January 7, 2017 - Catching up with Friends

January 7, 2017 – Catching up with Friends

On Saturday morning, July 2, 2016, my first full day back in Bolivia, I woke up about 4:00, then 5:00, and finally around 6:00.  I sat outside under a tree writing what happened on Friday, while making plans for the day and Monday.

At 12:30 Sandra and Andrea picked me up for lunch.  They gave me several choices of places to eat.  The first was Mexican food.  I have never had Mexican food in Bolivia, so I had to say yes to that.  It tasted more Mexican than Tex-Mex, but delicious.  What is even better about the place, is that it is just 3 blocks from an apartment I am considering renting.  The choice for that apartment just went much higher among my choices.  I felt like I was in Bolivia!  How do I describe it?  Well, it is on a side street, so I never would have found it otherwise.  It wasn’t fancy, so I might have ignored it.  It was cheap – around $7 for a plate of food.  Everything about the setting made me think of Bolivia.  The utensils wrapped in paper napkins.  Paper napkins on the table.  Sodas served without ice.  It felt like I was home. I had enchiladas Mexicanas with a side of one taco Gringo.  So the enchiladas were with a stewed chicken, more what you’d expect in Bolivia than in Texas.  It was topped with cheese, but not soaked in cheese like we do in Texas.  The beans were not refried and the rice was not what you’d expect in a Mexican restaurant, but they had the feel of a good homemade meal in Bolivia.  The pico de gallo was as good, if not better than any you’d get in Texas.  It was a good meal – you can see from the picture.

It was also great to catch up with good friends.  Sandra was my student back in the 80s.  She is now an adult with two sons.  I will be teaching her older son, Carlos, in the fall semester.  Andrea, her younger sister, was in kinder or first grade when I last taught here, so she was never my student.  Andrea just told me she accepted a job teaching for the next two years in Dubai.  Both of them are excellent English teachers.  They have developed their own system that works.  I don’t know what they do, because it is secret.  Parents who want their kids to go to the English-speaking schools get them to teach their kids. 

After lunch I was planning on going apartment hunting again, but that was postponed until Monday.  I took a short nap until Mom texted me.  So I then I went for a walk around the neighborhood looking for a good picture of a pink tree.  It is a beautiful neighborhood with beautiful homes, beautiful apartment buildings, and lots of nice restaurants.  I honestly wouldn’t mind getting stuck here.  And I found my tree.  It is called tajibos, which I mentioned before.  When standing under one, I thought I smelled cotton candy.  I picked up a blossom and yes, it smells like cotton candy.  There were parakeets in the tree eating the blossoms.  The scientific name is tabebuia morea for my science friends.

Life is good.  I am thankful that God has allowed me to return.  I pray my time here will be meaningful.  I don’t know what the school will be like, but I am hoping I can become an author.

Isaiah 40:8 – The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord stands forever.

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January 6, 2017 – The Plaza at night

January 6, 2017 – The Plaza at night

The sun goes down in Bolivia and the people come out.  It is so different than living in suburban or rural America.  A walk to a neighborhood plaza and everybody is there.

This was one of my favorite posts from July of 2016.  After living in Bolivia for almost six months before coming home for a family emergency, I often found myself roaming the streets at 8:00 or 9:00.  I always felt safe, whether in Santa Cruz, Samaipata, Tarija, or Sucre.

Back in the 80s, when I first went to Bolivia, I lived like an American my first year.  That meant after school was over, I was at home eating my dinner around 5:00 or 6:00, and then watching TV until bed time.  If I went out with friends, and my first year my friends were all Americans, it was for dinner around 5:00 or 6:00, the normal dining time in the States.  I was amazed at the empty restaurants.  How did they stay open? I wondered.  There might be four of us eating and ten people working in the restaurant.

Slowly, I made new friends, many of them Bolivian.  They never went out to eat before the sun set.  That just wasn’t normal to them.  They might pick me up for dinner at 8:00 or 9:00.  If they say 8:00, that might mean 8:30.  And the same restaurants were filled with clients and life.

