One Year Later

(This is from an email I sent out to friends and family outside of Bolivia; if you didn't get it and would like me to have your email for updates, please feel free to send it to me at pocopalm@yahoo.com.)

Dear Everyone -

I could begin with some hackneyed expressions:

“I can’t believe it’s been a year!”

“Where has the time gone?”

“The past year has been a blur.”

Well, those ideas are all true, but let me expound on them a bit.

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S BEEN A YEAR!

A year ago Jason was coming back from training in Boone, N.C., and we were trying to finalize packing and rental arrangements and selling things and everything else you can think of that comes with a major, major move.

Yes, we moved to Bolivia, and it has been a year filled with craziness, happiness, learning, grace, and did I mention craziness? I’m just sending out a (somewhat) brief update about the family.

Micah has turned into a little man with his own loving and stubborn personality. While he still sounds young when pronouncing words, his vocabulary is great and he can communicate almost anything he wants to. He gets incredibly creative, most recently pretending to have a pet bumblebee that flies into outer space and then comes back to rest in his closed hands. He loves to pretend that he’s skateboarding around the house or on sidewalks. Also, he is finally mostly potty-trained, except when sleeping. Micah's a stereotypical boy and loves cars and balls and wants to play rough, but he is also incredibly affectionate and sweet-natured. Until something doesn’t go his way. And then he wants to collapse into fits of sadness and tears. We’re working on that.

Alexis is adoring kindergarten and just got her first report card. She’s at the top of her class, and one of the things that her teacher wrote is that she loves Alexis’ silly personality, which made me so happy. Alexis is a ball of energy and almost always wants to goof around. She’s also up way to early in the mornings… She loves having friends over to her house and loves school, and she’s reading more and more all the time. She just got a lamp for her side table, so after she goes to bed she’s allowed to stay up and read for a little while. Always the one with a sensitive heart, Alexis has a huge desire to do what’s right and gets very upset when she’s done something wrong. She can also still make an epic mess in her room, but when she’s motivated, she can clean it up in about five minutes. She is also speaking a ton of Spanish, which motivates me to learn more and speak more with her!

The kids both miss the States, but they also love Bolivia. We got to go on vacation with my parents over the summer (winter here) to Copacabana (sing with me!) on Lake Titicaca. We saw ancient ruins and beautiful vistas, but the kids were obsessed with earning mountain climbing and scouting merit badges from Jason. I don’t think they have ever laughed harder than when a man pulled trout fresh from the lake and they flopped around in a box, waiting to get cooked. Just yesterday Micah was talking about wanting the fish in his face again. They also love going to restaurants here because so many of them have playgrounds for kids, and on the weekends there’s a big bouncy slide at the park next to our house, and we go most weekends. Alex recently decided that instead of jumping up, landing on her butt, and then sliding down that she needed to jump directly to the bottom and land on her butt without sliding. No fear with that one… Micah is really excited about going to preschool next year (we’re going to send him), and they’ve both really enjoyed being here.

Jason has really grown professionally a ton over the past year. The work that SP is doing here is great, and I’m so proud that he’s a part of it. He has done all sorts of things that I don’t remotely understand, but as country director, he’s been involved in water projects, well digging, livestock and agricultural initiatives, building schools, llama and alpaca projects, healthy children initiatives and feeding programs, Children’s Heart Project (gets kids to the States for heart surgery), transformative leadership, hiring staff, training, setting budgets, getting funding, and evaluating new locations to work, not to mention all of the festivals and events and hosting he does, plus all of other things I can’t even think of! He has worked incredibly hard this year and (from what I can gather in the most objective way possible for an incredibly proud wife) is doing a really great job. He has found good ways to get some down time, including playing ultimate Frisbee on Sunday afternoons, and after an insanely busy two months, we’re hoping for a bit of a break from the craziness after this week. Last week for our anniverary (nine years!) he took me out for Asian food for the first time since I've been here. I've been craving Mekong, and this helped...

It's wonderful to finally feel settled. I spend part of my time trying to find things I can actually cook here, but we actually have a woman who helps around the house about twelve hours a week, and she’s been amazing. Since everything takes longer here, it’s been an unbelievable blessing to have someone who cleans our house and irons our clothes (no dryer) and sanitizes fruits and sometimes cooks and occasionally watches the kids. She’s about my age, and if I’m going to have someone in my home that much, it’s great to have someone who is so trustworthy and easy to talk to and loves the kids. She’s helped a lot with my Spanish, too. I’m in classes and feel like I’m improving a lot now, as in I try to use past tense on a regular basis. I try to put myself out there as much as possible. The other big thing I’ve been doing is (drum roll in case you don’t already know) writing a book. Yes, it’s young adult, so don’t laugh. It thematically deals with the line between science and ethics (to put it very, very broadly – DNA alteration, kind of dystopian, called The Stromata of Limbs), and while I don’t have delusions of grandeur, I’m getting some feedback from readers and am at least going to pursue publication. (Even if it is any good, which is certainly questionable, the chance of getting an agent is virtually zero.) Regardless, it’s been a great project and something I came here knowing I wanted to do, so after finalizing the first one, it will be time to proceed to number two! Maybe. We’ll see.

Summer is beginning here, so it’s warming up, and the rain has started a little bit, too. I fortunately ordered a pair of rain boots finally, and they’ll be waiting for me when we go home at Christmas. We’ll be coming to the States a few days before Christmas and leaving again after the first week of January. It will be great to see family and be back in the States for a while, but we truly feel at home in La Paz.

Thank you for all your support and prayers for our experience here. Please continue to pray for us, and we hope to see many of you soon!

Jess