Joanna's Journal: I'm Proud to be an American!

Being in another country for the 4^th of July really makes you patriotic! Friday, the 4^th, was a really great day! I woke up happy, and it was all good from there! I hurriedly hopped out of bed because my clock said that it was 8:22. I needed to be at the school for PE at 8:45. AFTER I got out of bed I realized that my clock is still on Florida time, which really made it 7:22. Hey, it got me out of bed. :-) I had time for a leisurely breakfast, and then headed out.

It was a beautiful morning, and when I was walking to the Christian school. The Christian school (Heroes of Faith) meets at the church (Nueva Vida – New Life). I asked Marco the night before at church if they needed help, and he said that would be great! I got there a few minutes before they finished their chapel, and was able to help them walk over to the seminary where they have the PE. The kids were probably 7-12, and I had seen a lot of them at church/Oansa, and one girl, Asareda (how it’s pronounced, probably not spelled) that lives here on campus, and Bethany and her brother Joey.

First, we ran around this square a few times, and then stretched. We played freeze tag, and Bethany and I were the freezers and one of the older guys unfroze people. I enjoyed that, and we played in a coned area. We played a few rounds of that, and no one wanted to play soccer except a few people, so they went to play on the playground. Then we played freeze tag on the playground. :-) That turned pretty interesting! Marco asked them who should be it, and they said, “Profesor Marco, y profesora Joana.” Wow, I turned into a professor! I know… it’s their term of respect. We ran up and down and round the playground and tagged kids and got out of breath. :-) It was all fun though, and it was funny when they squealed as they tried to outrun me. :-) Then I pushed a few kids on the swing while some played this game of see if you can pull hard enough to get the person off the slide. I wasn’t the biggest fan of that, because I knew that someone was going to get hurt. :-/

I helped them walk back, and one of the cute little girls was trying out her English. Which consisted of Hello teacher. :-) Cute kids! I helped walk them over, then headed back. I enjoyed, and I will probably help with that this week too. I need to think of a new game they haven’t played though… Any ideas?

We got ready for the picnic, and then headed over to Wendy’s to help her set up. I forgot to bring any patriotic shirt, so I wore my CBC kids shirt and jeans. We had quite the spread of food! Cassandra made mac and cheese, banana pudding, and homemade rolls for the hamburgers. We also had baked beans, coleslaw, tuna/noodle salad, icecream and apple tart, and cake. Topped off with the Peruvian version of coke. It was pretty awesome! The Pardines, Wendy, Randy, a lady Martha and her family, Rachel, Bethany, Ariel, and I were all there. We said the pledges, sang the national anthem and listened to Bethany’s poem, and Joshua and Steven’s songs they learned. It was special and very memorable! The food, company, and entertainment were great! I have really enjoyed meeting the seminary students, but I have also really enjoyed knowing the different missionaries.

We played kickball after our picnic, boys vs. girls. I got a team picture, and we were joking that we got the winning team picture at the beginning, but we ended up beating them by a decent amount! :-) We did have a few more people though. We played with a very light little kids plastic ball, so it was hard to hit it any real distance… which was good for the fielding. After the game we got to go back for dessert. Nothing quite like apple tart and vanilla icecream. :-) We helped Wendy clean up, then went back home a happy American! :-)

I was going to practice some piano in the chapel, but when I got there, the seminary guys had set up a TV to watch the world cup game. It finished right as I was getting there, but then Raul went to play the piano.

Yanet was sitting there crocheting, and I don’t quite know her as well, so I ran back to my room, and got my crocheting. I brought a little something to do on the plane if I got bored, but haven’t really touched it. I think she was surprised that I could crochet. I have been in the girl’s dorm, and some girls have made bed sized blankets. Yanet is very talented, and was working on a blue and white baby blanket with a beautiful design. I did that with her for a bit, because I want to let each of the girls know that I want to get to know them, not just a few. I watched a bit of soccer, but I would have been hopelessly lost if I tried to play. Plus it was all guys. I got to talk to Lis Carmen a bit, which I enjoyed because also I don’t know her as well. She is at the Urubamba church on Sundays so I get to talk to her a good bit then.

