This week our city and country will be celebrating Carnavale. It is a holiday that has its roots in pagan beliefs and our present-day customs reflect those roots.

One of those customs is the “dousing with water”, representing the insemination of the populace to ensure fertility in the coming year. I really don’t think that this origin is in the uppermost of the minds of the young people throwing water balloons and reloading their automated water cannons. Yet, the water fights still reign.

Often you will see a few “gangs”, across busy streets, lobbing balloons heavy with water. Those balloons are remarkably accurate in their trajectory! However, if a few balloons miss their mark, striking the unsuspecting driver or passenger who were foolish enough to drive with their windows open, then so much the better (from the water attacker’s perspective).

Generally, when you get hit by a water balloon, especially when tossed FROM a moving vehicle, you have no recourse but to just “take it”. However… Read the rest of this entry »

We have been in Bolivia for almost 4 years. That is so amazing to me, and yet in many ways I feel as if I have lived here all (or at least most) of my life.

[permanent post in Essays]

We haven’t had a hard time with the culture. My parents and ancestors are  from small-town Texas (after they debarked from the Mayflower, they headed straight for Texas!) and I spent my early years and many summers in those same small towns. I also experienced life in the high-powered business world of the ’80s oil rush in Dallas. And we have dealt with the breadth of human nature in a variety of corporate and church environments.

I give you this brief bio in order to show that we have experienced life in its richness… the sublime to the ridiculous, as they say.

We never made the mistake of isolating human nature within geographical boundaries. People are “people”, all over the world! Yes, in Bolivia I got my purse stolen from my side at a charity bake sale… but in Bible College in Missouri, my graduation ring was stolen from my bedside as I napped (and that same year, my purse and then my Bible were stolen as well).

We thought that our biggest challenge would be to get people to realize their need for a saving Christ to be their Lord and Savior. Read the rest of this entry »

Opening the Wii from Steven Johnson on Vimeo.

With the rainy season flooding the crawl space beneath the house, we have had trouble with rodents. It has been driving me batty and we finally got to the point where we agreed that we would have to get poison — they kept eating the bait and totally disdaining the traps available in Cochabamba.

Then Tuesday night one of our cats killed a big one. We thought that was the end of it.

We thought wrong.

Late Wednesday night my hubby, Steven, felt something around his feet. Then something bit his toe! It didn’t break the skin on the bottom of his toe, but it did on the top. Then he saw the rodent running. It was about 7-8″ from nose to rump, with a longer tail. He chased it into my office, which is next to the kitchen. Then we didn’t see it again and so we thought it was gone.

We thought wrong.

Last night, Kiki (our huntress kitty) kept a perch near one of my bookcases. hmmm…. Then later my daughter, Staton, tells me that there is a rodent under that bookcase! We removed anything from the floor that could potentially hide a rodent, moving all chairs to the center of the room.

Kiki chased the rodent around the room and caught it a few times. I thought she would get it.

I thought wrong.

At that point she was more interested in toying with it. I wanted it GONE. All I had for “weapons” was a broomstick and a pair of Staton’s flip-flops. Kiki “treed” the rodent under one of the sections of my bookcase, which consists of two vertical boards, which made good barriers.

I “whocked” that rat back-and-forth and back-and-forth with the broomstick several times until I was sure he was dead. I really thought that was all I had to do.

I thought wrong.

I “swooshed” it out with the broomstick. It still tried to run!

So with my gloved hand, I “whomped” that rat with the flip-flop. It still tried to run.

So I WHOMPED and I WHOMPED and I WHOMPED and I WHOMPED and I breathed and then I WHOMPED and I WHOMPED and I WHOMPED some more… and its tail was still twitching!

I “whomped” and “whocked” it a few more times, resting now and then to try to come to terms with how HORRID I was feeling about killing a [formerly] living creature, until I saw blood on the floor. I was shocked at how dark it was.

It was really hard on me. … I guess that’s one reason why I am not a hunter. All I could think about was how glad I am that someone else kills my food and dresses it for me.

Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to kill something with a flip-flop?

devastated,
Cyn

p.s. trying to throw the body out of the yard was another adventure! I thought “how hard can it be to sling a dead rat up and over the 7 ‘ fence”, right? Yup! I thought wrong! But it finally hit the street, bounced once with a “splunk” and landed in the median in the middle of the street. I am sure that some street dog dined well this morning.