Well Los Quiotes was an experience. Our host, Margarita let us girls stay in her house – and we had actual beds! The houses in Los Quiotes are a bunch of separate one room buildings connected together by a palm tree canopy/awning type thingy. And then there was the outhouse… which was another experience. The thing about the room we stayed in, is that we could hear everything that went on outside – including the numerous donkeys (they ride donkeys there for travel) who decided to “sing” to us all night long, and all day long. And the roosters were confused and crowed at all hours of the night. Fun fun. J
Im not really going to mention everything that we did last week at Los Quiotes, mainly because it would be a really long blog. We did have a kids class, hung with the community, had a community “feast” (in which our team learned how to butcher a pig and make tamales), and went to San Carlos to see the mountains. Plus on the way home we learned how to make a 3hr drive last 10 hours— when the van decided to die thirty minutes into the trip home. We pushed the van, then we drove 15miles an hour on the side of the road until we found a Mexican mechanic who puttied up the radiator…Then we had to stop again and have another guy put in new spark plugs and pretty much “bandaid” everything that was wrong with the engine (yeah). So 10 hours later we made it back to the Gateway.
Two people really impacted my time at Los Quiotes. One: Juan Jose, this adorable 5 yr old who was like a little man. The first day we got there we went to a birthday party for little JuanJo, as we called him. We sang happy birthday to him and he sang us a song as well. Every day he would come to see us and shake our hands and say hello. One day we were inviting everyone to the kids service the next day, and Juan Jo shook his head yes and said he would see us the next day after he had a shower. He was so cute in his little man pants and shirt. He will make an awesome leader of his community one day
Two: Our new Abuela (grandma), named Alicia. Tyler and Gabriel stayed with Alicia that week in her house. Almost every night (or day) she would invite us to her house for coffee and gorditas. One night she made gorditas with meat and cactus in them for us and we had amazing coffee with it. Then she told stories about her life and childhood. One story she told was about when she lived in Ejido Buenos Aires (where our team is living now) and she was so hilarious. We could not stop laughing. If you would meet her, you would just smile because of how cute she is.
It was an exciting trip and I’m glad we got to be able to experience it before we leave for Nica next week. The African teams are currently packing up to leave right now- I know we will miss them but we are going off the next part of our journey in our countries and I’m excited to see what happens next!
Pictures of the last week:
The entire Nicaragua team with Benito (far left) our host for the week in Los Quiotes. He used to live there, now lives in Ej Buenos Aires with us, but he took us back to his old hometown and helped us work there.
Our team with Alicia (in the middle) with her husband (i forget her name)
Picture of a Butte before the mountains near San Carlos
Juan Jose’s family
Amber! Sounds so amazing.. I totally had tomales at Club Latino today from one of the mom’s of our students… AMAZING! Teach me when you arrive home.
I’ll be praying that you have a great Thanksgiving. I will miss you, but I am so glad that you are able to experience all of this and have God reveal himself to you in new ways!
Te amo mucho y quiero oir mas de tus cuentas. Escribame
Sounds like an amazing experience. Word up!
Alicia is PRECIOUS!! she must be like 4 feet tall! She looks like she knows how to tell an awesome story too!