June went by so quickly for me and was a very fun month. The highlight for me was that my parents came to visit for 2 weeks from June 9th to June 23rd. My parents worked with MCC Bolivia for many years, but we left in 1991, and it had been exactly 20 years since they had last worked with MCC. My parents last visit to Bolivia was in the year 2000, which was 11 years ago. So it had been a long time since my parents had seen the city of Santa Cruz and many years since they had seen many of their Bolivian friends.
My parents stayed at my host family's house in the upstairs guestroom, and it was so great to have them so close every day. We enjoyed many late night talks around the table with my host parents, and my mom and dad got to know my host siblings because they lived with us. When my mom was here, she made us apple pie, cinnamon rolls, and jelly rolls (since these are all things I have missed this past year). One of my favorite memories is when it was 11:30 at night and we were eating apple pie around the table with my host family. My host dad had bought ice cream to go with the apple pie...the flavors of ice cream were mango and chirimoya. We were eating the apple pie so late at night because that is the time my parents and I had gotten back from a supper with friends that we had gone to, and my host family was waiting for us to get back so that we could have the desserts that my mom made.
My parents also visited my job at Stansberry. It was great to have them meet the kids that I work with, and they even helped with homework in my classroom. I told them that it was one of my easiest days of work because the kids were so fascinated by my parents that they wanted their attention, and I had two extra people to help with the homework. It was also great for my parents to get to meet the other profes that I work with. Some other trips that we took were out to the countryside to visit churches and people that my parents know out there. The only bad thing was that it was terribly windy one of the days and dust got into my mom's eye and scratched her eye because she had contacts in. My mom had horrible eye pain and some swelling, and my parents went to the eye hospital where she got some eye drops and a patch. Thankfully, there is no permanent damage and her eye is back to normal, but we were a little worried for a couple of days.
Another highlight of my parents visit was that we went to Amboro. This is about a 4 hour drive from Santa Cruz, and it is the community where my parents lived and worked for 5 years of their time here in Bolivia. The community is now in the middle of a National Park that is a rainforest. It was absolutely beautiful to get to walk through the rainforest and it was so great to see some of the people that my parents worked with who are still living there today. I also got to meet and pet a little animal called a jochi pintado. It was so cute! One of the families had it as a pet. It was about the size of a cat or small dog and it is just the cutest little brown animal with beautiful white spots along its sides and a whiskery nose. Her name was Perla, which means Pearl and I just fell in love with her at first sight. So while my parents talked about all of their friends out in Amboro, I always mentioned Perla who is the friend that I had to leave behind when we left.
While my parents were here we ate lots of typical Bolivian food, especially since it had been 11 years since they had last eaten here. The morning that we picked them up at the airport, we stopped to get saltenas, which are these meat and vegetable pastries. We also had empandas, cunapes, sope de mani, arroz con queso y churrascos, and bolivian hamburgers that come with corn and egg on top. We also ate a pizza that was a meter wide with my host family. You would not believe the pictures of how big this pizza was!
Overall we had a great time together and it was sad to see them go. It was crazy though to say goodbye to them and to say, "Well, I'll get to see you in about a month from now." That means that my time here is quickly coming to an end. Right now I have 10 days left in Bolivia and that feels surreal. I am honestly not ready to leave here yet. This year went by so quickly and was a year filled with so much growth and learnings. I have made lots of friends here, and it will be difficult to say goodbye to everyone before I leave. This week will be my last time going to work, and I will need to say goodbye to my little class of kids and the profes that I worked with. I do have some days to get last minute things done before we leave on July 20th and head back to Akron for a re-entry period. There are many things that I am looking forward to in going back to the States and there are many, many people that I can't wait to see, however it is a bittersweet time as I have many goodbyes to say here in Bolivia.