I started venturing out more and exploring.  At first, my explorations were in daylight.  I occasionally got lost.  But after a while in Bolivia, I rarely ate before 7:00, and I rarely stayed indoors at night.  I discovered that Bolivia comes alive after dark.

Once it was dark, families would stroll down the street or in the plazas scattered around town.  Years ago, I discovered the Plaza Blacut, where I live now.  Here you will find people of all ages.  Kids riding bikes or tricycles.  Parents chatting with friends.  A young couple smooching on a bench.  Teens meeting up to walk around the plaza, girls looking for boys and boys flirting with girls.  Vendors selling food or toys for the kids.  A little boy climbing a tree and several old men looking at a newspaper together.  It was a place of community and family getting together.

Some neighborhoods are quieter than others, but rarely will you find the streets empty.  I remember seeing families sitting on their stoop watching TV, while the kids ran up and down the street.  After a while, you begin to feel it is safe on the streets of Santa Cruz, Bolivia at night.

When I returned to Texas in 1989, I still went for walks after dark.  Nobody was outside.  Nobody was walking.  I remember someone looking through their curtains at me, probably wondering if I was casing the joint.  Eventually I stopped because it didn’t feel quite right.

The truth is that there is probably not a safer place to live than in Texas.  Our crime is low and people own guns.  Our streets are safe in Texas.  Yet people still lock themselves in their houses after dark.  I don’t think Bolivia is quite as safe.  There is a lot of poverty.  I realize as I walk through the market that I might spend more in a day than some of the ladies working there spend on their families in a week.  They are poor.  Some people get desperate and might steal from you.  But I feel safe on the streets in the evenings here.  Go figure!

If you live in a safe neighborhood, get out and walk.

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January 5 - I'm Home

January 5, 2017 - I’m Home

This is a repost of my blog when I first arrived home in Bolivia in July, 2016.

I was sitting in my room at the New Tribes Mission House, enjoying the breeze and listening to the sounds of the city; honking horns, whistles of guys who park cars, cars accelerating.  I could hear a parrot from somewhere around there.  The dog at the compound, Watcher, occasionally barked if someone came too close to the gate, but he is really a sweetheart.  They just don’t know that.  It was around 70 to 75 degrees, with a nice breeze blowing.  It was Saturday morning. 

Debbie and her kids, Shekinah and Joash, met me at the airport the day before.  Because the flight was coming through La Paz, they were expecting me at 10:30, three hours late.  Luckily Debbie was following my progress online and saw I came an hour earlier.  Really two hours late, but … go read yesterday’s blog.

I was so tired, but so excited to be home.  I probably talked a mile a minute on the drive to the mission house.  I was staying across the street from one of my favorite little plazas in Santa Cruz, at the New Tribes Mission House, a place that reminds me of the mission homes from the 80s.  I guess some things don’t really change.  There were trees blooming all over town, the hot pink tajibos (pronounced ta- he- bows). 

I was tired and debated what to do.  Part of me wanted to take a nice long nap, only I was afraid if I napped I would sleep until evening, so I decided on a different plan.  That started with a nice hot shower.  Then I walked to the Plaza.  First, I wanted to get a new phone.  My iPhone was locked for a few weeks, waiting on ATT.  If I want to talk or text friends here, I needed a cheap phone.  I got a nice little phone, with a lot of texting time for $70.  I might be told by someone that I spent too much, but I was mostly seeing phones for $250 or more.

I had a good lunch of empanadas at a restaurant overlooking the Plaza called La Pascana (soon this would be my favorite restaurant).  Empanadas are like a turnover, but filled with savory ingredients.  In this case, chicken.  Often in Bolivia the fillings are more like a stew filling.  At least that is my interpretation.  They are usually very juicy, but not greasy.  I had three of them for lunch and three for dinner.  The doors of the restaurant were open so I could enjoy the breeze.  It was winter here and many people were wearing sweaters or jackets, though it was only about 75 degrees.  To me the weather was perfect. 

