Mother's Day and Goodbyes‏

   I'm still trying to get caught up with past weeks, so yeah, this is 

the week of Mother's Day.....what do you do? ;)

   Monday - after the worms came out - I felt totally fine - Whew!! 

That afternoon we went with Larry and Sandi to meet the woodcarver 

to pickup some things that we had him carve for us. 

 

He's a member of the church and we met him at the church because he lives WAY far back in the wilds, which is like a dirt forest. I don't know how to describe the rustic, out of the way places that some of the people live. They go into a swampy/foresty place, cut down a few trees on the plot for the house, and then try to make the dirt level-ish, and build a house. Except they can't afford to build it all at once, so they build one or two rooms and then add and finish the inside in piecemeal, as they can afford to. 

 

 

 While we were at the church, we saw Carlotta, who just got her mission call to the Portugal/Lisbon Mission. She is so excited!!

 

Tuesday, Dad and I went for a quick walk on the beach before the staff meeting. Isabel was there and I started talking to her. Dad had gone outside but I didn't realize it. Then Isabel suddenly said, "Sister, come here. Look." and pointed out of the window. I looked down and there was your dad, sitting on the fence below. Isabel started laughing and told me to take a picture of him. She thought it was hilarious! I didn't even know he had left the apartment.... Poor dad.

 

When I taught my English class that day, I had a record number. They are getting better at English - and I am getting better at Portuguese. We translate and teach each other.

 

Wednesday we had Mariana over for a farewell dinner because she is leaving next week to go back home. School is over and her parents want her to come home until she leaves on her mission. I was so bummed when she told me that. :( I wanted to help her get ready for her mission and see her off at the airport. I have gotten close to a number of people but I am closest to her than anyone. She calls me 'Mom' and I call her 'Daughter' or 'Child.' She's pretty amazing. I'll miss her...
Anyway, we invited Sandi and Larry too. Here we are eating:

 

Dad and I w/Mariana:

I modeled her the dress that I had made from the capalana that she gave me.

Thursday, Sandi and I got up bright and early to go and inspect all the the elders' apartments. The couple before us used to do it once a month but we have been so busy, we have not done it since we got here. Some of the elders have been sick due to cleanliness issues so President and Sister Krelty asked us to go there and take a look and tell them what they needed to do better.
It's not the funnest job to be the enforcer, but a necessary one. And the elders that are clean want us to do it so they are not the only ones keeping the apartment clean. Most were pretty good but one of the apartments was really gross. I felt sorry for the 'clean' elders that lived there because the dirty elders were really dirty....
Here's the neighbor's house by of one elders' apartments. They are cooking their lunch over a coal fire inside a tire rim. It's actually a pretty clever design and beats bending down on the ground, which is what most people do.

This little girl was playing hopscotch by some elders' apartment so I asked her mom if I could take her picture. That's rice that they have harvested drying on the ground.

 

In our travels to the apartments, we saw these women coming back from the 'chamba,' -their word for farm, but it's really just a field of whatever they have planted. Sometimes they have the hoes on their head.

 

We also saw a 'rock shop.' This is not the kind of shop like the ones we stopped at with you guys on family trips. It's just a bunch of women selling a bunch of rocks by the side of the road. They dig them up out of the dirt and separate them into piles by size. People buy them to build their houses. Larry had grown an avocado plant and he wanted some rocks to put in the bottom of the pot to plant it. So we stopped to buy some. Sandi pulled up and the group of women swarmed my window. I rolled it down and asked how much a small sack of rocks was. They asked what size. I pointed to the size we wanted. She said 20 mtz (66 cents). I handed her a grocery sack (we always keep a few under the front seat for buying fruits and veggies, etc.) and she filled it with rocks, handed it back, and I paid her 66 cents. It was a drive-through purchase unlike any in the U.S. Then Sandi decided that she wanted a couple of pictures. Here are the rock ladies:
When I took Sandi's picture through the window, this gal didn't want hers taken. The other ones wanted it, but not her!

Sometimes the older ones don't want their picture taken if they are working and don't feel like they are dressed nice enough.
Then I decided I wanted a picture with them. So I got out of the car and said that I wanted a picture for my 5 kids at home in the U.S. That usually softens them up.....not always, but usually.
We shared some laughs...

And then we were friends and she posed next to me. ;)

After the inspections, we went home and I had to zip to get ready for my English class. When I got home from that, Dad had already gone to District Council Meeting and the power was out. :( So I put on my head-lamp and got some crackers and cheese, and an apple to eat for dinner because I couldn't warm anything up. Thank goodness my Kindle was charged. I sprawled on the couch and read. The power came on later - yippee! I love electricity!!

Friday, we bought 50 rolls and I made a big sheet-cake to get ready for all the missionaries coming to call home for Mother's Day. Then we visited the Balangas. They are moving to Angola so we went to say goodbye. He is the one that was in charge of Physical Facilities for the church and Anastasia was the one that bought me the funky pants from S. Africa and got deathly ill with tyhoid fever. 

Anyway, we really like both of them and we are sad to see them go (I cried when Balanga told us...). I made some jello cake and brownies and Anastasia ate four pieces of the cake right then. She has lost so much weight with the typhoid that she is skin and bones, so I was glad to see her eat but thought all that cake was going make her turn green!
They had to run errands so they followed us out. I was trying to get a picture of the 'once beautiful/but now decrepit' stairwell but you can't see it very well. Anastancia took the cake with her to eat more in the car. I would be sick for sure!

We had seen a group of girls on the stairs on our way up to their aptartment and the girls were still there and followed us out too. They stood watching us while we visited outside so I finally asked them if they wanted a picture taken. They did.

Saturday the gang of missionaries arrived in waves and our apartment sounded like a telemarketing room with 3 elders talking at a time and the others shooting the breeze.
And we got to talk to you guys!! Yippee!! So fun to talk to everybody at once!!! Made me a little homesick but we loved it, especially hearing y'all laugh and carry on. ;)

Sunday was supposed to be Fast Sunday because they watched General Conference last week, so we didn't buy bread for the Primary kids. But when we got there, they ended up not having Fast Meeting. I guess they thought that they could only hold it on the first day of the month and since they didn't have it last week, they would just skip it. Oh Africa... It takes awhile to teach everything so we have snafus all the time, but this was a pretty big one. Oh well... We just keep trying. After church, the Relief Society president asked if we could give a group of ladies a ride to go visit another sister in the branch. She has malaria. Another sister has it too. We told her that we couldn't because we had the missionaries coming over to call home, so we had to hurry back because it is a 45 minute drive. We had a Saturday repeat with the elders calling, and then they were finally done, had their rolls and chocolate cake, and went home. I laid on the couch and called it a week! 

We love you guys so much!