Bad Week.

This has been a bad week, to put it mildly.
I am ready to come home. I have a countdown on. Only 38 more days.
It´s not that I haven´t enjoyed my time, but I am ready to be done. Here are some of the things I´ve been struggling with this week...in no particular order:

- The generator went down for a couple days, so we had almost no power in the office. This makes it hard to do work on the computer, which we all need to do.
- The most important computer with important documents broke. It won´t turn on.
- The internet broke. It is still broken. This means NO COMMUNICATION with the outside world.
- I have had a headache for 12 days. It started as a headache, got worse, then turned into a sinus infection (which is SO PAINFUL...I had no idea). I spent three days in bed, and still feel pretty sick, but am on drugs, so am gradually getting better.
- It´s been unbearably hot here again.
- The truck is broken. We drove for three and a half hours this morning on gravel, potholed roads with NO SHOCKS. This was not a fun experience.
- When I finally got to the city to check emails and call family, the electricity in the entire mall went out, and I had to wait for another two hours. Doesn´t seem like it was a big deal, but it was pretty much the icing on the cake.
- Work issues have been awful. I won´t go into that anymore, but relationships are tense.

On the upside, good things are going to happen! The last few weeks here will go fast. My friend Merissa is coming to visit, she will be here in 10 days! And well, my roommate Catherine and I keep each other sane when no one else can!
Sorry about the slightly depressing blog. Life can´t always be perfect! I have been delinquent at taking pictures, but now that I realize that the end is in sight, I will start again, and post some more. Despite all the bad stuff, God is good. He has been teaching me a LOT about love. I am not as good at it as I thought I was, but I am learning. Some wise missionaries have also helped me work through some cultural issues in the last few weeks, and I am SO THANKFUL to them for their support, advice, and insight.

Very Random Pictures...

Just thought I´d show you some random pictures. This is Kiana. I want to take her home. She is my favorite kid here. She says my name ¨Ka-en¨. Seriously, she is SO CUTE.

This is Mami and Antolin´s house. The house behind is where they sleep (cement floor and tin roof), and the house in front is their ¨kitchen¨. This was taken on their wedding day (they´ve been living together for 12 years and have three kids together, but just got married on December 27, 2006!)

This is the Catholic church. It is the biggest and most well attended church in Ciriboya.

This is the basketball court! Behind the far goal is the beach. I love this picture!

This is typical! The other day our truck got head-butted by a bull, as a pack of cows were passing us on the road.

This is my ride! And a sample of the ¨highway¨ out of Ciriboya!

mad soccer skills...

This week was back to the ¨grind¨ of work in Ciriboya. Vacation was amazing, but it has to end sometime! So it was back to work, which I really don´t mind. I love the microfinance people Carina and Nohel, and I get along great with both of them. I felt semi-productive this week, and am working on a couple of projects to finish in the next few months, which is good, because it is giving me some goals.
We have also been playing soccer, having fun, and enjoying our time left here. The soccer thing started one day because the interns and my boss went to the beach to kick around the soccer ball. Then a bunch of teenagers and a bunch of kids joined us, and we ended up having a game of beach soccer. That was on Tuesday. Since Tuesday we have played almost every day! It is so fun...we start around 4pm (knock off work just a little bit early!) and play until it gets dark and we can´t see either the ball or the goal anymore! (around 6pm). It is great exercise...I have muscles in my feet that I never knew about! And it´s been fun to just hang out with Garifuna people and have fun...laugh with the kids, joke around with the teenagers, and just have a good time.
The ocean was really strong the other day. I went swimming, and went out a little too far, and it was a bit scary. Like I wasn´t out that far, but the waves were pretty big, and although I had no trouble getting back to shore, I decided that I wasn´t a big fan of swimming out that far with waves that huge! I also saw like 10 jellyfish that had been washed up on the beach because of the big waves. They are funny looking...I wished I had my camera with me. Some were pink, and some were blue. And they were kind of hard but jelly-like. Dave suggested we eat them, but we nixed that idea pretty fast!
Anyway, as I´m looking back on the week, it seems pretty mundane. But it was good. We left for the city this morning at 4am, and I got to drive all the way from Ciriboya to the place in the road where the pavement starts. It is a three hour drive on the gravel roads, before you get to the pavement. I felt very special...it was my first time driving that far. I always drive the truck around Ciriboya and surrounding communities, but this was my first farther drive. It was a little bumpy, as it is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid the potholes in the road...but all in all, I was pretty proud!

