I'm Back...

and trying to get caught up. i thought i would do all of my trip in one post, but am realizing that isn't realistic. (Obviously, as it is now May 10th and i got back to the USA on April 18th.) so... i've decided to go with the "bit-at-a-time" approach.

what's up currently:

• Marilyn came home from college yesterday. jeff and i drove down, packed her up, spent a very enjoyable picnic with her friends from the Newman Center, and drove back home. it was so fun to wake up and have her here this morning!
• B has one week left of school. the last few weeks have been busy with concerts, awards programs, birthday parties, and our annual teacher appreciation meal. they are all good things...what a treat to celebrate all the accomplishments of kids and privilege of an education... just busy. got his mellophone and music for marching band today. guess he is more of a freshman in high school than an 8th grader these days.
• Sam will be in Bolivia until the beginning of July. he and a friend were awarded an undergraduate research grant from their university. they will be doing some preliminary mapping of the rapidly disappearing roads the Spanish used to bring all the silver they took out of Bolivia to the sea in order to ship it back to Spain. They will also be recording some of the oral histories of the people who live along those routes. it is really a very colorful, intriguing, and tragic history.

the Bolivian trip continued....

sam & i standing under the arch where we had taken a family picture in 2002.

right after i landed we headed to Carmen Pampa and the UAC. the UAC is the University that my niece worked at for 3 years. (go to http://www.carmenpampafund.org/ and click on About the College for "official" information. it's incredible!) our family came to see her when we visited Bolivia in 2002. one of her friends, Hugh, that we got to know on that visit still teaches at the university and was kind enough to invite us to stay for awhile so i could acclimate to the altitude in a familiar setting. (Carmen Pampa is about the altitude of Denver. El Alto, where we landed, is much higher than that. altitude and i have a love-hate relationship.) the university has grown by leaps and bounds since 2002... buildings and students and programs. It was great to see Hugh again and meet the staff that are working there now. what hospitality!

one of the things i hoped to do on the trip was to visit the grave of a little boy i had the opportunity to treat when i came in 2002. Luis had a seizure disorder and was blind. at the time of our first visit he was over a year old and wasn't walking yet. i had the opportunity to treat him and give his parents, Willie and Fabiola, some ideas for ways to help him. i kept in contact with how he was doing through my niece and we sent some books and toys that we thought would be helpful and fun for him. Luis died on October 25th, 2004 due to his seizure disorder.

On my first day in Bolivia, Leo, one of the current volunteers, offered to show me around the campus. i asked if he knew Willie and Fabiola and if he knew where Luis was buried. he did, so he showed me. the cemetery is overgrown most of the year, but on El Dia de los Muertos - the Day of the Dead - celebrated over All Saints and All Souls Days - November 1 & 2 - the cemetery is groomed and decorated. However, i did notice there had been a vase of flowers on Luis' grave that certainly looked more recent than last November. It was bitter-sweet... it made me hurt to think that maybe this little boy would not have died had he lived in the US with better health care and made me smile to remember how patient he was when i was treating him and how hard he worked and what fun we had together in the give and take of the physical therapy "dance".... a very special boy!

The grave of Luis A. Aliaga Yujra in Carmen Pampa, Bolivia

Leo and i had just left the cemetery and were on our way to visit the new coffee plant when who should come down the road but Willie, Fabiola and Kate... who is Willie and Fabiola's 4 year old daughter. What a treat to see them! we visited and Fabiola asked us to dinner at their home that night.

Fabiola and Kate

Sam & i enjoyed supper and conversation at their home that evening. Who knows what God's got planned for one's life... He is so full of surprises. When we left Bolivia in 2002 if someone would've told me that 6 years later i would be having supper with Willie and Fabiola and visiting with them in Spanish no less, i would've laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the joke. it was wonderful! i had brought Kate a book... 365 Stories and Poems (in Spanish of course!) if i do nothing else "right" in my life i can say with certainty that giving "365 Cuentos Y Rimas para Ninas" to Katerine was very right. She was into it from her head to her toes. "Que es, mama?" "Que es, papa?" "Princesa." "Gato." "Mono." (what's that mom? what's that dad? princess. cat. monkey.) The look on Fabiola's face as Kate paged through that book was just as sweet. (the rooms/houses of kids in Bolivia aren't full of books like they are here. they are few and far between. Fabiola & Willie said Kate asks over and over for them to read the books that Luis had.)
when it was finally time for her to put the book away and go to bed, she got out her backpack and carefully put the book in. Willie asked her when she was going to go to school. She didn't miss a beat. "Tengo siete!" (when i am 7!) What a beautiful family! What a lovely evening!