I just got back 50 digital images on CD. Oh yeah, baby... 500 megs of photographic beauty. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure.
I'm on the roof of a building near the Basílica Menor de San Lorenzo.
Today was a day of blessings. It started early. We had a full morning planned: going to the bank to change dollars to bolivianos... then going to the photo store to check on the cost of scanning film to a PhotoCD... then going to the plaza and visiting a museum.
I forgot to post one of my entries from last week when I visited the Santa Cruz Zoo. If you'd like to read about it, click here.
Anyway, I'm no longer "wrestling" with the electric shower. Instead, we've settled into a strange sort of daily dance.
Tuesday was "Eat For Free Day" for me. For breakfast, I ate again with Arnold and Greta Wry, who have basically told me that any time I want to eat breakfast with them is fine. Then for lunch, Yoli and I were supposed to eat with Glennie and Marilyn Wry, but Marilyn was sick, so someone else cooked. And for dinner, Yoli took me to see her friend Gina and her husband for dinner.
But much more happened throughout the day.
I know some people have had a little trouble accessing this website at times. For reasons I don't yet understand, it appears that just using the link http://www.joshrenaud.addr.com/ is sometimes not enough. Appending index.html to the end of that address seems to work every time I try it.
If you've been having trouble, then try bookmarking this link: http://www.joshrenaud.addr.com/index.html.
There wasn't much new Monday, except for the heat. It got very hot today!
Monday morning, Yoli and I went back to El Jordán to do some work. She spent much of her time translating a prayer newsletter for Corina, while I brought my laptop and did some work for the El Jordán brochures I was asked to do.
On Sunday we had made plans to visit Yoli's uncle Adonai again, since he told us that weekends are the best time to come by. We had some breakfast and then spent time together talking about Ecclesiastes chapter 3, which is what our friends in the Bible study in St. Louis studied Saturday.
I took my first trip outside the city of Santa Cruz on Saturday. We travelled about 50 kilometers to Casa Hogar Nacer, a boys home to rehabilitate street kids.
Friday was another one of those turnabout days. When Yoli was in the States, I took her to the St. Louis Zoo. So Friday she took me to the Santa Cruz Zoo. I noticed the zoos had one thing in common immediately: the same 3-D, block-letter column spelling the word ZOO from the top down.
Thursday was an interesting day. First, the weather has been unusually mild the whole time I've been here. There were a few hot days, but overall I have to say the weather has been great. Today was especially mild, and it sprinkled a few times.
Thursday morning, Yoli and I had breakfast together and then I dried off the clothes I hadn't finished yesterday. After that we were ready for our main activity of the morning: going to the market.
On Wednesday we visited El Jord�n, which is a place street kids can go to when they want to turn their lives around. At El Jord�n, there are people the kids can talk to. They also can come to learn something practical, like typing or macrame (a type of knitting or sewing), that they can use to earn money. There is also a dentist's facility and a nice library. I spent time searching for Waldo in a "�Dond� esta Wally?" book.
To answer my dad's question about currency and exchange rates.... Here the currency is the Boliviano (the "b", pronounced "bee"). There are 7.52 Bs to 1 US dollar.
A few days ago, Yoli hurt her knee somehow when standing up to leave a restaurant. We're not sure exactly what happened, but it swelled the next day and she couldn't bend it much. Her family tried several different creams, but I'm not sure they did a lot to help.
So, yesterday we went to the Caja, which is a big health center for all workers who have national insurance. Yoli had made the appropriate insurance arrangements the day before and had secured an appointment. When we got there early in the morning, it was already packed with people.
Today I'm getting over my first (and hopefully last) bout of Montezuma's Revenge. We're not exactly sure what caused it. Theories range from some salte�as I ate on Sunday night to my drinking of tap water at the seminario (which I mistakenly believed was filtered).
Regardless, I'm feeling better. This was something I knew would happen eventually. From now on, I'll be boiling all my water at the seminario and storing it in water bottles. That should help.
Well, I'm still behind with my entries. This entry was originally written Saturday.
Saturday was Registration for the seminario. There were many students who came to get registered for classes. They come from all over South America, and some of them are Indians. Originally I was supposed to help calculate the total cost for students' books as they came through the line. But it turned out that they didn't need me to do that, so I stayed in the office with Yoli and the other secretary, Noemi (not Yoli's sister). I ended up working on the website. I did some basic layout things and also visited many other seminario websites for ideas. I also am thinking about revising the seminario's logo using Adobe Illustrator. We'll see how that goes.
