Leaving Tomorrow

We are happy and sad that we are leaving tomorrow. It´s weird the things you miss. My fondest desire right now isn´t for air conditioning, my car, or even my own bed. I miss our full-size refrigerator. The fridges here are mostly small ones. They have about 1/3 of the space as a regular fridge in the states. I look forward to being able to cram all of our leftovers in without having to rearrange the space every time.

I should say we plan to leave tomorrow. Right now, you can´t leave town because there is a protest at the Rio Negro bridge. Protests are a bit of a national past-time here. I am sure that today´s protest is about the gas prices. Of course, there is nothing the city of Trujillo can do to fix the world-wide increase in fuel prices. But let´s not allow logic to get in the way of a good protest. The school administrator, Emilson, was supposed to drive us to his house today for lunch. Unfortunately, he lives on the other side of the bridge. We will take a taxi to the bridge, walk across, and then ride the rest of the way with Emilson. This is just one of the normal inconveniences that people here have to deal with on a regular basis.

We will miss many things here. I really enjoy being able to walk most places. It´s easy enough to catch a taxi when needed. I also love the sense of community here. It is small town living times 10. Everyone knows everyone and most of them are related. Everywhere we go, we see people we know.

Of course, we are looking forward to being home and seeing all of our family and friends. Lord willing, we will fly to Atlanta this Saturday and will see many of you very soon. This may be the last blog until we leave. When we get back, we´ll post more pictures and a couple of videos for you to enjoy. (Another thing we miss is high speed internet.)

Until next time,
Pablo