A Story of Love, Trials, and Forgiveness

 

Friday was the sealing of Dario and Susana. The Sunday before we had received a beautifully engraved invitation, inviting us to the sealing and to a celebration afterwards in Bella Vista. We knew what to expect with the sealing, but we didn’t know exactly what to expect afterwards.

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Dario & Susana After sealing

Alvaro, Dario ,Susana  and Juan Carlos

 

 

Dario and Susana

After the sealing their boys Juan Carlos and Alvaro wanted to take us to the Cristus  situated on a large hill overlooking Cochabamba,  Lorna and I had been up there several weeks ago and actually climbed to the top of the arms.  The Cristus was built in 1994 when the Pope came to visit.  It and the LDS Temple are the two main attractions in Cochabamba.  The statue stands 110 feet tall 33 meters one meter for every year of Christ's life.

 

 

  We were following their sons in their pickup.  Juan Carlos told me they didn't have the amplification system set up for the reception, yet so they wanted to kill more time.  We decided to go down to the Center plaza,  but Susana finally put her foot down and said she wasn't going to parade around the plaza as a 55 year old Cholita with a wedding veil on. 

 The trip back to Bella Vista which should have taken less than 45 minutes turned into a 3 hour diversion.  When we arrived the couple entered the event center,( a metal roofed building with a cement floor)  to the wedding march,  Most of the branch their relatives and many of the community were there.   Their 3 children spoke and praised their parents for their good examples.

 They like us have two sons and a daughter After music from our era, a lot of Julio Iglesias, we had dinner, 

 

 We were placed at the head table with the couple, after a great Bolivian meal of piles of rice piles of potatoes and chicken, the Bolivian line dancing started,  as you can see from the pictures Jack got roped into it.

   Several hours later, all the guests lined up to wish the bride and groom well and give gifts. The custom here (new to us), is that both the guest and the bride and groom grab a handful of confetti and sprinkled it over each others heads. Then there was the cake.We thought the party was about over when a Mexican Mariachi band arrived with Mexican dancers

 

  

 

 

We left after several hours  Juan Carlos the oldest son and his daughter left at midnight for the 7 hour drive back to La Paz where he lives.  Compared to a temple sealing in the US this seems way over the top.  Bolivians like parties, but knowing the story of Dario and Susana  it seems fitting.  We have been hesitant to discuss their story publicly, but they are very open out it and  it makes the celebration more understandable.

Susana is Lorna's age. In previous blogs we have told the story that she has always lived in Bella Vista,  her father died young and worked from an early age to help support their family.  She married Dario and they had three children,  Juan Carlos, Alvaro, and Noami.  Susana was searching for answers in many of the churches.  One day she came home to find Juan Carlos praying.  He said it made him feel good and some missionaries had taught him how.  Susana and her children were taught the gospel and baptized.  Susana said she had many of her questions answered.  That was 28 years ago.

Dario was not happy about the family attending church on Sundays.  He wanted the family to do other things on Sundays. He  finally gave her the ultimatum that either they left their beliefs behind or he would leave. She didn't think it was a fair choice to make and she told him she wasn't going to leave the church. Dario left.

Susana lived on the same place her parents had,  probably about 1/3 an acre. They grew vegetables and flowers on their land.  She took whatever jobs she could and said it was difficult to survive raising the children, but she said they always had something to eat and enough to get by.

Juan Carlos served a mission in La Paz,and he and his family live there now. Alvaro was sent to Santa Cruz on his mission.  He had a good mission and four days before the end,  he was waiting for a tienda to roll up their metal door.  When it did he was standing face to face with his father. Although Alvaro was 12 when his father left,  they both recognized each other. His father reached out for him, but Alvaro would only shake his hand.  He told him he needed to finish his mission. Alvaro said he was going home in four days, but that he would be back to bring Dario home. Three days after he finished his mission,he returned to Santa Cruz and brought his father home.

It has taken time to reach the point they are now. That was eight years ago.  To see them now it's hard to imagine their story.  Dario is a kind and caring man,and they seem really happy together. To watch their children at the reception, it was interesting to see how they worked together to make sure their parents had a great evening along with the guests.  The parents are very proud of their children as they should be.  It was a great lesson to us of never giving up, and the power forgiveness has to change lives.

