A Shift has Occurred

This week was the anniversary of one of the three churches I am working with and so they all came     together and had service.  After that we served lunch and played games together. I got there early and helped with the cooking. (If you remember from last week I scrubbed potatoes. Well, I ate three whole potatoes on Sunday, they were very good.) Tio held a raffle and I enjoyed watching when someone won. Then each of the churches played volleyball against one another. Jerusalem Church won both games but everyone had tons of fun.

We are ending English class this week and it is always hard to say goodbye - it doesn't matter if it is a person, an activity you enjoy, or a food you like to eat. For the final class we decided to join all three groups together for one final goodbye. Goodbye to new friends, and with that goodbye to exciting topics and new foods. In the end we had a lot of fun and I think our students did also. We are hopeful that we will see them again. Maybe not in class but around the town or at the church.

With this goodbye comes another even harder one for me. My host mom went to Chile this week for the duration of my stay. That meant saying goodbye to her which was so hard to do. On Thursday I moved in with another family for the rest of my days here in Tacna. I am grateful they will have me even though I am sad to leave the place I have called home since the beginning of my trip. It is weird how you can get attached to a place and how it brings back memories of laughter and good times. Tacna will do that for me in the future, I already know this. But as I like to say, it is never goodbye but see you later.

my fruit face

This week at Semillas I got to teach the children a food friendly activity. I decide to make faces out of fruit. That seemed simple - a few slices of bananas and some apple and we made eyes and a mouth. I got started with a few volunteers cutting the fruit for me. By the time I told them how to arrange their plates a few of the younger children had taken bites of their food. Step one... don't eat the food!  (Apparently I forgot to mention that.) Then I told them to add manjar to the fruit for some sweetness. I should have just put manjar on the table and told them to make faces using only one ingredient and they would have been just as happy.

Have you ever bought a cook book, art book, or anything that is supposed to teach you how to do something? The steps look simple enough and the picture makes the end result look so amazing and yet  somehow when you try to do what they say you realize the five steps that should be so simple are in another language. This cause you to just look at the picture to figure out how the author got the end result. That's how I felt. I was speaking Spanglish (most English some Spanish) to the children and then I was showing them my face and they looked at me like, ' how did she do that?' (For you hip folks who look at memes it was one of those nailed it ideas!)

As December has come, once again remember to take joy in the people you get to spend this holiday with. Like always make the most of every day because people are always growing and changing so enjoy the time you have with them right now, as they are. And remember, giving thanks doesn't end at Thanksgiving.