While back at the mission house, I talked to Richard, the man in charge, about my laptop.  It has the three-pronged plug.  If I were to use it as is, I would destroy my laptop and blow out the lights at the mission house too.  So I went searching for a converter.  I saw no shops that looked like they could help me, so I strolled through Siete Calles Market in hopes of finding one.  I found a stall that sold phones and accessories, that looked promising.  A girl working there referred me to a man.  I showed him a picture of my plug and he said he could find what I was looking for.  He vanished.  The girl said he’d be back.  Five minutes later he came back with a converter. 

I went back to the Plaza later to meet a friend.  Ximena is a real estate agent and is looking for apartments for me.  She had one to show me my first day there.  It was a beautiful $600 a month apartment on the 7th floor of a building across the street from another one of my favorite little plazas with beautiful toborochis and tajibos.  The apartment was furnished, and included cable and Wi-Fi.  It was modern and clean, included cleaning and laundry service for a cheap price.  There was a convenience store on the first floor that was open till 10:00, a pool, and the roof had a 360-degree view of the city.  The roof would be a nice place to write in the mornings. 

I liked it but I wanted to wait till I saw the others she had.

But by the time I got back to the mission house I was exhausted.  It was only 7:00, but I was asleep in minutes.

January 4 - The Mojón con Cara

January 4, 2017

The Mojón con Cara

Several weeks ago, I wrote a blog on the Bolivian legend of the Mojón con Cara.  There is a carved mojón, best described as a hitching post or a boundary marker, on Calle Republiquetas and Calle Rene Moreno.  This has always been one of my favorite stories, a legend that speaks to me of the culture of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

The legend is a love story of a girl and boy who were of different backgrounds, yet they found love, despite the obstacles of social class.

Coming to Bolivia this year, I have reacquainted myself with Bolivian friends of long ago, like Carlos, Sandra, Jimena, Carmen, and Debbie.  I have also made new Bolivian friends, such as Fernando, Mariela, José, Ninoska, Martha, Rebecca, Matildé, and Anna.  They learned early on that I was writing a blog about my experiences in Bolivia.  And they discovered that I love Bolivia, often thanking me for writing about their country with such love.  I do love this country.  I will never be Bolivian, but Bolivia will always be in my heart.

So one day, I was thinking, a dangerous thing to do, and decided I wanted to do a short novel that expresses my love for Bolivia.  That novel, which I am pleased to announce is complete, is based on the legend of the Mojón con Cara.  It is now for sale on Amazon in both paperback and e-book formats.  If you are in the area, and you want me to sign it, I will be more than happy to accommodate you.

My dear friend, Mariela, helped me a lot. Several times she gave me the key to her house in Samaipata and told me to go write, relax and be inspired.  She gave me ideas on names that would sound as if they came from Santa Cruz, not just a common Spanish name.  And she took the time to edit my novel, suggesting things that would create a more Bolivian feel to it.

This is a short novel, but I am proud of it.  You should be able to read the entire novel in a single sitting.

Psalm 147:4 – He determines the number of stars… and calls them all by name.

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January 3 - A Picture Perfect Travel Day

January 3, 2017

Picture Perfect Travel Day

This is a repost of one of my very first blogposts, a description of my flight to Santa Cruz on June 30^th and July 1^st, 2016.  I think you will quickly learn that I am being facetious to say it was picture perfect.  To be honest, it seems about half or more of all of my flights seem to go wrong.

I woke up early on Thursday, June 30th.  This was my day to travel, but I really didn’t have a lot to do, except a small load of laundry.  Mom, made good spaghetti for lunch with garlic cheese toast – fond memories of my mom’s good cooking.  She doesn’t think she cooks well, but what she does makes my mouth water.

