And So, Goodbye

A group picture with Graciana, one of the older girls in the Harding house

“I need you to swallow this without chewing it ok?” 3-year-old Emir nodded obediently and took his pill without difficulty. It was a little after six on Tuesday morning and I was running from house to house giving 100 children and 30 volunteers parasite medication. I had spent the night before not only monitoring Nora, who was sick enough to be on an IV in my clinic, but chopping pills, labeling them, and quadruple-checking all of the childrens’ dosages based on their weight. Dosing for that many little ones was stressful! It wasn’t long though before everyone had been treated.

A few days later, I was approached by several upset teenage boys. “Teacher, that pill messed me up! Now I can’t eat as much. I just don’t get as hungry!” I burst out laughing. That was the sound of success. Those boys were eating only for themselves and not a stomach full of worms as well!

The last two weeks since I wrote have seemed like a blink of an eye and at the same time, two months. First of all, I’m sitting in Charlotte Douglas International Airport writing this! It has been a day of much confusion: someone asks me a question in English; I accidentally respond in Spanish. Everyone is so dressed up! The airport is HUGE. The food is different. Strangers aren’t nearly as talkative and have much more personal space. And the 9 people who I’ve spent every waking and sleeping moment with for the last 8 months are spanning 4,000 miles! There are quite a lot of changes. Alongside the worm extermination, there were also quite a few other positive medical changes at Familia Feliz before I left.

Naomi, the girl who severely broke her arm, got the nails taken out of her arm two weeks ago! The doctor was pleased with how it was looking and gave me clearance to remove her cast last Wednesday and subsequently her sling as well. She is doing so much better!

As mentioned earlier, Nora, our little girl who is chronically ill, has been struggling to eat the last few weeks. We were able to find a traveling specialist that could see her and her mother is now taking her to treatment a few hours away for the next month. I’m praying that they have the equipment to help her recover!

Amongst the busyness, Graciana (pictured above), planned a surprise birthday party for six of us girls since our birthdays are in the summer. All of campus came and it was so sweet!

One tradition there is to break eggs on the birthday person's head and throw flour at them. Graciana made sure not to leave this out as she was quite pleased for the opportunity to cover us in food! Since we are low on money for groceries she spent her own savings to buy the eggs.

Two weeks ago, the naughtiest little Guerrero boy, Alvaro, who in a previous blog spit his Tylenol out of his mouth and it flew into mine, got a machete slice on his knee. I got a call on my day off from Zoro saying that it would need stitches. When I returned, it was just after lights out and campus was quiet. Not for long! Alvaro was determined he did not need stitches and started having a temper tantrum before I even had the supplies ready. It took Carlo, Zoro, and Treson all holding him down on their veranda table for me to stitch up the wound. As soon as I finished, he jumped into Treson’s arms and curled up to rest, which was a promising sign. It has been hard for the guys to get him to bond with and trust them. Now he is adjusting really well! Treson will be staying to parent their house through the summer and Zoro will return in August to take his place so that they will at least have some consistency. I will actually be returning as well to orientate the new nurse and help guide the new volunteers through their government paperwork for a few weeks at the end of the summer.

After stitching him up, I was expecting Alvaro to never come near me again. However, to my surprise, I saw a little 1st grader come tearing across the soccer field straight toward me the next day at recess. He threw himself into my arms and grinned from ear to ear. “Alvaro! How’s your knee?” “It’s lots better, Teacher!” was his happy response. He must have understood I was helping. A week and a half later on Sabbath evening, Carlo brought him into the office to get his stitches out. He was very good and his knee is healing up nicely!

Final Sabbath with the little ones

We made one last Saturday night batch of spicy potato soft tacos for the kids!

Leaving Familia Feliz was difficult, but leaving the Leones was a little extra difficult. Carlo and I decided to make our last Sunday extra special for them. Their favorite breakfast is carrot pancakes, which is ironic since most of them don’t like vegetables! Last Saturday night was super busy, so we didn’t finish making the 50+ pancakes until 2 in the morning. A few short hours later, we climbed in the back of the campus truck with 14 very excited little boys peeking above the sides! We were a bit nervous since only two of them actually know how to swim, but Juan, Emi, and Lisiane came with us and it worked out well.

The kids love hanging over the top of the truck. They had SO much energy!

Diego, quite proud of his goggles.

We also got to step away for a few minutes and go see the Sunday market, which we had never had the chance to do! Alongside the river, the whole length of the town was filled with marketplace stalls, some with fruit, others with veggies, meat, clothes, souvenirs, and odds and ends. They had beautiful pomegranates too! We bought the boys oranges, juice boxes, and cream cheese for their pancakes to make it extra special.

Leones, Juan, Emi, Carlo, and Me

They were a little bit lower energy on the way back!

