Day 48 - The Bolivians at the SCCLC

The Bolivians at the SCCLC

I am feeling very welcome at the Christian Learning Center, SCCLC.  I have people that are taking care of me and treating me like family.  So I thought I would write a blog of just saying thank you.  I said before, I am not mentioning complete names; I don’t want to go to each person and ask if I can mention them in my blog.  Some people will know who these are and others will not.

First I have to mention the guys who treated me like family when I was here in the 80s.  Carlos is still here, married to Sandra, and their two kids are in the school.  Carlo’s mom, Aida, whose has since gone to be with the Lord, treated me like I was a family member, regularly inviting me to dinner and once when I came back to visit, asking me to stay in their home.  Carlos is the middle child.  The older son, Mario, lives in the States, and the girl, Marisol, lives in La Paz.  They still treat me like family.

Debbie was a missionary kid when I taught her in the 80s.  Today she is married to a Bolivian pastor, Percy.  They have three kids, the oldest in college, and the younger two at the SCCLC in high school.  Debbie is an American by birth, but has spent so much of her life here, is married to a Bolivian, and is the pastor’s wife of a Bolivian church of around 400, that she is as about Bolivian as it gets.  Debbie has been continually taking care of me, as well as giving me room to be independent here.  And I love her church.

Yaskará is the school secretary.  Daily she asks how I am doing in English and expects me to respond in Spanish.  If my Spanish has errors, she corrects it.  Any time I ask her a question, she stops what she is doing and gives me her undivided attention, even if that means taking me across campus.

Jhonny, yes that is how he spells it, works in the school office in finances.  I get a good Bolivian handshake from him every day.  What is a Bolivian handshake? Part is what you expect, right hand grasping right hand. The left hand that grips the right shoulder.  He goes to Debbie’s church so I see him on Sunday’s too.  He and his wife lost a baby in March, but he is never without a smile.

Rolby is the gate guard on duty during the day.  Some mornings I arrive before him, but not that often.  Usually I take a taxi from the school and he can call one for me on a walky-talky.  Like these others I am mentioning here, he is a Christian.  I have been invited to his church as well as a few others, though I think I will stick with Berea.

Martha shares a classroom with me and teaches Spanish.  If you can imagine the difficulty sharing a classroom with another teacher, she seems to make it easy.  She is always with a smile and helpful suggestions on how we can make it work.  She has a 12^th grade boy I will be teaching this year.  One day she brought me homemade tacos – yummy!  And she has invited me to go with her and some friends to Samaipata this weekend. 

Fernando and Mariela are one of the nicest couples I have ever met.  Both are gentle and soft-spoken.  Mariela teaches Spanish and, with Martha, plans many of the acto civicos for the school.  The acto civicos are like governmentally established days where schools are to honor the nation, kinda like Veterans’ Day or Memorial Day.  Fernando is in charge of technology at the SCCLC.  I have been surprised that the SCCLC is as advanced as Nash Intermediate is technologically.

Today I got to know the kindergarten and pre-kindergarten teachers.  Andrea is a beautiful young lady that I discovered knows many of the Bolivians I know.  She told a hilarious story about the year she lived in the States, not knowing how self-service gas stations work.  They are still full service here in Bolivia. She has a bit of a run-in with the pump and found herself covered in gasoline.  She and her husband pastor a church.  Joyce is a pastor’s daughter.  In the 80s I attended Pastor Raul’s church.  I discovered today she is a friend of his family, since her father was a member of the same church organization.  I was hoping to visit his church one day, but discovered Pastor Raul died two years ago.  He was one of the few men I called Pastor.

There are others I am just getting to know, like Matilde,who gave me a cup of cold water today when she saw I was getting too hot.  Remember what Jesus taught about giving a cup of water in his name?  There is Daniel who will be teaching 6^th grade and Ingrid and Elizabeth who work in the office.  Macario is in charge of maintenance.  And I can see a few faces in my mind, but I don’t have the names to go with the faces yet.

I will end with the gardener, Felix.  He is a little old man about half my height.  Seriously, I doubt he is over 5 feet.  Every day he is meticulously caring for the beautiful plants in the garden, and by garden I mean the school, because it is a beautiful little garden.  When I shake hands he grasps my right hand in both his hands, smiles, and tells me something about his garden.  When I get to Heaven I want to work in gardening and it would be an honor to work next to Felix.