We practiced our hymn Gira songs, and those went well. Their choir practice started right after that, so I debated, but I ended up staying. I love to sing, and I know the Spanish pronunciation well enough that I can follow along. I really enjoyed, and wished that I had done it for the last few weeks! It sounded really beautiful! I wasn’t the only alto!!! Yay! There were probably about 6 of both alto and soprano. I really had fun with that! After choir, I was hitting the volleyball around, and one person hit it, and it ended up landing straight into Roxana’s dinner bowl. The food went up, and came down right on my head. I could feel the rice in my hair and shirt. Poor Roxana’s dinner… :-(

After that I stuck to ping pong. I haven’t played as much because I haven’t had class every day. I told/showed them how to play round robin ping pong when you run around the table after you hit the ball. They thought that was pretty hilarious! It was very entertaining and tiring at the same time!

That night, Friday, was the last night for volleyball because a lot of the Gira groups are leaving before next Friday night. I love to play, and it is always a fun time of fellowship with the students. Our team did really well, and won a bunch of the games. I think we had Roxana, Marco, Louis, me, and Juan (married students.) I got a picture of the whole group! :-) I’m going to miss that! I started not feeling so great in the middle of a game, so sat out the next few and then went home to bed. (that shows how bad I felt if I would skip out on my last night of volleyball) I hit the sack jeans, sweatshirt and all, and felt better in the morning. I think I had too much exercise/activity in one day. (PE, Picnic/kickball, ping pong running, volleyball, etc)

Ariel and I joked that we were switching days to get sick. She didn’t feel good Thursday, I didn’t feel so great Friday night, and Saturday she woke up not feeling great. We were going to go on a hike with Randy to the top of this little mountain where a cross and a beautiful view is, but that didn’t work out. When we get back from the Gira, we are going to have 10 days without prep work for Gira, classes, or students, and we will have plenty of time to do it then. It looks like it would take forever, but Randy says that it only takes 40 min to get up with resting, and 10 jog to get down. It must go straight up. :-) Ariel and I love to hike, so that will be great! Also after the Gira, we are going to Machu Pichu, and possibly taking Bethany with us.

We got a bunch of different prep work done for the gira. All the kids song visuals are done, put in their folders, colored, tied, and ready to go. We went out to lunch at one of her favorite restaurants. Their chicken soup is really delicious, and I got the grilled chicken with salad, rice, and fried potatoes. And I finished the whole thing! We did a few stops, went by the market, picked up the pictures that I needed, etc.

That evening was teens in Urubamba, and since I found out about it not that long ago, I wanted to go! Last week we were in Ardin for youth with the Lounsbrough’s, and that was really fun! I headed out with Rachel and Ariel, because I missed the group of students that went. They went back though, because Ariel was going to skype with her parents, and didn’t feel great to start with. I sat with Lis Carmen, Delfina, Julia, and Ruth. Delfina and Ruth live on campus, but I don’t know them as well as I would like to. Asareda (how it’s pronounced, not necessarily spelled) their little sister is in PE, and sweet. (She is one of Bethany’s good friends.) My Spanish was ok that night, so I got to talk to them a bit. When I get back from the Gira, I can go once more.

A group from the states came in that day. 23 students plus sponsors! Quite the group of gringos! ALL of them came to youth group that night, and they sang a few songs, played a few games, preached a message. I didn’t have to work to understand it because it was in English too! :-) The group is here for 12 days and they are mainly helping with a new church plant in this one town. They seem nice, but I’m really not going to be around them that much. I was talking in Spanish to Raquel, and this one guy asked me if I spoke English. If he can get me confused for speaking Spanish, and get Ariel confused for Peruvian, he has been in the states for a long time. Yeah… At least he didn’t call them Mexicans. (Rachel has gotten asked why she wants to go help those Mexicans in Peru) My work in school and time here must have paid off, because I can speak some…and more than a bunch of people on the trip. I found myself translating what I could get for them… which is kinda crazy. I didn’t want it to seem like I only spent time with these gringos, so I still mostly talked to my Peruvian friends here. During the service, Eliada sat on my lap the whole time… (I <3 kids) I walked back with Lis Carmen and Jeín. Fun times. :-)

