Poke-aahhhh-soooooo

Emil and Carlo

Copoazu is a very common fruit here in Bolivia. It looks and feels a bit like a jackfruit but tastes a little like a lemon. It’s too sour to eat on its own, but if you blend it with water and plenty of sugar, it makes one of the best juices I’ve ever tasted! Last Sunday, Carlo and I took our boys on a walk to pick some fruit. We picked two copoazus and were excited to go home and make juice when we turned around to find Juancito and Benjamin with 11 more! Thus followed an afternoon of the boys watching a movie and us preparing a ton of copoazu. Our little four-year-old that is pictured above, Emil, walked into the kitchen as I was blending a batch and yelled “Poke-aahhhh-soooooo!!!” Needless to say, he can't quit say copoazu, but he’s a big fan of the drink!

Preparing Copoazu

Walking with the boys

Friday was the first time I had done laundry in our new house. We don’t have a laundry sink, so I decided to do it in the kitchen. Feeling quite accomplished, I walked outside with a finished basket of laundry only to realize I had nowhere to hang laundry at our new house! As I looked around, the garden caught my eye. There were rows of long bamboo sticks across the currently unused garden! It quickly became the most convenient set of drying racks I’ve had since arriving.

Garden laundry racks

The weekend flew by. Josie, our newest SM, made us Mexican food for lunch since her family is from Mexico. It was delicious! We spent a lot of time with the kids. Florita was sitting in my lap, as she often does on Saturday nights and we were joking around about nicknames for all her little friends. Suddenly she looked up at me seriously and said, “Mama Sierra?” I looked down into her little questioning eyes. Sadly, I said, “No Florita, I can be your friend and your teacher, but I can’t be your mama.” We’re trained to not let them call us mom or dad, simply because it’s too difficult for them to have their parental figure leave at the end of a year without having names attached, it would be so much more difficult with.

On top of our adventures on Sunday, we also got a new boy! He’s Emil’s (our little four-year-old) older brother. There are now four brothers from that family in our house. They came after being beggars on the streets and only arrived with the clothes on their backs. I’ve never seen a set of brothers that look after each other so well. I suppose they have only had each other from a young age, and it has taught them to parent one another well.

Monday was spent charting all the illnesses I had hurriedly treated in the last week and making rounds. In the evening, I breathed a sigh of relief, because I realized the next day was my day off! Tuesday was also Valentine’s day, so we all tried to do something special. I woke up and made Hibiscus boba tea from home, Katie-Jane made such pretty cards, Maddy baked cupcakes and brownies, and Lisiane made us sweet cards with candy. We came home early from our day off to watch a movie together and enjoy the treats. That was our last night hanging out in the Gringos’ house (where the boys lived)!

One of Katie-Jane's beautiful cards

Wednesday was a flurry of activity. The boys were told to move to Melissa’s dad’s house, which is about a kilometer off campus to make room for a staff family. I sadly packed up the kitchen. So many memories were wrapped up in that place! Late nights of us all frantically cooking for events, peaceful mornings of cooking and chatting with Treson, doing dishes with Carlo after everyone ran to school, and friendly arguments with Zoro in the afternoons. Many movie nights with all 9 of us piled on an extra mattress on the floor since there weren’t enough chairs, lots of laughter, and some tears too.

Saying goodbye to the Gringos' kitchen

A lizard that sat outside the window while I packed

When all the kids went to bed on Wednesday night, we girls felt pretty alone knowing all the guys were a couple miles away instead of a few hundred feet. So we decided to go check on them and their new house! We took off on foot town the highway under a gorgeous swirly Milky Way. About 15 minutes into our journey, Maddy screamed. We all looked at the ground and screamed too as we realized there was a big snake right in front of us! Not only was it a snake, but it was a Coral snake, an extremely venomous one. We took off down the road and thankfully it didn’t follow us!

About 15 minutes later, we arrived at the guys’ new house. They were pleased with the surprise and gave us a tour of their new home. Soon we were on our way down the road, this time without any snakes, back to Familia Feliz.

The coral snake

I’ve had a shocking realization this week. My kids are growing up! It’s like I blinked and all of a sudden they got taller and grew muscles and suddenly didn’t want to hug and kiss me goodbye on the way to school! I went to give a night medication to one of the Harding house boys the other night. As I shone my flashlight on his top bunk bed and shook his arm, I suddenly realized he wasn’t a little twig of a pre-teen anymore and actually had arm muscle. I stood there for a few seconds, surprised and sad and amazed all at the same time. And then the next morning I went to hug our four-year-old goodbye on the way to school and he was walking with some older boys. He looked at me, kept walking, and smiled and waved. Again, I stood there in shock! He’s so little! Much to my relief, he happily grabbed my hand and took a walk with me after school.

Otto and me

Thursday involved a little of everything: cooking, cutting 10 of my boys' hair, taking care of another sick girl who slept in the clinic, and baking three cakes for Valentin’s birthday. Carlo, Lisiane, and I went over to the Leones’ house for a birthday party in the evening and Valentin was so pleased! We are pretty sure it was the first time his birthday had ever been celebrated.

Cake Baking!

With birthdays, school, and spending time with my boys this week, I’ve realized how quickly time can fly. If time can fly quickly as a temporary parent, I can’t imagine how quickly it must fly for God! I’m so grateful we have a God to take care of us who sees all of time, all of our struggles, and all of the solutions.