Ultima Noche

Tonight is my last night in Venezuela. Wow. I think I'll post a more "reflecting on the year" post in a week or something but I feel that my last night deserves a blog post.

I'm feeling very bittersweet. I have made many friends here, something that became clear to me this past week as I tried to say goodbye to them all. It just wasn't possible. I took the advice of a good friend and made sure that the time I could spend with those closest to me was spent wisely, and to not run around to all parts of the city to see everyone I've ever met here. That being said, I did do my fair share of running around. A few of those visits resulted in my walking home a little later at night than I liked. Tonight, for instance, I left from the Casa Hogar with my camera tied to a belt loop hanging down inside my pants. "Venezuela style". Carry only as much money as necessary for wherever you're going, camera not in a pocket if with you at all, phone not in hand. Look confident. Puff out the chest (?) to look...intimidating? That part maybe not so much in my case. The reality of life here is hard to forget with murders and robberies happening all around me daily. That is one thing I won't miss about living in San Felix.

Back on topic. Not sure how I got on that tangent. Saying goodbye to friends was a bit of a bummer. "See you in a year, hopefully", is just not a great goodbye. But what I remind myself is that 1, I'm fortunate to have the option of returning next summer and 2, I'm fortunate to have made such great friends that the goodbye is difficult.

While leaving feels strange, and there are many people I will miss dearly, there are many people back home whom I have been missing dearly. Knowing that I will very soon be reunited with many of them is exhilarating.

It's past my bedtime. Getting up again in just over 4 hours for a long day of travel. Next post from Minnesota!

Something Gregoria made me for my birthday. It was on the cake. 

Cumpleaños

Friday was my birthday! I spent a lot of time at the Casa Hogar. They made me a cake and a piñata which were great surprises. I ended up eating two lunches on Friday. One here at the rectory like normal with Fr. Greg and Fr. Tim, and a second directly afterwards with the Casa Hogar. They made me a special lunch, Luis did a lot of the cooking himself which was cool. His present to me. We had chicken and yuca and salad, I was already full from my first lunch but it was really tasty so I just kept eating. In the evening we attempted to do the piñata, but couldn't find a string to string it up from the tree. Solution: Luis climbed the tree and dumped candy down onto us from above. It was great. We ate cake and listened to the CD of american music that I made Omish months ago. "No Sleep" bumpin. So awesome. They made me a sign saying happy birthday and each of the boys signed it, definitely a keeper. I made them a CD of pictures from my time here with them and we watched that on the projector screen which was really fun. They hadn't seen hardly any of the pictures, so the trip down memory lane was great, a lot of laughs.

On Saturday the Brito's had a little party for me at their house. Gregoria made the cake which was fantastic! It had pictures on it of me and my friends, both from here and MN. I was really surprised to see that and really happy that she took the pains to get that done. Julianna and Jakeline made an absolutely ridiculous piñata that they took great pride in. After the happy birthday song was completed and I had blown out the candle (and made a wish!) everyone yelled at me to bite the cake. I was a little confused but just went with it...just to get my face smashed into the cake. Everyone knew this was coming except me. I had frosting up my nostrils. It was great. It was a fun night, with dancing and jokes as usual with the Brito family. They love to make jokes and poke fun. I'm so grateful to have such good friends here in Venezuela who went out of their way to make my birthday a good one.

El Campo

Yesterday I spent the day at the campo. We left around 9 to get out there, and after that I have no sense of time for the rest of the day, until this morning really. It was great. My phone's battery was dead and I had no reason to check the time. We got to work preparing the food right away when we arrived. Angelo and I peeled about a million plantains, which is a lot harder than peeling bananas. We then threw them all in a pot with some water which cooked over a fire for an hour or so. When we pulled them out we threw them into a mortar and pestel kind of set up and mashed them all up. Formed that into almost a loaf of bread like shape and sliced it up. Surprisingly good. Everyone had their job to do slicing up peppers and onions and whatnot or preparing the chicken. It turned out to be a great meal. We spent the day just hanging out and eating, swimming in the river (which was strangely similar to the river that runs through my backyard), and saying hello to the numerous dogs, cows, and horses that were around. It was a really nice day. We hopped in the back of the pick up as it was getting dark to head back to the city. A car cutting in front of us almost caused a major collision which was pretty scary and shook everyone up. I was laying down in the back so I couldn't see anything, I just heard the slamming of breaks and screeching of locked up tires sliding on pavement. Then lots and lots of swearing at the driver of the offending car. But we didn't crash so it's ok!

Miller, who the party was for a couple weeks ago.

Yummy

Looks like home!

Check out that tan line

This reminds me of Honduras!

This morning I went to the Casa Hogar. All the boys recently went to get a medical checkup, and it turns out that ALL of them, save Enrique, Jhon Kevin, and Omish, have hernias. They're going to pretty much take over the clinic, it sounds like, on May 11th with all 11 (Luis and Jesus have hernias as well) of them having surgery the same day.

This face happened while talking about how he wanted to kiss one of the gringas from the St. Thomas group. If you're reading this, Becca, watch out...