Cleaning, Farm and Food

We were asked to help clean and prepare the school, so school could start. By saying yes we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The rooms were filthy and scary to even enter. 

Before setting foot into a room you had to knock down like 10 enormous spider webs. In every class room we probably killed close to 500 spiders. Tyson and I were on spider killing duty. Brother Shaw was is far too scared of spiders to even think about killing them. 

Cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning (Look closely and you can see all of the webs.)

Attempting to weed wack the front of the school

We went to these sweet people's farm. At the farm we were able to do the following:

Milk Cows 

Amber got a parrot to land on her hat

Milked some more cows

and rode horses!!! 

The people then made us a country breakfast. It consisted of the boiling hot milk from the cows that we had just milked, hard rolls and a jelly called guayaba. It was probably the grossest thing I have ever eaten. Thankfully I was able to keep it down.

Some of us at the breakfast table 

Kirsten riding away! 

We finished a bed for a family in the village. The bed has a wood frame and the center is plastic bags braided together. The family loved it!

We went around the village one day and analyzed people chicken coops. Two years ago BYU-I came down and built chicken coops for every house. We were pleasantly surprised to see that most people still had chickens and they were laying many eggs. The people have been able to sell their eggs and earn some extra money.  

This is our friend at the ice cream store. We are there quite often considering it only costs 75 cents for three scoops. 

We took this 15 year old to the hospital because she was about to give birth! 15!!! Can you believe that? Most of the girls have their first baby between 13 and 16 here. Ridiculous! 

Working hard to clear land in front of the school. 

Lomito's! Heaven on earth. They are burritos with chicken, beef, a white sauce, tomatoes and cabbage. Here is the stand that we buy them from. You should all be proud of me that I ate one. I have a legitimate fear of meat. This meat had flies swarming it. 

Enjoying our Limitos

Walking home.. Just thought I found through in a funny one!

Our home!!!! 

Moringa

There was a huge storm early Sunday morning. Only 13 of us showed up to church. 

Tyson, Amber and I working hard on the rabbit hutch. Hopefully we can find some rabbits tomorrow. 

Sadly, someone in the village passed away from lung caner. It was very interesting to see how they deal with death. All of the men and women went to the church at about 10 in the morning. The women stayed in the church wailing (kind of like what you see in the movie "The other side of heaven") and then the men stayed in the cultural hall silently balling. It was so sad to see that! 

We painted numbers on every house. This will help better track the people and disease. 

A family outside their home with their newly painted number

Some of the boys picked us some flowers and put them in our hair. So cute! 

A typical dog. Ticks galore! This dog is actually one of the healthier ones. 

Edison! One of my favorites. If I could take one home with me it would probably be him. He is such a cutie !

We taught the women the importance of washing hands in order to prevent disease. It was very interesting to see how little they new about hygiene.  

We set up a yarn maze for the kids. They loved it! The ran through it probably close to 50 times.  

We did sack races one day! They loved it. It was all smiles! 

Justo...pretending to be a monster in his sack. So cute. 

Leandro and Ivan. Matching jerseys. 

Mariano's house for dinner. They made us Empanadas and this special German dish 

Guillam. Always has a little snot strand coming out of his nose, but he's a cutie

Church in Abundancia

Making bracelets and necklaces with the kids. Here's Bonni wth his

Helping with bracelet making

Sometimes we get a little bored so Kirsten, Davita and I take crazy pictures. 

We took a trip to a Moringa seed farm. We got to pick seeds so we could teach the women in Abundanica how to grow them and their nutritional facts. This tree can be used for many many things. It is a great source of vitamins! 

We got to ride in the back of the guys truck! So fun!

Davita picking the seeds

Teaching the women about Moringa. 

Moringa tree site! 

We took family pictures of everyone and the women made picture frames. This was the first family picture for most of the people

Working hard on frames. 

Love these silly girls! 

Happy Valentine's Day. We made Valentines 

My special valentine! <3

Kristen's Valentine Jeysen 

Junior, Cele and Leandro 

Then we took a pit stop at the Defender Disco! 

Happy Valentine's Day! 

All of us interns! 

Oh, and in case you were wondering our Valentine's dinner was pretty much an epic fail. We waited for over an hour and half for our food only to receive freezing cold hamburgers...oh well.