Grandma asked me each time I brought a bag downstairs where I was going.  Each time I said Bolivia and she then asked, “How long will you be gone?”  Her memory is not so good anymore, so I didn’t want to upset her.  I said I’d be gone a few weeks.  When I told her that I was going to Bolivia to live, teach, and write, she got upset.  I didn’t want to get her upset.

Finally, my brother arrived and it was time to say goodbye.  I’ve said a lot of goodbyes lately.  I don’t know when I will back; probably Christmas, but maybe next summer. I have family and friends who are not that young.  I am almost 60!  I don’t know what will happen while I am gone.  If Mom had started crying I would have lost it.  Luckily my brother talked about Game of Thrones and a game he loves all the way to the airport.

So, now the adventure begins.  I arrive and start taking care of my ticket.  They won’t let me take my third bag.  I had the forethought to divide everything evenly when I packed.  Three button-up shirts in bag one; three in bag two; and two in bag three since it is smaller.  I did everything that way from shirts and pants to underwear and socks, and shoes.  I had an ugly pair of black shoes that were good for walking around the city.  It seems there is an embargo on extra luggage in Bolivia and other parts of South America.  Why I don’t really know, but that is part of the adventure of travelling.

My first flight is on time.  I am near the back, but have a window seat.  People keep heading my way and I look at so many and dread that they might be sitting by me.  I am in the mood to want to think and feeling homesick.  A young man, dressed for the beach sits by me.  He is maybe 25.  Eventually we talk when someone almost drops a bag on his head.  He thinks it is funny and promises to sit higher so the bag doesn’t smash into me.  I was thinking I was lucky because my day was going so smoothly after he told me his story.

He and his wife, and some friends got up early in Idaho that morning planning on being in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands for the weekend.  His flight was delayed for two hours in Idaho, meaning they missed their connection in Miami.  They were on standby and luckily were crammed into this flight.  When they get into Miami, they were told they would have to get a hotel, because there would be no more flights to St. Thomas until the next morning; and even then, they would be on standby.  So much for a weekend at the beach!

Our flight was uneventful.  I could look out the window and follow I-20 out from the airport until the edge of Texas.  I recognized roads, highways, and even buildings.  Bristol and Ennis were too far away, but I easily saw Kaufman, Texas with the new Highway 34 skirting the town.  It was a beautiful mass of trees surrounded by pastures for hay and cattle.  Then came Canton, which is smaller than I expected, and Tyler.  I was just there last week to see the zoo and rose garden.  And then we left Texas.

We arrived in Miami as the sun was setting.  The twilight and bright city lights made the city look gorgeous from above.  I told my neighbor it was a pretty night to enjoy the city.  He was thinking of the beach in St. Thomas instead, so not so amused at my idea. 

We landed on time, but we didn’t dock right away.  We sat on the tarmac for over 30 minutes before we went to our gate.  So now I was the one beginning to freak out.  I only had an hour and a half layover, so I did the math.  Twenty minutes for the people ahead of me to get off the plane, maybe thirty.  Then I’d have to go to my gate.  The Miami D Terminal goes on forever.  Ten gates is like thirty at DFW.  My gate was 44 and we came in at gate 21.  That is a long walk.  I was beginning to pray I’d get there on time, and I really needed to stop at a bathroom.

While walking down the incredibly long terminal, I would stop and see the flight status.  Gate 44 – on time; then it changed to Gate 48 – on time; then Gate 49 – delayed.  By the time I got to gate 49, it was moved to 51 and delayed until 11:00, 45 minutes late.  So now was the time for waiting.  At 11:30, not having boarded yet, very suspiciously, the airline brings us chips and sodas to drink.  I start talking to a couple from La Paz about the delay.  They were Christians and very nice, but I could not understand them clearly.  I have lost my Spanish!  They were telling me that people loved to have strikes on the highway from the airport.  I joked that I might be home before they got home (this flight was going to La Paz first, then another half hour to Santa Cruz).  My travel app, TripCase, showed the flight delayed until 12:30, then 12:45, then 12:55, and then 1:15.  We started loading the plane at 1:45.

