I am the worst blogger of all time?

I want to begin with an apology. I never update this blog and it is only down to my own laziness and impatience with sloooooow bolivian internet. But here I am in Peru, so the internet is muchisimo mas fast and I can write like a demon, I just don’t have any pictures, forgive me.

A lot has been going on since I last typed here, surprise, it’s only been 2 months. I am back into work proper after the christmas holidays, but we certainly made the most of the time off school with the kids. During the holidays I was able to take them out once a week, which was really fun and a little bit crazy, when you’re sent out with 15 kids into quite a large city. But I loved it. We went to the cinema, games arcades, Bolivia’s answer to a water park (as in, a big dirty pond with what were probably the original little boats from Portrush) Some days I just took them to Mauge’s house and we made food, played in the garden and watched films, they just love going out anywhere on trips. We also went to the pool a few times which resulted in some questioning on my part of my ability to look after these boys: when we arrived it was obviously very hot and sunny as usual, but for some reason I thought that Bolivians didn’t really need suncream, being more used to the sun than we obviously are. I was wrong. I spent the day like some sort of horrific neglectful parent, using all the cream for myself and watching them burrrn. The next day the boys may have been complaining to me how they couldn’t sleep and a few days after that the peeling began. Oh dear. But now the boys are back in school and more occupied during the day so there is less opportunity for me to seriously harm them. I’m sure they’re grateful.

We have recently received five more boys into the home. Two sets of brothers; Raul and Alex, Moises and Fernando, and Leandro, the little brother of one of the boys who is already there. They have been settling in well, but if you could pray for all of them please, it is such a hard time for these kids as they all have mothers, they have just been sent away from home. Most of them cope well with it, they integrate well with the other kids, but they are always quicker to fly off the handle and have to get used to life at the home, involving a lot of sharing, which may of them are just not used to. One slight problem we had with Alex came one morning when I was taking them to school. When I was at school I had enough trouble getting myself there before the end of the first class, not the best. So, maybe I wasn’t really the best at getting 12 boys totally ready for their school, but after 20 minutes of force feeding tea and bread, “revising” uniforms – eg “You’re fine, just get out of the door”, looking for one sock (none of the boys had any spares. NONE.) and teeth brushing we were on our way, only 5 minutes late. We arrived at the school and I left them all off to their classrooms. When leaving Alex to his, his teacher called me to the front of the class. I was worried. Teachers in Bolivia are mentals. Apparently Alex may have smashed the window of the classroom one day, just for the laughs. Oh Alex. So after much apologies and promises of severe retribution I left the class, with 30 pairs of little eyes following me the whole time. As I was leaving the school, equally stared at by all the Bolivian mothers with their plaits, one of the boys shouted over to me “eh… why did you bring that to school?” At which point I looked down to see that I had been carrying the industrial sized toothpaste from the home. The whole time. Like a crazy stressy parent who’s brain has been mushed by the early morning and crazy children. In all their classes, when talking to all their teachers, when telling Alex’s teacher how organised the home was. At least they knew dental hygiene was a priority for our boys.

So that is all I have time for now, but I have many tales of a visit from Heather and Paul, birthday parties of hilarious proportions and eveyone’s fav in Bolivia. CARNAVALES. WOO.

In Christ,

Mateo

PS I am currently at the Latin Link international conference in Peru, I am not on more holidays, do not worry, I am working for the Lord.