Sunday morning we headed out to church. I love Sundays, and only have a 1 more here after the Gira. SS was taught by Mr. Ratcky, and I love when he preaches because I can understand so much! The American in him must make his Spanish easier to understand. He talked about not fearing because God is with us. I could translate what I knew for Ariel, and Rachel was translating for a group of people from the states. I talked to Lis Carmen after SS, and that is when I got the picture. I really like it, and it’s good of both her and me. :-)

It ended up that Cassandra wasn’t there, so I didn’t know who was doing music. Raúl asked if I wanted to, and I asked if anyone from the group was. He didn’t know. I asked a girl from the group if anyone was, and she was like, “Yeah”. Whew… then she was like… “Oh, he is only doing offertory” Back stressed… I didn’t know ½ of the songs, but Raquel walked in right then. I asked if she could play the melody, and I could play the chords in the left hand. We did that once before on Thursday, and it seemed to work pretty well. Even if I don’t know the song, I can follow the right hand notes, and see when to change chords. I enjoy playing with Raquel, and she has saved many songs with her help! The group sang a few choir songs, a few people gave their testimonies, and everything went well!

We were joking the night before… “Joanna, find out where they are going to lunch, and we won’t go there.” (btw, Rachel doesn’t really have anything to do with this group… they are staying and doing stuff with the Rojas) We were vacillating between Chinese or chicken, and we ended up choosing the chicken. After we got our salad, we see a group of about 30 walking into the restaurant. That is a lot of gringos at one restaurant. They poor people trying to fill that order were working hard, but it’s not like you can get that many chickens cooked that quickly. We got our food very fast, and were done by the time they got theirs. (next time they will call ahead I’m sure)

In the afternoon we hung out, and watched a movie called National Treasure. I had never seen it, but it was patriotic, and I enjoyed it. It made me think very hard, and the plot had lots of twists and turns!

Church at night was good as well. I came in, and they had a mini concert going on. A lot of people from that group can play instruments, and it sounded really good. We did some afterwards, and I got to play the piano. :-) There were maybe 3 violins to go with the 2 we have here (Beth and Raúl), 3 guitar, an oboe, and piano. One girl can play piano, but prefers violin I think, and then another guy can play, but isn’t too confidant/says he has never played in front of a group besides his brothers. He knew 3 songs, and didn’t know the other 3 so wanted me to play them. They were the 2^nd, 4^th, and 5^th, but here, you just don’t sing all the songs at once. First you have to come in at the right time, and there are specials and testimonies all thrown together in there. One song…mine… Jeín just randomly skipped mine, and I didn’t catch the different number. I quickly ended on my nice chord, and scooted back off for the other guy to play his song. (There was a lot of confusion when he was going back and forth did he want to play all, some or none.) sigh… It was all ok. At the end of the service, we sing happy birthday to all the people with birthdays, and he was like, “I can play that” and I was like… “It’s a very different song than you are thinking!” I played that and didn’t have any problems. I played an ending song, and Beth was like “don’t play that song, play a different one.” (how should I know… no one told me that we had assigned ending songs too now…) Got to be flexible around here! That is what I told the one guy playing the piano… that and you never know exactly what comes next, and you really have to watch when to start. It was all good, and the message was good too. (in English!) I really enjoy going to church, and I’m sad I only have one left…

Because Pat didn’t get back until Tuesday, we had Wendy over for dinner. We heated up old pizza and had leftovers. (great thing to do Sunday nights) I enjoy her company, and I will be able to spend lots of time with them on the trip to Puno.