 

 

Things We Love About Bolivia

 

 So many of our blogs are finding the humor in Bolivia. We have to laugh to keep our sanity.... Bolivia does have some great things though

Cochabamba Eternally  Spring, Coca-Cola  is  every where,  always offered it by the

members albeit a little warm    Notice the temp  24 Celsius about 76 degrees

 It's winter here now and the dry season. Which is perfect weather 75 to 82 degrees every day and hardly ever any  wind

Gas prices are about $1.70 a gallon

Nice restaurants are between  US $7-  10 per person.

We eat out often. Had the best Chinese food ever here

Bolivia provides universal health care until the age of 5. Births cost nothing and the children are able to be immunized and have a good start. I helped bury a child here many years ago that died due to a lack of health care  that wouldn't happen now days.

Education is very inexpensive through the university level   The only way this country will ever develop is through an educated population.

Every block has at least one tienda. Great for a late night snack.

  Air travel isn't such a pain.You can board from the back or front of the plane. You don't have to throw away your drink before going through security. No need to remove laptops from their case. You can use a copy of your passport.

 The fresh fruits and vegetables here in Cochabamba are incredible

 

 

 Beautiful flowers. 12 roses sets you back 5 bucks

 

 

 

 They have beautiful Plazas, roundabouts  and Prados, 

 

 

 

They can make some really cool designs with their flowers. 

 

 

 The Bolivian Shield

 They have maintained their culture. And heritage. Cholita's  wear the hats from their

 providence, hats pertaining to their area.  They are proud of  their native music and dance. We are really enjoying our time here.

Paging Dr. Ben Casey.....

Sucre apt check

                                                   

We have had a very busy two weeks since we last blogged. We have checked almost half of the missionary apartments in the mission, and we are getting 30 new missionaries this week. 13 are Hermanas. We are losing only 12, so that means 10 new areas and apartments to get fitted with everything they need, so we will continue to stay busy! At least we know our way around La Cancha! Jack is teaching priesthood and Dario was ordained an Elder last week. He and Susana are being sealed in the Temple this Friday.




Betanzos apt check

Christy (Hermana Dyer) has been working on getting electronic keyboards into a lot of the areas that don’t have them and finding teachers to teach youth and adults how to play using a teaching packet created by the Church. She had 10 keyboards ordered from SLC, but they were turned back at customs, because apparently Bolivia isn’t letting anything in from the US these days. So we have been trying to locate and buy as many keyboards here in Cochabamba that fall in the price range.  As with everything else, we have to go to 8 different stores and negotiate with 16 different people. We finally bought 5 today. This will also be an ongoing project, but at least we know where to go next trip.     

We traveled to Sucre and Potosi again with Pres and Hermana Dyer, and were able to get all of the apartments there checked. Before we tell you a little about our trip, we need to get you caught up on what happened the week before we left.  To start out I am going to post 2 pictures that all of our faithful readers will understand. The rest of you are going to have to go back and read past posts to figure out their significance.

 

 

1.       This Tacoma pick-up is not ours. It happened to be in front of us a few days ago. Apparently it was not his week for tail lights.

 

 

 2.       Wires. This is even nastier than the first one I posted.

 

The “Clinic”

So in order to get your carnet (visa) to stay in the country longer than 30 days, you have to, as part of the process, get a medical exam. It is just another way for them to create jobs and increase revenue. The first clue of what we were in for is the urine sample. We received specimen jars the day before then we collected our own urine at home and took it to the clinic the day of the exam. Why hasn’t the US thought of this when they UA everyone? It would really streamline the process and speed things up. What could possibly go wrong? There was also nowhere to label the specimens, so we just put the jars in a plastic bag and hoped for the best. It turns out; the “clinic” looks like it is from the 1940's and is in a police station. Everyone is in military uniforms except the nurses, who still wear the white nurse caps. I thought at any moment, Ben Casey would burst through the doors. ….a very dirty Ben Casey. If you are too young to know who Ben Casey is, Google it.  It was hard to take pictures when no one was looking, but here are a couple

 This is a little fuzzy, but in this one small office they cover psychology, dermatology, and gastroenterology, because I am sure they are all so closely related.

