I'm sure I woke up a few times along the flight. It was your standard Boeing 757 with 3 and 3. No more room than a normal U.S. flight. Tucker and I woke up for good around 5 am, a little outside La Paz, Bolivia, where we touched down long enough to unload and reload passengers to our destination of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
We got off the plane around 7:30 am on Sunday. The temperature in La Paz (high in the mountains) was around 30 degrees, but here in Santa Cruz (about the altitude of Ames) it was humid and in the 70's. We headed directly to get our visas and go through customs, which didn't amount to much other than giving them $135.00.
Once through customs we met two of our canadian hosts, Warren McCaig and Jason Heibert. Both guys were in their late 20's, early 30's.
Warren and his family, wife Jackie and 2 year old daughter Nora, have been missionaries in Bolivia for 7 years. Warren is extremely bright and God is doing amazing things through he and his wife. He juggles many different ministries, which I'll expand on later. But suffice it to say I was amazed how much he had going on.
Jason, his wife, Shannon and their 4 young kids, had just arrived in Bolivia a month ago. They were brand new to the Bolivian mission field and were still learning the ropes. The whole family would be with us during our trip, learning much of what we were learning. Jason had given up a secure job with a water treatment facility in Canada, with only 15 years left until retirement, to follow Christs leading.
We loaded Warren's and Jason's SUV's with all our stuff and we loaded in the bus for our trip through the city to Warren's house for a brunch, lunch, and orientation.
My first reaction to Santa Cruz wasn't suprising of a third world country, I suppose. Signs of economic distress were everywhere. I was surprised to see the scale of projects that had been started and never finished. It was all to common to drive by a location and see a large high rise that had been under construction, but for whatever reason never finished. We're talking years ago and just left there, untouched.
Here's a picture of a stadium. Probably the size of the Iowa Speedway in Newton, just left totally incomplete.
Granted, it was Sunday, but I was also surprised at the amount of people along the streets. They didn't really seem to be going anywhere. Just hanging out, loitering around.
We also saw a guy taking a nap, in a tire, ON the road.
As we drove along I wondered where the "nice" parts of town were. Everywhere we drove there was litter, old buildings, unfinished buildings, small shops, just generally unkept buildings. But, I'm not sure there is a "nice" part of town, in American standards. Other than The Plaza, which was the city square, Everything looked similar.
After about 40 minutes we pulled into Warren's neighborhood, a gated community that was very nice. It even had a pool.
After we were introduced to the families, we had a quick brunch of fruits and bolivian pastries. They had one pastry that looked to be filled with spinach that was absolutely fantastic. When I went back to get a second or third, they were gone. Who would have thought a pastry filled with spinach would be a hit!
We sat out in their patio and beautiful backyard.
After brunch we sat down and got a orientation of our surroundings and week to come. They provided us with reading material that gave a quick overview of Bolivia and the different people that make up it's citizens. All of which came directly from
Wikipedia, but I'll paraphrase here.
Much of Bolivia's ethnic distribution is Amerindian (indigenous to South America). Much like North American Native Americans, they consist of a number of subgroups, the largest being the Quechuas, which we would have the opportunity to meet in San Isidro. All the different groups had they're own native language, but since Spain conquered the area, Spanish was spoke by almost all.
The national religion of Bolivia is Roman Catholicism, but Protestant denominations are prevalent as well. The literacy rate is low in rural areas (San Isidro).
Much of the country's people, almost two-thirds, live in poverty. Most of which are subsistence farmers.
We also had a brief lesson on their culture and how it is very much different than ours. The importance of relationships versus the importance of the task being completed was discussed. They are much more concerned about the relationships than the outcome. They put a priority on a "feel good" atmosphere and not wasting one's time. Where as we tend to be more concerned about the task at hand and efficiency of completion.
We also talked about greetings and expectations. One can greet everyone with one salutation and that's acceptable, but if you greet a person individually you need to greet everyone individually. They also do the kiss on a cheek thing, which made me a little nervous!
It was all very worthwhile and interesting.
Once we finished up with the orientation we had lunch. Chicken is very popular, and this would be the first of many meals that served chicken, white rice, and fries. Very tasty.
