The Bolivian Stove Part 1

One of our first tasks when arriving in Bolivia was to find a permanent place to live. We checked the local newspaper the first week we arrived and low and behold the first place we visited had everything we needed and was in a perfect location for our family. We moved quickly and a week later signed the contract. The challenge with our new place of residence though, is that it is completely unfurnished. We thought you might enjoy hearing a few of our first furniture/moving experiences. Priority one was a stove. The landlord wanted to have the gas guy come sometime before we moved in so that he could hook everything up at once. That meant that if we could have the stove in place early we could take advantage of his "all in one" visit. Therefore my friend Derek and I (Derek is another missionary that lives in Sucre and works for Food for the Hungry) went to the local appliance place on Sunday evening to purchase the stove. As to be expected nothing happens fast and we spent an hour just filing out the paperwork and purchasing the stove. By this time it was getting late (on a Sunday evening) and it was dark. We drug the stove down to the street and hailed a taxi to take us to the apartment. After cramming the stove into the back of a hatch back car we took off for the apartment. Now the apartment is one of two buildings side by side and each building has several entrances and a parking garage. Not exactly sure of where to enter the building, Derek and I found the parking garage, which has an elevator, and asked the driver to drop us off there. We headed down the garage ramp looking for the elevator and noticed a short plump Bolivian man sitting at the entrance giving us a weird look. We moved on and starting searching through the garage. Keep in mind this whole time we are carrying a stove! Come to find out we were in the wrong parking garage. We hauled the thing back up the ramp and nodded awkwardly at the little Bolivian man who was now grinning ear to ear as to say, I knew you would be lugging that thing back up this ramp. Finally, after carrying the thing back around the building we found our entrance and headed up the elevator. When we got to the apartment we noticed something odd, the lights in the kitchen were on. I thought, that's weird since Jennie and I haven’t moved in and the landlord is the only other person with a key. We went inside and noticed the door to the kitchen was locked. Obviously the stove went in the kitchen so that was a problem. We knocked on the door and heard a woman’s voice say in Spanish “just one moment.” Completely confused, we waited outside the kitchen for our mystery woman to open the door. After about 3 minutes a short Bolivian woman opened the door and scurried out with a towel around her head. Come to find out she was the maid and she had been cleaning the apartment and decided to take a shower in the bathroom next to the kitchen before she left! Needless to say she was pretty embarrassed and didn’t stick around to help us move the stove into place. So…. that is the adventure of the Bolivian stove. Where is a good Lowe’s with free delivery when you need them!

2 weeks!

It’s amazing to think that we have been in Bolivia for 2 weeks now. In some ways it seems like forever. So much has happened in 2 weeks. To start, we have just finished our first week of Spanish school at the Latinoamerica Escuela de Espanol. We aren’t fluent yet…but we are starting to understand more of what people are saying to us. (Much to our host family’s benefit!) We have also, amazingly, secured an apartment to live in here in Sucre. Honestly, we were shocked to find something so quickly. We were told that finding a good apartment can take several months and that often the apartments are spoken for before the add hits the morning newspaper. With that said we started the process last weekend, searching newspapers and making phones calls. The first apartment we found and went though had everything we were looking for, with a few added amenities that we never thought we would find here in Sucre. We signed a contract on Saturday and plan to move in by Sept 1^st! We do have to completely furnish it, including appliances, so that will be an adventure in itself. This will be a challenge as there are no stores here like Lowes where you can go and buy everything you need in one spot. (Plus no delivery!) Yesterday John, with the help of Derek, purchased a stove and carried it over to the apartment. That experience deserves a blog of it’s own, so I will let John tell you all about that later.

Thanks for all the e-mails and comments on our blog. We love hearing from home.

Sucre, nuestro nueva casa (Our new home!)

We arrived on Thursday morning to Sucre Bolivia Sucre is a city of about 200,000 people, quaint and beautiful in it’s own way. Different from La Paz, Sucre is made up of mostly small 2/3 story buildings, (no high rises) and most everything downtown is built with a colonial look and painted white. Sucre, like all cities in the highlands of Bolivia, is built in the middle of mountains so the walking is strenuous, and the roads are steep and narrow. The elevation here is a little over 9,000 feet so the altitude is still a challenge, especially pushing a child in a stroller, carrying bags, and walking straight up hill. When we arrived on Thursday one of the first things we did was check into the home of Freddy and Delfina Margarinaos, our host family for the first month or two. Freddy and Delfina have a beautiful home and we have been given the third floor for our living quarters until we find a place of our own in town. Freddy is a retired surgeon and Delfina is a retired pharmacist so they have a very nice home (Bolivian standards) and they have been very friendly and open in welcoming us. At least it seems that way. They can’t speak English so we have no clue what they are asking us, so we just smile big, shaking our heads and saying “si”.
A few highlights from our days in Sucre so far: After checking in on Thursday afternoon we met our new friends Derek, Claire, and Noelia Plantenga. The Plantenga’s are originally from the states and have been living in Bolivia for almost a year. It has been a true blessing to meet them and get to know them. Their daughter Noelia is only about 6 months younger than Ella and she has been a good friend and playmate for Ella. Not only do the Plantenga’s have lots of Bolivian experience but they have been so friendly and helpful our first few days here. We look forward to spending lots of time with them and getting to know them better over the coming weeks and months.
On Friday afternoon we checked into language school. Both of us took a written Spanish exam to test our Spanish knowledge and then sat for a short oral examination. We all knew it was a matter or time until John said something stupid in Spanish. Well during the oral exam the teacher asked John where he was from. It’s hard enough, just trying to understand what they are asking you, let alone trying to answer back with some semblance of intelligence. Well, prior to leaving for Bolivia we made up a prayer card with our Bolivian address. “Casilla 879.” Well, John being the alert and intelligent student that he is, remembered the address “Casilla 879” and rattled it off to the teacher. Unfortunately John did not realize that “Casilla” is the word for Post Office Box. So actually John told his teacher that he lived in a Post office box. I am sure that is just one of many awkward phrases to come.
We have definitely enjoyed our first few days here in Sucre. We could write three pages or more on our experiences here so far but time doesn’t allow. We have had basically no internet connection since being in Sucre so blogging has been difficult. We hope to share more experiences as time permits. Thanks for the prayers and support. We need them and appreciate them. We miss our family and friends and think about you often. We look forward to sharing again soon!