 I guess they figured since  urologia and neurologia  rhymed, they should go together.

While we were waiting we met a young female college  student from San Luis Obispo CA who is working here for an NGO helping find Bolivian students to do exchanges with US students.  After the initial interview with the first officer, you had to go downstairs.  First stop is height, weight and blood pressure. They had several pairs of doctor’s office balance scales, but no, you had to use the cheap bathroom scales and you could NOT take your shoes off.  I know I haven’t gained 15 lbs since I’ve been here, but that was OK, because you could NOT take your shoes off when measuring your height. Luckily I had on about 2 ½ inch heels, so I’m sure it will help average out. Next stop blood test. This place was freezing cold and my veins roll anyway. This nurse really tried to find a vein, she worked really, really hard. Never mind that my arm was resting on this dirty rag, I did watch her take the needle out of a sterile package.  Since she had not extracted one drop of blood, I suggested that she might try the top of my hand, since I have pretty prominent veins there. She pulled the needle out of my arm and set it on the table with the needle touching the table and before I could say anything, she picked it up and stuck it in the top of my hand. She got hardly anything with this attempt, but I figured she was tired of dealing with my veins and said “Bien” and motioned me out.  I figure, we all have to die of something.  Next was X-ray.  The guy was reading a comic book or something and showed me the changing room. He motioned for me to take everything from the waist up off. When I asked about jewelry, he said no. Here is a picture of the changing room/bathroom/x-ray developing room:

 So I put on a very well used robe went out and held the x-ray board.  The tech never asked me to hold my breath or anything and I never heard a click or the usual sounds. $300 Bolivianos for that one.  Then we had to go back upstairs again to wait.  While we were waiting, we compared notes with California girl on the process so far. The scales also had her 15 lbs overweight, so I felt a lot better.  As far as the X-rays, Jack didn’t have to take any of his clothes off, not even his coat. I had to take off only my shirt, but California girl had to take everything off, including her jewelry! We know where we stand in the eyes of the X-ray technician! We all got a good laugh out of that. Jack told the girl that it was better than when he did it 38 years ago.  The two sister missionaries before him were told to go into a room together totally strip and do 10 jumping jacks in front of the male Dr.

Next we had the actual physical. Jack went with me to translate and they asked odd questions I could have easily answered with lies and they would have never known, but I didn’t and she listened to my heart and chest and called it good. The next and last stop was the dental exam. The dentist was very nice, but the dental mirror she used was not. It was very large and she clearly did not have the time to sterilize it between exams. She made notations of each space between teeth and measured over/under bite. Jack said he felt like he was about to be sold into slavery. We had to assure her that we saw our dentist every six months and we were in no pain (just mental from the thought of all of the germs we had been exposed to)  Before we left I took a picture of one of the rooms for overnight stays I imagine and a picture of their downstairs sink.
 

 

 

On our way out they gave us an appointment slip to come back two days later. When we went back we had our full report along with x-rays (the ribs looked very fuzzy). In my report there was a prescription for Cipro. Apparently they had detected an infection (anthrax?)  Funny, because I felt fine. When we asked the officer where they found the infection, she said she didn’t know. So, lung, blood, urine or dental I have no idea.  A few days later I did start to feel sick and ended up getting a different antibiotic (my choice as you don’t need a prescription for anything here) and I’m happy to say, I am feeling much better from whatever was ailing me. Maybe they figured I would end up getting sick after their testing procedure and the prescription was just a pre-emptive strike on their part.  

