21 Days To Be Exact

For this blog I figured that I would tell a few more stories of our trip... maybe some of the more funny ones, to lighten the mood. :)
If you can´t guess the reason for the title of this blog, that was how long I went without a shower or bath of any kind. We couldn´t really bathe at all during our trip because there wasn´t a place that was appropriate for us to do it. So we had to ¨suffer¨ by not bathing. ;) But, at least, we were able to blend in with the people more (as much as a red-headed, white guy can)because they rarely bathe as well. There´s just not time in the day to do because they´re always working- sunrise to sunset, practically- and the water is very, very cold that they use for everything. So when we finally returned to our base camp, Pocoata, on the 5th of July I took my first shower in three weeks. It looked like I had a river of mud off my body. I have no idea how I got dirty in some of the places I was dirty, like my stomach and my thighs... crazy dirt can travel by itself! hehe
Another interesting story is that we got to work for the Bolivian government for a day! The village where we were stayting was also inhabited by construction workers who were literally carving a road into the side of the mountain for the buses to travel to the next big city. We got to know them very well and have some great conversations with them about various aspects of Bolivian life. So one day, when we didn´t have any work in the village, the workers asked us if we wanted to help them that day. Now they had been working with bulldozers, other heavy machinery like that, and, best of all, dynomite so I was thinking that they were going to try to put me on one of those or use the explosives... I could picture myself bringing down the entire mountain. But thankfully all they wanted us to do was to dig a ditch with a shovel so that water wouldn´t flood the road. So Javier and I got to be ditch-diggers for a day, but nonetheless we can say we worked for the Bolivian goverment! Don´t tell the US government... They may not like that. haha ;)
Hmmm, what else.... on the day that the workers left for a little vacation, their cook asked Javier and I if we wanted some sugar. We told her that yes, we would like some but that we didn´t have a container there for her to put it in. They were in a big hurry to leave that night so I thought that we weren´t going to get any sugar then. But the cook told Javier to take off his hat, and that she would put it in his hat. We both thought she was joking so he took it off and offered it to her, and then, all of a sudden, she poured a scoop of sugar into his hat! We were very shocked, and somewhat humored by that act of kindness from her. It was really thoughtful of her to do that for us because without them (and their food) we would have lost a lot more weight than we did.
I think that may be it for the stories of our trip this time. I really appreciate everyone taking time to read this and praying for us. As of right now, the word on the street is that we are going to head back out into the communities on the 20th of July, and that will most likely be for another month or so. Please keep praying for our language acquisition so we can share the Gospel with people who are so ready to hear it!