Adios La Paz

Wednesday was our last full day in La Paz. Our hosts, Ed and Sarah Molding, took us on a bridge-like walking path that gives good views of the city. La Paz is unlike any city we’ve ever seen. There are mountain peaks in every view, much like Colorado springs, only instead of being covered in snow, they are covered in houses and other buildings. Here are some of the pictures we took of the city.

We are so thankful to Ed, Sarah, and their daughter Alana for welcoming us into their home and fielding numerous questions about Bolivian life. Sarah will be coming with us as we fly to Sucre, showing us the town and making sure we know how to take care of our basic needs.

Hi from La Paz!!

We are in La Paz! The second leg of our journey went much smoother than the first! Our flight left Miami around 11:30pm and we arrived in La Paz around 5:30am Monday morning. Ella tossed and turned on me for most of the flight so we were all pretty tired when we arrived. Ed and Sarah Moulding, FH missionaries from the UK, are our hosts while we are in La Paz. They picked us up from the airport and fed us some breakfast. They are taking great care of us. Then we all took a nap, finally waking up around 1pm! Ed and Sarah have an almost 3-year-old daughter, so after lunch we took the kids to a park that is just a few blocks from their apartment. As you can see, Ella is enjoying herself!

Today, (Tuesday) we went to the FH office here in La Paz and met several of the staff there. We will also do some more general FH and cultural orientation later this afternoon after we rest a bit. We are all adjusting pretty well to the altitude, although we are moving pretty slowly! John has been dealing with some headaches but overall we are doing well. Our biggest prayer request at the moment is that we will continue to stay healthy and feeling well, while we are at such a high altitude. On Thursday we will fly to Sucre, down to 9000 feet, which will hopefully alleviate some of John’s headaches.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers! It was so fun check our e-mails and see so many messages and notes of encouragement. We will try to update as much as we can while we are here in La Paz as we have good Internet access. We aren’t sure what our access will be like in Sucre so we will play it by ear.

Starting off with a BANG!

Well, our adventure to Bolivia has begin!! Above is a picture of us with all our luggage. The picture makes me laugh because it is like the calm before the storm. In the picture above we are about to have a major twist thrown into our plans! Following this picture we proceeded to take all our luggage inside to check in. You may have noticed in the picture that we have three large red duffle bags and 3 grey tupperware crates. As we checked in we were told that there is a 'box embargo' on all American Airways flights going into Bolivia and our crates were considered boxes. After about 30 seconds of panic and talking with a manager we realized our only choice was to get some duffle bags to replace the crates and repack. So with an hour and 15 minutes before our plane was to leave for Miami, we left Ella and all our bags at the airport with John's parents, and RAN out to the parking lot to our car. We found a Meijer, RAN inside, and found some duffle bags. John ripped open the bag in the middle of the isle to make sure it was big enough. We RAN through the check out line and made a bee line back to the airport. John's parents had all our crates spread out, ready to be unpacked. We quickly stuffed everything into the bags, checked in AGAIN, and made it to our gate just as they were starting to board. For those of you who know us well, you know we are big Amazing Race fans, and even tried out for the show several years ago. We most definitely had our 'Amazing Race' moment this morning...and I'm sure there will be more moments like it to come. We know there were many of you praying for us this morning, and we can't thank you enough! We were in need of it!

Right now we are SO THANKFUL to be relaxing in our airport hotel. We all took naps this afternoon and will head back to the airport later this evening for our 11pm departure to La Paz, Bolivia. Thanks for the prayers. We look forward to sharing with you from Bolivia.

The Big 80!

We just got home from a wonderful 10 day trip to South Dakota. We had the chance to see ALL of Jennie's family while we were there. We spent a day in Sioux Falls where Ella played with all her boy cousins (actually they are all her second cousins) Riley, Mitch, Logan, and Brady. We also hung out with Jennie's Aunt Amy, Uncle Tom, and Uncle Dean.

Several days later the whole Mach clan got together to celebrate Jennie's Grandmother's 80th Birthday. We had a surprise party for her in which over 80 friends and family attended. Growing up the Mach family got together several times a year for various holidays. But as we've all grown up it's been harder to get us all in the same place at once. It's been several years since we have all been together, and it was so fun to see everyone again. It reminded me of the good old days!

Grandma Mach with her grandkids, their spouses, and her great-grandkids

The Whole Mach Clan

Ella has a lot of pictures from the trip on her blog if you are interested.