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

We went to Sucre on Monday and checked apartments.  Tuesday morning we left for Potosi, about a 3 hour drive.  Last time we were on the road we saw them making Chuno but didn't stop. Chuno is as Bolivian as it gets.  A small potato, that is left outside with water poured over it at night to help it freeze,  after its frozen, and deteriorated for several days, the Bolivians crush the potatoes with their feet, much like the way wine used to be made (and still is in Bolivia) then the potato is dried in the sun.  The natives think it is delicious!   Prior to arriving in Potosi we saw them working in the same field.  They were waiting for the weather to warm up before they started stomping.  The boy below is using his sling shot to clear away the birds that are eating the potatoes.  We asked to take pictures, the Bolivians are always reluctant, but I said that we would be passing through the next day and I would drop off copies for the their family.  They didn't believe me but acquiesced  anyway.  As we left I noticed that I had lost the keys to BI-polar,(see previous posts)  By the way the Pres. had the car worked on and they said the security system was fixed,  but it was obviously off its meds.  Anyway we started looking for the keys and I told the boys I would give them a peso about 14 cents, if they found it.  After looking for several minutes I upped the ante to 10 because we had a "Capacatacion'" Training mtg starting in Potosi.  Obviously, this wasn't the first time Lorna and I had looked for my lost keys in a potato field.  Unfortunately, Christy and Dan, realized this also, since I have left a church cell phone in a taxi in Sucre and a suit at a hotel in Potosi on our first trip. Anywho , one of the little girls found the keys, and Dan said,  I'm going to give you 20 pesos for finding it..  Her aunt (not pictured)grabbed  the keys and said they wanted 50.  We got them to settle on 20.

 

 

 

On the way back, it was late. The family live in tents on the edge of the field.  When they heard us pull in they came running out.  They got several pictures and some literature as well.  I was going to  give the aunt  a picture then pull it out of her hands and tell her that would be 50 pesos.

 

using sling shot to keep birds away

That afternoon we were finished with our apartment checks,  Lorna and I skipped out on our capacatacion meetings and went on a 4 hour private tour of the mine.

CERRO  RICO

I think we mentioned several weeks ago when we were in Potosi, that a couple of hundred years ago Potosi was the richest city in the world.  The Spaniards found out about the silver in 1534.  In the next four hundred years Spain is said to have taken enough silver bars out of the country to stretch from Potosi to Spain, and killed enough indigenous people and slaves in the mines that there bones would stretch from here to Spain.

Our guide Daniel  was great, he had worked in the mine for about 6 years before becoming a guide, he was proud of being a miner like his grandfather and like his father still is.

Daniel showing us  the dynamite

Prior to entering the mine we visited a miner tienda, where they buy their tools and dynamite, which anybody can buy.  To enter the mines you have to give the miners a gift, usually whiskey and coca leaves   We bought them a big bottle of Fanta which they love, and coca leaves.

 

We visited some limited refineries,  which were definitely not osha approved, and had some bad smelling chemicals,  this is some of the silver

 

 Potosi being around 15,000 feet, and being winter here we dressed warm to go into the mine.  after several hundred feet,  it went from growing colder to warmer.  Many places we had to duck to get through and several places we had to crawl.  The tunnel is much smaller than I suspected,  there are hundreds of tunnels in this hill.  There was small gauge track in this one, and every few minutes the guide would yell at us to get to the side, we would hug the wall and suck in our guts to have the cars miss us.  Many places  had the timber supports falling down.  We came to several vertical shafts.  Lorna proceeded climbing and sliding down them,  I was smart enough to ask if we had to climb back up them,  being assured that it was one way I went ahead.  This is a place where the miners are loading the minerals into a bucket, and raising it up the shaft by hand.  Many of the train cars are pulled by two workers with two workers pushing behind. Some are gas driven. Two cars derailed and we helped them put them back on the tracks. One shaft we slid down had workers throwing down broken timbers to the rail road cars.  The whole thing reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie.

Lorna entering mine, started out looking good  notice the narrow gauge rail

vertical shaft

broken timber and pinched air hose

 

We came to one intersection where we ran onto a repairman with a pipe wrench in his hand, (Bolivia's Goober of the Andy Griffith Show)  Daniel asked what he was doing, he said the air lines were smashed somewhere and they weren't getting air to the back of the mine,  I asked Daniel where we were going,  he said .....to the back of the mine.