I was sitting between two kids, probably in college.  I found out later both were from Cochabamba.  Though both were little, I was squeezed in the middle.  I am old and fat, I was very uncomfortable.  Everybody was sleeping almost as soon as they hit their seat.  I don’t usually sleep well on planes, but I managed to sleep.  Then the plane started screaming at us, making many jump.  You know planes have those automated announcements?  Everyone was sleeping.  Why not turn them off?  Five minutes of announcements, pause for ten minutes, then they started over again. 

Around 3:00 the lights come on for dinner.  I hadn’t eaten since Mom’s spaghetti, and I didn’t know when I’d eat again, so I ate.  The boy next to me was sleeping until they were finished serving.  Then he got his meal.  When he saw I didn’t eat my salad or desert, he took them.  How is it that a kid of 20, easily half my size can eat twice what I eat and stay skinny?  Jealous!  Then the lights went off again and I managed to sleep until daybreak, as we were approaching Bolivia. My back was hurting and my stomach was doing somersaults.

At daybreak, we had an interesting announcement on the speaker.  It was in English first, so many did not understand it.  The girl next to me did, but not the boy on the other side.  We would not be landing in La Paz, but heading straight for Santa Cruz.  I still don’t understand why, but it seems since we left so late, they could not send the crew through customs.  Someone feel free to explain it to me.  For me it was good.  We were originally delayed for three hours and this cut the delay back to just two hours.  For others, not so much.  The girl next to me had a connection to Cochabamba, which she already missed.  Now she would have to find another.  The boy had his mother waiting in La Paz and they were flying together to Cochabamba.  He would have to figure out how to tell his mother he was in Santa Cruz.  He said a few choice words, that I did understand, but I got the gist of it.

I arrived in Santa Cruz, customs were slow, and I was desperate for a bathroom, but I arrived.  Debbie Miranda and her kids were at the gate to greet me.  I said before, I hate traveling, but I love getting there.

Ecclesiastes 7:8 says, “The end of a matter is better than its beginning.” So very true.

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January 2 - My First Novel

January 2, 2017

My First Novel – The Spartan Sisters

This is a rewrite from a blog in August, 2016, about my novel of the Trojan War.

When I was a kid, I loved Greek mythology.  When a new school year would begin, I would open my literature book to find out if there was a section on it and had it read within a day or two.  I read every mythology book in all my school libraries and the Duncanville Public Library too.  And then I would read them again.  One of my high school teachers convinced me to participate in a state academic competition in the mythology division.  I was sure that I’d do average, but I won!  All that reading paid off.

Years passed and I started teaching at Nash Elementary (now Intermediate), in Kaufman, Texas.  One rainy, boring Saturday, I was watching an old movie based on the Greek tragedy The Trojan Women, by Euripides.  It is about the women captured after the fall of Troy.  As I watched, I realized I knew every character and her importance to the story.

For fun, and because I was bored, I started writing down everything I remembered about the Trojan War.  After a day of writing I had more than a dozen pages.  I looked at it and realized I had the makings of a novel.  I started that day writing feverishly.  If I wasn’t at work or church, I wrote.  When there was something I forgot, or couldn’t see the connection to the story, I’d buy a book to help me figure it out and read all week to know every detail.  It was a long time before I told anyone about my novel, more than a year.  I think that was fear of being rejected.  What if people thought it was a stupid idea or they didn’t think my writing was that good?  But I can’t begin to describe the joy I felt writing.

A few things bothered me about the Greek stories.  The characters did not seem well developed.  Helen was no more than a pretty mannequin.  Why did she do what she did?  Some characters were super heroes one minute and a crying baby the next.  That didn’t feel right.  Not everything about the war is in the Iliad or the Odyssey, some are in the Greek tragedies, like The Trojan Women or Ajax, and a dozen others.  I didn’t want my characters boring and I wanted them to have reasons for doing what they did.