Island Paradise...

So, this is me and my roommate Catherine, on the tropical island paradise called Roatan. First of all, I haven´t posted many pictures of me lately, because as you can see from my chubby face, I am gaining weight! This is a bad picture of me, and I debated posting it, but then I thought, ¨why not¨?! You might as well be caught up on all aspects of my life! Just as a side note though, my biggest New Year´s Resolution was discipline in eating habits!

So this is where I was the last four days. We took a ferry to Roatan, which is a Honduran Island. We stayed in a dump...I have never seen the contrast so boldly before between what you see above (which is what the tourists see) and where we stayed. There was no running water or toilet in the apartment. The toilet (which was not a proper flushing toilet) was shared by a complex of at LEAST 20 people. There was no shower. We had to haul water up the stairs, wash our dished from a little bucket, and brush our teeth outside. The people decided they didn´t like us, so they changed the lock on the toilet so that we couldn´t get in! So we had to borrow a key for another toilet from someone that one of my friends had as a contact. I don´t know what we would have done otherwise!! Our electricity randomly went out for one entire evening, and we could not sleep with the window open for fear of people climbing in the window. BUT, WE GOT TO GO TO THIS BEACH! During the day, life was heavenly! I went snorkelling, suntanning, swimming, relaxed on the beach, ate good food, had great times with friends, and have absolutely no complaints! I feel truly blessed for all of the experiences I have had in the last month of vacation, and am sad to see the vacation time pass! It´s back to work on Monday. But the fun times continue...although the countdown is on. Only two more months until I return to Canada.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Let me introduce you to my two beautiful nephews! The older one is Elijah David, and the younger one is Jonah Alexander. I am the most proud auntie on the face of the earth. Seriously. The only thing that would make me happier right now would be to be with them in Canada, holding my brand new nephew Jonah, and hearing Elijah say "I love you Auntie"! MAN, I love them so incredibly much!

So, Happy New Year! I can't believe it is 2007. Wow. Time is flying by. Everyday I am reminded of the fact that I need to take advantage of every opportunity. And here's one for you...the other day I went "CRAB CATCHING". There is actually a verb in Spanish that describes the act of catching crabs from the ocean! So, in Canada, my dad says that if you buy fresh crabs, they may be like $10.99 a pound, or so. The other day me and Rosy and Jessica went to the ocean. We tossed a bunch of chicken guts tied to a rope into the ocean (the chicken guts were from the two chickens that they killed in the morning, because they felt like eating fresh chicken, but that's a different story!). Then me and Jessica stayed on the beach with a big pot, and Rosy went into the ocean looking for the chicken guts. Every couple of minutes, she would pull it up, and there would be a crab eating the guts. So she would grab the crab, very carefully so as to not get pinched (they have wicked pinchers), and then she would throw it up onto the beach, where Jessica would proceed to bury it with sand, in order to immobilize it, and then pick it up and toss it in the bucket. Within about 45 minutes, they had caught a dozen HUGE crabs, plus a few tiny ones that were running around on the beach. We went back to their house, washed the sand off, boiled them up, and within about 5 minutes, we were eating fresh crab! I don't know exactly how much we ate, but it was at LEAST 5 pounds, maybe more. Amazing, hey!? It was such a cool experience! Although I can't say that I was very much help, I am VERY SCARED of their pinchers, and prefer to stay as far away from them as possible. I pretty much was the cheering section of the whole ordeal, and whenever a crab would get too close to me, I would run and scream like a little girl! Take advantage of every opportunity this year.