While Dad was here we had some great weather for running in the valley. We also were able to participate in a 10k for Proyecto Hombre, a rehabilitation center in our valley where Jon volunteers. Dad took 2nd in his age group and came home with the spoils!
Last week we hosted an English Movie Night for our conversational English group. We had to go with a classic, so out came Princess Bride!
Please don’t underestimate the transformative impact of rereading a good book.
#LessonLearned
What books have you, or do you, reread?
Here it is:
#LessonLearned
As our week of meetings was winding down, a group from the team decided to take the ferry across the Straight to visit Morocco. It would be our first time in Africa. I will keep the story short, only including snippets from my journal, photos, and a video of Crystal and Tanzen falling off a camel, but believe me, there is much to be said.
Almost having the boat leave without you sounds romantic, but it is actually rather stressful.
Normally those who have freedoms don’t have to constantly remind people about them.
When bargaining, you aren’t even near a starting price until you are at half.
I like to call this little beauty the “Hearse-ulance”. If the medic doesn’t get you in time, it functions for the immediate funeral.
I never thought that I would have to hear, “Daddy, why did I fall off a camel?”
We survived Morocco. Barely.
https://vimeo.com/186266295
Between Spain and Morocco there is a big rock. And that big rock has an interesting story!
While in southern Spain for our BMM meetings we took a day trip to Gibraltar. Here are some pictures of our time.
An important phone call
Eating the customary McDonalds Fries. They tasted the same.
Walking across the only airport runway/highway in the world
With Brexit, this will look differently!
BMM Team Spain
The border guard wanted to talk with Crystal about Field of Dreams when he saw she was from Iowa. He waved everyone else past so he could talk about the movie!
We purchased our car on Friday night and decided to break it in by driving around Spain. Sunday we took off and drove 8.5 hours to the southern coast of Spain. We had never been to the southern coast of Spain, and were very impressed with its beauty!
Team Spain from BMM met this year down in Manilva for our yearly meetings. All the members were able to be part (even our field administrator and his wife), even though some had to leave early due to a death in the family. We were able to discuss this past year, future plans, individual blessings and struggles. It was very helpful.
It was great for us to be with our team and to enjoy time together! It was especially great for Tanzen who could play in the pool with her friends!
The last three weeks have been a mixture of excitement, dread, encouragement, fear, cultural adaptation, frustration, adventure, and growth.
Today and the next few days I will be posting pictures and thoughts on the main events.
Three weeks ago relatives arrived from England. We had spent time with them in their home near the Thames back in 2010, and now they got to visit us! It was a lot of fun to show them around, have Martin participate in Conversational English (our accents are a little different), and enjoy their company.
I was helping our landlord take out the fan above the kitchen stove. He was struggling with disconnecting the electricity from the fan, teaching me many new “Spanish” words in the process, when he finally got to a point where he grabbed a wire cutters and said, “I can fix this…”.
I stuttered “Do you think I should shut off the…” and then there was a crack, a brilliant flash of light, and 220 volts of electricity flowing through the air.
I am not exactly sure what happened next but I was a step back and he was off the ladder muttering, “no big deal. Nothing happened.”
When I flipped the breaker back on I swore to remember an important lesson, always let someone else deal with the electricity in your home…and know the number for emergency services.