July 6, 2017 - A Busy Weekend

A Busy Weekend

My weekend included gorging on ice cream while listening to the son of a friend play the guitar at a local restaurant, eating a delicious lunch and walking in the river, and coffee with several of the seniors at the SCCLC.

Saturday evening, I was invited to listen to Diego, the son of my former student Jimena, play the guitar at the Cuore di Latte, a little restaurant near the Cristo monument.  I’ve run into him a few times while exploring the city.  Not only is he a good guitarist, but he is a fantastic amateur photographer.  If you are on Instagram look for santacruzdelasierraoficial.  Dinner with Jimena’s family was fun.  The kids played a game of what dip goes best with French fries – water seemed to be the crowd favorite.  

Sunday, I went to church, but had plans for lunch with Martha, a teacher at the SCCLC, and her friend Kimberly.  She is a young missionary working with children with disabilities, a good Christian, and fun to be hang out with.  We had lunch at the Cabañas de Pirai, an area at the river with dozens of restaurants.  We had soup, grilled pork, and loud music.

After lunch, we walked to the river.  At this time of year, it is dry enough to walk across.  There is a tradition that if you have walked across the Pirai River you can call yourself a Camba.  I did cross it several times in the 80s, but that wasn’t good enough for Martha.  She made me do it again.  This river flows north, eventually joining the Mamore, the river I was on last week in the Beni.  It continues north, absorbing dozens of Bolivian and Brazilian rivers until it finally joins the Amazon near Manaus.  The Pirai, during the rainy season is a big river, easily dwarfing the Trinity.  The Mamore, even in the dry season, is huge.  I cannot imagine the Amazon.

Monday morning, I topped off an enjoyable weekend by meeting three of the recently graduated seniors of the SCCLC at the Café Patrimonio.  Jisu had planned this for a few weeks, but what he didn’t count on was temperatures in the mid-50s and 30mph winds.  With humidity, that is bone chilling.  The cold led them to discuss the winters where they will be studying.  Shekinah will be in Tennessee and Sarah in Ottawa.  Sarah will be cold.  Jisu is planning on studying in Victoria, BC.  I don’t think he realizes yet that hw is going to be in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

I ended my morning by meeting Melissa at the SCCLC.  She was here as a SAM missionary, teaching high school literature.  She is an amazing teacher.  For fun, she rewrote the 4^th Harry Potter book from the point of view of Hermione.  She can’t publish it, of course.  There are copyright laws about that.  But she printed it for friends who were willing to pay the cost of printing it.

I’d say this was a busy, but interesting weekend.