Hola Familia Estimada!!
Here is a rundown of the last few days. WE are well and happy and tired, not discouraged, but challenged and learning. On Monday we learned how to prepare the pouch mail, like sorting into post office boxes made of cardboard on shelves in the bodega (store room)
Eat your hearts out you non Skypers. We just spent an hour on Skype with Em. Kev, Cindy, Lindsey, and Beth. Much of the time on a 5 way conference call. Get Skype free from the sky. If you don't have a camera we can do talk only, or text. It's good to hear live voices of the ones we love. We'd love to hear and see all y'all!
Anyway, Tues we got an early start and went to the coast with the mail. We carry about a dozen black gym bags (pouches) with mail, packages, stuff missionaries send each other, stuff missionaries order from the office or the distribution center ( called the AMM which stands for Mutual Improvement Association (MIA) store; funny, don't know why. I asked a young missionary and he had never even heard of MIA or YMMIA or YWMIA. Check your church history young'uns.).
Several times a week we go the post office, about half a mile walk,, and get the mail and packages from home. We know how much it costs to send packages because we see the labels, so, be prudent. We can actually get just about anything here that we need.
Elder Callis, great grandson of Charles A. Callis, long time Southern States Mission President in Cannie and Sadie's Forsyth's day, drove and is teaching us the routes and routines. We deliver the pouches to ward buildings where the missionaries are having zone conferences. They leave last week's pouch outside the chapel door with any outgoing mail in it. We pick it up and leave ours. Sometimes we got to meet the missionaries, sometimes it was pony express style, pick up and drop in a few seconds. After delivering the pouches to Panaflor,Talagante, and Maipu, we drove about two hours on a freeway to Cartagena on the coast near San Antonio. Beautiful hilly farmy country side. Foggy day on the coast so we couldn't see the ocean. No photos this day.. . . .more later. Then on the way back a stop in Melipilla (where we once thought we would be living). Total about 5 hours. When we do it alone it may take longer, but we have to get to the buildings before their meetings are over, or we miss them and no mail gets exchanged until next week. Very pony express like. Close schedule, fast movement, no time to visit or sightsee until the mail is delivered. The pouch takes us most of three days and bits of others.
When we take it over by ourselves we will probably make some changes so Hermana Pack can teach piano on the way back. Another reason we had to hurry back is that the members feed the missionaries every weekday afternoon and they don't want to miss that. We have our first DA tomorrow night with Andres and Sandra Toledo. He is picking us up from work and bringing us back to our apartment. It's probably an hour's drive as we live on the far west side and he lives on the far east side of a very large city.
Tues. nite we were exhausted, had to get Wed's mail ready before leaving the office. So, Wednesday we did the same thing, but in the part of Santiago city that is in our mission. Not as many miles, but tangles of one way streets, congested traffic, stop lights. At one convoluted intersection, we could see at least a dozen stop lights for our direction, depending which way you were going. Lots of "roundabouts". Usually that is the only way you can turn left, or go around the block to the right, right, right, and across the street where you couldn't turn left. No right turns on red light except sometimes when a two way street turns into a one way. It's hard to explain; you pretty much have to be here. Then we got on three or four freeways, including an underground one and a stacked one. They drive fast and furiously, but with very few accidents.
Quite a contrast with the little towns of the campo (countryside) where we saw several horse drawn carts loaded with various stuff for farming, construction, for sale, or other. Country or city there are hundreds of street vendors on the sidewalk or roadside and hawkers at stoplights selling anything they can acquire, make, grow, ?steal?: a stack of shirts, a bag of rolls, candy, windshield washing, frutas, flags, scarves--you name it. In town there are on the dirt, flea markets called ferias sometimes extending for blocks, sometimes just a few people selling something, like cigarettes, candy, trinkets, cheap stuff. If you want to sell, you just stake out a claim where no one is already occupying and you are in business. In the small towns this is how business is done daily. Walk to the main street, buy your fruits, veggies, bread, etc for the day from a vendor, walk home and fix the big mid- day meal . We saw farm work done by tractor, horse, manual labor. Two men with backpack sprayers were walking up and down the furrows of a ten acre field spraying bugs or weeds. It’s planting time for some crops, beautiful black soil, orchards, vineyards, Villas and shacks. Tons of new subdivisions on the outskirts of big city and small town. New houses are generally all alike: two story, frame, two houses sharing on exterior wall (Siamese twin houses). Your own your half I own mine. You park on the right side of your house, I park on the left side of mine. Every property is fenced and gated, usually locked. In our neighborhood and many others, cars park on the strip between the street and the sidewalk, so vendors and pedestrians beware.
We had about a three hour layover at the Center -- a two block compound where is the temple, MTC, Stake Center, Distribution Center, Church offices for leaders, physical facilities, CES, welfare, etc. and apartments cheaply rented for families coming long distances to the temple. The grounds are beautiful and tranquilo. We didn't mind sitting in the warm early spring sun and watching, the temple goers, grounds workers, trying to name all the flowers and trees, and resting while we waited for our ride home.
Today our adventure revolved around the question: "Necesito un dentista. Donde es?" Got to make this short. The dryer repairman is going t meet us at 5. Anyway, I broke one of my plastic teeth off eating the delicious and crusty bread. I set it on the table and when I went to get after dinner it was gone. Did I pick it up and eat it with the bread crumbs? We'll never know. We hunted for an hour. Three days later I finally got to a dentist. It was an emergency…only for me I guess. The dentist didn't speak English so the elders walked us there, told her the problem and left us on our own. It didn't look like any dentist's office I've been in before, but 3 hours and 25,000 pesos later I have a shiny new tooth. Fifty bucks isn’t bad. It would cost twice that just to sit in the chair at home.
Today (Friday) they gave us the key and a letter of introduction so we can sign for packages and they're letting us go all by ourselves! We feel almost all grown up…spoke too soon. We got almost to the post office half a mile away and remembered that the key was in mom's purse back at the office. Yesterday and today we have spent at least half of every day walking. Several miles a day. I haven't walked this much cumulatively in three years. My hips are screaming, but we have to keep going. Mom's right knee hurts, but not like the left one did before surgery. We bought raison (pasas) from a little whole grain store with wooden bins, got 4x what we'd get at Lider for the same $$. Ate a delicious meal in a dark little crowded cafe/bar. Mom had a completo and I had a kind of philly cheese plate with two fried eggs on top and french fries. Muy delicioso.
Got to sent this as is. We've got to go. Love to all. Email again next week.
Elder and Hermana Grammy and Gramps
No comments:
Post a Comment