I Can't Stand it Anymore, I Have to Post Something New to Our Blog

Perhaps you have noticed I added the date of our most recent blog update to my email automatic signature. I thought it might be helpful to some people, but it is really irritating to me because it serves as a constant reminder of how far behind I am! I figure why should I be the only one feeling irritated and aggravate? Since misery loves company, I will invite you to join me by writing a long-winded boring blog!!!

We really do have lots to say, but as they say, "pictures are worth a thousand words" and with our camera balking at recording anything interesting, the only pictures we end up with are really dumb pics or photos I dare not publish under threat (by my sweet, adorable wife) of a miserable life for what may be a severely abbreviated amount of time.

Last Saturday we started the day with a church service project where we pruned, painted, and cleaned the outside of a school for orphans. Bonnie and I considered not going for a very silly reason; We obviously committed a major oversight by failing to pack and transport for 12,000 miles the type of clothes we wouldn't mind getting paint splattered on! I don't know what we were thinking! Lucky for me I had caught a new pair of jeans on a nail at the livestock show and ripped a hole in them, so the idea of punishing them by getting them splattered with bright red, yellow, green, or blue paint definitely appealed to me!

Our student friends, Aaron & Shannalee Hansen from Idaho (imagine a picture here of some really, really nice people with two adorable, very, very platinum blonde little girls [a 2 year-old and a six month-old]) host a lunch each Saturday for international students at the University Aaron attends. You can tell Aaron and Shannalee are really nice people because they even invite us to attend, so after the service project I made a quick visit in order to not miss out on Shannalee's wonderful pancakes with delicious home-made buttermilk and strawberry syrup. Pancakes are available in restaurants here, but only for dinner and as a dessert. At one restaurant we had to make sure we arrived after 3:00 at which time pancakes become available.  Similar to a fast food restaurant changing their morning menu to their normal daily menu- just advanced by four hours.
 
Daily activities start much later in the day here and end early in the morning. Recently I tried to make reservations at a restaurant with a big screen TV so we could watch the important World Cup qualifying soccer game between Uruguay and Argentina.  I think the hostess actually laughed out loud when I asked for a 7:00 reservation. Silly boy, we don't start taking reservations until 8:00 when the kitchen opens up!!!  Again, what was I thinking?!!

OK, back to my original plan of making you question your sanity by wondering why you are voluntarily spending all this time being irritated by lots of words without any pictures...

After lunch with the international students we hustled off to a 10K race with Aaron and Shannalee.  They were cross country runners at ISU (nope, I'm not going to tell you which University it is- BWA-HA-HA-HA!) where they met each other.  Shannalee told us she hasn't been on a long run since her first pregnancy over two years ago.  However, her credibility is now suspect because out of 5,000 runners she was the eighth female to cross the finish line (including the elite runners). Bonnie watched their two girls for the few minutes it took them to cover the 6 mile course.  The girls, Kayda and Kit, are so cute, Bonnie felt like a celebrity- everyone wanted to talk to the girls and lots of people took their picture. The double wide stroller the girls were in may also have contributed to their popularity, since it is probably the only such stroller in the country, but I doubt it.  Yesterday when I borrowed Kayda to accompany me on an extended cross-city bus trip I had many opportunities to practice my Spanish with the many friendly people who talked to me because Kayda was with me.  On the street people walking their dogs would approach to see if Kayda wanted to pet their dog.  I took her to the swings in the park in our plaza and discovered she was already quite well known by many of the parents and kids who were present.

I had to speak in church last Sunday (in Spanish, of course). Instead of leaving me with 10 minutes, the first two speakers left me with more than twice that amount. In the states, my ego would have taken a beating because the Bishop would have had to employ some strategem to retrieve his congregation from the dreamland I would have sent them to! Now I wonder why I didn't make myself popular by simply finishing early?  Hindsight is so omniscient.  I discovered an advantage to having an accent.  It was a major ego-boost to see everyone concentrating and hanging on my every word.  I choose to ignore the fact they were listening so hard in order to make sense out of every mutilated and scarred word I served up!