Day two of my Bolivian experience ran the gamut. This entry was written Friday night, but I couldn't post it until Saturday (today).
I woke up early Friday morning and prepared to take a shower. Thankfully the guest shower has hot water. It doesn't use a hot water heater like in the U.S. Instead it is an electric shower head that heats the water as it flows through the head. I was a little scared of the thing, truth be told. I envisioned being electrocuted or something. Actually, it worked well. The problem was that the water pressure was too high and caused the bottom of the head to pop off. I had to screw it on several times before I got it tight enough to stay.
Here I am at the Seminario Teologico Hebron, and already it's been a long day!
I arrived at Santa Cruz's Viru Viru airport at 6 am (Bolivia time). My journey began at 10 am (CST) the previous day. There were a few curveballs during my connections (one flight was switched to a different plane and delayed almost 2 hours) but everything worked out okay and now I'm here.
Today and tomorrow will probably be very busy as I make all my last-minute arrangements for the trip.
I'm using a technique I learned during my time at the Management Seminar for Newspaper Editors a few years back. Basically I'm making an agenda, or list of things that need to be done. When I make myself do it, using an agenda is quite helpful.
I'm also making another list, this one is more of an inventory. I'm writing down everything that I'm packing to take with me. That way if my luggage is lost or stolen, I can report exactly what I need to have replaced.
My trusty old email address of the past 3 years finally bit the dust. Since I'm no longer a student at UMSL, I left my part-time job at the Public Policy Research Center there. Unfortunately, that meant the end of a good run for "kirkman@umsl.edu."
If you've had trouble reaching me in the past few days, that's probably why. If you need to get my NEW email address, just post a Comment here and I'll send it to you.
In "The Two Towers" he moans and screams "It burns, it burns us!" because of the Elf-made rope that Samwise uses to tie him up.
Well, my arms they are a-burnin' and a-stingin' from my immunization shots. But that's okay... At least I'll be protected and healthy on my trip. And thankfully I got in and out of the health clinic quickly.
Quick enough, in fact, that I was able to get to UMSL in time to take my second (and final) exit exam. With that out of the way, I should officially graduate this Sunday. Wow, how about that. I made it out in 4.5 years. Not bad!
Praise God! The replacement part for my PowerBook's power supply arrived today, just one day after it was ordered. I picked it up this afternoon and the PB is now running great. The battery is fully charged again, and I've been spending time getting everything installed and ready.
I almost ran into trouble with OS X. The PB wouldn't boot from the OS X installer CD, and I was getting scared that the RAM in the computer might not be up to snuff. But it turns out the CD itself was just a little too dirty. So after cleaning it off, everything installed perfectly. Whew, crisis averted.
I guess I haven't written here about WHY exactly I'm going to Bolivia. Well, put simply, there are two reasons: my girlfriend Yoli and volunteer work.
My Pismo PowerBook arrived yesterday, and I am very pleased with it. It's a better machine than what I'm currently using, and has everything I wanted when I started looking for one: dvd, cd-rw, zip drive, lots of ram, etc.
There's only one problem: The power supply isn't working right. But I took it to the Apple Store today, and they're going to replace it for free. I just have to wait a couple days for the replacement to arrive. That'll be hard, since I am really itching to use this computer. But I can live with it, since it's free. :)
Today I'm taking one of two required "exit exams" so that I can graduate from UMSL.
I've fulfilled all my academic requirements for my communication degree. But unless I take these tests, I can't graduate. The ridiculous thing is that these tests mean nothing. If I get all the answers wrong on the test, I still graduate. I am only required to *take* them.
Anyway, I keep thinking of this as my "second-to-last test ever," but my heart knows better... tests are inescapable. I'm sure I'll have to take more of them at some point down the road.
Justin's wedding this weekend and an online chat with Yoli this morning have really got me excited about this trip. This morning I corresponded with Yoli's friend Maria Esther and her fiancee Mark about their recent trip to Bolivia. Mark was able to give me a very helpful perspective.
Last Friday I travelled with my family to St. James, Mo. for my younger brother Justin's wedding. The weekend went well overall. I got to see many of my relatives that I haven't seen in years. Most importantly, I think Justin and his bride Becca will be very happy.