One of my decisions that came late in my writing was to eliminate the Greek gods altogether.  With them my novel would just be a fantasy and my characters ceased to have any real meaning.  Without the Greek gods I could explore things like why Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon when he returns from war or why Achilles gets so angry at Agamemnon or why Helen runs off with a total stranger.

The story of the Trojan War has a hundred characters.  Eventually I cut the novel down to four main characters: Agamemnon, Helen, Clytemnestra, and Achilles.  I never could get rid of Odysseus, so he is still a major character.  The other guys could stay in the novel, but they became secondary to the others. There are a lot of secondary characters!  My main characters needed a backstory for their lives to make sense and that is what I tried to do.  The secondary characters make the backstories more believable. 

Spring of 2016, as I was preparing to come to Bolivia, and I was saving all my novels on flash drives, I came to my final decision.  I need to tell it in first person.  These guys needed to tell their own story so I could say what they think.  That changed a lot of scenes.  A lot needed to be eliminated and some things needed to be added.

And then one night, at the end of July.  I was finished and had published it as an e-book on Amazon.  I didn’t sell a lot of those e-books, probably because most of my friends either don’t read or they read books made of ink and paper.  In mid-December, I discovered that Amazon had started publishing paperback books.  A few weeks later my book was in my hands.  My dream of many years.

And now my nightmare!  I can’t tell you how many times I edited that book.  I have read it over and over too many times to count.  I have my new novel in my hands and am reading it and now glaring at me is an error.  What?  Yes, I found a mistake.  I read the book cover to cover and found a dozen mistakes.  I learned a lesson, you can never edit too much and find someone to edit for you, if possible. 

I told my dad the other day about that and he laughed.  He said he has a friend that looks for first editions, especially those that are known to have errors.  It seems they are more valuable than those without errors from future editions.  I guess that means if you bought one of those, you have something that might be valuable if ever I am a famous author.

It has been corrected, and hopefully the errors are gone.  I hope you decide to buy my book.  It is my baby.  I love it.  I want you to love it.  I’m in the Dallas area through mid-February.  If you are here, and you buy my book, I will gladly sign it for you.  In fact, I want to sign and say thank you for supporting my new career.

If there is someone you know who loves a good book, please share my blog with your friend.  I would love that person to read my novel and tell me what she thinks.  The best way to get my book in the hands of book lovers, is to share it with friends who love books.  If you are that book lover, please read it and tell me what you think.  

Below is a link to my author page on Amazon.  There you can learn more about the books I have recently published.  If you buy a book, please leave a comment in the recommendation section.

Mark's Amazon Author Page

You can also go directly to Amazon.com to purchase the Spartan Sisters:

Purchase Spartan Sisters by Mark Potter

January 1 - Why Bolivia?

Day 1

Happy New Year from Texas.  As I look out the window and see the snowy fields surrounding me, I realize I am still asleep.  I am in North Texas and we are looking at a day that is forecast to be around 65 degrees.  It is overcast now, mostly gray.  The forecast promises sun later in the day.  A winter day in North Texas, with the sun shining can be so beautiful.  I understand why settlers moved here 150 years ago.  Snow?  I’m not sure I’ll see it while I am here the next few weeks.

I haven’t written a blog in a few weeks.  A mixture of being a bit overwhelmed by the situation here and missing Bolivia, meant I wasn’t writing.  But writing is what I want to do with the rest of my life, so I need to get back to doing it. 

I decided a few days ago that I would start it up again on January 1^st and would republish a few of my earlier posts, with some additional thoughts.  It kinda makes sense to start on January 1^st.  I can continue writing the entire year and end on December 31^st. 

So I begin with the first post from this blog which was entitled “Why are you going to Bolivia?”

 

Why are you going to Bolivia?

