Carney's preparations for serving in South America

Thanks for checking out our blog! Here is where we'll chronicle the "learning opportunities" God provides for us as we seek His will in partnering full-time with Christian Veterinary Mission in Bolivia

03 March 2014

2 weeks down!

Feliz Carnaval!  We have officially been in Bolivia for 2 weeks, and what an amazing 2 weeks it has been!  The first week was one of many appointments and meeting new people in Santa Cruz, which will be our home in a few months.  The second week has been an intensive week of language study.  That sounds pretty cut and dried, doesn't it?
Well, the reality of this has been lots of packing, unpacking, repacking, unpacking, then learning a crazy public transport system and how to buy things in street markets.  It really has been a ton of fun, though stressful at times.  We have had great friends to help us along the way and have met many nice folks who are eager to help us adjust.
The rest of this blog will be a photo commentary, so enjoy!  Keep praying for our visa process, as we are in day 14 of our 30 allotted days and are still missing papers from the US....  We will be paying late fees I am sure!  Pray also for our language and culture acquisition.  For example, yesterday we went to lunch after church and had a bowl of soup then waited 30-40 minutes for some fried rice.  Ooops, our fault, they were waiting to cook it until we went and got salad from the table.  Lesson learned!
Ok, now, really the pictures!
Universidad Autonoma Gabriel Rene Moreno Veterinary Hospital in Santa Cruz.  There has been an influx of money to the city from natural gas and "other" exports, so a huge new building with not much increase in staffing.  Huge is relative, maybe 2-3 times the sqaure footage of Harrogate Hospital for Animals, but nothing like the new vet school at UGA.
Bill Janecke going into Kim's new office (VetRed) in Santa Cruz.  This is on the main road/sidewalk beside the vet school,  so we hope to sit outside with refreshements to attract students to come spend some time.



We then moved up/over to Cochabamba for language school.  It is in these beautiful mountains with a much cooler climate than Santa Cruz, though we are still sunburned and wearing sundresses and shorts!  Sorry for all the ice you folks in the US are still getting!
Cristo de la Concordia is the tallest Jesus in the world.  This is the view of it from our balcony in Cochabamba! We read it is a few inches taller than the 33m one in Rio (because Jesus lived 33 years and a bit)!  You can climb 1300+ steps to a lookout in his arms; we hope to do that soon, but we may need to acclimate a bit.
View of Cochabamba from our apartment balcony.  Cochabamba is over 8300', so baking, walking, sleeping is taking some getting used to!
Every morning Kim waits for public transport to school, David goes in the afternoon.

Early Sunday morning there is a market set up on our street.  This is where we buy most of our groceries for the week.
We even buy our meat at the street market (early in AM before it gets hot and the flies come out)!  To the right of the picture is sweet old lady who sells all the offal.  We haven't had the nerve to cook lungs and kidneys yet at home.



This week is Carnaval, with kids throwing water balloons and buckets of water at folks.  At least these girls asked first!
They use a spray foam too to make sure they get you!  Caleb loved it!
Oh, Caleb bought himself his first skateboard and has ridden hours every day! Pray for no broken parts, please!


Boys ride their horses through town to go to the park and make a few Bolivianos (currency) giving rides to people on weekends.



Food Court in La Cancha--the huge market in town.  Whole pig's head is closest to us in the picture and a pile of cooked rodents is in the background.  There were whole roasted ducks too with heads still on! Look on Facebook for a closer rodent picture!

Chickens roasting at our favorite chicken place a few blocks down the road. A typical meal is chicken with a pile of rice, a pile of steak fries (papas fritas), pile of noodles, fried bananas, hot salsa picante, and hot pickled veg.  We order a half chicken with sides and eat it for 2-3 meals.

Caleb enjoying the shade in the park.

Parque de Abraham Lincoln is 4-5 blocks away and makes a great place to play and do our Spanish speaking homework!
Yet another afternoon in the park!