National elections are currently in process and have been since long before we arrived two months ago. From our observations it appears there are many people who believe that the bigger the caravan you can form out of horn-honking, flag-sporting autos the more people that will be convinced to vote for your party. In spite of the noisy racket, I did admire the creativity of the guy who had figured out how to make his car security alarm keep playing in an eternal loop. I hope he equally admired my creativity in the way I pelted his car with eggs, lettuce, apples, tomatoes, carrots, lemons, and water bottles! I am so excited the elections are this Sunday because the law says the campaigning must end as of midnight, three hours ago!!! I seriously doubt, however, that the horn honking addicts will be deterred.

After the 10K race arrived home to discover one of the many political parties was holding a rally in our little plaza.

This is Pedro, their candidate for President. Contrasting to our election process we were struck by the total lack of security and available access to the candidates.  We have also noticed we have yet to see a candidate dressed in a suit or tie. Someone told us all the candidates are trying to appear to be "one of the people" so the standard dress is slacks, a long sleeve shirt, and a sweater.  Of course, they also pointed out that it is only their party's candidate who really qualifies as "one of the people".  Today Uruguay is a very democratic republic, for 12 years from 1973 to 1985 the country suffered undera repressive dictatorship which freely employed tactics of torture and murder.  The aforementioned "one of the people" candidate, Pepe Mujica, was imprisoned and tortured for 11 years during that terrible period of time.

Anyway, when Pedro finished his speech, Bonnie commented it would certainly sound funny in the States to have a politician end his speech with "Hugs for everyone!" 

Hugs and kisses are part of the culture here as it is the way people meet and greet one another rather than shaking hands. It is rare to say "Hi" to an acquainance without a hug and kiss on the cheek.  I'm sure I have kissed more women in the last two months than I have in my entire life (only on the cheek, though)! I think if I were a young buck and lived here, I would troll the Rambla and pretend to know every pretty girl I saw! 

The traffic jam in the far traffic lane was caused by a different political party rally going on half a mile away.  I have seen a lot of streets made impassable because of these political  rallies.

Hey, here's a photo our camera deemed worthy to take- our washer and dryer.  All I can say is the washer is very eco-friendly because it is only big enough to hold about a quart of water!  The top one is the dryer and although I didn't think there could be many things smaller than our washer, the dryer seems to be one of those things!

Hey, wow, check out this great artistic shot.  Look at the symbolism and read between the lines.  There is a greater meeting here than meets the eye.  At least our camera seemed to think so.  If you can figure out what our camera saw in this scene, please let us know!

This is our "burning made easy" stove.  Gas cooking really is great- it does heat things up very quickly.  We can boil water faster on the stove than in the microwave.  Sadly, there are no temperature markers.  You must guess at the temperature by looking at the size of the flame.  Lucky for us, Aaron Hansen served a mission in Brazil and was familiar with these type of stoves.  He confirmed my suspicions we had a gas leak and repaired it in the missionary way-  with bubble gum!

This is our Mate cup gifted to us by our wonderful friends, Gerardo and Rosario Gonzalez.  It is made from a hollowed out gourd.  I am determined I am going to learn to tolerate this drink.  I need to do it quick, though, because in Uruguay (Vs. Argentina) it is the custom to drink it very hot and the summer is just around the corner!

I guess our camera thought our kids might get a chuckle out of seeing the largest box of oatmeal we have seen.  Many things seem to exist on a much smaller scale here.  This picture actually makes the box look much larger than it is (very similar to all the photos of me- it must be a defect in our camera).  I don't think there is enough cereal in this box to have been able to feed all of our family for one breakfast!

If you are beginning to resent me for making you join me in my misery, remember, it took me a lot longer to write this tripe than it did for you to read it!  It is now 4:00 in the morning but I retire to my bed satisfied in the knowledge that soon I will not be alone in my misery.  BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA (again)!