Day Off!

The department of Santa Cruz had a strike on Tuesday. That means that buisnesses shut down for the day and there is no transportation without special permits. Basically for us, it boils down to having a restful day at home! We often joke at the Learning Center that we don't have snow days; rather, we have strike and flood days! In the morning, Gerson and I slept in, watched some Olympics (which, by the way, made us sad when Brazil lost to Argentina in the semi-final soccer game), and had lasagna for lunch.

Then we got adventuresome and decided to venture out into the world on foot. Our friends, Chad and Emily Jackson, live about 3 kilometers from us. Although it was prohibited to drive anywhere without special permission, many people were out on bikes or taking walks. We joined the throng of people along the car-deserted divided highway. My sneaky husband snapped this picture of me when I wasn't looking. You can see Baby Tejeda is growing!

As we walked along, we stopped to take some fun pictures. This is part of a Bolivian restaurant chain. Toby's is a hamburger/french fries fast-food type of restaurant. There are days I crave a good hamburger. As you can, Toby's was closed, along with everything else in Santa Cruz. I knocked on the metal wall, hoping for service, but to no avail! Needless to say, I didn't get my hamburger! Good think we had just eaten lasagna!

Along the way, we hit a small roadblock. These tires and branches were placed in the road to discourage vehicles from driving. We saw several vehicles have to turn around when they got to this intersection. We had no trouble walking across the blockade. The people "manning" it were peaceful. In fact, they were sitting at tables playing cards! When cars would come by, they'd just whistle at them and motion for them to turn around. All the cars we saw obeyed the blockaders and didn't cause any confrontations or problems.

We FINALLY arrived at the Jackson home. This is Chad with his dog, Sage. (We actually dogsat Sage during the summer months when the Jacksons went home to Montana for the summer.)Anyway, we had forgotten that the Jacksons had moved to a new home since they'd come back, so we had to take a detour to another missionary family's home to get directions to the Jackson's new place. We finally found it. I have to admit, after the 3 kilometer walk, the detour, and the photo shoots, I was tuckered by the time we arrived!

But, I had enough energy to enjoy Cade once again! It so happens, that the Jackson's turned out to be Grand Central Station! We arrived first, and a little while later the other missionaries from their mission (Evangelical) arrived. We also had other neighbors from the same neighborhood, pop in out of the house all afternoon! It was a lot of fun, never knowing who was coming and going.

What did we all do? Well, we played ping-pong and "danced" with the X-Box (pictured above) and realized most of us have absolutely no rhythm. It was quite funny! The guys ended up playing a game of Settlers of Catan while we ladies sat in the kitchen looking at decorating magazine (Pottery Barn) and "decorating" each other's houses! It's always fun to "spend" other people's money for them! We ended the night with Emily cooking chili and Jenny going home for her leftover Pepperoni Pizzaz. Emily also provided cheese and crackers for Gerson who wanted a lighter supper. By the time we went home at 8:30 that evening, the roadblocks had been lifted and Jenny was kind enough to drive us home. It was a wonderful day of fellowship! We all felt like it was Christmas or Thanksgiving --- definitely a holiday spirit. We are so thankful for the friends and missionary family God has given us here in Bolivia!