language blunders

Thought y'all might like a little laugh this morning. Yesterday we spent all day (it was a holiday here) at our neighbor's house, cooking out, swimming (they have a small pool that is perfect for the kids), playing ping pong, hanging out and having a great time. They are a great family that we are really enjoying getting to know. Rodolfo, the husband, speaks great English as he was an exchange student in the states for a year (in fact, their oldest daughter is in Denver now as an exchange student). However, when we are all together we speak Spanish, with the exception of the times we don't quite understand something. So yesterday, he was making us a cappucino, and I thought he was talking about the froth in Spanish. So I asked "Eso es la palabra, foamy?" (that is the word, foamy?) totally thinking he was using Spanish. Everyone died laughing b/c he was speaking English - talking about the FOAM on top!!! We had a good laugh. Then later, he was talking about a trip he was going to take to La Paz, and Bubba asked him "Vas a tomar una floja?" I looked at him and said, "Don't you mean a FLOTA?" Then Rodolfo and his wife Mirtha died laughing because what Bubba had said was "Are you going to take a lazy/weak woman?" When what he meant to say was "Are you going to take a bus?" ARGH! I'm glad we were able to have a few laughs!!! Mirtha (pronounced Mirta) and Rodolfo are joining us in the class we are starting tonight studying the book "The Five Love Languages". Pray with us that this will be a good time of learning for all involved, good fellowship with Bolivians, and a chance to point people to Christ through helping strengthen marriages.

Dengue

I forgot to mention this in my last post, but thank you to all of you who prayed for my recovery. For those of you who don't know, I had dengue, the terrible mosquito-born illness that I mentioned in a previous post. It was probably the sickest I have ever been, and it lasted for a full 7 days. I am recovering fine, regaining my strength daily. But please pray for protection over the rest of our family, the other missionaries, our friends, and the people of Santa Cruz in general. I read in the paper yesterday that this is the worst dengue epedimic in Santa Cruz in 22 years. So we will continue to douse ourselves in OFF everytime we step out of the house and pray for protection.

Fiestas

We have every intention of updating our blog regularly, but it doesn't seem to happen. Please forgive us. We really do want to use this blog as a means of letting you know what we are doing down here. You can take it as a good sign that we are busy, that we are filling our time with ministry and family!

Fiestas. One word - Wow. In Latin America, fiestas are huge. We've been to 3 birthday parties in the last 3 weeks, all for children of friends we have made here. All Bolivian kids' parites have very loud music (totally age inappropriate) a clown or magic show, certain party songs with motions that everyone knows, all the cookies and candy and cake and soda you can eat, a piñata, and huge goodie bags. And the parties are huge. Two of the parties were for 2 year olds and there were probably 25 kids plus twice as many adults. Craziness!! These fiestas really tell a lot about Latin culture and what is valued - celebrations, family, friends. Another thing we've noticed is how inclusive Bolivians are. We've only been here 6 months but have been to at least as many Bolivian birthday parties. It doesn't matter that we've just met, we're included. So different from our North American culture of exclusiveness. Other than the super loud music the kids love these parties, what kid wouldn't? And Bubba and I are enjoying learning about this aspect of Latin culture, especially as it gives us an opportunity to be a part of the lives of our new friends.