students is the letrine issue. For unsure reasons, we all report more nighttime trips to the bathroom than at home. Our theories are possible diuretic effect of the corn drinks or late dinner hours. Anyway, it is generally agreed upon that the night time trip outside is scary. Student Blake says he has to shine a flash light down into the latrine before using it due to the rural myth floating around about bats coming up out of them when you sit down! Daniel has an experiment going utilizing physics basics to calculate the depth of the hole based on the time it takes a deposit to make it from point A to point B. Good stuff.

Aside from all this, it has been a good time with our brothers and sisters in Christ in these towns--getting to know their families and their good sense of humor. They are so patient with us and seem to enjoy teaching us new words. There is an 18 month old in our house that seems to be at about the same linguistic level as we are! We are hoping to beat her with a little on-the-side notes review.

Our students have been fantastic, eager to learn and good sports about their food adventures and creepy crawlies sharing their living space. They seem to be mature young adults with desires to serve God with their talents wherever they are. We all came over to our house today for some good American burgers and chips and guacamole--yum! They cut our grass and cleaned the car and put up book shelves. Between them and our other team painting and car washing, we are in pretty good shape for our trip to the States.



Thanks for checking in with us and have a good week.

3 comments:

John, Kisti, Maren & Silas Felps said...

How random...this is the 2nd time this week I have come across your name:) I found your blog on my friend Robyn's list of friends. (We went to college together) And I read a great article about you in the Christian Chronicle. I'm so proud of the two of you! What an awesome ministry you have:) I'm so glad I found your blog!
We are now 3! We have a little girl Maren who is almost a year. And, we are moving back to Colorado in July. Maybe we'll get to see you there at some point.
We pray all is well!
John, Kisti & Maren Felps

Agape In Action said...

We're going to miss you guys next month! Hope that you will keep up your blog some while you're in the States... Have a great trip!!! Love, Heidi, Matt, and Isaac ;-)

marymadill said...

We heard you might come to Searcy. Is that true??? Also latrines are very scary at night.