After lunch we got ready for our five to seven hour road trip to San Isidro. No one knew for sure how long it would take us to get there, since travelling there by bus was a first for them. But suffice it to say, it was on the longer end of the estimate. I'm guessing we left around 12 and pulled into our place of stay at 8 pm.
The trip up was interesting and crazy to say the least.
Outside the city the countryside got beautiful. We were in the foothills of the Andes. The mountians were covered in green vegetation and the small towns were full of stands with fruit.
Again, the roads were full with people on either side, but out in the country they were typically heading somewhere.
One thing you noticed as you got outside the city was the people were darker complected than in the city. More full blood Bolivian. The conditions of the homes and towns became poorer, but there seemed to be less litter. Maybe because they didn't have anything to litter with? Not sure.
One other observation about Bolivia. There is someone changing a tire on every block! The roads were awful in places (huge potholes) and speed bumps everywhere. With the amount of people walking along the highways, I see the need for speed regulation, but the amount of tires being changed, the people would be money ahead in the long run putting in sidewalks. Vehicles would drive off the road almost into pedestrians to avoid the speed bumps.
Which reminds me of the driving philosophy there. In the U.S. we are taught to be defensive in our driving style. The order of importance goes from the smallest to largest (pedestrian, bicycle, motorcylce, car, trucks). In Bolivia its the opposite. Trucks, then cars, then pedestrian. If your walking you get out of the way or your going to get run over. Motorcycles have their own rules. They can go in and out or between vehicles. There are lanes painted on the roads, but I'm not sure they mean anything other than a guide. Stoplights, same thing, purely a guide. No real rule. If it's red, it just means the cross way is green. It certainly didn't seem to mean stop.
As we got into the mountains, that's when it started to get hairy.
I'm not saying it was as bad as The Deadliest Roads on the History channel, but it felt like it at times on that bus. We curved around, up and down those mountains with cars, trucks, and buses passing us and we them. It didn't matter if there was a curve coming up or couldn't see around the vehicle in front of you, they'd just pass on these barely two lane roads. Some of the road would be washed out from old mud slides, so you'd have to go slow.
The views were amazing, but I was sitting shotgun to David and pretty sure I was white knuckled and holding my breath for most of the trip. The video below shows a section of the road we were on. We are following a truck carrying sacks of goods. There are two young children riding on top of the cargo. Watch as cars and even a bus pass. This was probably a couple of the safer passes I saw.
Here are some of the views from the trip up. In the top two pictures, look for the houses. Amazing views from there I bet.
As we got closer to our destination it got dark, but the roads got less busy, which made it a little better. I did notice david keep looking at his bus' temperature gauge though.......
We finally rolled into Monteblanco, which was our accommodations for the week. We threw our stuff in our rooms, quickly grabbed supper and boarded the bus to go to the 8:00 pm church service at Iglesia Evangelica Getsemani.
We all walked in U.S. style, fashionably late. Warren was ushered to the front of the church where he introduced us. The pastor, Pastor Anjel, who doesn't speak any english, allowed everyone in the congregation to meet and shake hands. There were probably about 50 or so people in attendance that night. My concerns of having to kiss cheeks turned out to be nothing. Although I did see one in our group making an effort!
The pastor then had a few of us up to share our testimony with the congregation. Warren interpreted for us. I got the opportunity to share my testimony first. I'm sure it's the only one they remember from the whole week........
Dustin gave the sermon that night. Doing an admirable job of preaching Acts 2:42-47. He spoke about the brotherhood of Christ. How all of us in that room, whether we were from the U.S. or Bolivia, were family in Christ. He did a great job of setting the tone for the remainder of the week. Christ showed us throughout the week, that we weren't there to do anything FOR the Bolivians. We were there to work, play, eat ALONG SIDE the Bolivians as brothers and sisters that believe in Jesus.
After the service we took a quick look at what the construction crew would be tackling the next day. They were a bit unsure how far along the locals would be in the construction process. And with the distance of communication they didn't really know what to expect. They were pleased to see the columns of the structure were up and the steel framed trusses up as well, but still didn't know what to expect in the morning.
We loaded the bus and headed back to camp for a good night sleep after a long, long journey!
Hand sanitizer
Flashlight