I have had this question asked many times over the last year.  Some people ask it in a way that seems like they are really asking, “Have you lost your mind?  Why would you go to a place like Bolivia?”  Others seem excited for me and the adventure of moving to a new country.  And a few have seemed angry that I am moving away from family, church, or school.  How do I respond?

I met Bolivia by accident in 1985.  At that time, I was making plans to teach at a school in Valledupar, Colombia with the Assemblies of God.  But I had graduated in December and did not have a job.  Colombia was waiting for me until the school year started in August.  Eight months was a long wait with no job.  I made a phone call to the Assemblies office to tell them I was ready to come in the summer, though I don’t know how that would have gotten me a job.  I just wanted them to know I was ready.

God had something different planned than Colombia.  When they answered the phone and I said who I was, I was immediately put on hold.  A few minutes later I was being asked to fill an emergency vacancy for a teacher who was having a difficult pregnancy.  I accepted.

The morning I left for Bolivia, two weeks later, it was snowing.  It was one of the most beautiful snows I have ever seen.  It was thick on the ground, but not sticking to the roads.  I was having second thoughts.  I decided to go for a walk in the snow.  I do a lot of good thinking on walks.  And a lot of praying.  On this day, I was asking God what I was doing, wondering if I was doing His will.  I was wondering if it was too late to back out of Bolivia and how I would tell everybody I wasn’t going to go.  When I returned home I read the book of Haggai.  In chapter 2 a verse stood out that says, “from this day forth I will bless you.”  It was one of the times in my life that I felt God speak to me.  The message I got out of the verse was to go and watch God begin to bless me.

The next day I arrived in the sweltering heat of the tropical rain forest of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  I didn’t know anybody and knew even less of the culture.  But it turned out to be five of the most meaningful years of my life.  The people I met, and kids I taught, became family.  One of the girls I taught in Bolivia back in the 80s, who is now a mom, told me when I visited in July 2015, that I will be returning with family in Bolivia.  That is one of the answers to the question.  I am returning to family.  Some of my dearest friends in Bolivia, treat me like family.

Another reason to return is my desire to write.  All my life, I have had the desire to write.  I don’t know if I am good at it, or if what I write is good in others’ eyes, but I love to write.  I said before that this is a rewrite of the blog I started in July 2016.  Since then I have watched myself become a better writer.  At times the creativity has flowed at unexpected times.  I might be out for a walk and suddenly have an idea for a chapter in my novel or a new blog.  I would rush home to sit in front of my computer and write for a few hours.  One night, a school night, as I am about to fall asleep at 11 pm, I suddenly got an idea for my novel Onesimus.  I knew how to make a chapter work that I had been thinking about for over a week.  Forget sleep, I told myself.  I was writing till 4 am.  I might only be a good writer in my eyes, but I must write.

As I resurrect this blog here on the first day of 2017, my goals have changed a bit.  I still want to introduce you to the culture of Bolivia, from my point of view.  I have since learned that some of my Bolivian friends will comment, and through the comments, you will learn even more than this Gringo can ever know.  I want to introduce you to some beautiful places in this enchanting corner of the world, places you might not ever visit, except in this blog.  I also want to talk about the writing process.  Recently I have had four people tell me they want help in writing a book.  No, I am not an expert, but I can share my experiences and my mistakes, and maybe that will help those people create that great novel.  Mostly, I want you to know why I love Bolivia so much.  I do love this place.

I would love you to follow my blog and I want you to ask questions.  I might think I have explained things well, but your questions might show me that I needed to go a bit deeper.  I would appreciate you sharing my blog with people you think would enjoy it.  Since most of you are connected to me on Facebook, just click share.  People will be able to experience this that might not otherwise unless you do the clicking.  And please tell me what you think.

May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully.  Ruth 2:12

Below is a link to my author page on Amazon.  There you can learn more about the books I have recently published.  If you buy a book, please leave a comment in the recommendation section.
Mark's Author Page