 

mining cars

After crouching and crawling for what seemed hours and feeling like we were burning up, I figured we were about out.  Found out we weren't even to the back yet.  Finally we crawled through another passage way and came to Tio (uncle in Spanish) however Tio was a God  (Dios in Spanish)  The natives didn't have the  D or the S sign in the Amyra language so they were trying to say Dios but it came out Tio.  Tio  was the Devil of the mountain,  they needed to keep him happy,  He was over the minerals.  Women could never look at the silver veins in the mines.  Until recently women weren't allowed on tours in the mine.  The miners believed that Tio would lust after the women, and not bless them with silver.  After looking at Tio, he was very excited to see Lorna.  By his feet are many llama fetuses that have been given as presents to Tio for good luck. Daniel said his father would get very upset when the miners would forget to give presents to Tio on Fridays.

 

 

Loading the ore by shovel into the buckets. The minor in the middle is the oldest, 65 years old From La Paz. I shared the few words of Amayra I learned on my mission,  In turn his fellow workers from Potosi shared the same ones in Quechua, I'm proud to say that I can say Kiss my ***** in 4 languages.

 

head of TIO 

 

llama fetus' placed at his feet

 Daniel discussed  how the mines were owned by Spain for four hundred years, then private companies, then the government, all who exploited the miners.   During the past 35 years they have been owned by a cooperative.  Investors have small companies, that hire workers,  they pay into the coop  but there is a lot of factions.  Sometimes when two companies reach the same point in a vein,  wars break out.  Daniels dad was foreman of one company that fought against another,  dynamite would be used against the others and it became nasty.  When Daniel met a girl and decided to get married  they had a dinner so the parents could meet,  his father in law recognized his dad as the opposing company.  The realized they were just doing what they needed to do to keep their jobs and so they let their children marry.

After hitting my hard hat on the ceiling more times than I could count, and feeling the air get cooler,  I finally  saw the light at the end of the tunnel and could really appreciate that expression. Just as we see how the light of the Gospel changes  lives both spiritually and temporally.

 We went to dinner last week with the Chalmers, who taught seminary in Arco and Blackfoot, they are now Perpetual Education Fund Missionaries for Bolivia. This in a tremendous resource for members outside the US  to better their lives with education and pay their loans back to help future generations.  It's amazing to see people with so little be so happy.  Thanks for everyone's support by comments and emails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOLIVIAN LIFE

Bolivian high-end  Laundromat  (These lucky people get warm water exiting from the hot spring pool above where a couple of hundred others are soaking)

Jack and I had to get a new window. Bolivia doesn't have anything close to one stop shopping. They have two blocks that are just paint, but I will save that for another time. So we had to find a Vidrieria. We were driving down the street and saw this:

So of course, we had to stop ...thinking we would get a better price because they were members. Normally when people see our badges they start talking to us and tell us their cousin in LDS or what ward they are in, but this guy didn't say anything. After we ordered the glass Jack asked him about the name. He said it was just an acronym for Mo (something in Quechua) Ro (something in Quechua) Ni (something in Quechua) Who uses Moroni as an acronym? Jack told him that was the name of the angel on top of the temple and a little bit about him. The guy said he had always wanted to know more about that angel. We gave his business card to the missionaries. That will teach him to use an acronym like that without knowing the significance!

Prior to running on to Vidrieria Moroni we found this tile place. They have really special tile here. These samples are tile that is made to look like linoleum:

Who knew we had it all wrong in the US, trying to make our linoleum look like tile?

We have talked about LaCancha, the largest Mercado in South America. We are there at least 3 times a week or more and it is a never ending source of entertainment.  I didn't have a wide enough angled lens to really capture the magnitude of the shoe section:

Unfortunately the focus as you can see is on quantity, not quality.

Bolivia never got the memo 40 years ago about underground wiring, and apparently it is too late now. Everyone of their electric poles looks like this or worse. We saw some lineman one day trying to trace down wires. I have been meaning to check into the mortality rate of Bolivian linemen.  We arrived at church Sunday and Jack forgot that he was supposed to play the piano electronic keyboard for Sacrament meeting.  Jack's prayers were answered when we found there was no power in the building.  The leaders nonchalantly  stated that no one had paid the power bill so the power was cut. Just before Sacrament started the lights came on. The branch presidency had shimmied the pole and hotwired the power bypassing the meter.