The ride back home was much different than the way there. 14 little, happy, sleepy, boys were flopped over in the truck bed. As they took naps, we cooked pizza for supper. The evening was full of singing all their favorite worship songs, giving them the pictures that we took, my mom printed, and Carlo’s dad brought (getting pictures is a process!), and them playing their brand new wooden flutes that we bought for them in La Paz over vacation.

Last afternoon sitting on the front porch :(

Chacho and Me

On Friday night, Juan and Emi invited Carlo and me over for supper one last time. It was a mixture of sadness and fun reminiscing over the year with them. What a year it has been! Learning a new language by emersion was a challenge, first of all. As we sat there I recalled my first Friday night at Familia Feliz, which found me sitting on that same bench, a bit lonely, and so relieved to have a friendly couple to take me in.

As I looked at Juan and Emi skillfully carrying on a conversation with us while monitoring bedtime preparation, I realized how much Carlo and I had learned from them too. We came in with our only parenting experience being summer camp and were handed 9 boys, nearly all of which had severe behavioral struggles. Those first few Sundays found us absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, not sure how to manage the house. About 3 weeks in, we had walked in with determination, stating that we were going to be consistently organized that day and keep things calm and peaceful. 13 hours later, we shuffled out of the house, again, exhausted. But we learned! By the end of the school year, we had 14 boys and Sundays ran smoothly. We never reached Juan and Emi’s level; I’m not sure that’s possible! But we looked forward to Sundays and genuinely enjoyed them by the end!

On Sabbath, we enjoyed the last few hours with our kids. Chaos broke loose after sunset as we packed up our belongings. As I frantically ran around the clinic cleaning and organizing, I looked up to find Bayron, Roger, and Charley, three of my teenage boys from the Guerreros and Hardings, watching me from the door. “Do you need help Teacher?” I was so relieved. They threw away the trash, packed up my piles to give to people, and gladly ate all the leftover chocolate I had sitting out!

After hugging and kissing and tucking in all of campus, we drove into town at midnight. Again, it was a flashback to August. Packed into the back of the truck with all of our suitcases, tired, and a little nervous. We made it to the hotel and caught 3 hours of sleep before getting in two taxis and making our way across the winding road from Rurre to La Paz. It crawls through the Andes, going from drop-offs crowded with jungle vines and waterfalls to snow-capped peaks all around within nine hours. Some say the path is dangerous with the plunging mountainside un-guardrailed, but after driving around Bolivia for nine months, it was not near the most dangerous road we had taken. Unfortunately, it did happen to be the worst road for our stomachs, however, and we all got very carsick.

Rainforest at the beginning of the drive

Snow capped mountains at the end

That carsickness extended into the flu for many of us, and our next few days of traveling were rough. However, we finally arrived in the Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, a beautiful goodbye to the country we love so much.

Josy, Katie-Jane, Me, Emilianne, Maddy, Elizabeth, Lisiane

Just wow.

The Train Graveyard of Uyuni

And then we boarded the plane to Santa Cruz. We hugged Treson goodbye there. We landed in Miami. We sobbed through customs and security as we separated. We had been delayed and frantically rushed to our various flights across America. I spoke Spanish to several very confused Americans. And then, in the blink of an eye, we were home.

It’s strange to be back. So nice to have a washer and dryer, vegan food (I was only able to eat vegetarian + chicken broth while there), my cello, family, church, and a comfortable bed. It’s also sad though. I miss my boys. I miss doing my nursing rounds, hearing the Spanish that has become so familiar all around me. Tears are pretty close to spilling out at any moment.

God knew what He was doing when He sent the 10 of us student missionaries on a crazy journey to Bolivia. We are all so different and would never have chosen to become friends on our own. But, God new we needed a team with different skills. We all found our niches at Familia Feliz and never had a dull moment! We became a very tight-knit family. I’m endlessly grateful for them, and also for you as well. Thank you for your support through this school year. Thank you for your encouraging messages, donations, the many notes you wrote me, and for reading my travel journal!

It is often thought that working overseas is where you really go to work for God. If someone wants to spend their life working for God fully, they become an overseas missionary. I was thinking about this as I sat on the plane on the way to Charlotte, NC. When I lived back at Southern, I used to pray each morning, “God, please put someone specific in my path today that I can serve.” Somewhere in the jungle of busyness, I got out of the habit of doing that. There was no lack of people in my path to help. I prayed it again as I buckled my seatbelt for takeoff. Immediately, I heard a stewardess repeating questions in English very loudly to the girl in front of me, who looked very confused and responded in Spanish. Immediately, I leaned forward and repeated the stewardess words in Spanish. The girl looked relieved and responded, thanking me profusely. “I can put you to work full-time in America, too.” The words popped into my head. God had just made His point.