Laundry in the rain

ok, I need to get up to date here so I don't get too behind, but right now all I can think about is all my hard work of doing laundry ALL DAY yesterday is now back at the house getting wet from the rain.....
I honestly do not have a handle on how to deal with this yet, so I guess I am not going to worry about it right now.
Well, I think I left off at the end of our first evening in the house.
THe next day we went into town. It is called Moyolgalpa and it is where we need to go for any shopping etc. There is a very tiny store basically at the end of our driveway that does have a few things as well, but not much.
So we spent the day in town on Friday and picked up some things that we needed at the house like hangers, toilet paper, just a few essentials and a few small grocery items. It rained hard in the afternoon so we had to take cover in a little store and we ran into the missionaries there. They actually had Abe with them, we had hooked them up earlier in the day so that he could pal around with them. This was just a long interesting day and very eye opening as we kind of explored our new town.
Leyla brought over some rice and beans to us for dinner that night and even though it seemed a little scary to us, we were hungry so we ate it.
Oh I forgot that on this evening we also had a branch activity at the church that the missionaries really wanted us to go to so we did. There were just a small handful of us and the missionaries were teaching the members how to lead music. We brought Hiedo with us (Leyla's son who is 11). Lane volunteered me to sing a song at the end. The church house is very very small. Maybe about 15x15. It was interesting.

Ok so the next day was saturday and our plan was to stay home and try to get the house into a condition that was liveable for us. That sounds crazy if you see how everyone else lives here, but for what we are used to, it was not at all up to par. Very dirty and stinky. Leyla came over as soon as she noticed we were up and moving and she worked along side of all of us all day long until late afternoon. We got up at 6:00! If that tells you anything about how bad it was. I was wishing for my Aunt Kathy and her power cleaning skills right about then! Lora was a total trooper and she and Leyla actually spent 2 hours scrubbing down the tile stairs. Lane tackled the kitchen and I did the bathrooms. The house has a big porch pretty much all the way around and so Leyla also scrubbed that down and mopped the floors. It was a long sweaty day and we were more than tired by the end.

SO the next day is sunday and we had prearranged for a taxi van to pick us up for church at 1:30 so that we could be to church in plenty of time at 2pm. Sure enough at about 1:00, it started pouring rain. Apparrantly the guy with the van couldn't make it so he sent a "moto taxi" for us. This is basically a motorcycle with a buggy like contraption on the back with 2 more wheels. At least it had a covered roof so we would not get wet. The problem was that Leyla and 3 of her kids wanted to come to church with us. I don't mean to make that sound like a problem, I mean that is great right? The only thing is, that made 10 of us including the driver! Oh my goodness....it got us some great stares from others. It was a hot humid cramped ride but at least we made it. Actually we were WAY early because church didn't even get started until about 20 after anyway. That is just how they do things here I guess. Pretty much the branch president's family are the only active ones and a couple others. The missionaries, and us and then our new friends that came with us. There are also a couple other ladies from the states visiting their father, so they were there too. In fact, they are Amparo's aunts. Matt knows Amparo and her family from when they lived in Utah. Anyway, these two women have been so helpful to us and we will be sad when they leave soon.
SO, I led the music for church. Surprisingly enough it is the same as leading in English. ha ha
They only hold church for 2 hours instead of 3 since they have no youth for young mens or young womens. Well, there is Abe now and then the Branch Pres. has a 15 year old son, but they just went with the men.
They asked me to go into Primary with the little kids and the Branch President's wife. It was not the greatest hour of my life, let's just say that. She is a very timid woman, although very sweet but she was totally looking to me to take charge and I wasn't prepared for that. I had about 8 little sweaty children staring at me the whole time. It was a sweltering hot room and I kind of wanted to scream, but that is not appropriate for church right? So I didn't.
We made do with some half wet and wrinkled gospel art pictures that she had in her bag and I basically pointed to the pictures and got out whatever I could in Spanish to talk about the pictures. Then she had a half box of melted broken crayons and some wet paper for them to draw on. Is this sounding pathetic? I am not exaggerating one bit. Everything is like wet here from the humidity and to begin with the quality of everything like paper and crayons is not at all like what we have in the states. I thought Lora and Emma were going to die. You should have seen how they were looking at me. They didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I felt the same.
K, so church ended, we made our way home in another taxi, a bigger one this time and we had some spaghetti. We had bought some sauce and pasta the day before. It was all we had, but it was fine. I can't explain it but it is just so hard to figure out how to eat and cook here.
OK, so then the next day was Monday and Leyla and I spent the entire day doing wash by hand in the "pila" which is a cement scrubbing washboard sink thing. You can probably look one up online to see what I am talking about. Lane took some pictures of that which we need to post soon. This was a very hard and tedious process and then of course the afternoon rain came and we had to hurry and move the clothesline in under the porch. After the rain stopped, we put more line out front so it would be more in the sun. It rained again and we had to move the clothes again! ugh!!! I told the kids they have to wear their clothes at least 3 times before they even THINK about putting them in the hamper!! Underwear being the exception. (maybe)
Lane waled up to the store and brought home some potatoes and onions for dinner. Do we just sound like ma and pa Ingalls or what??? THat is what it feels like. I always loved that show and thought it would be fun to be them. It's not people.
So, we had that for dinner. Our favorite time of day had become bedtime where we all get in the same bed and read "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane". IT is a children's book that Josh Eyre gave us.

So that brings me to today...my birthday. I had not even given it a thought at all, but the kids remembered and had little notes waiting for me and Lora and EMma gave me $10. Ha ha...it was theirs that they found and so it was sweet that they gave it to me. No pedicure or nice dinner out this year for my birthday, but instead I stepped in pig poop and noticed that the cute little geckos that are ALL over in the house actually poop in the house too. Nice. They seriously are all over the walls and you can hear them all night. Sometimes it sounds like they are laughing at us.
We rode our bikes out to some other gringo peoples house today. They have been living here for 4 years. We picked their brains for awhile and honestly I don't know if I feel better or worse after talking with them. Hard to explain.

So that brings me current on our time here so far. It is hard. I won't say that it isn't. I know that we asked for this and so I don't expect any sympathy. Honestly it lifts my spirits so much to hear encouragement from all of you. It makes me want to keep going because there has been more than one moment so far when I have totally wanted to come home. Lane and I just keep trying to remember that we felt so good about this and we feel like there is a reason the Lord has brought us on the adventure.
We are worried about not being able to get internet connection at the house like we thought, which could really change things for us. If that does not work out then we may end up having to go to Costa Rica because Lane has to have internet and Abe has to have it for his online school that starts in the fall. We will have to see.

We miss everyone alot. We feel your prayers and your love for us. Other people are anxious to use this computer desk so I have to go now. Please keep writing encouraging notes. I really love that. We are happy and healthy and together so don't worry about us. I asked the Lord for some personal growth and I am totally getting it. Be careful what you pray for! :)