We have had a really good week, despite the fact that Thursday morning we got a call from Pres. Dyer that the North American missionaries were supposed to be off of the streets by noon because the Bolivian president Evo Morales was in town and mad at the US because he thought they had influenced Europe to not let his plane land when it was suspected that Edward Snowden was aboard. Morales called a conference of the presidents of Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela and Suriname to denounce the US.  Everyone was afraid there would be problems in the streets. We were out in the morning and stopped by the phone store to pick up my phone and this is what we saw across the street

 

Their meeting was at this hotel just a few blocks from the mission office. We went home, but later that evening we got a call from the office that some new missionaries had arrived and needed beds. We had never been to their area so they told us to meet them at a rotunda near the airport. All along the way there were roadblocks and military everywhere. We were diverted and had to go into the airport to turn around and saw all of the president's planes parked. Top from right to left Venezuela, Ecuador, and Uruguay.  Bottom plane is Argentina with  Bolivia behind.

We heard there were some demonstrations around the consulate, but other than that we didn't see anything.

We have been working with a couple in our Bella Vista branch that are planning on going to the temple, Susana and Dario. They invited us to go on an outing to  Liriuni hot springs above their home.  They had been telling us about this paradise in the mountains where the waters colors ranged from turquoise to red with many varying temperatures.  Dario had to work, but Susana took us and it was very interesting and scenic. Susana worked in the kitchen at Liriuni as a young girl after her father died to support the family and was baptized in one of the hot pools. She spoke of walking down the mountain every few weeks to meet her mother. That in the olden days it was much different.  (She worked there the same years Jack was in Bolivia in the 70's) She had a good time reminiscing and showing us around. The mountains were beautiful,  Bella Vista is a flower producing area, and the country side is beautiful. We were just expecting the hot springs to be a bit more pristine. Green Canyon is far more developed as a resort.

There were a lot of people here the day we were there because the first two weeks in July school is out as it is their winter break. The temple sees a huge influx of people during this time as well.

 Like a good percentage of the older women in our branch, Susana dresses in the traditional Cholita dress, with full skirts, vests and shawls. You can tell the area the Cholita is from by the type of hat she wears. La Paz has derbys, but most of the Cholitas in the Cochabamba area wear white straw hats. In the last 25 years Cholita pride has come about. Their clothes are very clean, and on special occasions ornate, and many young nice looking women dress this way.

 

 

The hot pool water is discharged through pvc pipes into these rocks. This family is doing their laundry in the discharge because it is warm. Susana  knew these people and they let us take their picture. Almost anywhere you find water running, you will find women doing all of their laundry by hand, this includes blankets, bedding, everything. Then they spread it out on rocks or bushes to dry. I will never again in my life complain about doing laundry with a washer and dryer.

We took the road above the hot springs up and over the hill into Cochabamba. Along the way we ran into some more friends of Susana's. They were harvesting potatoes!

with picks and shovels. And they had sandals on.

In the background, women and children are sitting in the field sorting. They bag the potatoes in the blue bags and put them by the road for a truck to pick up to go straight to the outdoor market. Jack didn't even try to explain the kind of potato farming we used to do. I don't think they would have been able to comprehend such a chaotic thing! He just told them he used to do the exact same thing.   As soon as they finish harvesting a field, they turn the cows loose to clean up the remaining plant leaves and fertilize. It was hard to see, but this field was on a steep hillside. All along the way there were unbelievable views of the valley. We enjoyed our afternoon with Susana  and think the world of her and Dario.

The rest of our week has been spent delivering fridges to missionaries that have been waiting for over two months for them to arrive. They were pretty happy to see them. We are also helping get things to set up kiosks in the Saturday neighborhood markets so the missionaries can meet with people and get some more exposure. We have spent a week and a half looking for easy up awnings. If they had Sam's Club, Costco or Wal-Mart here, it would sure make our job a lot easier! Once every 3 months the regular missionaries that are near Cochabamba can attend the temple. We went with them last Tuesday. 

This is about half the missionaries in the mission
 That's it for this week. Next week we travel back to Sucre and Potosi.