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Our Family - click the pic below for more pictures
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Saturday, May 12, 2012

Glad I'm a volunteer

Police Officer pointing at me to pull over after I did an illegal U-turn: Papers please (but in Spanish)
Me: Is there a problem officer??  (just kidding, who says that when they know that the cop knows that they know they did something wrong)
PO: Something in Spanish
Me: No entiendo (I don’t understand)
PO: probably says the same thing but uses hand motions this time
Me: OK
PO: Your license please.
Me: Here you go
PO: I’m going to give you a ticket
Me: No entiendo
PO: I’m going to give you a ticket
Me: Crap
PO: I’m going to keep your license for 3 days until you pay.
Me : No entiendo
PO: I’m going to keep your license for 3 days until you pay.
Me: Double Crap.  But we are volunteers and live in Zambrano.  We are only here for today.
PO: Your volunteers?
Me: Yes, and we are only here for the day
Handing my stuff back, he says: Thank you for your help.  Have a good day.
Rolling up the window I say: Uhhhh thank God I said we are volunteers.   
Sarah: Good job playing dumb too.
Me: I wasn’t playing dumb.

Even if Sarah thinks I’m dumb, we still avoided a ticket with this close call.  Praise God.  And we ended up having a great rest of the day, skyping with mom and Lish, eating at La Princesita (mega-sized baleadas), and some ice cream.

More recently we have the new director that is going to take my job, so this is good as I have 2 more weeks to train her.  Her husband is also here and will be doing some random work for us and helping her.  They seem like they have some really good ideas for improving campus, specifically for the cleanliness, which makes sense, since they studied public health.  We feel that they will have a positive impact on the students, volunteers and campus as a whole immediately.  We are grateful for the new staff that we’ve recently welcomed. 

I drove Glen’s car to San Pedro yesterday and took the bus back by myself, so I had a lot of time to think and reflect without much interruption.  Memories of the school and the country were weaving through my brain.  I kept passing landmarks that have become familiar to me, and I also kept thinking about how this might be the last time that I see this thing or that thing.  As I mentioned in my last post, leaving is beginning to become real…of course this brings a flood of emotions; happy, sad, grateful, joyful, etc.  I’m excited to visit Sarah’s family in New York, and I’m excited to visit mine in Oregon, to find a new place, to eat different foods, go to the park with my girls, and sometimes I’m even excited about the idea of going back to a normal American job.  I wonder if I’ll cry when we leave, I mean I usually don’t do that kind of thing, but I know it’s not going to be easy leaving.  When we left the States for here, I knew I was coming back at some point.  And I will be coming back here as well, but I just don’t feel ready to leave.  Leaving the states was a lot easier.  Saying that I think we are making the right decision by leaving…it’s just a really difficult one.  I feel like I’m just bouncing all over the place here, so I’ll wrap up with saying I wish more people could experience the things that we have here.  

1 comment:

  1. Awesome to hear Ira. Kari and I will be praying for you guys.

    ReplyDelete